95-569: Nasreddin ( / n æ s ˈ r ɛ d ɪ n / ) or Nasreddin Hodja (other variants include: Mullah Nasreddin Hodja, Nasruddin Hodja, Mullah Nasruddin, Mullah Nasriddin, Khoja Nasriddin) (1208–1285) is a character in the folklore of the Muslim world from Bukhara to China , and a hero of humorous short stories and satirical anecdotes. There are frequent statements about his existence in real life and even archaeological evidence in specific places, for example,
190-638: 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
285-535: A black turban. Sunni Mullahs generally wear neutral colored turbans, with some sufis choosing green as preferred color. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of
380-418: 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
475-500: 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
570-417: 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
665-529: 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
760-597: A rare and cherished combination. He is known as Mullah Nasruddin in South Asian children's books. A TV serial on him was aired in India as Mulla Nasiruddin . Some Nasreddin tales also appear in collections of Aesop's fables . The miller, his son and the donkey is one example. Others are "The Ass with a Burden of Salt" ( Perry Index 180) and " The Satyr and the Traveller ". In Albanian folk tales of Albania and Kosovo
855-531: 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
950-686: A subtle humour and a pedagogic nature. The International Nasreddin Hodja festival is celebrated between 5 and 10 July every year in Akşehir. In 2020, an application to include "The tradition of telling comic tales about Nasreddin Khoja" in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list was jointly submitted by the governments of Azerbaijan , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Uzbekistan , Tajikistan , Türkiye and Turkmenistan . Claims about his origin are made by many ethnic groups. Many sources give
1045-428: A tombstone in the city of Akşehir , Turkey . At the moment, there is no confirmed information or serious grounds to talk about the specific date or place of Nasreddin's birth, so the question of the reality of his existence remains open. Nasreddin appears in thousands of stories, sometimes witty, sometimes wise, but in many of which he is presented as a (holy) fool or as the butt of a joke. A Nasreddin story usually has
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#17328552989691140-431: A turban ( Persian : عمامه ammāme ), a long coat with sleeves and buttons, similar to a cassock ( قبا qabā ), and a long gown or cloak, open at the front ( عبا abā ). The aba is usually made either of brown wool or of black muslin. It is sleeveless but has holes through which the arms may be inserted. In Shiism, the turban is usually white, but those who claim descent from Muhammad traditionally wear
1235-511: A type of Islamic school known as a madrasah . Three kinds of knowledge are applied most frequently in interpreting Islamic texts (i.e. the Quran, hadiths, etc.) for matters of Sharia , i.e., Islamic law. Mullahs have frequently been involved in politics, but only recently have they served in positions of power, since Shia Islamists seized power in Iran in 1979. The dress of a Mullah usually consists of
1330-644: 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
1425-610: 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
1520-765: 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
1615-462: Is an honorific title for Muslim clergy and mosque leaders . The term is widely used in Iran and Afghanistan and is also used for a person who has higher education in Islamic theology and sharia law . The title has also been used in some Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish communities in reference to the community's leadership, especially its religious leadership. The word mullah is derived from
1710-606: 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
1805-425: 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
1900-498: Is known as " Giufà ", derived from the Arabic character Juha. In Maltese, his name is 'Ġaħan'. In the Swahili and Indonesian culture, many of his stories are being told under the name of "Abunuwasi" or "Abunawas", though this confuses Nasreddin with an entirely different man – the poet Abu Nuwas , known for homoerotic verse . In China, where stories of him are well known, he is known by
1995-408: Is known as "Juha", "Jiha", "Djoha", "Djuha", "Dschuha", "Chotzas", "Goha" ( جحا juḥā ). Juha was originally a separate folk character found in Arabic literature as early as the 9th century, and was widely popular by the 11th century. Lore of the two characters became amalgamated in the 19th century when collections were translated from Arabic into Turkish and Persian. In Sicily and Southern Italy he
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#17328552989692090-533: Is named Djohá . In Romanian , the existing stories come from an 1853 verse compilation edited by Anton Pann , a philologist and poet renowned for authoring the current Romanian anthem . Nasreddin is mostly known as a character from short tales; however, he has also been featured in longer media, such as novels and films. In Russia, Nasreddin is known mostly because of the Russian work Возмутитель спокойствия by Leonid Solovyov (English translations: "The Beggar in
