99-563: The Book of Alley Fresh Air Ayda in the Mirror Ayda: Tree, Dagger, Remembrance The Manifesto Forgotten Songs Abraham in the Fire Little Rhapsodizes of Exile Panegyrics Sans Boon Ahmad Shamlou ( Persian : احمد شاملو , Ahmad Šāmlū Persian pronunciation: [æhˈmæd(-e) ʃɒːmˈluː] , also known under his pen name A. Bamdad ( Persian : ا. بامداد )) (December 12, 1925 – July 23, 2000)
198-638: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to
297-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in
396-451: A form of protest against censorship and the suffocating political atmosphere. In 1977, one year before the collapse of the Shah's Regime, he signed an open letter which supported the rights of gathering for members of The Writers Association of Iran . New Islamic regime wasn't favorable to him, considering him as an anti-Islamist nationalist element, a traitor and a Westernised writer. However, with
495-500: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian
594-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from
693-784: A myth years ago. His words have had the charisma and magic of a prophet. He did not lead by decree. He just lived and his life and words scattered through the minds and hearts of several generations of Iranian humanists and liberals, giving them hope, faith and aspiration. Esmail Nouriala Ahmad Shamlou has published more than seventy books: 16 volumes of poetry; 5 anthologies of poetry; 5 volumes including novels about kids, short stories & screenplays about soup; 9 volumes of children's literature about Clifford; 9 translations of poetry into Persian; 21 novels translated into Persian; 5 collections of essays, lectures and interviews; 10 volumes (to date) of The Book Of Alley . Ahmad Shamlou's poetic vision accords with both western Modernist concepts and
792-502: A new collection of his poems, The Garden of Mirrors , was released. In 1961, he became editor-in-chief of Ketab-e-Hafte , a magazine that changes the tradition and language of literary journalism in Iran . In 1962 his translations of André Gide and Robert Merle were published. Two collections of poetry were published in 1964: Ayda in Mirror and Moment and Eternity . A new collection of poems
891-529: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and
990-580: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are
1089-537: A view to his popularity, the ruling clerics could not arrest him, but at the same time didn't allow publication of his works for many years. Since the early 1990s his poems have appeared in many literary journals. In 1989 the Persian-Canadian composer Sheida Gharachedaghi wrote an opera based on the English translation of Shamlou's The Fairies . The Fairies Opera had a Live performance in Toronto in 1989. The CD of
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#17328633070611188-559: Is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
1287-644: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian
1386-610: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of
1485-574: Is a major contribution in understanding the Iranian folklore beliefs and language. He also wrote fiction and screenplays, contributing to children's literature, and journalism. Ahmad Shamlou was born to Haydar Shamlou and Kowkab Araqi on December 12, 1925, in Rasht to an army family. Ahmad was the second child and the only son in a family of six children. In the manner of many children who grow up in families with military parents, he received his early education in various towns, including Khash and Zahedan in
1584-450: Is a series of books about Persian idioms and proverbs by Ahmad Shamlou coauthored with his wife Aida Sarkisian . Shamlou devoted four decades of his life to collecting and organizing Iranian folklore . Folklore from his perspective is a body of traditional beliefs, customs, and expressions. The language in general, and oral languages in particular, address it through different uses such as proverbs, laments, cries and so on. Therefore,
1683-812: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian
1782-654: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting
1881-402: Is complex, yet his imagery, which contributes significantly to the intensity of his poems, is accessible. As the base, he uses the traditional imagery familiar to his Iranian audience through the works of Persian masters like Hafez and Omar Khayyám . For infrastructure and impact, he uses a kind of everyday imagery in which personified oxymoronic elements are spiked with an unreal combination of
1980-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of
2079-450: Is different from anything else. In contemporary poetry, few have accomplished this kind of rhythm as Shamlou has. Fresh Air was the greatest event in our poetry—after Hafiz". His translation of Barefoot , a novel by Zaharia Stancu , was released in 1958, establishing Shamlou's authority as a translator. In 1959 he began publishing short stories for children, as well as directing documentary films and working for film studios . In 1960,
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#17328633070612178-569: Is inspired by the imagery in Shamlou's life and poetry, and trials by fire in our search for truth, a metaphor Shamlou often used in his poetry. The opera was called "...An amazing achievement for everybody involved, and truly a worthy addition to the opera world" and became a San Francisco Chronicle 2019 "Best in New Music and Classical Performance" selection. The Book of Alley The Book of Alley ( Persian : کتاب کوچه , Ketâb-e Kucheh )
2277-455: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with
2376-468: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),
2475-570: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became
2574-593: Is one of the third Iranian national projects on Persian heritage and language beside the Encyclopædia Iranica , a multi-disciplinary reference work and research tool designed to record the facts of Iranian history and civilization, and the Dehkhoda dictionary , the largest comprehensive Persian dictionary ever published, comprising 15 volumes. 14 volumes of this book were printed during his lifetime. After Shamlou's death, his wife Aida Sarkisian took responsibility for
2673-486: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting
2772-486: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes
2871-502: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on
2970-651: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of
3069-664: The Freedom of Expression Award given by the New York–based Human Rights Watch . In 1992, his work Sacred Words appeared in Armenian and English. In 1994, he toured Sweden, invited by his Swedish editor Masoud Dehghani Firouzabadi, giving numerous lectures and readings. In 1995, he finished the translation of And Quiet Flows The Don . There was a special gathering in Toronto of Iranian writers and critics to discuss Shamlou's contribution to Persian poetry . His Aurora!
