# Persian: Kian كيان



## CyrusSH

What do you think about the English meaning of this word? For example when we say "we should defend our Kian", or "Kiani crown"?


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## colognial

What are your own thoughts on this, Cyrus? 

For my part, I know not what the word signifies exactly, though something tells me the meaning has to do with borders, territory, or territorial in the case of the adjective. 

Is "kiani crown" an English or Persian construct, by the way?


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## CyrusSH

I myself think Kian can be considered as an Iranian national pride, for a long time a royal crown was considered as a symbol of Kian (it was called "Taj-e Kiani" which means "Kiani crown") but there were also "Farr-e Kiani" (Kiani splendour), "Toxm-e Kiani" (Kiani race), ..


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## PersoLatin

I believe the equivalent word for kiân is English is Royal. Kian relates to ki or key (کیخسرو) in Persian & means King.


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## CyrusSH

PersoLatin said:


> I believe the equivalent word for kiân is English is Royal. Kian relates to ki or key (کیخسرو) in Persian & means King.



Kian certainly relates to meaning of King but I don't think it means Royal.

For example let's look at news: http://www.yjc.ir/fa/news/5353948/آ...لت-اصلی-روحانیان-دفاع-از-کیان-نظام-اسلامی-است Ayatollah Khatami: Main mission of clerics is to defend Kian of Islamic regime. What "kian" means here?


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## Khaanabadosh

Interesting. There are many people in present day Pakistan who carry Kiani (or Kayani) as a surname.


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## CyrusSH

I believe Kian means "king, kin, kind" from Proto-IE *gene- "to generate", with meanings of "king, family, race/generation, ...", it is actually just something which keeps our unity and integration.


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## CyrusSH

So ...

"We should defend our Kian" = "We should defend something which keeps our unity and integration."

"Kiani crown" = "A crown which keeps our unity and integration."

"Kian" = "A king who keeps our unity and integration."

"Main mission of clerics is to defend Kian of Islamic regime" = "Main mission of clerics is to defend something which keeps the unity and integration of Islamic regime."


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## Treaty

Kīānī is the modern pronunciation of Kayānī (via Keyānī), from _kay+ān+ī _(of Kays). Kay itself comes from Avestan _kauuī_ (akin Sanskrit _kavī_) which originally meant "poet-priest" but was likely promoted to a kind of authority in Gathic time.

The implication as "unifier" seems unrelated, from the Semitic root _k-w-n_ or _k-y-n _(to exist) connoting "essence", related to these entries 1 and 2  in Loghatnameh, and better explained in this dictionary. کیان also means a (masted?) tent but It's unlikely to have contributed to this usage. Also, there is _gyān _(in Mid Persian) meaning soul, but this is much unlikelier as it is pronounced as جان in New Persian.

For the translation to English (the crown or dynasty) I prefer using Kayanid or Kayanian (following the Wikipedia and Iranica's entries) both because it is pronounced like this by other Persian speakers and it is closer to the original pronunciation (esp. at the time of developing their dynastic legend). I personally think that the crown was a symbol of legitimacy of top-down power structure (or the king's possession of _farr_) not today's concept of "unity" as the common identity of people.


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## colognial

I'm just summarizing what I've picked up reading the posts.

It seems there are two words in today's Persian, one of which is Arabic and means "the very being", more or less. The phrase "حفظ کیان نظام" means "preserving the very being of the ruling regime".

The other meaning is related to "کی", originally a Persian word: kingly/queenly, regal, royal.


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## Treaty

On the second thought, I feel کیان should be more concrete than "essence" because it also has some kind of "structure" meaning in it (Arabic کیان is of form III فعال or مفاعله, so it should convey to a "together" concept). I like "constitution" but it will be misleading when used with "regime". I think "establishment" is also a good word but also dubious when used with "regime".

As Cyrus said, there is a kind of pride in کیان (with whatever meaning). So, we need a word of pride, maybe "majestic" would be a better word but still lacks the historical feeling a Persian speaker will have hearing کیان. If there was a proper-turned-to-generic name (like "herculean") that had both greatness and historical feeling, it would have been perfect. There is "olympian" but again misleading. Maybe, we can use a normal but emphasised word: e.g. تاج کیانی = the crown of Ancients or the crown _royale_.


