125-502: Ardestan ( Persian : اردستان ) is a city in the Central District of Ardestan County , Isfahan province, Iran , serving as capital of both the county and the district. At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 14,698 in 4,077 households. The following census in 2011 counted 15,701 people in 4,680 households. The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 15,744 people in 5,093 households. Ardestan
250-638: 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
375-418: 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
500-696: A full 5-year term in office. India has grown significantly, having slashed its rate of extreme poverty to below 20% and surpassed Pakistan's GDP per capita in the 2010s due to economic liberalisation from the 1980s onward. Bangladesh, having struggled greatly for decades due to conflict with and economic exploitation by Pakistan, is now one of the fastest-growing countries in the region, beating India in terms of GDP per capita . Afghanistan has gone through several invasions and Islamist regimes, with many of its refugees having gone to Pakistan and other parts of South Asia and bringing back cultural influences such as cricket . Religious nationalism has grown across
625-678: A land mass which extends from the Himalayas into a portion of the basin under the Indian Ocean, including parts of South China and Eastern Indonesia , as well as Kunlun and Karakoram ranges, and extending up to but not including Ladakh , Kohistan , the Hindu Kush range, and Balochistan . It may be noted that geophysically the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet is situated at the outside
750-500: 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
875-594: A large part of the region between the 4th and 7th centuries, a period that saw the construction of major temples, monasteries and universities such as the Nalanda . During this era, and through the 10th century, numerous cave monasteries and temples such as the Ajanta Caves , Badami cave temples , and Ellora Caves were built in South Asia. Islam came as a political power in the fringe of South Asia in 8th century CE when
1000-476: A legacy of luminous architecture. Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company followed, turning most of South Asia into a colonial economy, but also consolidating its sovereignty . British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly, but technological changes were introduced, and modern ideas of education and the public life took root. In 1947
1125-417: 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
1250-529: 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
1375-764: A principality for himself by expanding the Islamic world, and thus laid the foundation for the Muslim kingdom that became the Delhi Sultanate . Some historians chronicle the Delhi Sultanate from 1192 due to the presence and geographical claims of Mu'izz al-Din in South Asia by that time. The Delhi Sultanate covered varying parts of South Asia and was ruled by a series of dynasties: Mamluk, Khalji, Tughlaq, Sayyid, and Lodi dynasties. Muhammad bin Tughlaq came to power in 1325, launched
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#17330925676211500-460: A scholar of political science at Carleton University , the terms South Asia, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia are distinct, but the confusion and disagreements have arisen due to the geopolitical movement to enlarge these regions into Greater South Asia, Greater Southwest Asia , and Greater Central Asia . The frontier of Greater South Asia, states Cutler, between 2001 and 2006 has been geopolitically extended to eastern Iran and western Afghanistan in
1625-580: 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
1750-691: A total area of 5.2 million sq.km (2 million sq.mi), which is 10% of the Asian continent. The population of South Asia is estimated to be 2.04 billion or about one-fourth of the world's population, making it both the most populous and the most densely populated geographical region in the world. In 2022, South Asia had the world's largest populations of Hindus , Muslims , Sikhs , Jains, and Zoroastrians. South Asia alone accounts for 90.47% of Hindus, 95.5% of Sikhs, and 31% of Muslims worldwide, as well as 35 million Christians and 25 million Buddhists. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
1875-587: A war of expansion and the Delhi Sultanate reached it largest geographical reach over the South Asian region during his 26-year rule. A Sunni Sultan, Muhammad bin Tughlaq persecuted non-Muslims such as Hindus, as well as non-Sunni Muslims such as Shia and Mahdi sects. Revolts against the Delhi Sultanate sprang up in many parts of South Asia during the 14th century. In the northeast, the Bengal Sultanate became independent in 1346 CE. It remained in power through
2000-605: 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
2125-644: 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
2250-610: 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
2375-548: Is a high degree of variation as to which other countries are included in South Asia. There is no clear boundary – geographical, geopolitical, socio-cultural, economical, or historical – between South Asia and other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia and West Asia. The common definition of South Asia is largely inherited from the administrative boundaries of the Indian Empire, with several exceptions. The current territories of Bangladesh , India , and Pakistan which were
2500-812: 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
2625-460: Is an economic cooperation organisation in the region which was established in 1985 and includes all the nations comprising South Asia. The geographical extent is not clear cut as systemic and foreign policy orientations of its constituents are quite asymmetrical. Beyond the core territories of the Indian Empire (territories of the British Empire which were under the system of British Raj), there