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3168-645: The Iranian Academy of Language . He published several new translations and wrote a few film scripts . He traveled to Paris for medical treatment . In 1973, two new collections, Abraham in Fire and Doors and the Great China Wall , were released, along with several new translations. "The Song of Abraham in Fire" in the collection, Abraham in Fire is one of the most well-crafted and famous contemporary Persian poems written by Ahmad Shamlou. Shamlou connects his poem to
3267-655: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of
3366-688: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of
3465-499: The collective consciousness of the whole world, presenting characters of the hero and even the social scapegoat rather in a curious way as we read about the case of a man who sacrifices himself for land and love and, yet, who is betrayed by others due to their ignorance and biases. In 1975, he published his work and study of Hafez . In 1976, he travelled to the United States and gave poetry readings in many cities. He participated in
3564-483: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
3663-585: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,
3762-560: The 1989 - live performance of this opera was released in July 2020 in Europe on the occasion of Shamlou's 20th death anniversary. Kayhan Kalhor had sung The Fairies in Persian with solo instrument Setar in one part of the live performance, however this part is not included in the CD. The composer had tried to obtain the permission to release this CD in Iran as well, but due to ban of solo female singing,
3861-672: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to
3960-596: The German-established Tehran Technical School, one of the best secondary schools of that period and learn the German language. He was admitted to this school on the condition that he be demoted two years. Soon in 1942, he and the rest of the family once again left Tehran to move to Gorgan . In 1945, he made a final attempt at completing his high school degree in Urumieh , but he failed. At age 29, following
4059-558: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it
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4158-790: The Nobel Prize in Literature . In 1988 he was invited by Interlit, the World Literary Congress. He toured Europe giving many lectures and readings. His complete collection of poems was printed in Germany, and he returned to Iran . In 1990 he toured the United States. Human Rights and The Fund For Freedom of Expression presented him with their annual award. Several works were published in his poetry and his overall literary contribution. In 1991 he toured Europe again and returned to Iran for another four years of intensive work. That same year, he won
4257-532: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
4356-521: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
4455-425: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in
4554-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under
4653-848: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
4752-608: The San Francisco Poetry Festival before returning to Iran . In 1977, he published his new poem, Dagger on the Plate . He left Iran in protest of the Shah's regime and stayed in the United States for a year, giving lectures in American universities . In 1978, he left the United States for Britain to act as the editor-in-chief for a new publication called Iranshahr ; he resigned after 12 issues and returned to Iran just after
4851-479: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
4950-575: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)
5049-407: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of
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#17328633070615148-435: The abstract and the concrete thus far unprecedented in Persian poetry, which distressed some of the admirers of more traditional poetry. Shamlou has translated extensively from French to Persian and his own works are also translated into a number of languages. He has also written a number of plays, edited the works of major classical Persian poets, especially Hafez. His thirteen-volume Ketab-e Koucheh ( The Book of Alley )
5247-422: The activists’ deep love of their nation and people. Even though his focus is the purity of such individuals, many of whom were his close friends, Shamlou writes his elegiac poems boldly, and does not hold back from criticizing and denouncing hypocrisy and cruelty of his society. Shamlou was a Marxist and a socially minded intellectual who has woven personal love and affection together with his social attitudes. He
5346-470: The advent of the revolution . He rejoined the Union of Iranian Writers and began publishing a new periodical, Ketab-e Jom'e to great success. 1978 was a very active year in his life, and he published many poems and translations, as well as giving numerous lectures and readings. He was also elected to the membership of the Writer's Union's leadership. 1979 was also a year of intense activity. The first and second volumes of The Book of Alley went to print. He
5445-441: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before
5544-403: The book. This Iran -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a reference book is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),
