Persian. Persian language is great and eternal in the history of the world

With the addition of 4 special letters for the actual Persian sounds, which have no analogues in Arabic. Although the core of the vocabulary consists of Iranian words, there are also a lot of borrowings, especially from Arabic (50-60% of all words). numerous borrowings from Turkish, French, English.

Modern Persian formed over the last 70-80 years on the basis of spoken Persian dialects and classical Farsi-Dari, which was the basis on which 3 related languages ​​developed - Persian (Farsi), Tajik and Afghan Dari. Therefore, each of these languages ​​can consider as its entire huge literary heritage written in Farsi-Dari - the works of Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Omar Khayyam, Saadi, Gafiz, Rumi, Jami and others.

Modern Persian is different from classical Persian at all language levels- phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary. The oral form of the literary language is based on the Tehran dialect; in many cases it is used, even if this contradicts the norms of the literary language. Other Persian dialects are also known: Kerman, Isfahan, Novgan (Mehshed), Birzhend, Sistan, Sebzevar, etc. In general, dialects have been little studied, some of them differ markedly from each other and, according to some linguists, they are essentially separate, closely related languages, in which the literary form is the same, but the lively spoken language is different.

1. Genetic classification

Persian belongs to the southwestern subgroup of the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family. The closest relatives of this language are the Luro-Bakhtiyar dialects, which may have developed from the early New Persian language (VII-VIII centuries), as well as the Tat language, widespread in Azerbaijan. Several distant relatives of the Farsi language are the ancient dialects of Fars, the Larestan and Bashkardi dialects, which, like Persian, originate from the Middle Persian language.

2. History

Over a thousand-year history, the New Persian language was heavily influenced by the Arabic language (less noticeably in classical poets): not only words, but also productive word-formation models, grammatical elements, phraseological units and formulas were actively borrowed from Arabic, especially in official and scientific languages. Even many native words changed their phonetic composition under Arabic influence (starting with the word f?rsi itself, instead of p?rsi). In the 19th century, borrowings began from Western European languages(French and English).

In the 1930s, after the establishment of the nationalist ideology of Shah Reza Pahlavi, the Academy of the Persian Language was created, which sought to “cleanse” the language of Arabism and Western European words, restore and invent new words with Persian roots. After the Shah's abdication in the year, this activity came to a standstill. Reforms were briefly resumed by son Mohammad Reza Shah in the 1970s. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the process of “purification” of the language stopped, Arabisms and Western borrowings are again widely used. This year, a new Academy of Persian Language and Literature was created and has already published 6 collections of neologisms.

Contemporary literary Persian differs significantly from the classical one at virtually all language levels - in phonetics (mainly in vocalism), in morphology, in syntax, in vocabulary. There is a tendency for the literary language to converge with the spoken language, which can be traced in the works of Iranian writers since the beginning of the 20th century.

3. Distribution and dialects

3.1. Dialects

Distribution of Perso-Tajik dialects

Differences between colloquial forms the Persian language undoubtedly existed already in the era of the formation of the New Persian literary norm, and later due to political fragmentation and the vast space covered by the expansion of spoken Persian, they only grew. However, due to the persistence and unification of the written tradition until the 19th century, regional differences in the literary language were insignificant, and local differences in colloquial speech can be traced only on the basis of dialect forms, which occasionally fell into literary works.

A large array of Persian-Tajik dialects stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Fergana Valley has not been fully described or classified due to the poor development of dialectology in Iran and Afghanistan and the lack of descriptions of many dialects. In general it can be divided into Western Farsi Iran and eastern Farsi, underlying Tajik and Dari, as well as some transitional groups:

• Western Farsi dialects distributed primarily in the central regions of Iran (in the so-called "Persian Iraq": Hamadan, Qazvin, Merkez (or actually Erak) Qom, Tehran, Isfahan, Kermanshah). These include the leading dialect of Iran - Tehran.
• Dialects Khorasan: from Tehran to the Afghan border. Transitional group in Eastern variants of Farsi, which also includes closely related dialects Kukhistan(Southern Khorasan), Sistan (border of Iran and Afghanistan) and further western dialects of Afghanistan: Herat (Farsivaniv) Hazaras ("language Khazar"), charaymaki. In the south, Sistan is bordered by dialects of the Persian-speaking Balochi group, which are called Dekhvari (Iranian and Pakistani Balochistan)
• Dialects Tajiks spoken in eastern and northern Afghanistan (with the leading dialect being Kabul), as well as western Pakistan. Further to the north they pass into the dialects of Tajikistan and into separate enclaves in Uzbekistan (Bukhara, Samarkand, Nurota, Chust, etc.).

