# Arabic vis-a-vis Persian



## papillon

I have a general question about the perception of Farsi by Arabic speakers. I know that while the two belong to entirely different families, there's been a considerable amount of mutual borrowing over the centuries of living in the same region.

1. So this leads me to the wonder wether an Arabic speaker would generally understand any Farsi, particularly in written form?

2. How much Farsi are people in Arabic countries normally exposed to, particularly in schools?

3. What is the "Arabic-language situation" in Farsi-speaking countries, i.e. Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan?


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Since nobody else seems to be jumping in on this, I'll offer my two cents as a traveler in the Middle East, including Iran.

Regarding your first question, an Arabic speaker would recognize a word here and there in Farsi, since there are a considerable number of Arabic words in Farsi. The Arabic words in Farsi also maintain their Arabic spelling, a fact which would aid the Arabic speaker in recognition. This requires a footnote, however. Arabic, for example, has two letters for "s" - shin and sad. They are pronounced differently in Arabic, but the same in Farsi. Nevertheless, Farsi will retain the Arabic spelling. The only major obvious departure from standard Arabic spelling for Arabic words in Farsi is dropping the ta marbuta and replacing it with a regular ta.

Depsite the considerable number of words in Arabic in Farsi writing, an Arab would probably ony get a rudimentary idea of what is being written, since most of the structural words are native Farsi roots.

Regarding your second question, a certain amount of Farsi is known in those countries that surround Iran, mainly, I think, in Eastern Iraq and in Bahrain, and colloquial Arabic in the Gulf area shows Farsi influence. This is not just because of proximity to Iran, but because of the Shiite communities there. Aside from that a familiarity with Farsi is not widespread.

Regarding your third question, in Iran, at any rate, while some knowledge of Arabic is prized, it is treated rather on a par with the way Latin was treated in the west until recently, i.e., it is a religious language and learned mostly to be able to read the Qur'an and the Najhul Balagha. Most religious leaders can express themselves in Arabic if necessary, but their knowledge tends to be bookish. There is not much familiarity with Arabic colloquial dialects.

These were my general impressions. I may be way off base, and I would be glad to be corrected by native speakers.


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## papillon

Thanks Thomas!

By way of explanation, I got interested in this topic when MarcB posted a song he said was in Khaleeji Arabic featuring some Farsi words using Farsi script. Most people in the forum didn't recognize these words...I thought this was interesting. I knew that Urdu was heavily influenced by Farsi, and was wondering what the situation was in Arabic.

Thank again


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## MarcB

Papillon,
Thomas already did a good job of answering your questions.
I would say that with a few exceptions like ustadh from Farsi many Arabs do not realize when they are using Farsi words, just as not everyone knows the full etymology of any language. In the Gulf the influences of Farsi are stronger than in other areas. Not only in vocabulary such as khosh, not used in non-gulf countries but also the pronunciation of Arabic words with ch,p sounds not found in Arabic. Samak becomes samach, etc. Aside from a few people Farsi is not usually studied. However in Gulf countries there is an Iranian and other Farsi speaking minority and in commerce many people, Arabs and others can communicate in Farsi. The Shia connection as mentioned by Thomas plays a role. Many shrines are in Iraq and Iran. Also in Bahrain the Shia speak differently from Sunnis, who are more recent arrivals from Arabia.
Some Farsi in Arabic here


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## papillon

Thanks for the info and the link, Marc. This is all truly fascinating..

And thanks, since it was one of your posts that peaked my interest in this subject!


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## Lugubert

I had studied Arabic at university level for a couple of semesters, and was two semesters (also recalculated as full time) into Hindi, so I thought that Persian should be easy. It's between Arabic and Hindi, isn't it? Ugh. Disregarding loanwords (a fascinating subject in itself), the three grammars are more different than English from Chinese.

By the way, I prefer "Persian" over "Farsi". For example, Iranian government authorized translators finish their work with sentences like "This text is a translation from the original Persian". You will say that my home language is Swedish; you won't in English say it's svenska.


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## salah

Hello all. I would like to add my 2 cents here. I believe that a lot of farsi or persian words have a very strong arabic influence and not vice versa as some other respected colleages in this forum have mentioned. Being born and raised in Kuwait where we do have a huge Kuwaiti-Perisan population, I would say that the Kuwaity dialect has been minimmaly influenced by the persian language while the Kuwaiti- Farsi have actually developed their own language now that is half arabic half persian!!
Furthermore due to the islamic influence,as many people know arabic is the language of the quaran, many words in Iran are actually Arabic words.