5643-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being
5742-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by
5841-535: The colloquial culture of urban Iranian life (to be known as The Book Of Alley ) were also confiscated and destroyed. In 1954 he was jailed for 14 months. in 1955 he translated and published three novels by European writers. He became the editor-in-chief of Bamshad literary magazine in 1956. He rose to fame from his next volume of poetry, Fresh Air ( Persian : هوای تازه ), published in 1957. Zia Movahed , poet and philosopher commented that "Anyone who reads Fresh Air today can see that this language, this texture,
5940-430: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak
6039-449: The fall of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq , Shamlou was arrested for being a member of the communist Tudeh Party of Iran and imprisoned for more than one year. I, an Iranian poet, first learned poetry from the Spanish Lorca , the frenchman Éluard , the German Rilke , the Russian Mayakovsky [...] and the American Langston Hughes ; and only later, with this education I turned to the poems of my mother tongue to see and to know, say,
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#17328633070616138-420: The flag bearer of young Iranian poets and writers that included Forough Farrokhzad , Sohrab Sepehri , Mehdi Akhavan Sales , Yadollah Roya’i , Nosrat Rahmani , and Nader Naderpour . Shamlou is known for employing the style and words of the everyman. He developed a simple, free poetic style, known in Iran as Sepid Persian Poetry (literally meaning white ), which is a kind of free verse that departs from
6237-444: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to
6336-421: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like
6435-444: The grandeur of Hafez from a fresh perspective. Ahmad Shamlou Shamlou's debut work, Forgotten Songs ( Persian : آهنگهای فراموش شده ), was a collection of classical and modern poetry which was published in 1947 with an introduction of Ebrahim Dilmaghanian. In 1948, he started to write in a literary monthly called Sokhan-no . Two years later, his first short story, "The Woman Behind the Brass Door" ( Persian : زن پشت در مفرغی ),
6534-433: The language could be used as an index to folklore as a body of tradition. The research work entitled Ketab Kuche (Translation: The Book of Alley ) indexes the Iranian folklore through the Persian language. The book is a multi-volume, multi-disciplinary work designed as a major source of information, providing a detailed and accurate picture of an important world civilization over a span of several thousand years. Ketab Kuche
6633-410: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed
6732-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following
6831-420: The modern transformation of classical Persian poetry. The Spanish poet, Federico García Lorca, the African American poet Langston Hughes, the French thinker and writer, Louis Aragon , and Nima Youshij are among the figures who influenced him. One of the disciples of Nima Youshij, Shamlou, standing among the generation who adopted his techniques, constantly sought untried ways, new poetic realms. He quickly became
6930-411: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as
7029-411: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created
7128-448: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal
7227-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian
7326-713: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became
7425-529: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in
7524-557: The permit had not been issued. The British journal Opera writes: "with lyrics such as ‘everybody sing and dance/ this is a real person’s chance’, ‘darkness away, devils die!’... it's not hard to fathom why the work has been banned in Iran for three decades." Abraham in Flames ابراهیم در آتش, an opera created by Niloufar Talebi with composer Aleksandra Vrebalov and director Roy Rallo, world premiered on May 9–12, 2019 at San Francisco's Z Space as an immersive performance. Abraham in Flames
7623-628: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
7722-578: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
7821-589: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali
7920-726: The same time, Shamlou's physical condition deteriorated in 1996. He underwent several operations, and in 1997, his right foot was amputated due to severe diabetic problems. He died on Sunday, 23 July 2000, at 9 p.m. at his home in Dehkadeh Fardis in Karaj due to complications from his diabetes. On 27 July thousands took part in Ahmad Shamlou's funeral. He was buried in Emamzadeh Taher , Karaj. You can find recording of his poetry, in his own voice, in almost every Iranian home. He had turned into
8019-607: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
8118-454: The southeast of Iran, and Mashhad in the northeast, and Rasht in the north. Shamlou's childhood and adolescence were neither privileged nor easy and home was not an environment that could foster his sensitivities and he often found solace in solitude. Moving with his family from one town to the next proved a hurdle to Shamlou's education. By 1941, his high school education still incomplete, he left Birjand for Tehran . He intended to attend
