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93-561: Damghan ( Persian : دامغان ) is a city in the Central District of Damghan County , Semnan province, Iran , serving as capital of both the county and the district. It is 342 km (213 mi) east of Tehran on the high-road to Mashad , at an elevation of 1,250 m (4,101 ft). Damghan is one of the oldest cities on the Iranian plateau, stretching back 7,000 years, and boasts many sites of historic interest. The oldest of these

186-638: 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

279-539: A barrier between the south Caspian and the Iranian plateau . It is only 60–130 km wide and consists of sedimentary series dating from Upper Devonian to Oligocene , prevalently Jurassic limestone over a granite core. Continental conditions regarding sedimentation are reflected by thick Devonian sandstones and by Jurassic shales containing coal seams. Marine conditions are reflected by Carboniferous and Permian strata that are composed mainly of limestones. In

372-418: 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

465-500: 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

558-417: 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

651-529: 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

744-531: 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

837-639: Is Tappeh Hessar , lying to the southeast of the city, which holds the ruins of a castle dating from the Sasanian Empire . The Tarikhaneh is one of the oldest mosques in Iran, built as a fire temple during the Sassanid dynasty , it was converted into a mosque after the advent of Islam. There are also many other historical buildings belonging to the Seljuk Empire and other periods. Apart from its historical interest,

930-605: 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

1023-771: Is a cognate with Elbrus , the highest peak of the Caucasus . Zoroastrians seem to identify the range with the dwelling place of the Peshyotan , and the Zoroastrian Ilm-e-Kshnoom sect identifies Mount Damavand as the home of the Saheb-e-Dilan ('Masters of the Heart'). In his epic Shahnameh , the poet Ferdowsi speaks of the mountains "as though they lay in India ." This could reflect older usage, for numerous high peaks were given

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1116-587: 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

1209-610: 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

1302-765: 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

1395-654: 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

1488-425: 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

1581-626: Is lush and forested. The natural vegetation of this region grows in distinct zones: The wild cypress is the dominant form of vegetation in some valleys, while olive trees grow in the western valleys of the Central Alborz near the Sefidrud . The bezoar ibex , Blanford's fox , Rüppell's fox , red fox , Persian fallow deer , wild boar , Syrian brown bear , Persian leopard , Indian wolf , buzzard , goose , woodpecker , griffon vulture , and eagle are among important animals and birds found in

1674-455: 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

1767-468: 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 ),

1860-570: 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

1953-610: Is one of the permanent springs in Damghan, 30 km north of the city. Thanks to its verdant foliage and pleasant climate this region has been frequented by people from ancient times. During the Qajar period many buildings were constructed in Cheshmeh-Ali among which the Fath-Ali Shah Qajar 's and Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar 's palaces still stand erect. Fat'hali Shah's palace is built in the middle of an artificial pool placed between

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2046-486: 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

2139-436: 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

2232-502: 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

2325-651: 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

2418-520: The Department of Paleolithic of the National Museum of Iran and ICHTO of Gilan . The presence of large numbers of cave bear and brown bear remains and sparse stone artifacts at the site indicates that Darband primarily represents a bear den. The co-occurrence of artifacts and bear bones does not imply human predation or scavenging. Because there are no clear cut marks, except a few burning signs on

2511-678: The Iranian plate and their final collision, the Iranian plate was pressed from both sides. The collisions finally caused the folding of the Upper Paleozoic, Mesozoic , and Paleogene rocks and the Cenozoic (chiefly the Eocene ) volcanism , to form the Alborz Mountains, primarily during the Miocene . The Alpine orogeny began, therefore, with Eocene volcanism in southwestern and south-central parts of

2604-634: The Masjid-i Jami . North of the city, along the Cheshme Ali and Mazandaran road, there are two forts built on the top of two mountains. The first one is 5 km away from the city, on the peak of Gerdkuh , one of the main Ismaili Hashshashin fortresses once used by Hassan Sabah . It was finally conquered by the Ilkhanate under Hulagu Khan . Due to the circular shape of the mountain peak, it

2697-574: The Median (728-550 BCE), the Arsacid (248-224 CE) and Sassanid (224-651 CE) dynastic periods. The remains of Hecatompylos lie to the southwest of the city, extending from Forat , 26 kilometres (16 mi) south of Damghan, to nearly 32 kilometres (20 mi) west. After Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia , the nearby city of Hecatompylos ("hundred gates"), now called Šahr-e Qumis ( Persian : شهر قومس )

2790-655: 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

2883-621: The Talish Mountains , is mainly made up of Upper Cretaceous volcano-sedimentary deposits, with a strip of Paleozoic rocks and a band of Triassic and Jurassic rocks in the southern parts, both in a northwest–southeast direction. As the Tethys Sea was closed and the Arabian plate collided with the Iranian plate , and was pushed against it, and with the clockwise movement of the Eurasian plate towards

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2976-688: 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