2185-455: 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
2280-468: 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 ),
2375-570: 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
2470-531: Is quoted or alluded to frequently in daily life. Since there are thousands of different Nasreddin stories, one can be found to fit almost any occasion. Nasreddin often appears as a whimsical character in an extensive folk tradition of vignettes in the following languages: Turkish , Persian , Adyghe , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Afghan, Bengali , Bosnian , Bulgarian , Chinese, Greek , Gujarati , Hindi , Judeo-Spanish , Kurdish , Romanian , Serbian ?, Russian, Uzbek, Ubykh , and Urdu . 1996–1997
2565-486: 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
2660-705: Is ultimately derived from Greek "Authentes" (αὐθέντης) into Turkish. "Nasreddin Hoja Efendi" was shortened as "Efendi" in time. Subsequently "Efendi" happened to be the proper name as "Affandi" in Central Asia for Nasreddin Hoja. The Nasreddin stories are known throughout the Middle East and have touched cultures around the world. Superficially, most of the Nasreddin stories may be told as jokes or humorous anecdotes. They are told in
2755-486: 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
2850-502: 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
2945-651: 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
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3040-481: The Deen ) and Nazaruddin . It is sometimes preceded or followed by a title or honorific used in the corresponding cultures: "Hoxha", "Khwaje", "Koja", " Hodja ", "Hoja", "Hojja", "Hodscha", "Hodža", "Hoca", "Hocca","Hooka", "Hogea", " Mullah ", "Mulla", "Mula", "Molla", " Efendi ", "Afandi", "Ependi" ( أفندي ' afandī ), " Hajji ". In several cultures he is named by the title alone. In Arabic-speaking countries this character
3135-448: 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
3230-524: The Maghreb . In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the title is given to graduates of a madrasa or Islamic school, who are then able to become a mosque leader, a teacher at a religious school, a local judge in a village or town, or to perform religious rituals. A person who is still a student at a madrasa and yet to graduate is a talib . The Afghan Taliban was formed in 1994 by men who had graduated from, or at least attended, madrasas. They called themselves taliban ,
3325-470: The Near , Middle East, South Asia and Central Asia claim Nasreddin as their own (e.g., Turks, Afghans, Iranians, and Uzbeks). His name is spelt in a wide variety of ways: Nastradin , Nasrudeen , Nasrudin , Nasruddin , Nasriddin , Nasr ud-Din , Nasredin , Nasiruddin, Naseeruddin , Nasr Eddin , Nastradhin , Nasreddine , Nastratin , Nusrettin , Nasrettin , Nostradin , Nastradin (lit.: Victory of
3420-435: The Persian word mullā ( Persian : ملا ), itself being borrowed from Arabic word mawlā ( Arabic : مَوْلَى ), meaning "master" and "guardian", with mutation of the initial short vowels. The term has also been used among Persian Jews , Bukharan Jews , Afghan Jews, and other Central Asian Jews to refer to the community's religious and/or secular leadership. In Kaifeng , China, the historic Chinese Jews who managed
3515-655: 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
3610-688: 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
3705-483: 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
3800-585: 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 ,
3895-672: 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
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3990-967: The Harem: Impudent Adventures in Old Bukhara", 1956, and "The Tale of Hodja Nasreddin: Disturber of the Peace", 2009). The composer Shostakovich celebrated Nasreddin, among other figures, in the second movement ( Yumor , "Humor") of his Symphony No. 13. The text, by Yevgeny Yevtushenko , portrays humor as a weapon against dictatorship and tyranny. Shostakovich's music shares many of the "foolish yet profound" qualities of Nasreddin's sayings listed above. The Graeco-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff often referred to "our own dear Mullah Nasr Eddin", also calling him an "incomparable teacher", particularly in his book Beelzebub's Tales . Sufi philosopher Idries Shah published several collections of Nasruddin stories in English, and emphasized their teaching value. In 1943,
4085-558: 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
4180-532: 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
4275-521: 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
4370-425: 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
4465-401: 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
4560-848: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
4655-479: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
4750-526: 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)