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## MarcB

Salah,
What you are saying is not in conflict with what has already been said. The Arabic influence on Farsi is greater than the reverse.


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## salah

To my dear respected colleage MarcB,
In your previous thread you said that the persian language has a strong influence in the Guf countries and you gave the example of samak= samach. I personally don't think that piece of information is correct. Don't get me wrong I am not trying to demean the Persian culture or persian language and I would say my best friends now are Kuwaiti-Farsi. I am just saying in the Gulf epescially Kuwait that isn't necessarily true. It probably is true in Bahrain and only Bahrain.

Salah


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## konungursvia

It's probably a bit like an American reading Polish. Informatie might be guessed at as information, and a few words here or there might be recognizable, but generally speaking there will be a total lack of understanding of what's really being said.


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## suma

Lugubert said:


> By the way, I prefer "Persian" over "Farsi". For example, Iranian government authorized translators finish their work with sentences like "This text is a translation from the original Persian". You will say that my home language is Swedish; you won't in English say it's svenska.


 
Yeah, I don't know why in English we sometimes adopt forgein words wholesale into the language with undergoing anglization. It's kind of arbitrary the way it's done with some words and not with others.


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## CarlosPerezMartinez

papillon said:


> 1. So this leads me to the wonder wether an Arabic speaker would generally understand any Farsi, particularly in written form?
> 
> 2. How much Farsi are people in Arabic countries normally exposed to, particularly in schools?
> 
> 3. What is the "Arabic-language situation" in Farsi-speaking countries, i.e. Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan?


 
1. I have no idea of Farsi but when I was in Iran I was surprised to recognize a few words written in signs and boards like Markaz, Markazi, Sharikat, Tijarat, etc., with the slight difference of converting the ta marbuta in normal ta.
2. It is true that in Bahrain, for example, some families are originary Iranians and they do speak Farsi at home. I don't know in other Arab countries.
3. No body is talking about the Arabic speaking parts of Iran like Khuzestan (also known before as Arabistan). The problem is that the Iranian government is not happy with the idea of having Arabic as the main language in those areas and started some time ago a policy of "Farsization" of the region.


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## elroy

*Moderator Note:*

The topic of this thread is admittedly broad, yet not so broad as to encompass anything and everything about Persian/Farsi.

Namely, the following topics are decidedly off-topic:

the name of the language
its grammatical features (unless discussed in the context of Arabic-Persian influences)
linguistic differences between Arabic and Farsi/Persian
languages spoken in Iran 
This thread has been significantly modified to exclude most off-topic posts. I would like to call your attention to the topics this thread is meant to address:

degree of mutual intelligibility between Arabic and Farsi/Persian 
the status of each language in areas where the other is dominant
Please stick to these topics; otherwise, the thread runs the risk of being closed.

Thanks for understanding.


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## Hakkar

I apologize if the section in which I posted this thread is misleading.

I have been studying russian for a good deal of time and now I am at the point of choosing a middle eastern language, either Arabic or Persian.

I want to work as an interpreter, so given that I want to work primarily with Russian, I would like to go further and learn  a Middle Eastern language, as I think it would be useful to get ahead.

I have been reading several threads and discussions on the internet regarding which language should be studied, but still, I can't make up my mind, really. What do the arabs suggest? I'm really struggling choosing either of the two, I'd personally go with persian as it sounds less harsh than arabic to my ears, but to a wider extent I would learn arabic for its greater usefulness. How is persian important in the Arabic World?


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## cherine

Hello Hakkar,

If you're asking about the importance of Persian in the Arabic world, then the answer is that it's not used in any Arab country as a native or formal language.

As for choosing which language to study, this is entirely up to you, and no one can help you. More important: it's beyond the scope of the forum to ask for, or give, this kind of advise.

Good luck with whichever you choose 
Cherine


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## Jasmine_Chila

I agree with Cherine. Arabic is more widely used on even a global scale, and Persian isn't a particularly important language in the Arabic World.


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## WadiH

If anything, Persian influence on Arabic was far greater after Islam than before it.


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