Thus, in the 20th century, on the basis of the Transgalno-Persian language, a diasystem of three national languages, dialects are usually divided according to the languages ​​of the countries where they live, despite the fact that the borders of states practically do not correspond to the boundaries of dialect groups:

All three literary norms, although they show differences primarily in vocabulary, phonetics and to a lesser extent in grammar, are distinguished by noticeable conservatism, so educated speakers in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan can usually understand each other freely. Together, daily local dialects can differ quite significantly, especially for the extreme dialects of the Persian-Tajik continuum (Zakhidno-Iranian and Pivnichno-Tajik).

3.2. Number of media

As a language of interethnic communication, literature, media and other spheres public life, Farsi is the second language for representatives of other peoples of Iran: both Iranian-speaking (Kurds, Lurivs, Baluchis, Mazenderans, etc.) and non-Iranian (Azerbaijanis, Arabs, Turkmen, Armenians, etc.). Small groups of Persian migrants, naturalized, ("Iran") are also common in the Gulf countries: Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Yemen, UAE (Ajam), as well as in Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Central Asia (Central Asian Iranians)

4. Phonetics

The Persian language has 6 vowel phonemes - i, e, ?, ?, o, u, 2 diphthongs - o͡u, e͡i and 22 consonant phonemes.

4.1. Loud

In modern language, opposition in longitude has changed into phonological opposition in quality, complemented by opposition in stability and instability in a weak (unstressed) position. In different regional variants, the transformation of classical vocalism occurred differently. In Iranian Farsi, unstable vowels correspond to short vowels of the classical language, stable vowels correspond to long vowels, and ē coincides with ī and ō with ū:

Unstable vowels differ from stable vowels in that they are more subject to reduction in the unstressed position. At impact positions, the longitude of unstable ones is practically no different from stable ones. The loud / ɒ / acts as a rounded back sound, which is perceived by Ukrainian speakers almost as a long / o /.

4.2. Consonants

The phonemes /p/, /t/, /k/ tend to be aspirated, especially before stressed vowels and sonorant consonants, as well as at the end of words: پول pul"money", توپ tup"ball" [tʰ up]. /K/ and /g/ are palatalized at the end of words and before front vowels: گرگ gorg"wolf". Voiced consonants at the end of a word are practically not deafening.

In addition, the phonemes /k/ and /g/ tend to be velarized before the vowels [ā], [u], [o]. (For example, this is how the first /g/ in the word is pronounced wolf- [ġorg "]).

In classical Persian, as in modern Tajik and Dari, two uvular phonemes were distinguished: fricative call / ʁ / (in specific Persian words ah, Arabisms and Turkism) and breakthrough /q/ (only in Arabisms and Turkism). In modern Farsi Iran, these two phonemes coincide in one, which is transliterated as q. It has two voiced allophones: fricative [ʁ] and breakthrough [ɢ]. The breakthrough variant occurs at the beginning of the word.

With the development of Arabic-Persian bilingualism and the expansion of consumption of the Persian language, the vocabulary has expanded a large number Arabisms. According to rough estimates, Arabisms make up 14% of the vocabulary material culture, 24% - in the intellectual sphere, 40% in ordinary literary text. Most Persian Arabisms can be replaced by specific Persian equivalents, which often happens. On the other hand, many daily specific Persian words have "high" Arabic equivalents.

Another major component of the Persian vocabulary is Turkism, which has penetrated primarily into vocabulary associated with the army, everyday life, and cattle breeding. A layer of Indo-Aryan vocabulary is also noticeable.

In modern times, European borrowings actively penetrated Western Farsi, primarily from French and English.

7. Writing

7.1. ABC

All letters in the word are written together, with the exception of 7 monthly letters, they are not connected to the next ones after themselves, therefore they have only two graphic options (isolated and final): aleph (ا), gave (د), hall (ذ), re (ر), ze (ز) same (ژ) and wav (و).

8. Connection with other Indo-European languages

In addition to the cultural similarities of the Indo-European peoples, there is a linguistic kinship, which makes it possible to unite the Indo-European languages ​​into a single family. The common features in vocabulary and grammar are explained by the common origin of these languages ​​from Proto-Indo-European. When comparing ancient linguistic layers, more common features can be observed. Related words can also arise through borrowings.

The table shows several examples demonstrating the relationship of Persian with other Indo-European languages.

9. Borrowings from Persian to Ukrainian

Borrowings from the Persian language are called Iranianisms, although the term Iranianism itself is broader. In total, Iranianisms include borrowings from all Iranian languages, both ancient (Avestic, Old Persian, Scythian) and modern (Persian, Tajik Kurdish).

Not many lexemes came from Persian to Ukrainian. First of all, these are borrowings such as melons, booth, bazaar, which came to Ukrainian through the Turkic languages.

10. Study in Ukraine

In Ukraine, Persian has been taught and researched again since independence. Then, with the participation of a student of academician A. Krymsky, the outstanding orientalist Emelyan Pritsak, the Institute of Oriental Studies was created, which was named after A. Krymsky, with a branch in Simferopol, and a department of oriental studies was opened at Kiev University to train experts in oriental languages. Oriental languages, in addition to Kyiv and Lvov, are now taught in Kharkov, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kramatorsk, Ostrog, Lugansk and Simferopol.