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## PersoLatin

Kiân in its Persian sense of 'royal', has been around, at least since the Medes & Persian empires. Once its usefulness became known to the ruling elite, they most probably started using it as a rallying call, whenever they needed help from the masses. You can imagine kiân being associated with *the defence of the realm, our identity, flag, race, our very being & way of life*. Not too dissimilar with way the term 'The American way of life', is used these days.


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## CyrusSH

I won't wonder if our Ayatollahs use rarely used Arabic words in Persian but I think they also refer to holy meaning of this word in Persian, something which has been passed generation to generation and reached us and we couldn't be a united people without it, this meaning of "union" is very different.

Arabs who conquered Iran, probably just wanted their own meaning of "union", not what we read here:

زشیر شتر خوردن و سوسمار
عرب را به جایی رسیده ست کار
که فر کیانی کند آرزو
تفو بر تو ای چرخ گردون تفو

?!!


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## colognial

Well, I have to admit I'm a bit lost here. Nuances such as "union", "majestic", "herculean" sound to me more like 'desired' or 'desirable' connotations rather than true ones. Nowadays the word 'kiaan' is mainly used to connote the sovereign power of a nation over its territory. In its older sense, the one meant by the poet Ferdaussi, for instance, the word just means 'related to, of, kings', so that "far-re kiaani" in the lines quoted from the Shaahnaame by Cyrus just talk of 'sovereign power', power bestowed by the Almighty on the true king. The two meanings merge into one, rather, which must be coincidental. I know of no other 'feeling' one gets when one hears the word. There may be better examples out there to suggest anything more, but those remain to be cited yet.


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## CyrusSH

PersoLatin said:


> Kiân in its Persian sense of 'royal', has been around, at least since the Medes & Persian empires. Once its usefulness became known to the ruling elite, they most probably started using it as a rallying call, whenever they needed help from the masses. You can imagine kiân being associated with *the defence of the realm, our identity, flag, race, our very being & way of life*. Not too dissimilar with way the term 'The American way of life', is used these days.



The reason could be that "Kian" and "Shah" which have the same meanings in Persian, have actually different origins, the first one, like the English word "king", gets power from the people but the second one has power over the people, so when a king wants to order, he says "I'm your shah" (not your kian), but when an enemy attacks, people say "we should defend our kian" (not our shah).


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## colognial

CyrusSH said:


> The reason could be that "Kian" and "Shah" which have the same meanings in Persian, have actually different origins, the first one, like the English word "king", gets power from the people but the second one has power over the people, so when a king wants to order, he says "I'm your shah" (not your kian), but when an enemy attacks, people say "we should defend our kian" (not our shah).



Is this reason taken from existing texts, CyrusSH, or are you supposing that the authority of the SHAH is traditionally given to the ruler by the people through a democratic process, while this very same authority has already been established/sanctioned by the ruler who's now to be known as KIAN, some council of elders or the relevant deity?


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## CyrusSH

colognial said:


> Is this reason taken from existing texts, CyrusSH, or are you supposing that the authority of the SHAH is traditionally given to the ruler by the people through a democratic process, while this very same authority has already been established/sanctioned by the ruler who's now to be known as KIAN, some council of elders or the relevant deity?



No, this is just what I think about these words, of course I meant vice versa.


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## Treaty

CyrusSH said:


> The reason could be that "Kian" and "Shah" which have the same meanings in Persian, have actually different origins, the first one, like the English word "king", gets power from the people but the second one has power over the people, so when a king wants to order, he says "I'm your shah" (not your kian), but when an enemy attacks, people say "we should defend our kian" (not our shah).



Shah and Kian don't have the same meaning at all. Of course the political position of a shah implies both notions of kian. A shah (or Fuhrer, khalifa, etc.) is the symbolic and (in many cases) practical unifier of political system. In this case, the shah is the personification of the Arabic "kian" (the unifying essence). On the other hand, in the Iranian culture, shah gets his legitimacy not from people but from god(s) through _farr_. As you know, the legendary Kayanid dynasty were the first to receive this _farr_ for ruling over Iranians, by being true descendants of Iraj. That's why ruling over Iran is associated with the Kayanid _farr_ or throne. Accordingly a shah needs to possess (and show off) this _farr_ in order to justify his legitimacy.