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#17330925676212750-654: 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
2875-425: 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
3000-515: Is located at the southern foothills of the Karkas mountain chain and is 110 km northeast of Isfahan . It is believed the city was founded in Sassanian times and was strongly fortified in the 10th century. A Seljuk -era mosque , a bazaar , several ab anbars , and historical houses of the old town are among the tourist attractions of Ardestan. Mulberry , pomegranate and a special kind of fig are
3125-455: 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
3250-468: 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 ),
3375-570: 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
3500-775: Is surrounded by three water bodies – the Bay of Bengal , the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea – and has acutely varied climate zones. The tip of the Indian Peninsula had the highest quality pearls. Most of this region is resting on the Indian Plate , the northerly portion of the Indo-Australian Plate , separated from the rest of the Eurasian Plate . The Indian Plate includes most of South Asia, forming
3625-486: 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
3750-486: 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
3875-502: 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
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4000-597: The British Indian Ocean Territory and the Tibet Autonomous Region may be included as well. Myanmar (Burma), a former British colony and now largely considered a part of Southeast Asia, is also sometimes included. Afghanistan is also included by some sources. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), a contiguous block of countries, started in 1985 with seven countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,
4125-651: 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
4250-688: The Ganges and Indus river basins (where up to 60% of non-monsoon irrigation comes from the glaciers ) may be faced with severe water scarcity due to both climate and socioeconomic reasons. By 2030, major Indian cities such as Mumbai , Kolkata , Cuttack , and Kochi are expected to end up with much of their territory below the tide level. In Mumbai alone, failing to adapt to this would result in damages of US$ 112–162 billion by 2050, which would nearly triple by 2070. Sea level rise in Bangladesh will displace 0.9–2.1 million people by 2050 and may force
4375-555: The Himalayas and Kuen Lun mountain ranges and east of the Indus River and the Iranian Plateau , extending southward into the Indian Ocean between the Arabian Sea (to the southwest) and the Bay of Bengal (to the southeast). The climate of this vast region varies considerably from area to area from tropical monsoon in the south to temperate in the north. The variety is influenced by not only
4500-560: The Hindu Kush region of South Asia for several years and then later moved into the Indus valley region. Later, the Maurya Empire extended over much of South Asia in the 3rd century BCE. Buddhism spread beyond south Asia, through northwest into Central Asia. The Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan and the edicts of Aśoka suggest that the Buddhist monks spread Buddhism (Dharma) in eastern provinces of
4625-637: The Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE. By 1200 BCE , an archaic form of Sanskrit , an Indo-European language , had diffused into India from the northwest, with the Dravidian languages being supplanted in the northern and western regions. By 400 BCE , stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism , and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity. In
4750-588: The Kuru -Pañcāla union was the most influential. The first recorded state-level society in South Asia existed around 1000 BCE. In this period, states Samuel, emerged the Brahmana and Aranyaka layers of Vedic texts, which merged into the earliest Upanishads. These texts began to ask the meaning of a ritual, adding increasing levels of philosophical and metaphysical speculation, or "Hindu synthesis" . Increasing urbanisation of South Asia between 800 and 400 BCE, and possibly
4875-602: The Maldives , Nepal , Pakistan , and Sri Lanka , with Afghanistan also often included, which may otherwise be classified as part of Central Asia . South Asia borders East Asia to the northeast, Central Asia to the northwest, West Asia to the west and Southeast Asia to the east. Apart from Southeast Asia, Maritime South Asia is the only subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere . The British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of
5000-755: The Mature Harappan period, from 2600 to 1900 BCE. According to anthropologist Possehl , the Indus Valley civilisation provides a logical, if somewhat arbitrary, starting point for South Asian religions, but these links from the Indus religion to later-day South Asian traditions are subject to scholarly dispute. The Vedic period, named after the Vedic religion of the Indo-Aryans , lasted from c. 1900 to 500 BCE. The Indo-Aryans were Indo-European -speaking pastoralists who migrated into north-western India after
5125-587: The Partition of India into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan, which resulted in significant displacement and violence and harder religious divides in the region. In 1947, the newly independent India and Pakistan had to decide how to deal with the hundreds of princely states that controlled much of the subcontinent, as well as what to do with the remaining European (non-British) colonies. A combination of referendums, military action, and negotiated accessions took place in rapid succession, leading to