Currently, Persian language courses are taught in the following universities:

Notes

Literature

• Persian-Ukrainian dictionary (compiled by Ph.D. Mazepov O.V., assistant. Bocharnikova A.M.), Kyiv: ed. Kyiv University.
• Practical course in translation from Persian: a guide to practical course from Persian for third-year students / Kyiv National linguistic university; way of life Okhrimenko M. A. - M.: Publishing house. center KNLU, 2010. - 175 p. : Table. - Text parallel to Ukrainian. and pers. languages.
• Peysikov L. S. Tehran dialect - M., 1960.
• Rubinchik Yu.A. Modern Persian language - M., 1960.
• Rubinchik Yu.A. Grammar of the modern Persian literary language - M., 2001.
• Ovchinnikova I.K. Textbook of the Persian language (آموزش زبان فارسی) - M.: Publishing house Philology TRI, 2002. - 3000 copies.
• Romanchenko, Andrey Anatolievich. Aviation terminology of the modern Persian language (characteristics, classification, creation and means of replenishment): Author's abstract. dis. Ph.D. Philol. Sciences: 02.10.13 NAS of Ukraine, Institute of Oriental Studies named after. A. Yu. Krymsky. - M., 2010.
• Bocharnikova, Anna Mikhailovna. Norm and usage of the Persian language in translation lexicology: Author's abstract. dis. Ph.D. Philol. Sciences: 02/10/13 NAS of Ukraine, Institute of Oriental Studies named after. Krymsky. - K., 2009

PERSIAN(Farsi), the native language of the Persians, official language Islamic Republic Iran. Distributed throughout Iran (population more than 65 million people, about half are Persians). Persian, like the closely related Tajik and Dari of Afghanistan, belongs to the southwestern group of Iranian languages. The modern Persian language has been formed over the past 70–80 years on the basis of living Persian dialect speech and classical Persian (the language of classical Persian-Tajik literature of the 9th–15th centuries), on the basis of which three closely related languages ​​have developed - Persian, Tajik and Dari of Afghanistan (divergences began in the 16th–17th centuries). Thus, a huge literary heritage in classical Persian (Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Omar Khayyam, Saadi, Hafiz, Rumi, Jami, etc.) is common to the peoples of Tajikistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

Modern Persian differs from classical Persian, and at all linguistic levels - in phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary. The oral form of the literary language is based on the Tehran dialect. The Persian dialects of Kerman, Isfahan, Novgan (Mashhad), Birjand, Sistan, Sebzevar, etc. are also known. In general, the dialects of the Persian language have been little studied. The history of the Persian language has been recorded for over 2,500 years. It distinguishes three main periods: ancient, represented by the Old Persian language (6–4 centuries BC), middle (Middle Persian language, 3–4 centuries BC – 8–9 centuries AD. ) and new, represented by classical Persian and modern Persian (from the 8th–9th centuries to the present). The Persian language during its historical development has undergone significant changes in phonetic, grammatical and lexical systems, having gone from a language with a developed system of inflectional forms (in Old Persian) to analytical language. There are 6 vowel phonemes – i, e, ä, å, o, u; two diphthongs – , . There are 22 phonemes in the consonantism system. Nouns are characterized by the categories of number and definiteness/indeterminacy. The stress in most words falls on last syllable. There are no categories of case and gender. The verb is characterized by the categories of person, tense, voice, mood. All verbs are conjugated according to a single type of conjugation and according to their structure they are divided into simple and complex. To connect words in a sentence, the isafet construction, prepositions and postposition -ra are used. An izafet construction is a special way of expressing an attributive connection in which its indicator (an unstressed izafet particle; in Persian -e) is attached to the word being defined (not to the definition), e.g.: šahr-e bozorg « big city"(lit. "city that is big"), äsb-e pedär"father's horse" The lexical core consists of native Iranian words, many borrowings from Arabic (up to 50 % all vocabulary), Turkish, French, English and other languages. Persian writing uses Arabic script with the addition of four letters, which was quickly adopted after the conquest of Iran by the Arabs in the 7th century. The first written monuments date back to the first half of the 9th century.

In Tajikistan and surrounding areas of Uzbekistan.

For many centuries, starting from the X-XII centuries, Farsi served as the language of international communication, the language of culture and science in a large area of ​​the east of the Islamic world and had a significant influence on all the languages ​​of the region from Turkey, the Caucasus and Crimea to Central Asia and India. Literary and colloquial Farsi had a noticeable influence on the development of other Iranian, Turkic and Modern Indian languages.

The writing of the Farsi and Dari languages ​​is the Persian alphabet, created on the basis of the Arabic script, supplemented by several signs for sounds not found in Arabic. The Tajik language uses the Cyrillic alphabet (introduced in 1939; acquired its modern form in 1998).