3069-483: 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

3162-585: 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 ,

3255-566: The Achaemenid Empire, the Parthian Empire and Seleucid Empire . Tappeh Hessar achieved its peak of glory during the Seleucid and Parthian periods. Ernst Herzfeld (1931–1933) and Erich Schmidt (1933–1938) were the first archaeologists who explored the tepe. An archaeological dig there in 1996 revealed remains dating from the time of the Aryan settlement of the Iranian plateau (circa 4000 BCE) to

3348-469: The Alborz Mountains. The extinct Caspian tiger also lived in the Alborz Mountains. Archaeological evidence from Alborz indicates that early human groups were present in the region since at least late Lower Paleolithic . The Darband Cave located at the Gilan Province contains evidence for late Lower Paleolithic . Stone artifacts and animal fossils were discovered by a group of archaeologists of

3441-524: The Alborz, and continued with the uplift and folding of the older sedimentary rocks in the northwestern, central and eastern parts of the range, during the most important orogenic phases, which date from the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. While the southern slopes of the Alborz Mountains are usually semiarid or arid, with irregular and low precipitation, the northern slopes of the range are usually humid, especially in

3534-672: 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

3627-531: The Central Alborz Range is formed mainly of Triassic and Jurassic rocks, while the northwestern section of the range is mainly composed of Jurassic rocks. Very thick beds of Tertiary (mostly Eocene ) green volcanic tuffs and lavas are found mainly in the southwestern and south-central parts of the range. The far northwestern part of the Alborz, that constitutes the Western Alborz Range or

3720-551: The Eastern Alborz Range, the far eastern section is formed by Mesozoic (chiefly Triassic and Jurassic) rocks, while the western part of the Eastern Alborz Range is made primarily of Paleozoic rocks. Precambrian rocks can be found chiefly south of the city of Gorgan situated in the southeast of the Caspian Sea and, in much smaller amounts, in the central and western parts of the Central Alborz Range. The central part of

3813-558: 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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3906-532: 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

3999-521: 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

4092-425: 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

4185-401: 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

4278-487: 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,

4371-428: 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

4464-403: The Sassanid period, and later the mosque was built over its ruins. One column resembling Sassanian architecture at the eastern wing is a proof of this assertion. Tarikhaneh Mosque is equipped with a square yard and a gallery with 18 columns facing the qibla and the three sides of the yard are surrounded by porticoes . The minaret rising over the mosque is said to belong to the Seljuk period and

4557-427: 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)

4650-409: The Seljuk period in Damghan. Peer-e Alamdar's Shrine (The Old Flagbearer's Tomb), the congregational mosque or Masjed Jame and its minaret, the Tarikhaneh Mosque, Mansourkuh, Imamzadeh Jafar Tower and Chehel Dokhtaran mausoleum, etc. are buildings in which Islamic architecture from the Seljuk period onward is notable. For the first time in Iran these buildings carry brick decorations to compensate for

4743-407: 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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4836-441: 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

4929-418: The bear bones, they probably accumulated through natural processes. During Middle Paleolithic period, Neanderthals were most probably were present in the region as their fossil have been found at northwest of Alborz, in the Azykh Cave . Their stone tools found in the Buzeir Cave and Kiaram cave and number of other surveyed sites. Evidence for Modern human comes from a river side site called Garm Roud in

5022-453: The body of a woman along with her fetus was discovered with over 7,000 years age. Tepe Hissar, with several layers of civilizations. There was metal production in its earliest period. There are also several associated sites, such as Shir Ashian Tepe , another small settlement in the area, dating to the same time. Part of the layers in the tepe belong to the Mades dynasty, which shared its civilization with Mesopotamia . Another layer covers

5115-425: The city is lying on the Alpide belt . The vault is an onion dome adorned by bricks with artistic images and an inscription. The building which used to be a family vault is 14.8 m high and in its famous inscription the deceased have sought divine mercy in their lasting residence. The Imamzade Ja'far and Muhammed is an imamzadeh of the Seljuk period. The Gunbad-i Pir-i Alamdar is another Seljuk-era tomb near

5208-465: The city today is mainly known for pistachios and paper almonds ( kaghazi ) with very thin shells. Archaeological excavation has shown that the history of Damghan starts 4–5 thousand years BCE at Tepe Hissar in the village of Heydarabad. Tepe Hissar was inhabited in the Chalcolithic period in the fifth millennium BC. Radiocarbon dating in Tepe Hissar have revealed items 7,000 years old. Recently expansion of Tehran–Mashhad railway into double lanes

5301-457: 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

5394-512: 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

5487-430: 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

5580-424: The first and second spring and Agha Mohammad Khan's palace faces the former palace opposite. On an eminence in the western part of the city are the ruins of a large square citadel with a small whitewashed building, called Molud Khaneh ('the house of birth'), in which Fath-Ali Shah Qajar was born (1772). Beside these, Damghan is close to the Gonbade Zangol, Toghrol's Tower, Qoosheh Amirabad Caravansary (a building from

