abar amāh | About us

What is Pārsīg and what do we want to do with it?

A very brief presentation of Pārsīg and its unique significance for the Iranian Civilization

Of the imaginative literature of Persia (Ērānšahr) in Sasanian times, only a fragment survives in Middle Persian/ Pārsīg, and this has tended to obscure the unique width, variety and richness of that tradition. Some of them, however, survive through Arabic and Persian translations, and a good deal more in Persian recensions and adaptations. Many of the original works were destroyed partly during the Arab-Muslim onslaught – and some subsequent foreign invasions, notably the Mongol onslaught, and partly through Muslim fanaticism in Iran itself, down to recent times. After a lull, a new literature – that of New Persian – emerged, which embodied and continued many of the norms and traditions of Sasanian literature and met the literary needs of people. It is to this literature above all that we must turn for an appreciation of Sasanian literary genres and conventions. Apart from religious (Mazdayanian) literature, the most important genres were poetry, fiction, wisdom literature, history, informative and scientific writing. Much of this wealth of secular literature was destroyed, and part of it was absorbed into the literature of the so-called Muslim Persia, composed in Arabic or Persian; and the relatively few works which survive in Pārsīg represent mainly those religious and scholastic compositions which could be preserved only by an ever-dwindling band of priestly copyists during centuries of harsh poverty and prolonged persecution.

 

amāh handāg | Our project

What is the project of ērmān ī uzvān ī pārsīg & what are its main tasks?

 

The reintroduction & revival of Pārsīg as a spoken language

 

 

The project began with the foundation of the ērmān ī uzvān ī pārsīg (The Society of Friends of the Pārsīg language) in 2010 (1379 A.Y.) as a result of an early attempt to teach Pārsīg to several friends of Iranian descent using a direct and natural approach. Then, in order to make possible a more widely accessible programme for teaching the language, a website was launched, which paved the way for a creative yet solid approach of teaching Pārsīg. After an interval of several years and with the arrival of new people, the project has resurfaced, and this time it hopes to keep its pace more diligently. Its main aim is to rehabilitate and restore, in a vivid manner, the life and thought within the realm of Pārsīg language. Therefore, it seeks not only to revive Pārsīg as a literary and intellectual language but also to enrich and standardise it in all walks of life in order to gradually restore it to its rightful position within the Iranian world, i.e., the main civic and conceptual language of the spiritual heritage of the Iranian world, which can uniquely help it to think and rethink its past, present, and future in a responsible and grounded way.

 

The mission of ērmān ī uzvān ī pārsīg is three-folded:

First, it seeks to rehabilitate Pārsīg as a spoken language in all spheres of life by consciously and very attentively “defrosting” it from the weight of the ages: at home, in schools, in public life, trade, industry, arts, philosophy and sciences, Pārsīg should be potentially capable of expressing any notion and context. Therefore, Ērmān takes upon itself the duty to provide Pārsīg with the required flexibility and necessary instruments to make possible the expression of every aspect of human thought.

Second, it is to safeguard the classical qualities of the language by giving a genuine standard orthography and determining the exact pronunciation of its letters.

Third, it also tries to enlarge the existing classical Corpus of Pārsīg by retranslating (or retro-translating) numerous old translations and/or adaptations of Pārsīg texts that are still extant in languages like Syriac and Arabic. In doing so, we employ the highest professional standards in order to reconstruct the most faithful Pārsīg rendering to the original text.

 

 

 

 

Corpus of old Pārsīg Texts

Of the huge secular and imaginative literature of Persia (Ērānšahr) in Sasanian times, only a small fraction survive in Middle Persian/ Pārsīg, and this has usually tended to obscure its width, variety and richness. Some survives, however, through Arabic and Persian translations, and a good deal more in Persian recensions and adaptations. As we have mentioned above, many of the original works were destroyed during the Arab-Muslim onslaught – and some subsequent foreign invasions, notably the Turk and Mongol onslaughts, and partly through Muslim fanaticism in Iran itself, down to recent times. After a lull, a new literature – that of New Persian – emerged, which embodied and continued many of the norms and traditions of Sasanian literature and met the literary needs of people. It is to this literature above all that we must turn for an appreciation of Sasanian literary genres and conventions. Apart from religious (Mazdayanian) literature, the most important genres were poetry, fiction, wisdom literature, history, informative and scientific writing. Much of this wealth of secular literature was destroyed, and part of it was absorbed into the literature of the so-called Muslim Persia, composed in Arabic or Persian; and the relatively few works which survive in Pārsīg represent mostly those religious and scholastic compositions which could be preserved by an ever-dwindling band of priestly copyists during centuries of harsh poverty and prolonged persecution.

 

Some FAQs

1- Why Pārsīg?

• Pārsīg is to Iranians what classical languages are to the Western civilization. What Iranians and non-Iranians have written about Iranian culture in Arabic or Persian literature derives almost wholly from the works of Pārsīg literature. For a clear, genuine understanding of the history, culture, morals, traditions, ceremonies, manners, folklore of Iran and what else is related to Iran and "ērīh” i.e., “Iranianness", one must thoroughly know and understand Pārsīg. The key to grasp the concept of Iran itself is to learn Pārsīg correctly.

2- Why "living" Pārsīg? Isn’t it an already “dead language”?

• Pārsīg is not, in itself, a "dead language", -as Latin or Ancient Greek can be considered to be- and its differences with its direct descendant, the New Persian language, are so negligible that the two can be considered the same language in two different circumstances; thus we have no real reason to treat it as a dead language in the first place.

• The "Grammar-translation Method" of language teaching which was created for teaching Latin in the 19th century, is an inept teaching method; Researches have demonstrated that for one to truly understand a language, one must be able to "think in that language", a skill the grammar-translation method cannot bestow upon the student.

3- What is our aim by teaching Pārsīg?

• Expanding popular acquaintance with Pārsīg language and literature, where the deep roots of the rich and beautiful Iranian culture lie, helps us with a principal grasp of one of the most important pillars of the Iranian spirit, and by aiding the intellectual growth and self-awareness of Iranians, is comparable to the rebirth of classical antiquity in the medieval renaissances and the great Renaissance of the 15th century in Europe.

• Researching Pārsīg, and its popularisation, (as the lingua franca of the Ērānšahr), simultaneously aids general awareness of the works and literature of other lesser known Iranian languages in all regions of Iran, and helps the growth and survival of these languages and dialects, some of which are at the risk of extinction.

• Mastery of Pārsīg shows the evolutionary course of Iranian values & character, and the authentic unity of Iranian spirit in 2000 years of development to scholars; it gives thinkers & philosophers the principal substances to rethink and rebuild the Iranian order and civility.

 

The website's main sections:

 

 

hamōzišn ī uzvān ī pārsīg | Learning Pārsīg Language

mādayān | Texts

māhrōz | History

dānišn | Sciences

āfrīn ud jašn | Benedictions & Feasts

 

 

kasān | People

 

Apart from Raham Asha and his unique knowledge and generosity, from whom we inherited almost the entire original vision and methodological subtleties required for this project, there are other people who contribute to this project in one way or another. Most of them are young Iranian scholars and students or passionate artists. Due to some concerns, we are unable to reveal the full names of some of them at this moment. We hope to do so in the near future as this project takes shape.

People associated with this project: