# Persian: Shorawi شوروي



## andrzejewskil

Hello, 

Could anybody pls tell me how to pronounce the word "shorawi"
Is it 'sho' like in 'short', 'ra' like in 'rational' 'wi' like in 'wisdom'?


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## elroy

I do not recognize "shorawi" as an Arabic word.  Where did you see/hear it?  Do you have more context?


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## Ander

elroy said:


> I do not recognize "shorawi" as an Arabic word. Where did you see/hear it? Do you have more context?


 
Shurawi or shuravi is the name the Afghans gave to the Soviet/Russian occupiers of their land over a decade ago. Soviet means council in Russian and corresponds to shura.


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## elroy

Is it Arabic?


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## Ander

It is Persian, but I think the word shura is Arabic in origin.


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## andrzejewskil

Ander said:


> Shurawi or shuravi is the name the Afghans gave to the Soviet/Russian occupiers of their land over a decade ago. Soviet means council in Russian and corresponds to shura.



True. It must be Persian since it comes from Afghanistan. It is indeed what the Afghans call (used to call?) the Russians, at least in the book 'The Kite Runner'. There it was spelled as _shorawi_. I cannot speak a word of any of Arabic languages so don't have a clue how to pronounce it. I am living in Russia now and would like to know the pronunciation of the word for the variety of terms I could mentally call Russes. 
Thanx


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## Mahaodeh

Personally, I've never heard it before.  Shura in Arabic means "the act of consulting" or "the act of asking for advice/seeking advice"; it's pronounced shu as in _shoe_ and ra as in _ra_ft_._  I would imagine that the last part is pronounced like French for _yes_.

But I still think it's best to ask Persian speakers, maybe the word has a different etymology and/or maybe in Afghani it's pronounced differently (hence written with an o rather than a u).


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## Ander

Mahaodeh said:


> Personally, I've never heard it before. Shura in Arabic means "the act of consulting" or "the act of asking for advice/seeking advice"; it's pronounced shu as in _shoe_ and ra as in _ra_ft_._ I would imagine that the last part is pronounced like French for _yes_.
> 
> But I still think it's best to ask Persian speakers, maybe the word has a different etymology and/or maybe in Afghani it's pronounced differently (hence written with an o rather than a u).


 
I agree that "u" may be pronounced as "o" and "w" as "v". The etymology of shoravi is evident.


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## Abbassupreme

Ander said:


> I agree that "u" may be pronounced as "o" and "w" as "v". The etymology of shoravi is evident.


However, I believe that Dari-speakers differ from Farsi-speakers in that they pronounce the Persian "vâv" just like the Arabs do: as "waw".  Hence it may be something like "shurawi" in Afghanistan and maybe even Tajikistan instead of Iran's "showravi". This is just from what I've surmised, though.  I agree in that the "ra" is probably pronounced like in "raft", the "shu" like in "shoe", and "wi" like "we".

I believe that the word may have been derived from the Arabic word for "council".


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## Alijsh

We use/d this word for "Soviet Union" (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик). It's pronounced *show.ra.vi* (show: more or less like English show, ra as in rat). In Afghanistani Persian, they must pronounce it as *Shaw.ra.wi* (shaw -> shower). Arabic has such a word and it means consultative but as far as I know, they don't use this word for the Soviet but *الاتحاد السوفييتي* and therefore, it's a Persian thing.


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## Mahaodeh

In Arabic Shura is used, obviously pronounced slightly different than the way you pronounce it.  The construction is "valid" in Arabic in terms of "sarf" (the way the words are derived, don't know what it's called in English), however you will not find it in any dictionary because up to date it does not have a real meaning in Arabic.


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## Alijsh

Thanks Mahaodeh. Yes, it's valid. You know, there are some words in Persian being built according to Arabic morphology (sarf) either with native Persian words or Arabic borrowings that don't exist  in Arabic. Of course, this phenomenon belongs to the past. It seems that *show.ra.vi* is another one. Thanks.


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## panjabigator

Could you write the words Shura and Shorawi in the Arabic script?


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## cherine

shura شورى
shurawi شوروي This one looks odd to me, maybe because I've never seen it before  Actually, I first wrote it شوراوي but then doubted about it, so I decided to follow a similar pattern (musa موسى = Moses) we have موسى-موسوي so I guess the write derivation from شورى is شوروي .


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## Alijsh

Yes. It's right شوروی . We right showrâ this way: شورا. (_aw has become __ow in today Iranian Persian so the classic pronunciation is shawrâ i.e. similar to Arabic_). It must not be the reason why we write شورا but شورى can be read shuri which means saltiness


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## Anatoli

*Soviet:*

*Persian*: شوروی (šūravī)
*Tajik*: шӯравӣ (šūravī)

*Soviet Union:*

*Persian*: اتحاد شوروی (ittehad šūravī)
*Tajik*: Иттиҳоди Шӯравӣ (Ittihodi Šūravī)

The original شورى (shuura) is used in both Arabic and Persian.


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