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5250-741: The Seleucid Empire , and possibly even farther into West Asia. The Theravada school spread south from India in the 3rd century BCE, to Sri Lanka, later to Southeast Asia. Buddhism, by the last centuries of the 1st millennium BCE, was prominent in the Himalayan region, Gandhara, Hindu Kush region, and Bactria. From about 500 BCE through about 300 CE, the Vedic-Brahmanic synthesis or "Hindu synthesis" continued. Classical Hindu and Sramanic (particularly Buddhist) ideas spread within South Asia, as well as outside South Asia. The Gupta Empire ruled over
5375-655: 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
5500-688: 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
5625-480: The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific for the region excludes Afghanistan from South Asia. Population Information Network (POPIN) excludes Maldives which is included as a member Pacific POPIN subregional network. The United Nations Statistics Division's scheme of subregions , for statistical purpose, includes Iran along with all eight members of the SAARC as part of Southern Asia . The boundaries of South Asia vary based on how
5750-423: 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
5875-479: 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 ,
6000-485: The 16th century after the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama returned to Europe. British, French, and Portuguese colonial interests struck treaties with these rulers and established their trading ports. In northwestern South Asia, a large region was consolidated into the Sikh Empire by Ranjit Singh . After the defeat of the Nawab of Bengal and Tipu Sultan and his French allies , British traders went on to dominate much of South Asia through divide-and-rule tactics by
6125-401: The 1940s, two rival camps had emerged among independence activists: those who favored a separate nation for Indian Muslims, and those who wanted a united India . As World War II raged, over 2 million Indians fought for Britain; by the end of the war, Britain was greatly weakened, and thus decided to grant independence to the vast majority of South Asians in 1947, though this coincided with
6250-433: The Arab general Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh , and Multan in southern Punjab, in modern-day Pakistan. By 962 CE, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in South Asia were under a wave of raids from Muslim armies from Central Asia. Among them was Mahmud of Ghazni , who raided and plundered kingdoms in north India from east of the Indus river to west of Yamuna river seventeen times between 997 and 1030. Mahmud of Ghazni raided
6375-572: 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
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#17330925676216500-419: The British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions , a Hindu-majority Dominion of India and a Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan , amid large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration. The 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War , a Cold War episode resulting in East Pakistan 's secession, was the most recent instance of a new nation being formed in the region. South Asia has
6625-418: The Delhi Sultanate. Babur defeated and killed Ibrahim Lodi in the Battle of Panipat in 1526. The death of Ibrahim Lodi ended the Delhi Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire replaced it. The modern history period of South Asia, that is the 16th century onwards, witnessed the establishment of the Mughal Empire, with Sunni Islam theology. The first ruler was Babur had Turco-Mongol roots and his realm included
6750-402: The Eurasian plate nearly 55 million years ago, towards the end of Palaeocene. This geological region largely includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Historians Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot state that the term "Indian subcontinent" describes a natural physical landmass in South Asia that has been relatively isolated from the rest of Eurasia. The use of
6875-527: The Indian Ocean blows towards the center. The monsoons are the second coolest season of the year because of high humidity and cloud covering. But, at the beginning of June, the jetstreams vanish above the Tibetan Plateau , low pressure over the Indus Valley deepens and the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) moves in. The change is violent. Moderately vigorous monsoon depressions form in the Bay of Bengal and make landfall from June to September. South Asian countries are expected to experience more flooding in
7000-402: The Maldives in South Asia lie entirely within the Southern Hemisphere . Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent and is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Himalayas , Karakoram , and Pamir Mountains in the north. Settled life emerged on the Indian subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus River Basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into
7125-422: The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – and admitted Afghanistan as an eighth member in 2007. China and Myanmar have also applied for the status of full members of SAARC. The South Asia Free Trade Agreement admitted Afghanistan in 2011. The World Bank and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) recognises the eight SAARC countries as South Asia, The Hirschman–Herfindahl index of
7250-500: 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