Persian belongs to the southwestern subgroup of the Iranian group of the Indo-European family. Its closest relatives are the Luro-Bakhtiyar dialects, which in all likelihood developed from Early New Persian (VII-VIII centuries), as well as the Tat language, found in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Somewhat more distant relatives of Farsi are the native dialects of Fars, the dialects of Larestan and Bashkardi, like Persian, which originate from the Middle Persian language.

During the classical period of Persian (and [ɒ:], the use of digraphs (which can lead to homography, e.g. sh = š , but the combination of corresponding consonants is found in some Persian words).

The Persian language belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-European family of languages ​​and goes back to the dialects of the ancient Aryans (Indo-Iranians), some of which in the late II - beginning 1st millennium BC e. advanced from Central Asia to the west of the Iranian plateau, where historical region Parsa (Fars) they became known as the Persians.

If ancient Persian monuments are cuneiform rock inscriptions of the Achaemenids of the 6th-6th centuries. BC e. - demonstrate a language with a pronounced inflectional structure of the synthetic type, then its descendant, the Middle Persian language (monuments of the 1st millennium AD) is a language with highly developed analyticism, which has lost the nominal declension and in terms of morphology is significantly close to the modern Persian language.

Thus, the basis of the New Persian language was not the dialects of Fars, as in the case of Old Persian and Middle Persian, but the dialects of Sistan and Khorasan, where local Iranian dialects (primarily the Parthian language) were replaced by Koine Persian in the late Sasanian era. Further to the east, in the territory of Transoxiana (Bactria, Sogdiana, Chach and Fergana) the Persian positions lingua franca greatly intensified with the Islamic conquest, the rapid assimilation of the local eastern Iranian population served as the basis for the emerging Persian-speaking Tajik community. Together with Khorasan, these regions formed a single area, to which the emergence of early literature in New Persian. In particular, the dialect of Bukhara, which became in the 10th century, played a large role in the formation of the New Persian literary language. Samanid capital and center cultural life eastern parts of the Caliphate.

Initially, literature in New Persian was exclusively poetic; the first prose text dates back to 957 - a century after the appearance of the first verses. Gradually, from XI-XII, Persian gradually begins to be used in other areas of cultural life, although during this period it still gives way to the Arabic language.

Since the 12th century. literary Persian significantly expands not only its scope, displacing literary Arabic, but also its geography of distribution. It becomes the common literary language of the population of Greater Iran and the lingua franca throughout the eastern part of the Islamic world, from Anatolia to Northern India. Having begun to function as the official language of the Khorasan dynasty of Iranian origin, the Samanids, Persian did not lose its status as the language of office, fiction and scientific literature in subsequent centuries under rulers of Turkic origin (Ghaznavids, Seljuks, Ottomans, Khorezmshahs, Timurids, Baburids, Safavids, Qajars, Afsharids, etc. ) It was during the period of the X-XIV centuries. created world famous Persian poets from different parts the east of the Muslim world, whose legacy is rightfully included in the classics of world literature: Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Omar Khayyam, Nasir Khosrow, Nizami, Saadi, Rumi, Attar, Hafiz Shirazi, Jami, Dehlavi and many others. The richness of Persian literature, the length of its tradition and the noticeable influence it exerts on neighboring peoples allowed European literary scholars and linguists at a congress in Berlin in 1872 to recognize Farsi as a world classical language on a par with ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit.

Persian has been widely used as a language of international communication and literary language- including in those regions where its speakers have never constituted the majority of the population. In Central Asia, spoken Tajik dialects, supplanted by Turkic languages, became the substrate for the Uzbek and Turkmen languages, and Farsi literature had a direct impact on the formation of the Chagatai literary language. At the other end of the eastern world, the Seljukids and the rulers of the Ottoman Empire, some of whom were famous Persian poets, patronized literary Persian for many centuries, and the influence of Persian on the Ottoman language was very great. In India, the Persian language was patronized by Muslim sultans, starting with the Ghaznavids (10th century) and including the descendants of Tamerlane - the Great Mughals. Indian Koine Urdu developed under significant Persian influence, and this influence is still noticeable in colloquial speech throughout North India.

As an intermediary language, Persian was even more widespread. For example, Farsi was the only oriental language, which Marco Polo knew and used in his travels across China, conquered by the Mongols.

For more than thousand-year history the New Persian language certainly could not remain unchanged, just as regional differences could not help but appear in it. Since the 16th century. previously uniform in language and style throughout Iran, Transcaucasia, Central Asia and India, the literary and written tradition of Farsi begins to demonstrate disintegration into local forms: Western Iranian, Central Asian (“Tajik”) and North Indian. In addition to the accumulated dialect differences, this was largely due to the division of the Persian-speaking space between the Shiite Safavid power (predecessor modern republic Iran), the Shaybanid states in Central Asia and the Mughal Empire in India, to which from the 18th century. states of Afghan-Pashtuns were added, and the weakening of cultural ties between these states.

