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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6622 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 17 of 99 09 October 2006 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | ||
the address didn't return the post. Can you please write the path instead i.e. directory/title Edited by Alijsh on 09 October 2006 at 1:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6622 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 18 of 99 09 October 2006 at 2:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Better late than never :D The majority of people calling it Farsi, don't know the story so I'm sure they won't use it any longer. Besides, in other languages they are not using "Farsi" so vastly yet and fortunately, many people in this forum are non-English native speakers. *** Dear people who wrote and will write on this post, I created this post to talk about "Persian or Farsi" and not for "Persia or Iran". So please don't write offtopic. Thanks beforehand. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| alexptrans Pentaglot Senior Member Israel Joined 6765 days ago 208 posts - 236 votes Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew, Russian*, French, Arabic (Written) Studies: Icelandic | Message 19 of 99 09 October 2006 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | ||
Here's the link again: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=69&PN=1 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Frisco Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6856 days ago 380 posts - 398 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Italian, Turkish, Mandarin | Message 20 of 99 09 October 2006 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's unfortunate, but it seems like most English speakers who actually know what language is spoken in Iran insist on calling it "Farsi" and believe that "Persian" is an archaic term.
If I say, "I'd like to study Persian someday." the response I usually get (at least the one that isn't "huh?") is a condescending "Don't you mean Farsi?". It's annoying. Edited by Frisco on 09 October 2006 at 4:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6684 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 21 of 99 09 October 2006 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
On the other hand, there are approximately 460k hits for "Persian language" compared to 180k for "Farsi language". :^) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 22 of 99 09 October 2006 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Alijsh, judging by a couple of your posts I've seen, you seem to be a person of strong views. However, strong views can be misplaced in telling native speakers of another language how they should speak their own language. Here is an entry from one of the Oxford English dictionaries: ============= Farsi /'f:si:/ noun [MASS NOUN] the modern Persian language, the official language of Iran, with over 20 million speakers. ============= And here is another one: ========== Persian noun ... 2 [MASS NOUN] the language of modern Iran, an Indo-European language written in Arabic script. Also called Farsi. *an earlier form of Persian spoken in ancient or medieval Persia. =========== That same dictionary does not have entries for Deutsch, Français or Italiano. Both "Farsi" and "Persian" are part of the English language. I´ve run into this odd phenomenon on other occasions. A Spanish speaker from Latin America took umbrage at someone using the term "american" speaking of US residents. Indeed, it is not appropriate in Spanish, especially in Latin America, but is normal for English, French, Russian, and I am sure many other languages. It even seems to be used like this in Spain. Then there are Ukranians who get upset that Russians say "na Ukraine" instead of "v Ukraine" when talking, for example, about someone living in Ukraine. Apparently, Russian speakers have to change the preposition they are used to because in Ukranian that´s the one they would use. I suggest we leave it to the native English speakers to decide what to call your language in English, especially since, unlike the two examples I gave, there don't even seem to be any political overtones in choosing "Farsi" versus "Persian". P.S. I myself learned the word "Farsi" from my wife; before I used to say "Persian". We were at the main airport in Houston, and an elderly Iranian woman, who had just arrived in the US and did not speak a word of English, except "baby", managed to communicate with that word that whoever was to meet her at the airport had not shown up. I could not even call for her, because the phone number she showed me was in Persian numerals, so I couldn't read it. Then my wife, don't know how, identified a likely "candidate" in the crowd and asked him if he spoke, gasp, Farsi, which he did, so we left the lady in his care. I liked the word and have been saying "Farsi" ever since. Edited by frenkeld on 09 October 2006 at 7:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7144 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 23 of 99 09 October 2006 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've always found the use of "Farsi" (while speaking in English) to be fairly pretentious, and indicative of a sort of pseudo-sophistication, intended to convey to the listener that the speaker has some special inside knowledge (i.e., knows what the language is named by Iranians. You can almost see some people who use this hoping that their listeners will ask "What's that?") This has always struck me as silly: if you can speak the language in question, then you ought to be able to refer to it in English without feeling you're somehow lowering yourself. And if you don't speak it, just knowing what it's called by native speakers hardly marks you as a big-time intellectual. The example above of the use of "Ivrit" for Hebrew seems to me to be a similar phenomenon. I also recall some people in Australia referring to Indonesian as "Bahasa", as if that were somehow more authentic to those in the know that just saying "Indonesian".
I do see a potential use in English for "Farsi", though, in distinguishing it from other varieties of the language, i.e., Dari and Tajik. But except when used in this sense to denote a specific variety of Persian, I avoid it, and use "Persian". Edited by daristani on 09 October 2006 at 7:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 24 of 99 09 October 2006 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | ||
I dunno. I used to think people saying "Mandarin" instead of "Chinese" were pompous, but got used to it. And in any case, why should folks in a language forum not be allowed to be a little pompous about their languages. Edited by frenkeld on 09 October 2006 at 7:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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