Re: China: Imperial House, obviously 2007 and recently still living members

On Aug 4, 4:56 pm, David <ds...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 4, 1:23 am, CJ Buyers <susuha...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

As far as I am aware Mr Buyers said nothing about language, nor
anything about who speaks Persian and who does not. Nevertheless, your
sweeping proto-analysis would be news to a good many Arabs and Kurds
who speak nothing but Persian.

And your type of analysis would be doubtless news to many Irish,
Americans, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders who speak
English but are not _English_ (by either nationality or heritage).

That actually has no place in this discussion. I was replying to the
nonsensical comment that Qashqais, Khuzestani Arabs, Azeris,
Turkmens, and many others don't speak Farsi".

The language is widely used and spoken over a large area: in Persia
itself (as Farsi using Arabic and later Latin script, Sistani, Luri,
Bakhtiyari, Bandari, Khuzi, Kohistani, etc), Afghanistan (as Dari),
Pakistan, Tajikistan (as Tajik in Cyrilic script), India, Azerbaijan,
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Bahrain, some other gulf states and other
parts of Central Asia.

In fact, many of the languages you cite are not Persian at all, but
different languages. Farsi, Dari, and Tajik are basically the same
language, but with different pronunciations and to some extent
vocabularies, about as different as the Englishes of England, Ireland,
and Scotland.

And your point is what, that English spoken in Ireland and Scotland
isn't English, because pronunciation and vocabulary differ?

The others are more distantly related, and are no more
parts of Persian than Frisian or Dutch is part of English.

I hevn't got the foggiest clue what you are on about here. Which
languages and where?

Farsi is actually "Parsi", derived from the old Persian "Parsa", from
which the words Persia and Persian derive. It is Farsi because of the
adoption of the Arabic script, which did not have "p" phoneme, ca 780.
The use of a Latin script makes that difference unnecessary.

The current _name_ of the language is Farsi, not Parsi. A Parsi is an
adherent of the Zoroastrian religion, particularly those living in
India. Fars is the current district of Iran on the Persian Gulf.
Pars is a historical region. It's true that Fars comes from Pars, but
they now how different applications.

Again, I have not got the foggiest what you are on about here. Whether
a Parsi comes from Fars or is a practitioner of Zorastrianism has
nothing to do with the discussion. Whichever way you wish to skin you
cat, Farsi comes from the old Parsa, for old Persian and the F is
there simply because Arabic did not have the "p" phoneme when that
script was adopted.

The racial origins of the Kurds are unknown. They cannot be fixed with
certainty since the term applies to all those who have settled in the
area. Arabs are, of course, Semite, as were the large Jewish community
which used to dwell in Persia.

You can be a Persian-speaker or an Arab or a Turk living in Kurdistan
and still not be a Kurd. Kurdish identity is primarily (though of
course not exclusively) linguistic, as there is no Kurdish state.

Again, whether there is a Kurdish state or there isn't has no bearing
whatsover on the issue. Anyone from Kurdistan can is a Kurd, unless he
wants to identify himself differently, which is entirely his right to
do so, not yours.

My original post had nothing to do with any of this, but was concerned
with the narrow identification with the political state of Iran
created by Reza Shah, versus the wider linguistic, social, and
cultural identification with Persia and the Persian world. The use of
the name Iran actually has much to do with the relationship between
Reza Shah's regime and the Nazis, with their vile theories of Aryan
supremacy in which Semites had no place.

The "political state" of Iran was not created by Reza Shah -- who
merely usurped the Qajar throne -- but by the Safavids in the 16th
century, as I said.

Reza did not invent the name "Iran" in 1935, or even innovatively
apply it -- it was the name that had been used for the country for
hundreds of years. He merely asked that diplomats refer to the
country consistently by its Farsi name, not by any of the several
foreign-language terms used -- particularly by European countries --
to refer to the country; not just Persia but also Persis, Perse,
Persien. The supposed political context of the request is rather
irrelevant. As the term is now used, Khuzestani Arabs, Jews, Azeris
and many other speakers of non-Iranian languages who are Iranian
citizens are still _Iraaniyaan_. In fact, the current Rahbar,
Ayatollah Khameneh'i, is an Azeri. The Qajars were Turks but were
still _Iraani_. The word Iraani doesn't exclude people based on
language or ancestry.

In short, if Mr. Buyers is trying to suggest that there is something
sinister about the use of the name Iran instead of Persia, he is wrong
on all counts.

Nobody said that Reza Shah "invented" the name Iran in 1935. To say so
is an invention entirely your own.

The change in name by Reza Shah wasn't simply a request to use the
Farsi name by foreigners. The use of anything else was banned. It was
accompanied by a whole process of "Iranianization", which included the
systematic attempt to "purify" the language and national culture, and
to irradicate the separate identities of the minorities. The Arabs
were, for example, forbidden from registering Arabic names for their
offspring, to be educated in Arabic, to carry on Arabic cultural
organisations, and a number of other restrictions. To be ignorant of
all that, is quite frankly, astounding.

.

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