4845-457: 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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#17328552989694940-611: The Soviet film Nasreddin in Bukhara was directed by Yakov Protazanov based on Solovyov's book, followed in 1947 by a film called The Adventures of Nasreddin , directed by Nabi Ganiyev and also set in the Uzbekistan SSR . In 1964, Richard Williams , a Canadian-British animator, began work on Nasrudin , an animated film based on the character. The film was produced with the help of Idries Shah , for whom Williams had illustrated books about
5035-493: 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
5130-451: The backward lifestyles and values of clergy and religious fanatics. The magazine was frequently banned but had a lasting influence on Azerbaijani and Iranian literature. Mulla Nasruddin, a figure in Islamic folklore, gained further popularity through the discourses of the mystic Osho Rajneesh . Osho frequently shared Nasruddin's tales in both Urdu and English, expressing a deep admiration for
5225-704: The birthplace of Nasreddin as Hortu Village in Sivrihisar , Eskişehir Province , present-day Turkey , in the 13th century, after which he settled in Akşehir , and later in Konya under the Seljuq rule, where he died in 1275/6 or 1285/6 CE. It is claimed that the tomb of Nasreddin is in Akşehir , and the International Nasreddin Hodja Festival is held annually in Akşehir, 5–10 July. There are also opposing views to
5320-498: The books they studied. However in the modern era they instead memorise the founding books of each field (sometimes in the form of poetry to aid memorisation). Uneducated villagers may frequently classify a literate Muslim with a less than complete Islamic training as their "mullah" or religious cleric. Mullahs with varying levels of training lead prayers in mosques, deliver religious sermons, and perform religious ceremonies such as birth rites and funeral services. They also often teach in
5415-528: The character. He once said, "I have loved no one as I have loved Nasruddin. He is one of the men who has brought religion and laughter together; otherwise, they have always stood back to back. Nasruddin forced them to drop their old enmity and become friends, and when religion and laughter meet, when meditation laughs, and when laughter meditates, the miracle happens… the miracle of all miracles" (Osho, Books I Have Loved). This quote highlights Osho's appreciation for Nasruddin's ability to blend humor with spirituality,
5510-464: The character; however, tensions between Williams's crew and the Shah family caused Williams to end his relationship with them, causing him to lose his right to use Nasreddin as a character. The unfinished film was later reworked into The Thief and the Cobbler , which had a similarly troubled production history. Mullah Mullah ( / ˈ m ʌ l ə , ˈ m ʊ l ə , ˈ m uː l ə / ; Persian : ملا , romanized : mullā, mollā )
5605-457: 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
5700-512: 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
5795-573: The criticism of men") his full name was Abu al-Ghusn Dujayn al-Fizari, he lived under the Umayyads in Kufa , and his mother was said to be a servant to Anas ibn Malik ; thus he was one of the Tabi'un in Sunni tradition. and of them (juha), and he is nicknamed aba ghusn , and what has been told of him suggests astuteness and intelligence, although he be overwhelmingly made to appear foolish, and it has been said that some who would malign him fabricate deliberately tales intended to discredit him. The oldest manuscript of Nasreddin dates to 1571. Some of
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#17328552989695890-451: The effect that Nasreddin's origin lies in Central Asia . The Arabic version of the character, known as Juha ( Arabic : جحا ), is the oldest attested version of the character and the most divergent, being mentioned in Al-Jahiz 's book " القول في البغال " Alqawl fi albighal ("Concerning mules"). According to Al-Dhahabi 's book, " ميزان الاعتدال في نقد الرجال " Mizan alaietidal fi naqd alrijal ("The balance of moderation (advisable) in
5985-430: 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
6080-444: 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
6175-421: 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
6270-410: 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
6365-459: The legend of Nasreddin effendi ("sir, lord"), largely sourced from Uyghur folklore. In Central Asia , he is commonly known as "Afandi". The Central Asian peoples also claim his local origin, as do Uyghurs. Afandi or Afanti originates from Turkish "Efendi" ( Effendi ) and this is a title still used to show respect in Turkey. The combination "Hoja Efendi" is used in Turkey very often for the Muslim scholars in modern times as well. The word "Efendi"
6460-432: 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
6555-411: 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
6650-430: The name appears as " Nastradini" . Part of Nasreddin tales also refer to the protagonist as just " someone ". In some Bulgarian folk tales that originated during the Ottoman period, the name appears as an antagonist to a local wise man, named Sly Peter . In Sicily the same tales involve a man named Giufà . In Sephardic culture, spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, a character that appears in many folk tales