7375-404: The Mughal Empire, which marks the beginning of modern India, in the early 18th century, provided opportunities for the Marathas , Sikhs , Mysoreans , and Nawabs of Bengal to exercise control over large regions of the Indian subcontinent. By the mid-18th century, India was a major proto-industrializing region. Maritime trading between South Asia and European merchants began at the turn of
7500-401: The Mughal emperors after their revolts and were executed when they refused to convert to Islam. Religious taxes on non-Muslims called jizya were imposed. Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh temples were desecrated. However, not all Muslim rulers persecuted non-Muslims. Akbar , a Mughal ruler for example, sought religious tolerance and abolished jizya. The death of Aurangzeb and the collapse of
7625-429: 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
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#17330925676217750-459: 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
7875-425: 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
8000-401: 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
8125-487: 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,
8250-482: The Rajput kingdoms and Vijayanagara, its boundaries encompassed almost the entirety of the Indian subcontinent. The Mughal Empire was marked by a period of artistic exchanges and a Central Asian and South Asian architecture synthesis, with remarkable buildings such as the Taj Mahal . However, this time also marked an extended period of religious persecution . Two of the religious leaders of Sikhism , Guru Arjan , and Guru Tegh Bahadur were arrested under orders of
8375-428: 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
8500-427: 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)
8625-407: 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
8750-402: The altitude but also by factors such as proximity to the seacoast and the seasonal impact of the monsoons . Southern parts are mostly hot in summers and receive rain during monsoon periods. The northern belt of Indo-Gangetic plains also is hot in summer, but cooler in winter. The mountainous north is colder and receives snowfall at higher altitudes of Himalayan ranges. As the Himalayas block
8875-410: The area adjustment to Pakistan and western India records lower than 20%–30%. Climate of South Asia is largely characterised by monsoons. South Asia depends critically on monsoon rainfall. Two monsoon systems exist in the region: The warmest period of the year precedes the monsoon season (March to mid June). In the summer the low pressures are centered over the Indus-Gangetic Plain and high wind from
9000-493: 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
9125-696: The border of the regional structure, while the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan are situated inside that border. The Indian subcontinent formerly formed part of the supercontinent Gondwana , before rifting away during the Cretaceous period and colliding with the Eurasian Plate about 50–55 million years ago and giving birth to the Himalayan range and the Tibetan plateau . It is the peninsular region south of
9250-483: The broader Indo-Pacific . According to Saul Cohen, early colonial era strategists treated South Asia with East Asia, but in reality, the South Asia region excluding Afghanistan is a distinct geopolitical region separated from other nearby geostrategic realms, one that is geographically diverse. The region is home to a variety of geographical features, such as glaciers , rainforests , valleys , deserts , and grasslands that are typical of much larger continents. It
9375-457: 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
9500-471: The collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization. Linguistic and archaeological data show a cultural change after 1500 BCE, with the linguistic and religious data showing links with Indo-European languages and religion. By about 1200 BCE, the Vedic culture and agrarian lifestyle were established in the northwest and northern Gangetic plain of South Asia. Rudimentary state-forms appeared, of which
9625-512: 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
9750-564: The concerns of Pakistan and Bangladesh, particularly given the recurring conflicts between India and Pakistan, wherein the dominant placement of "India" as a prefix before the subcontinent might offend some political sentiments. However, in Pakistan, the term "South Asia" is considered too India-centric and was banned until 1989 after the death of Zia ul Haq . This region has also been labelled as "India" (in its classical and pre-modern sense) and " Greater India ". According to Robert M. Cutler –
9875-614: The core territories of the British Empire from 1857 to 1947 also form the core territories of South Asia. The mountain countries of Nepal and Bhutan , two independent countries that were not under the British Raj but were protectorates of the Empire, and the island countries of Sri Lanka and the Maldives are generally included. By various definitions based on substantially different reasons,
10000-497: The country most likely to be the worst-affected. In the 2017 edition of Germanwatch 's Climate Risk Index , Bangladesh and Pakistan ranked sixth and seventh respectively as the countries most affected by climate change in the period from 1996 to 2015, while India ranked fourth among the list of countries most affected by climate change in 2015. Some research suggests that South Asia as a whole would lose 2% of its GDP to climate change by 2050, while these losses would approach 9% by
10125-704: The early 16th century. The state religion of the sultanate was Islam. In South India , the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire came to power in 1336 and persisted until the middle of the 16th century. It was ultimately defeated and destroyed by an alliance of the Muslim Deccan sultanates at the Battle of Talikota . About 1526, the Punjab governor Dawlat Khan Lodī reached out to the Mughal Babur and invited him to attack
10250-682: The early 19th century. The region experienced significant de-industrialisation in its first few decades of British rule. Control over the subcontinent was then transferred to the British government after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 , with the British cracking down to some extent afterwards. An increase of famines and extreme poverty characterised the colonial period, though railways built with British technology eventually provided crucial famine relief by increasing food distribution throughout India. Millions of South Asians began to migrate throughout
10375-461: The early medieval era, Christianity , Islam , Judaism , and Zoroastrianism became established on South Asia's southern and western coasts. Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran the plains of northern India, eventually founding the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th century, and drawing the region into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam . The Islamic Mughal Empire , in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace, leaving
10500-623: The end of the century under the most intense climate change scenario. Ethnolinguistically , Northern South Asia is predominantly Indo-Aryan , along with Iranic populations in Afghanistan and Balochistan , and diverse linguistic communities near the Himalayas. Its borders have been heavily contested (primarily between India and its neighbours Pakistan and China , as well as separatist movements in Northeast India.) This tension in
10625-632: 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
10750-399: The following phylogenetic classification: South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia , which is defined in both geographical and ethnic - cultural terms. With a population of 2.04 billion living in South Asia, it contains a quarter (25%) of the world's population. As commonly conceptualised, the modern states of South Asia include Bangladesh , Bhutan , India ,
10875-562: 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
11000-471: 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
11125-413: The future as the monsoon pattern intensifies. Across Asia as a whole, 100-year extremes in vapour transport (directly related to extreme precipitation) would become 2.6 times more frequent under 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) of global warming, yet 3.9 and 7.5 times more frequent under 2 °C (3.6 °F) and 3 °C (5.4 °F). In parts of South Asia, they could become up to 15 times more frequent. At
11250-461: 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
11375-409: The lowest-emission climate change scenarios . Under the high-emission scenario, 40 million people (nearly 2% of the South Asian population) may be driven to internal migration by 2050 due to climate change. India is estimated to have the world's highest social cost of carbon - meaning that it experiences the greatest impact from greenhouse gas emissions . Other estimates describe Bangladesh as
11500-493: The main orchard products of the town. It has been said that Ardestan was the birthplace of Hassan Modarres . Ardestan has a hot desert climate (Köppen: BWh). [REDACTED] Media related to Ardestan at Wikimedia Commons [REDACTED] Iran portal yektamob Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),
11625-480: The mesolithic sites as evidenced by the rock paintings of Bhimbetka rock shelters dating to a period of 30,000 BCE or older, as well as neolithic times. The Indus Valley civilisation , which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of South Asia from c. 3300 to 1300 BCE in present-day Pakistan , North India , and Afghanistan , was the first major civilisation in South Asia. A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture developed in
11750-432: 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
11875-525: 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
12000-461: 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
12125-495: 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
12250-414: 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
12375-501: The north, the Hindu Kush in the west, and the Arakanese in the east, and which extends southward into the Indian Ocean with the Arabian Sea to the southwest and the Bay of Bengal to the southeast. The terms " Indian subcontinent " and "South Asia" are sometimes used interchangeably. The Indian subcontinent is largely a geological term referring to the land mass that drifted northeastwards from ancient Gondwana , colliding with
12500-553: The north-Asian bitter cold winds, the temperatures are considerably moderate in the plains down below. For the most part, the climate of the region is called the monsoon climate, which keeps the region humid during summer and dry during winter, and favours the cultivation of jute , tea, rice, and various vegetables in this region. South Asia is largely divided into four broad climate zones: Maximum relative humidity of over 80% has been recorded in Khasi and Jaintia Hills and Sri Lanka, while
12625-713: 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
12750-570: The northwestern and Indo-Gangetic Plain regions of South Asia. Several regions of South Asia were largely under Hindu kings such as those of the Vijayanagara Empire and the Kingdom of Mewar . Parts of modern Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were under local Muslim rulers, namely those of the Deccan sultanates. The Mughal Empire continued its wars of expansion after Babur's death. With the fall of
12875-529: 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