As for your last sentence, they actually might have said "we should defend our shah". I wonder how old is the usage of kian in socio-political jargon (it is definitely old in philosophy). Maybe it is not as old as the last time an Iranian king had asked his people to fight. I'd like to see examples of such usage before Pahlavi dynasty.



PersoLatin said:


> Kiân in its Persian sense of 'royal', has been around, at least since the Medes & Persian empires.


We shouldn't anticipate the evidence (that, in case, is almost nought). There is no mention of _kian_ before middle Persian (Sassanid times) except in Avesta where it is a neutral term for any poet-priest, evil or good, of some political power. What we consider as a dynasty of kings is apparently a later legend. It is possible to think the whole dynastic legend was to fabricate a history of lineage (for Sassanids to prove their possession of _farr_?).


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## CyrusSH

What do you think about the meaning of "Kian" in this poem of Khaqani: https://fa.wikisource.org/wiki/خاقانی_(قصاید)/ای_در_عجم_سلاله‌ی_اصل_کیان_شده

ای در عجم سلاله‌ی اصل کیان شده
وی در عرب زبیده‌ی اهل زمان شده


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## Treaty

CyrusSH said:


> What do you think about the meaning of "Kian" in this poem of Khaqani: https://fa.wikisource.org/wiki/خاقانی_(قصاید)/ای_در_عجم_سلاله‌ی_اصل_کیان_شده
> 
> ای در عجم سلاله‌ی اصل کیان شده
> وی در عرب زبیده‌ی اهل زمان شده



Oh, you who have become [like] the true descendant of Kayanids, among Persians / 
And, you who have become Zubaidah* of the time, among Arabs.

*Zubaidah bint Ja'far, was Harun's wife. She became legendary for both her influence in Abbassid court and her pious and charitable deeds.


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## CyrusSH

Thanks, so Kian can mean "noble" in Persian too.

An what about this one:

هرگز کس از کیان ره کعبه نرفته بود
تو رفته راه کعبه و فخر کیان شده


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## Treaty

CyrusSH said:


> Thanks, so Kian can mean "noble" in Persian too.



Did I imply such a thing in my post? I meant the Kayanid dynasty, literally.

But anyway, it is true. However, we should be careful that "meaning" has two aspects. The first aspect is the literal similarity. The second aspect is a metaphorical correspondence. The use of _kian _for nobility (as a collective group) is of the second aspect not the first one. In other words, we can't use _kay _freely and directly to refer to kings or nobility. For example, a contemporary king was unlikely to be called "_kay_" literally, or a concrete group of nobility were not usually called "_kian_" when being described neutrally (not as appraisal مدح).



CyrusSH said:


> هرگز کس از کیان ره کعبه نرفته بود
> تو رفته راه کعبه و فخر کیان شده



It is difficult to accurately tell the intention of the poet. He might have implied "highest-rank nobles"_. _However, considering he mentioned the name of ancient kings shortly after each mention of _kian _(though none were a _Kay_), it is also possible that the poet literally meant the Kayanid dynasty. This uncertainty also holds for the other times the poet had used کیان in this poem.

P.S. Persian and Arab scholars believed that "_kay_" had literally meant "king" in older times and reflected this in their lexicons and dictionaries. However, this doesn't necessarily mean they (medieval Persians) used this word literally in this way.


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## CyrusSH

Could "Kian" in Medieval texts be the same as the word Aryan (آریایی) that we use today?


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## Treaty

آریایی used in a number of contexts today by Persians: 

- as a racial term for the Indo-European people. This is 19th century invention, as an alternative to the Japhethic genealogy of classic texts; 
- as an ethnonym that is similar to the word "Iranian" or "Persian" (or Iraj's descendants) in classic texts.
- as the culture of upper-class ancient (Indo-)Iranians. In this case, both فرهنگ آریایی and رسم کیان refer to appropriate Iranian etiquette (though often abstractly). Nonetheless, Kian were also exemplary Aryans. However, the answer to whether it is "the same as the _word_ Aryan" would be "no", though it has a similar implication when used with terms related to culture. You can compare them to امامان and اسلامی. They are not the same, but would imply the same concept in certain contexts.


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## urdustan

Treaty said:


> آریایی used in a number of contexts today by Persians:



If it's not too much trouble, could you transliterate the pronunciation of آریایی in modern Persian? Thanks!


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## fdb

Treaty said:


> آریایی
> - as an ethnonym that is similar to the word "Iranian" or "Persian" (or Iraj's descendants) in classic texts.
> .