The vowel system of Classical Persian as a whole continued the vocalism of Middle Persian, which consisted of 8 phonemes and was characterized by a phonological distinction between short (a, i, u) and long (ā, ī, ū, ē, ō) vowels. In addition, two diphthongs developed in New Persian: ai and au. In modern language, opposition in longitude has been replaced by phonological opposition in quality, complemented by opposition in stability - instability in a weak (unstressed) position. In different regional variants, the transformation of classical vocalism occurred differently. In Iranian Farsi, unstable vowels correspond to short vowels of the classical language, stable vowels correspond to long vowels, and ē coincides with ī and ō with ū.

The vowels of Early New Persian in the modern language correspond to the following sounds (in IPA transcription, their common transliteration is given in brackets).

Unstable vowels differ from stable vowels in that they are more subject to reduction in the unstressed position. IN shock position The longitude of unstable ones is practically no different from stable ones. The vowel /ɒ/ is a rounded back sound, perceived by Russian speakers almost as a long /o/.

The transformation of vocalism of the classical language clearly shows the difference between the main forms of the modern New Persian language:

In the Persian language, the following consonant phonemes are distinguished (in IPA symbols):

The phonemes /p/, /t/, /k/ tend to be aspirated, especially before stressed vowels and sonorant consonants, as well as at the end of a word: پول pul"money", توپ tup"ball" . /k/ and /g/ are palatalized at the end of words and before front vowels: گرگ gorg"wolf". Voiced consonants at the end of a word are almost not deafened.

In addition, the phonemes /k/ and /g/ tend to be velarly pronounced before the vowels [ā], [u], [o]. (For example, this is how the first /g/ in the word “wolf” is pronounced - [ġorg"]).

In classical Persian, as in modern Tajik and Dari, two uvular phonemes were distinguished: fricative voiced /ʁ/ (in original words, Arabisms and Turkisms) and stop /q/ (only in Arabisms and Turkisms). In modern Farsi of Iran, these two phonemes coincide in one (transliterated as q). It has two voiced allophones: fricative [ʁ] and stop [ɢ]. The stop variant occurs at the beginning of a word.

The glottal stop /ʔ/ can occur in words borrowed from Arabic.

Stress in the Persian language is two-component - force (dynamic) and tonic. Falls, as a rule, on the last syllable: خانه‌ xân e"house", خانه‌ها xâneh â "Houses". Stress on the first syllable is characteristic of some conjunctions and particles (بلی b a li"yes", اگر a gar“if”, etc.).

In verb forms starting with prefixes mi- And be-, the main emphasis is on the prefix, and the secondary emphasis is on the personal ending: می‌روم miravam"I'm coming."

The main types of syllables are: CV - دو do"two", تو to"You"; CVC - دود dud"smoke", مار mâr"snake"; CVCC - مست mast"drunk", صبر sabr"patience", گفت goft"said"; VCC - آرد ârd"flour", اسب asb"horse" (read: asp); VC - آب âb"water", از az"from, from"; V - او u"she, he."

A word and a morpheme cannot have initial structure CCV-, in borrowed words of this type a vowel prosthesis or epenthesis /e/ or /o/ is usually inserted: استکان estekân(Russian glass), درشکه doroške(Russian droshky). An exception is borrowings with the initial “mute with smooth” (C + l or C + r): C + l or C + r: پلان plan‘plan’, پراژه prože"project".

In words of Iranian origin, the following combinations -CC-/-CC are common outside of morphemic seams:

In Arabic words there can be a wide variety of combinations of consonants and geminates, in some cases in spoken language they are greatly simplified.

The grammatical structure of the Persian language can be characterized as inflectional-analytical with elements of agglutination. The conjugation of a verb is inflectional, where personal endings combine the meanings of person and number, while many aspectual and modal forms of the verb are expressed analytically. Most nominal categories are also expressed analytically; in addition, there are nominal affixes of the agglutinative type.

Names in Persian do not have a gender category, which also applies to personal pronouns of 3 liters. units h. Instead of the category of animate/inanimate, there is a category of person/non-person, in which animals are also included in the composition of non-persons. It is expressed lexically (by correlation with pronouns ke/ki"who" or če/či“what”, “who (about animals)”), and syntactically (peculiarities of agreement with the predicate).

The formal division of names into nouns and adjectives is weakly expressed; non-derivative adjectives do not differ in appearance from nouns; derivatives are characterized by special suffixes. The substantivization of adjectives is widely developed. The definition is always immutable and its role is indicated syntactically. The main way to introduce a definition is izafet design, where the main word in the noun phrase (defined) is marked with an agglutinative unstressed indicator -e(after vowels -ye), to which the definition adjoins in postposition. If there are several definitions, they are “strung” on top of each other also using izafet:

It's practically universal method expressions of both qualitative definition and definition by belonging, therefore the Persian izafet corresponds to the Russian phrase with both an adjective and a genitive. For example, ketâb-e mâdar‘mother’s book’; ketâb-e mâdar-e Âmin"book of Amin's mother"; šâh-e bozorg'great king', šâh-e bozorg-e Iran"Great King of Iran" In preposition to nouns there are limited types of definitions, first of all attributive pronouns. Degrees of comparison can be formed from qualitative adjectives (and adverbs): comparative (affix -tar) and excellent (affix -tarin).

