The native name of the language was Pārsīg. It is also called Pahlavi (pahlavānīg). But it would be more exact to use the term “Pahlavi” for the Parthian language and literature. The Pārsīg was the language used by the Persae settled in the south-western part of Persia (erān-šahr), from the third century B.C. till the tenth century A.D., and was used during centuries in other regions as well.
The present site is intended as a contribution toward the study of Pārsīg as a living language for those who require an adequate but concise presentation of the language, with examples, which would bring them as quickly as possible to the point where they could start the reading of Pārsīg texts with profit.
Akbar Shah and the Persic
Emperor Akbar, the leader of the Mughal Empire (India), whose official language was modern Persian, was a little eccentric, among other things, in his language-policy; the year after his advocation of the Din-e Elāhi in 1581, he impulsively ordered officials to restrict the use of Arabic words and even Arabic letters in official Mughal documents, and in 1592 his patronage was extended to the compilation of the unique Persian dictionary Farhang-e Jahāngīrī, in which rare ancient Persian (= Pārsīg) vocabulary items were contained preferentially. This strong attachment to ancient Persian vocabularies of the Emperor is best expressed by the compiler of the Farhang-e Jahāngīrī, Mir Jamāl al-Dīn Shīrāzī, in its preface:
“Subjects of Emperor Akbar, hearing this remark [= Emperor’s desire to promote the study on Pārsīg], invited this humble man (Mir Jamāl al-Dīn Shīrāzī himself) to his holy presence. He said with the tongue of court : «Persian, Pahlavī and Darī were corrupted and their grammars do not have correct measure … because since the time Arabs conquered the land of Persia, Persian language had mixed with Arabic words, most of the Persian, Darī and Pahlavī words were abolished, assuredly extinguished. Therefore the explanation on the books written in ancient Persian languages, and the meaning of the poems which ancient poets adorned with golden arrangement, remained concealed under the veil of concealment. So before this, I ordered some of the members of holy court to arrange a book which contains all the ancient Persian words. » …”
It is not clear in this question what Akbar’s real intention was in this pro-Persian language-policy, but it is clear that the group which enjoyed the favour of his language-policy to the full was none other than the Zoroastrians, because it was they who had best preserved ancient Persian words and Zoroastrian literature was indispensable for ancient Persian study.
Takeshi Aoki, “The transformation of Zoroastrian messianism in Mughal India. From the advent of Zoroastrian Holy Emperor to the change of Zoroastrianism”, Orient, Tokyo, 37/ 2002, 136-66 (159-60).
On the occasion of the millennium of the most eminent of all Persian poets, Ferdowsi, in the month of September/ October 1934, the Ministry of Education decided to celebrate his memory. Assembled in Tehran were representatives from the various countries and from famous cultural and literary organizations of the world, as well as learned orientalists.
A.A. Freiman delivered a lecture in Pārsīg.
During the nineteenth century, the efforts of European scholars to unravel the mysteries of the Pahlavi/ Pārsīg idiom, had been rewarded with little success. The chief reasons why the results hitherto obtained had proved so little satisfactory to thoughtful scholars, were first, the difficulty of the subject, arising from the ambiguous Pahlavi/ Pārsīg writing and the strange character of the idiom; secondly, the want of sufficient available material; and thirdly, the circumstance that the few scholars who took any interest in Pahlavi, were divided into two parties, one of which investigated only the meagre legends on coins, whilst the other was almost exclusively engaged on the Pahlavi of the books, without studying the inscriptions. The best European scholar of the nineteenth century said about the Pārsīg thus: “The Pahlavi language is one of the most enigmatical language known to have existed.” (Martin Haug, Essay on the Pahlavi Language, Stuttgart, 1870, 1-2.)
« Beyond doubt, Sogdian was the national language of the Majority of clerics and propagandidts of the Manichaean faith in Central Asia. Middle Persian (= Pārsīg), and to a lesser degree, Parthian (= Pahlavānīg), occupied the position held by Latin in the medieval church. The founder of Manichaeism had employed Syriac (his own language) as his medium, but conveniently he had written at least one book in Middle Persian, and it is likely that he himself had arranged for the translation of some or all of his numerous writings from Syriac into Middle Persian. Thus the Eastern Manichaeans found themselves entitled to dispense with the study of Mani’s original writings, and to continue themselves to reading the Middle Persian edition; it presented small difficulty to them to acquire a good knowledge of the Middle Persian language, owing to its affinity with Sogdian. … » W. B. Henning, Sogdica, 1940, 11.
F. Engels, in his letter to K. Marx (Manchester, 6 June [1853,] evening), said this: « I am in any case tied up with the eastern mummery for some weeks; I have made use of the opportunity to learn Persian. I am put off Arabic, partly by my inborn hatred of Semitic languages, partly by the impossibility of getting anywhere, without considerable expenditure of time, in so extensive a language — one which has 4,000 roots and goes back over 2,000-3,000 years. By comparison, Persian is absolute child’s play. Were it not for that damned Arabic alphabet in which every half dozen letters looks like every other half dozen and the vowels are not written, I would undertake to learn the entire grammar within 48 hours. This for the better encouragement of Pieper should he feel the urge to imitate me in this poor joke. I have set myself a maximum of three weeks for Persian, so if he stakes two months on it he'll best me anyway. What a pity Weitling can’t speak Persian; he would then have his langue universelle toute trouvée [universal language ready-made] since it is, to my knowledge, the only language where ‘me’ and ‘to me’ are never at odds, the dative and accusative always being the same. » (see MECW Volume 39, p. 335 )
In fact Engels has described the Persic language avant la letter.
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