13000-548: The political integration of the vast majority of India and Pakistan within a few years. India and Pakistan clashed several times in the decades after Independence, with disputes over Kashmir playing a significant role. In 1971, the eastern half of Pakistan seceded with help from India and became the People's Republic of Bangladesh after the traumatic Bangladesh Liberation War . This, along with India and Pakistan gaining nuclear weapons soon afterwards, increased tensions between
13125-679: 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
13250-578: 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
13375-405: The region is defined. South Asia's northern, eastern, and western boundaries vary based on definitions used, while the Indian Ocean is the southern periphery. Most of this region rests on the Indian Plate and is isolated from the rest of Asia by mountain barriers. Much of the region consists of a peninsula in south-central Asia, rather resembling a diamond which is delineated by the Himalayas on
13500-605: The region, with persecution causing millions of Hindus and Christians to flee Pakistan and Bangladesh, and Hindu nationalism having grown in India with the election of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014. A recent phenomenon has been that of India and China fighting on their border , as well as vying for dominance of South Asia , with China partnering with Pakistan and using its superior economy to attract countries surrounding India, while America and other countries have strengthened ties with India to counter China in
13625-589: 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
13750-420: The relocation of up to one third of power plants by 2030. Food security will become more uneven, and some South Asian countries could experience significant social impacts from global food price volatility. Infectious diarrhoea mortality and dengue fever incidence is also likely to increase across South Asia. Parts of South Asia would also reach "critical health thresholds" for heat stress under all but
13875-470: The same time, up to two-thirds of glacier ice in the Hindu Kush region may melt by 2100 under high warming, and these glaciers feed the water basin of over 220 million people. As glacier meltwater flow diminishes after 2050, Hydropower generation would become less predictable and reliable, while agriculture would become more reliant on the intensified monsoon than ever before. Around 2050, people living in
14000-657: 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
14125-464: The spread of urban diseases, contributed to the rise of ascetic movements and of new ideas which challenged the orthodox Brahmanism . These ideas led to Sramana movements, of which Mahavira ( c. 549 –477 BCE), proponent of Jainism , and Buddha ( c. 563 – c. 483 ), founder of Buddhism , was the most prominent icons. The Greek army led by Alexander the Great stayed in
14250-561: 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
14375-687: 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,
14500-442: The term Indian subcontinent began in the British Empire, and has been a term particularly common in its successors. South Asia as the preferred term is particularly common when scholars or officials seek to differentiate this region from East Asia. According to historians Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal , the Indian subcontinent has come to be known as South Asia "in more recent and neutral parlance." This "neutral" notion refers to
14625-513: The treasuries but retracted each time, only extending Islamic rule into western Punjab. The wave of raids on north Indian and western Indian kingdoms by Muslim warlords continued after Mahmud of Ghazni, plundering and looting these kingdoms. The raids did not establish or extend permanent boundaries of their Islamic kingdoms. The Ghurid Sultan Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad began a systematic war of expansion into North India in 1173. He sought to carve out
14750-530: The two countries. The Cold War decades also contributed to the divide , as Pakistan aligned with the West and India with the Soviet Union ; other factors include the time period after the 1962 Sino-Indian War , which saw India and China move apart while Pakistan and China built closer relations. Pakistan has been beset with terrorism , economic issues , and military dominance of its government since Independence, with none of its Prime Ministers having completed
14875-478: 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
15000-534: The west, and in the north to northeastern Iran, northern Afghanistan, and southern Uzbekistan . Identification with a South Asian identity was found to be significantly low among respondents in an older two-year survey across Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The history of core South Asia begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens , as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The earliest prehistoric culture have roots in
15125-547: The world , impelled by the economic/ labour needs and opportunities presented by the British Empire. The introduction of Western political thought inspired a growing Indian intellectual movement, and so by the 20th century, British rule began to be challenged by the Indian National Congress , which sought full independence under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi . Britain, under pressure from Indian freedom fighters, increasingly gave self-rule to British India. By
15250-578: 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
15375-586: 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
15500-600: 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
15625-484: 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
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