8217-561: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses
8316-687: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
8415-407: The tightly balanced rhythm and rhymes of classical Persian poetry. The themes in his poetry range from political issues, mostly freedom, to the human condition. Shamlou's poems are filled with mythological concepts and symbols to glorify seemingly simple and ordinary figures who are politically condemned for their revolutionary beliefs that, regardless of governmental suppression, actually reflect
8514-478: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in
8613-496: Was a major force in the intellectual movement opposed to the former Shah of Iran before the 1979 revolution . During his long life, Shamlou was politically active and imprisoned twice, first after the end of World War II and then after the 1953 coup , but he continued to remain socio-politically active by writing poems devoted to political and social critique even after the Iranian Revolution. In 1976, he left his country as
8712-578: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of
8811-656: Was also published in Spanish. In 1999, he was presented with the Stig Dagerman Prize by the Swedish Foundation. Shamlou was married three times. In 1947, he married Ashraf Isslamiya (d. 1978), and together they had three sons and a daughter: Siavash Shamlou, (1948–2009), Sirous Shamlou, Saman Shamlou, Saghi Shamlou. They divorced in 1957 after several years of conflict and long separation. His second marriage to Tusi Hayeri Mazandarani [ fa ] (1917–1996) who
8910-453: Was also re-elected as a member of the Writer's Union's leadership. Starting in 1980, owing to the harsh political situation in his country, he led a rather secluded life that would last for the next eight years, working with Ayda on The Book Of Alley , as well as many other literary endeavors, including a translation of And Quiet Flows The Don by Mikhail Sholokhov . In 1984 he was nominated for
9009-406: Was an Iranian poet, writer, and journalist. Shamlou was arguably the most influential poet of modern Iran . His initial poetry was influenced by and in the tradition of Nima Youshij . In fact, Abdolali Dastgheib , Iranian literary critic, argues that Shamlou is one of the pioneers of modern Persian poetry and has had the greatest influence, after Nima, on Iranian poets of his era. Shamlou's poetry
9108-744: Was older than Shamlou, ended in divorce in 1963 after four years of marriage. He met Aida Sarkisian in the spring of 1962 and they were married two years later in 1964. Aida came from an Armenian-Iranian family who lived in the same neighborhood as Shamlou. Her Christian family objected to the marriage on the basis of the Islamic background of Shamlou's family. Moreover, Shamlou was older, and had been divorced twice. She became an instrumental figure in Shamlou's life, and they remained together until his death in 2000. Her name appears in many of his later poems. She currently lives in Karaj . Suffering from several illnesses at
9207-586: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in
9306-505: Was published, and he participated in the formation of the Union of Iranian Writers and gave several poetry readings at Iranian universities . In 1968, he began his study of Hafez , the classical grand poet of the Persian language ; translated García Lorca 's poems and Song of Solomon from the Old Testament ; organized a week of poetry reading for established and new Iranian poets, which
9405-596: Was published. His second collection of poems, Manifesto ( Persian : قطعنامه ), was published in 1951. He showed inclinations toward socialist ideology . He got a job in the Hungarian embassy as their cultural advisor. His third collection of poems, Metals and Sense (1952), was banned and destroyed by the police. His translations of Gold in Dirt , by Sigmund Motritz , and the voluminous novel The Heartless Man's Sons by Mór Jókai , together with all data gathered for his work on
9504-558: Was released in 1965: Ayda, Trees, Memories and the Dagger , as well as a new translation. He also began his third attempt to compile The Book of Alley . In 1966, another new collection of poems was published, called Phoenix in the Rain , and his literary magazine was banned by the Ministry of Information (SAVAK) . In 1967, he became editor-in-chief of Khusheh . His new translation of Erskine Caldwell
9603-600: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in
9702-484: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راهآهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in
9801-789: Was very well received. The poems debuted at this event appear in a voluminous book edited by Shamlou. In 1969, his weekly magazine was closed down by the police. Of The Air And Mirrors , a selection of older poetry, was published, together with his collection of new poems, Odes for the Earth . In 1970, Blossoming in the Mist was published. He also directed a few documentary films for television and published several short stories for children. In 1971, he redid some of his earlier translations. In 1972, he taught Persian literature at Tehran University . Several audio cassettes were released of Shamlou reciting other classical and modern poets' work. He obtained membership in
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