6745-411: 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
6840-495: 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
6935-414: 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
7030-713: 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
7125-529: 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
7220-575: The plural of talib , or "students". Many of the leaders of the Taliban were titled Mullah , although not all had completed their madrasa education. Someone who goes on to complete postgraduate religious education receives the higher title of Mawlawi . In Iran , until the early 20th century, the term mullah was used in Iranian seminaries to refer to low-level clergy who specialized in telling stories of Ashura , rather than teaching or issuing fatwas . However, in recent years, among Shia clerics,
7315-628: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
7410-578: 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
7505-589: 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
7600-460: The same period, Tusi included anecdotes in one of his works, ridiculed astrologers as a scientist, Molla Nasraddin went to Emir Timur as a representative of the country, the parallel between Nasraddin Tusi being sent to Hulagu Khan by the ruler of Alamut , and both of them having the same name—Hasan. However, Mammadhuseyn Tahmasib stated that this information is not conclusive evidence. Many peoples of
7695-607: 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
7790-506: 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
7885-687: 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,
7980-464: The stories, however, are in the Philogelos and Aesop's fables. Today, Nasreddin stories are told in many countries - especially those of the Muslim world - and have been translated into many languages. Certain regions developed independently a ' wise fool ' character similar to Nasreddin, and the stories have become part of a larger whole. In many regions, Nasreddin is a major part of the culture, and
8075-511: The synagogue were called "mullahs". It is the term commonly used for village or neighborhood mosque leaders, who may not have high levels of religious education, in large parts of the Muslim world , particularly Iran , Turkey , Caucasus , Central Asia , West Asia , South Asia , Eastern Arabia , the Balkans and the Horn of Africa . In other regions, a different term may be used, such as imam in
8170-654: The teahouses and caravanserais of Asia and in homes and on the radio. But it is inherent in a Nasreddin story that it may be understood at many levels. There is the joke, followed by a moral and usually the little extra which brings the consciousness of the potential mystic a little further on the way to realization. Uzbeks consider Nasreddin an Uzbek who was born and lived in Bukhara , and stories about him are called latifa or afandi . There are at least two collections of Uzbek stories related to Nasriddin Afandi: Nasreddin
8265-425: The term ruhani (spiritual) has been promoted as an alternative to mullah and akhoond , free of pejorative connotations. Ideally, a trained mullah will have studied the traditional Islamic sciences not limited to: Some mullahs will specialise in certain fields after completing the above foundational studies. Common specialties are: Such figures often have memorized the Quran and historically would memorise all
8360-478: 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
8455-567: The various transliterations from his Uyghur name, 阿凡提 (Āfántí) and 阿方提 (Āfāngtí). The Uyghurs believe that he was from Xinjiang , while the Uzbeks believe he was from Bukhara . Shanghai Animation Film Studio produced a 13-episode Nasreddin related animation called 'The Story of Afanti'/ 阿凡提 in 1979, which became one of the most influential animations in China's history. The musical Nasirdin Apandim features
8550-578: 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
8645-578: Was declared International Nasreddin Year by UNESCO . Some people say that, whilst uttering what seemed madness, he was, in reality, divinely inspired, and that it was not madness but wisdom that he uttered. Azerbaijani scholars Mammadhuseyn Tahmasib [ az ] and Mammadagha Sultanov [ az ] claimed that the folklore hero Molla Nasraddin was the minister of the Ilkhanate period, Nasraddin Tusi . The reasons for this are that they lived in
8740-586: 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
8835-600: 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
8930-669: Was the main character in a magazine, called simply Molla Nasraddin , published in Azerbaijan and "read across the Muslim world from Morocco to Iran". The eight-page Azerbaijani satirical periodical was published in Tiflis (from 1906 to 1917), Tabriz (in 1921) and Baku (from 1922 to 1931) in the Azeri and occasionally Russian languages. Founded by Jalil Mammadguluzadeh , it depicted inequality , cultural assimilation , and corruption and ridiculed
9025-484: 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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