The category of case is completely lost in Persian. Case meanings are expressed analytically and syntactically: by numerous prepositions, postpositions -râ, izafetny construction and position of the word in the sentence. Postposition -râ, marking direct object, also gives it the meaning of definiteness; the indefinite direct object is usually not marked with it.

In the nominal syntagm, all affixes have a strict place. All postfixes except exponent plural, always come after the last definition in the isafet chain:

(Preposition) + Noun + (plural affix) + izafet ( -e) + Definition + (affix comparative degree. -tar) + (article -i) + (postposition -râ):

The name system is supplemented by pronouns. Personal pronouns are characterized by suppletive stems for three persons and two numbers. In the third person singular, demonstrative pronouns are used for non-persons.

Polite pronoun man(“I”) can be replaced by bande (بنده), ânhâ(“they”) - on išan (ایشان).

There are no possessive pronouns. Instead, izafet Indo-Iranian and (past tense - OPV) are used, for example, kon-: card-"do", row- : raft-"go", suz- : suxt-"burn, burn" ruy- : growth-“grow (about plants).” The first of them continues the ancient Iranian finite basis of the present tense, the second - passive participle to * -ta-, therefore, in most verbs it is formed from the first by non-trivial historical alternations both in the final vowel of the root and often in the vowel of the root. In total, there are about thirty types of the ratio ONV ~ OPV.

From the ONV of time the present-future and the present are formed certain times, aorist subjunctive and imperative. From OPV, forms of the past tense are formed, as well as the past participle of -e, actively participating in the formation of analytical species-temporal forms.

Verb forms budan“to be” is used as a verbal connective, the use of which is formalized and almost does not allow omission. In the present-future tense, several variants of the connective are used:

In many contexts, variants of the copula are interchangeable, and the use of one form or another is determined by pragmatic factors. However, only the short form is used as an auxiliary verb in analytical forms.

Early New Persian inherited from Pahlavi the opposition of ONV (present tense) forms and OPV (past tense) forms. They have been supplemented innovative forms perfect formed using participles like karda(“made”) and the verb connective. In addition, Middle Persian verbal aspectual prefixes were generalized:

A special form of the future tense, formed using conjugated forms of the verb, has also become widespread x w āstan and an unchangeable participle equal to OPV: x w āhad kard“will do”, “will do”. At the same time, in general, prefixed and neutral forms were not of a formalized nature and were used quite freely.

Around the 15th century, this system underwent further changes, expressed in increased formalization and an increase in the number of analytical forms. Neutral forms coincided with perfect ones, becoming opposed to long forms on me->mi-.

Present-future tense with a formalized prefix mi- widely covered the designation of the future tense and required the development of a special form to express the action performed at the moment of speech. In Iranian Farsi it was developed by using conjugated forms of the verb dâštan: dâram miravam“I (now) go”, lit. "I have going." The eastern versions of Farsi (Tajik and Dari) have developed their own forms of the Present definite tense, which do not coincide with the forms of Iranian Farsi. In Iran, this form is still considered colloquial and for a long time was not included in the grammar.

Past tenses have become widely used to convey unreal conditions ("if only...").

The modern system of verbal tense and modal forms has the following form:

Passive forms (mainly 3rd person) are formed from transitive verbs using the past participle of -te/-de and a verb inflected by aspectual and tense forms and conjugated by numbers and persons šodan"become": karde mi-šav-ad"is being done" karde šod"has been done" karde šode ast“(already) done”, etc.

The paradigm of basic species-temporal forms, which are also the most common:

Negative forms are formed using a stressed prefix na- (ne- before -mi-), always attached to the first (lexical) part of the verb and before the prefix mi-. For example, nemiravàd"he won't go" nágoft"he didn't say" nákarde bâšám"(if) I (and) did." The exception is compound verbs ( jodấ nákardè ast“he (hasn’t) divided yet”) and passive forms ( gofte nášod"wasn't said") In aorist and imperative mood a negative prefix always replaces the be- prefix: nákon"don't do it" naravàd“let him not walk.”

Subsequently, with the development of Arabic-Persian bilingualism and the perception of Persian public functions Arabisms in the Arabic language are pouring into the vocabulary of the Persian language in a wide stream. According to rough estimates, Arabisms make up 14% in the vocabulary of material culture, 24% in the intellectual sphere, and 40% in ordinary literary text. Most Persian Arabisms could potentially be replaced by native equivalents, and often are. On the other hand, many ordinary native words have "high" Arabic equivalents .shah, as well as etymological dictionary Persian language M. Hasandust (2014).

There are no academic grammars or dictionaries of the Persian language. Persian grammars created in Iran are divided into two directions: a description of the language of classical poets that continues medieval traditions (with examples almost exclusively from them) and a description of the modern language based on European models. In Russia, grammarians of the Persian language (classical and modern) were compiled by Zaleman and Zhukovsky, Bertels, Zhirkov L.I., Yu. A. Rubinchik and others. Of the Western European Persian grammars, one of the most outstanding is considered to be that compiled by the French Iranian scholar Gilbert Lazare. The largest dictionary of the Persian language was compiled by Dehkhoda (in Iran it is still considered standard, although its vocabulary is partially outdated).

An excerpt from the song “متاسفم” (Motasefam), performed by the famous Iranian singer and composer Mohsen Chavoshi. Author - Hossein Safa.

The Persian language (Farsi) is part of the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family. It is widely consumed in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Most linguists consider it to be an evolution of Middle Persian, the official and literary language of the Sassanid Empire. Farsi is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many modern European languages.

During its development, Farsi went through three periods: Old Persian (during the reign of the Achaemenid dynasty, 400-300 BC), Middle Persian (Sassanian era) and modern Persian. The oldest surviving record in Farsi is the Behistun Inscription of King Darius I of the Achaemenid dynasty (522-486 BC), although older texts probably exist. The ancient Persian language differed from modern Farsi in its developed grammatical structure: it had eight cases, three grammatical genders and three numbers (singular, dual and plural).

Modern literary Farsi is represented by three variants: Iranian Persian (Farsi proper), which is spoken in Iran; Afghan Persian (or Dari), common in Afghanistan; and Tajik Persian (also called Tajik language), which is used in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). In addition to these three literary options, the international standard ISO 639-3 also specifies seven regional dialects: Khazarags, Aimak, Bukhara, Jilidi, Dekhvari, Darvazi and Pakhlavani.

Persian morphology is dominated by suffixes, although there are a small number of prefixes. Verbs can express tense and aspect; they agree with the subject in person and number. In Farsi there is no grammatical category of gender, and pronouns do not have a natural gender. Typical structure declarative sentence— (S) (PP) (O) V. This means that a sentence can contain optional subjects, prepositional phrases and objects, which must be followed by a verb. Farsi actively uses word formation using affixes and stems, as well as derivational agglutination.

In modern Persian there are quite a lot of Arabic lexical units, which often differ in meaning and use from their Arabic originals. British linguist John Perry in his article “Areas and semantic fields Arabic language" states that the total number of Arabic synonyms used along with their Persian equivalents in modern Farsi is up to 40%. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a number of borrowings from French penetrated into Farsi, and now, like most other languages ​​of the world, more and more vocabulary of English origin appears in it. And in the Tajik version of Farsi there is a wide layer of borrowings from the Russian language.

Using random foreign language synonyms as alternative expressions instead of native Persian vocabulary - a common practice in everyday communication. For example, instead of the purely Persian “sepasgozar-am” (“thank you”), you can often hear the French “mercy” (though with an emphasis on the first syllable) or the Persian-Arabic “hybrid” - “moteshaker-am”.

Farsi itself also had a fairly strong influence on the lexical composition of other languages, especially Indo-Iranian (Urdu and, to a lesser extent, Hindi) and Turkic (Turkish, Tatar, Turkmen, Azerbaijani and Uzbek). There are many Persian borrowings in the Serbian language, especially in the dialect spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are borrowings from Farsi even in languages ​​such as Malay or Swahili.

Both Iranian and Afghan versions of Farsi use a modified Arabic alphabet, using additional letters. Before the adoption of Islam, Iranians used the Avestan alphabet, and then the Pahlavi script. Vowels in writing are usually omitted, which is why Farsi uses the Arabic system of vowels - harakat. True, it is mainly used in educational texts and in some dictionaries. It should be noted that there are several letters in the Persian alphabet that are used exclusively to write Arabic loanwords, although they are pronounced exactly the same as their Persian counterparts. The Tajik version of Farsi also uses the Russian alphabet.

Persian, or Farsi, is the official language of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It belongs to the Iranian group Indo-European family languages. It is also spoken in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the Pamirs (though the form of the language there is more archaic). Just a hundred years ago, this language was much more widespread - from the Middle East to India. Total number Farsi speakers are quite large: 65 million in Iran, about 7 million in Tajikistan; plus Dari speakers (Farsi dialect): 34 million in Afghanistan and about 2 million in Pakistan.

In addition to Persian, the Iranian group of languages ​​includes many modern living languages: Baluchi, Gilan, Dari, Kurdish, Mazandaran, Ossetian, Pashto, Tajik, Talysh, Tat, etc. The Iranian group also includes dead languages: Avestan, Alan, Bactrian, Old Persian, Median, Parthian, Saka, Scythian, Sogdian, Middle Persian (Pahlavi), Khorezmian.