5673-620: The following phylogenetic classification: Alborz The name Alborz is derived from Harā Barazaitī , a legendary mountain in the Avesta , the main text of Zoroastrianism . Harā Barazaitī is from a Proto-Iranian name, Harā Bṛzatī , meaning "Mountain Rampart." Bṛzatī is the feminine form of the adjective bṛzant- "high", the ancestor of modern Persian bouland and BarzBerazandeh , cognate with Sanskrit Brihat . Harā may be interpreted as "watch" or "guard", from an Indo-European root * ser- "protect". In Middle Persian, Harā Barazaitī became Harborz , Modern Persian Alborz , which

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5766-444: 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

5859-421: 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

5952-409: The founder of the legendary Pishdadi dynasty. The historical town was called Qumis , which was located in a region of the same name , stretching from Sabzevar to Garmsar , from north up to the Alborz mountain range and to the Lut Desert in the south. Up to the first century AD, Damghan was the capital of that great province. The city was half destroyed in the 856 Damghan earthquake . Damghan

6045-410: 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

6138-432: 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

6231-460: The monotonous and uniform rows. Gunbad-i Chihil Dukhtaran is a mausoleum at the centre of Damghan and behind the Imamzade Ja'far , both of which belong to the Seljuk period. It is the second-oldest tomb surviving from the reign of Tughril , the first of the Seljuk sultans . It was built by one Amir Abu Shuja Asfar, as recorded in the Kufic inscription, which says the vault was built in AH 466 (AD 1087). It has survived without cracks although

6324-411: 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

6417-414: The name, and some even reflect it to this day, including Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains and Mount Elbariz (Albariz, Jebal Barez ) in the Kerman area above the Strait of Hormuz . All these names reflect the same Iranian language compound, and have been speculatively identified, at one time or another, as the legendary mountain Hara Berezaiti of the Avesta . The Alborz mountain range forms

6510-411: 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

6603-448: 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

6696-414: 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

6789-713: 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

6882-529: 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

6975-429: The population of the city as 59,106 people in 18,417 households. Tarikhaneh Mosque is the oldest mosque in Iran, belonging to the first century after the Muslim conquest of Persia . It still preserves its original shape, with a number of massive columns and wood carvings and two minarets of the 11th century. The prefix " Tari ", a Turkish or Mongol term, means God and " khaneh " is the Iranian word for house, so

7068-679: 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

7161-631: 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

7254-589: 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

7347-607: 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

7440-561: 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

7533-741: 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,

7626-454: The tiled inscription over the minaret is in fact the oldest tile work in Islamic architecture. Walls or fortifications and battlements have survived in many parts in Damghan, some dating from the Sasanian era. As mentioned in the history, the wall was very wide and enabled chariots to drive over it. The remains of that wall can be seen north and south of Damghan. Much treasure has survived from

7719-744: The time of Abbas the Great ), historical hills and hazel-shaped castles around the city as well as Gerdkuh and Masoumzadeh Mehmandoust fortifications. Damghan's bazaar contains tombs, old schools, baths and the like. Historical monuments in Damghan have interested foreign archaeologists and many items excavated there are now in British and French museums. (Precipitation) [REDACTED] Media related to Damghan at Wikimedia Commons [REDACTED] Iran portal Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -⁠shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),

7812-478: 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

7905-558: The western parts of the Central Alborz. The Alborz is the easternmost extent of many European plant species. In the southern slopes or the Elburz Range forest steppe ecoregion , the higher elevations are arid with few trees. Juniper is the most common tree in inaccessible areas and at high elevation, while common shrubs are pistachio , maple , and almond . But in the northern slopes, the Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests ecoregion

7998-597: The word means the house of God. Tarikhaneh and Na'in Mosque in Na'in are the only mosques in the Islamic world which resemble the Medina Mosque. This mosque was built during the eighth century AD by imitating Roman , Byzantine , Iranian and Arabic architecture . This is an Arabic design but the building material and architecture is Sassanid. Originally it was a fire temple during

8091-578: 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

8184-475: Was an important city in the Middle Ages, but few remnants of that time remain; one is the ruined Tarikhaneh . The city was capital of the province of Qumis (Qoomes), but was destroyed by the Afghan Hotak dynasty in 1723. At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 57,331 in 15,849 households. The following census in 2011 counted 58,770 people in 16,861 households. The 2016 census measured

8277-554: Was named Gerdkuh, gerd for circular (round) and kuh for mountain. This shape made it very difficult to access by attackers. Mehrnegar Fort is on Mansourkuh, 22 km north of city, along the road. The mountain is pyramidal and the fort located at its top. This was one of the fortifications of the Ismaili esoteric sect during the Seljuk invasion, and has been named Mehrnegar because of Princess Mehrnegar's love story. Evergreen Cheshmeh-Ali

8370-586: 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

8463-600: 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

8556-404: Was the population centre. This name had also been given to Thebes, Greece and Thebes, Egypt . The name Damghan comes from " deh ", village, and " moghan ", Magi . This name was given by Zoroastrians , who included such people as Cyrus the Great and Darius the Great of the Achaemenid Empire . Historiographers ascribe the construction of Damghan to Hooshang , Keyumars ' great-grandson and

8649-484: 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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