āryāī is a modern loan from English. You will not find it in any mediaeval text. The Iranian word is Old Persian ariya-, Avestan airiia-, Middle Persian ēr.


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## PersoLatin

fdb said:


> āryāī is a modern loan from English. .............. The Iranian word is Old Persian ariya-, Avestan airiia-, Middle Persian ēr.



Hi fdb - Can you clarify this please?  I think I am reading too much into your statement, I'm sure you'll put that right.

Are you saying āryāī is a recent loan word 'despite' the presence of Old Persian ariya, Avestan airiia & Middle Persian ēr, and that as a concept, it is different to the Iranian flavour & modern Iranians are confusing the two?


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## fdb

PersoLatin said:


> Hi fdb - Can you clarify this please?  I think I am reading too much into your statement, I'm sure you'll put that right.
> 
> Are you saying āryāī is a recent loan word 'despite' the presence of Old Persian ariya, Avestan airiia & Middle Persian ēr, and that as a concept, it is different to the Iranian flavour & modern Iranians are confusing the two?



Of course, ariya-, ēr (plural ērān), ērānšahr, īrān are all genuine words in Old, Middle and New Persian, related ultimately to Sanskrit ārya-. The English word “Aryan”, German “arisch”, French “aryen” are modern coinages, based on Sanskrit ārya-. Persian āryāī (also āryānī) is a modern (20th century) borrowing from English or French. From an Iranian linguistic point of view the vowel quantities (twice long ā) are all wrong. I would call it “pseudo-Sanskrit”. I am sure you are aware of the use made of this term by the ideologues of the defunct monarchy.


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## PersoLatin

Agreed.



fdb said:


> From an Iranian linguistic point of view the vowel quantities (twice long ā) are all wrong



A small point here, I don't understand why the use of ā', in āryāī, makes a linguistic difference?
In Iran, the default pronunciation of letter 'a' seems to be ā, maybe because of influence of French speaking scholars of the past 100 years. So the Old Persian ariya, is very easily misread as āriyā, add the associative suffix i, you get āriyāi or āryāi.


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## mundiya

^ It's not simply a mispronunciation but also a different spelling. The word is spelled with "ā" in Persian not "a", which supports fdb's assessment that it's a loan from English or French.


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## PersoLatin

I demonstrated a *possibility*, i.e. that 'a' may have been changed to 'ā' because of the reasons a gave:


PersoLatin said:


> In Iran, the default pronunciation of letter 'a' seems to be ā, maybe because of influence of.............................



And because of that *possibility, *I can't see how the spelling (āryāī) alone, makes it a loan word. 

Any of the following: English “Aryan”, French “aryen”, Old Persian "ariya" and Avestan "airiia" could have been used to produce āryāī. After all, modern Persians wouldn't have looked for the original Pahlavi or Avesta, for these words, they simply used one of these convenient latinized versions.

I believe Aryan as a concept, in its European sense, was imported (a loan concept, if you like), this then awakened a similar sense within Iran after the linguistic link was established (this being another import). Then there was no stopping some people, they literally, 'went to town' with it. And, yes they spelled it as āryāī or *آریا یی*. 

As an interesting aside, there's a word for 'Aryan' in Avesta 'airiiana' (8 letters) - modern versions may be: Iriana - *ایرینه*


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## mundiya

^ By the way, isn't the modern Farsi pronunciation of "a" realized as "æ" rather than "ā" in non-final positions, and as "e" in final positions? For example, in the word _afsāna._


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## colognial

mundiya said:


> ^ By the way, isn't the modern Farsi pronunciation of "a" realized as "æ" rather than "ā" in non-final positions, and as "e" in final positions? For example, in the word _afsāna._


mundiya, hi. I'm terrible at learning and using phonetics. But I could demonstrate to you how the final 'e' in 'afsaane' should sound like: it's a short 'e', the same as the sound of 'e' in the English word 'bed'. Is this what you mean by "ae" (joined up)?


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## mundiya

No, "æ" would be the "a" in English "after".


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## PersoLatin

Yes that's true, although, for the final e, I like to use é, as it's understood by wider audience, so _afsāné_

I just put in a possible rendition of airiiana in Latin and Arabised Persian, as it might have been pronounced, in ancient times.


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