PERSIAN

Persian language, also called Fārsī ,  is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It is a member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian language family. It is the official language of Iran, and two varieties of Persian known as Dari and Tajik are official languages in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, respectively. Modern Persian is most closely related to Middle and Old Persian, former languages of the region of Fārs (Persia) in southwestern Iran. It is thus called Fārsī by native speakers. Written in Arabic characters, Modern Persian also has many Arabic loanwords and an extensive literature.

Historically, the areas where the language is spoken range from the Middle East to India, but today, Persian is understood in parts of Armenia, Azerbaijan, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey. There are large groups of Persians who migrated to the USA and Europe, and Los Angeles is often referred to as ‘Tehrangeles’

History

Persian has changed less in the last thousand years than English; a knowledge of the modern language, quite aside from giving the language learner access to Dari and to Tajik, provides an entry into a rich literary culture that boasts many illustrious names such as Ferdowsi, Sa’adi and Omar Khayyam.

Proto-Iranian(ca. 1500 BC) Southwestern Iranian languages

Old Persian(c. 525 BC - 300 BC) Old Persian cuneiform script

Middle Persian(c.300 BC-800 AD) Pahlavi script• Manichaean script• Avestan script

Modern Persian (from 800 AD) Perso-Arabic script

Varieties

• Western Persian(Persian, Iranian Persian, or Farsi) is spoken in Iran, and by minorities in Iraqand the Persian Gulfstates.
• Eastern Persian(Dari Persian, Afghan Persian, or Dari) is spoken in Afghanistan.
• Tajiki(Tajik Persian) is spoken in Tajikistanand Uzbekistan. It is written in the Cyrillic script.
• Languages related to persain:
  • Luri(or Lori), spoken mainly in the southwestern Iranian provinces of Lorestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, some western parts of Fars Provinceand some parts of Khuzestan.
  • Tat, spoken in parts of Azerbaijan, Russia, etc. It includes Judæo-Tat& Christian-Tat.
  • Lari(in southern Iran)

Regulatory body

Academy of Persian Language and Literature(Iran),Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan

Number of speakers

It has about 170 million speakers in the world. Both comprising of Native speakers and Non native speakers. Total numbers of speakers is high: about 55% of Iran's population are Persian speakers; about 65% of Tajikistan's population are Tajik-Persian speakers: over 25% of the Afghanistan's population are Dari-Persian speakers; and about 1% of the population of Pakistan are Dari-Persian speakers as well.

Persian Language on websites

Persian language on websites ranks on 15^th on its content available on net and it is 0.7% in terms of percentage.

References

http://www.soas.ac.uk/languagecentre/languages/persian/

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/452817/Persian-language