There are three periods in the history of the Persian language: ancient, middle, modern.

Ancient period(VI-III centuries BC) is represented by the ancient Persian language, which was widespread in the southwestern part of the Iranian plateau (modern Fars province). The ancient Persian language is attested to by wedge-shaped inscriptions of the Achamenid dynasty (VI-IV centuries BC), made on the walls and architectural details of palaces, tombs of kings, rocks, etc. The sacred book of the Zoroastrians, Avesta, was also written in one of the dialects of the ancient Persian language, which was called in honor holy book- Avestan. And the language of the most ancient part of the Avesta (Gatas - hymns) in terms of sound composition and grammatical forms is so close to ancient Indian (Vedic Sanskrit) that both of them can be considered as dialects of one common proto-language of the Aryans. Both Old Persian and Avestan languages ​​have a rich inflectional system with the presence of a pronounced grammatical category of gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), three numbers (singular, dual, plural) and cases (in Old Persian there are seven, in Avestan there are eight).

Middle period(III century BC - 7th century AD) is represented by the Middle Persian language (Pahlavi). It is the written and literary language of Iran during the Sassanian era (224-651 CE). It is based on istakhra, a dialect of the capital of one of the southern provinces of Iran - Fars (Persians), the homeland of the Sassanids. The period of the reign of this dynasty became the heyday of writing in the Middle Persian language. Later, having ceased to be the language of live communication, Middle Persian remained for many centuries as written language, mainly among Zoroastrians. Two categories of monuments in the Middle Persian language have reached us: those written in Pahlavi script and those created using other types of writing. Monuments of the first category include: inscriptions on various buildings, tombstones, rocks, on coins, seals, amulets, vessels, as well as quite extensive Zoroastrian literature of spiritual and secular content. The writing of the Middle Persian language was based on the Aramaic alphabet. The oldest example of book writing is the Christian Pahlavi Psalter (translation from Syriac). The manuscript dates back to approximately the 7th century AD. e. The Psalter was found in Bulayik (north of Turfan). Quite a lot of examples of Zoroastrian literature have come down to us, mainly of religious content: Bundahishn (Universe), which sets out the views of Zoroastrians on the creation of the world, “Datastan and Menoye Khrat” (“Judgments higher intelligence"), "Pandnamak and Zardusht" ("Book of Zoroaster's instructions"), etc. Monuments created using other types of writing include: Manichaean texts written in Manichaean and Sogdian script and Turkic runic writing. Manichaean texts are also of religious content. Pahlavi, in comparison with Old Persian, is characterized by a simplification of morphology, a change in syntax, as well as some phonetic shifts. It is dominated by the features of the analytical system. Due to the collapse of inflection, already in a very early period of its development it loses grammatical categories gender and case, dual number, change significantly verb forms. During the period of the dominance of the Arab Caliphate in Iran (VII-X centuries AD), Arabic became the state language, as well as the language of literature and writing.

New period(modern) began approximately in the 7th-8th centuries AD. e. and continues to this day. By the beginning of the 9th century Central Asia and Khorasan a literary language is formed, called in various literary and historical works Dari language, as well as Parsi (or Farsi), which became common language for Persians and Tajiks. The creation of the first written monuments based on the Arabic alphabet dates back to this period.

Modern Persian and Tajik languages ​​represent a further modification of the Dari language, that is, they are practically two branches of the original single language give. The Iranians, having adopted Islam, began to spread it further across the territory of modern Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Afghanistan and India. This gave rise to calling Persian the second language of Islam. In a large part of this region, classical Persian becomes the common language for Indians, Iranians, Tajiks and other peoples, functioning as the language of literature, science, culture and interethnic communication. Therefore, in the languages ​​of this region, along with Arabic borrowings, there are also many Persian words and expressions.

In the X-XV centuries, a wealth of literature, mainly poetry, was created in Farsi. Among the authors are representatives of the peoples of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia: Rudaki (10th century) in Bukhara, Ferdowsi (10th-11th centuries) in Khorasan, Omar Khayyam (12th century), Jami (15th century) in Herat, Saadi (13th century) and Hafiz (XIV century) in Shiraz, Nizami (XIII century) on Azerbaijani soil, Rumi (XIII century) in Balkh (Khorasan). The great scientist Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna), prominent historians of the Iranian Middle Ages Beyhaki, Gardezi, Rashid ad-Din and others wrote in Farsi.

The conquest of Iran by the Arabs had a significant impact on the Persian language: Arabic script was borrowed, vocabulary enriched himself a huge amount Arabic words. According to experts, more than half of the active lexical composition of the modern Persian language are words of Arabic origin. However, the grammatical structure of the Persian language has shown exceptional stability in relation to the Arabic language and has not undergone almost any changes.