Parsi

The specimen No. 1 in Plate XVII., is copied from the end of a very beautiful manuscript of the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, containing the celebrated heroic poem of Ferdusi, intitled Shah-Nameh, or the Book of Kings; a composition of 60,000 verses, written in the tenth century in the Parsi dialect, which has become the common language of Persia.

This is a well-known fact, that the language spoken by conquerors who have established themselves, when it has been disseminated amongst people, great and small, has become the common language of the country. Just as in Baghdád, where originally but little Persian was spoken, when the Khalífa's dynasty was overthrown, the Pársís established themselves in it. Thenceforward, every thing that was Arab, became subject to Pársí rules, and the herd acquired respect for the language of the shepherds. The city, which was called Baghdád in Arabic, became converted in its first syllable to Bághchadád. Turkí became just as prevalent, when the Turks conquered the country, and the language of the chiefs bore fruit in a new soil.

It was perhaps this picture of awakening nature in a mountain valley, which a thousand years ago inspired that great Tadzhik mountaineer, the immortal founder of classical Parsi poetry, Rudaki: […]

[…] in the Parsi “zone of influence”); written poetry began to appear in the basic dialects of the Kurd language and in Pashto, though medieval literature in these languages did not reach any significant development.

This is a well-known fact, that the language spoken by conquerors who have established themselves, when it has been disseminated amongst people, great and small, has become the common language of the country. Just as in Baghdád, where originally but little Persian was spoken, when the Khalífa's dynasty was overthrown, the Pársís established themselves in it. Thenceforward, every thing that was Arab, became subject to Pársí rules, and the herd acquired respect for the language of the shepherds. The city, which was called Baghdád in Arabic, became converted in its first syllable to Bághchadád. Turkí became just as prevalent, when the Turks conquered the country, and the language of the chiefs bore fruit in a new soil.

To this dialect, two epochs may be attributed, namely, that of Ferdusi and other ancient Persian poets, who used only the words of their national language, as spoken in the courts of their sovereigns before the Arab conquest; and that of the modern Parsi or Persian, properly so called, which in consequence of the invasion of the Arabs, the irruptions of the Turks, and the conquests of the Mongols, has become inter-mingled with Arabic, Turkish, Tartar, and Indian words, and which from its easy pronunciation, and harmonious terminations, is now in use from the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Persia, and from the Tigris to beyond the Indus: Anquetil indeed says, from Constantinople to Pekin.

“Hind has observed the same rule in respect to language. In olden time it was Hindúí. When the tribes, great and small, became intermixed, every one, bad and good, learnt Pársí, and all the other languages which existed never moved from their bounds. As God had taught them all, it is not proper to call them all bad. With the exception of Arabic, which, in consequence of the Kurán being written in it, is the most excellent and eloquent of languages, all the tongues differ from one another, and each one has some peculiar merit of its own. This one exclaims, ‘My wine is better than all others.’ Every one loses himself in his own cup, and no one admits that his own wine is vinegar. In short, it would be useless to enter into further discussion respecting Pársí, Turkí, and Arabic.”

Parsi was a heterogeneous language, each author enlarging it with something typical of his native dialect. However, it was the Parsi of the first poetic creations, the Parsi of Mawaraannahr and Khurasan, that acquired normative significance, especially for poetry, and some of its specific properties are still extant in the Tadjik language.

Parsi was again declared to be the official language and all other languages, including Azari that does not even belong to the Iranian language group, were demoted to local dialects.