Iranians History on This Day

Sep 17






Persian, the second classic and ancient language
This piece of history will be completely edited later In conclusion of their three days conference in Berlin, in the second half of September 1872, linguists and theologians declared Persian as one of the four classic languages and in range with Greek, Latin and Sanskrit languages. In this conference, the Indo-European languages were discussed and studied. This conference put Persian language, from the classic point of view, as second in rank (after Greek). In this respect, the Persian language is one century older than Latin and 12 centuries older than English language. In this conference, the Avesta language was declared as a non colloquial branch of the Persian language and it was said that its origin is from East Khorasan (the northern part of present Afghanistan, Tajikestan and Transoxania), and therefore, most probably, Zarathushtra was born in this area and went to Azarbaijan from there. In definition, a language that is, in the first place, ancient, secondly possessing rich literature, and thirdly has had little changes in the last millennium of its life is called classic. Therefore, judging was on basis of the literature of the language and percentage of its changes in the last 1000 years before judging is done. No language has been immune from changes in the course of time, but the less the changes are, the more classic the language remains and has more solidity ad stability. The language of the Persian speaking Iranians is the same language that Ferdowsi and Hafez have used in their poems; the same words, phrases and grammar. In the Berlin conference linguists and theologians accepted that in the medieval centuries Persian literature had the highest rank among literatures of other nations and in those centuries Iran had raised more poets, writers and thinkers (hakim = philosopher) than other nations and their words will remain pleasant to the ear and full of advice, till eternity. In the conferences in 1922 and 1936 the rank of Persian language (second language) among the ancient and classic languages of Indo-Europe was again confirmed. Translation by Rowshan Lohrasbpour

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