# Classical Persian: What does it mean?



## PersoLatin

Does 'classical Persian' define rules/styles for writing, reading or pronunciation of Persian and if so, do we believe those have been lost or now being ignored in NP, otherwise can someone explain what it means and how it affects the modern users of the language?

As a native Persian speaker from Iran, I see Classical Persian as a mere classification for a period of Persian that we natives refer to as 'Persian'. I am not saying the language hasn't changed especially to non natives, but most of those perceived changes remained unchanged in the spoken language which, in my view, are overlooked by linguists, especially by those who look at the language only in text form. Also, all things being equal, in a given period writing styles change much more noticeably than colloquial language styles do, and so I believe colloquial Persian is the vanguard of those aspects of the language, that are perceived as change.

I don't believe native speaker have to refer to rules that are not in the existing Persian grammar books, or in their colloquial language, in order to interpret any Persian text produced after the Arab invasion, within the then greater Persia.

Also the flowery language of Persian poetry does not represent the way people spoke, but most of its vocabulary does, yet it is often used as evidence for existence and, now, the loss of 'Classical Persian'. There aren't any, or not many, texts in the styles average people spoke from any period, let alone 1100 years ago, I wonder what name will be given to  the present period where average people have started writing blogs, text messages etc. in colloquial Persian, which means there will be a lot of this style of text for future linguists to look at, there are now many books in that style for children.


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## Qureshpor

Please see this thread, especially post 34

Persian: classical pronunciation

In 2016 you started a thread on this topic which may also be of use to you.

Persian: Classical

I have started a number of grammar topics under the general topic of Classical Persian. If time permits, you may wish to search for these at your leisure. One such thread is, "Is there a nasal nuun in poetry?"
Persian: Is there a nasal nuun in poetry?


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Please see this thread, especially post 34
> 
> Persian: classical pronunciation
> 
> In 2016 you started a thread on this topic which may also be of use to you.
> 
> Persian: Classical
> 
> I have started a number of grammar topics under the general topic of Classical Persian. If time permits, you may wish to search for these at your leisure. One such thread is, "Is there a nasal nuun in poetry?"
> Persian: Is there a nasal nuun in poetry?


I had another look at these, it looks like the topics covered are still contentious so I don't know if there's any point in carrying on with this. Of course I thought there was a way and that is to categorise the topics and only discuss those but having said that, even that has been tried.

One of the issue is, and as has been mentioned in several posts, all or majority of Iranians are unaware of "nasal nuun", majhul, maloum and other such terminology and for my part, in order to effectively discuss this I have attempted to learn these but I have come across more more terms that I don't understand and find completely alien.

The one thing I agree with is that correct use of zir and zebar in poetry must be adhered to in order to keep the meter, e.g rasidan/kaŝidan instead of residan/keŝidan, but most educated Iranians pronounce these correctly while reciting poetry, despite the fact colloquially and formally, residan/keŝidan is all they hear. On this point, the Esfehâni accent is important as its use of zir takes this topic to another level, where most other regional accents use zebar, Esfehâni uses zir, e.g. for بچه/child is pronounced beĉĉé (bechche) and Esfehân is one of our centres of culture, so why do some people assume it is the Turkish influence, where Esfehân has always been smack bang in the middle of Iran/Persia then and now.

I think it will  be useful to start from beginning and explain how and when exactly Persian arrived in India.


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## farzan

PersoLatin said:


> ... I wonder what name will be given to  the present period where average people have started writing blogs, text messages etc. in colloquial Persian, which means there will be a lot of this style of text ...



Hi, PersoLatin.

I can think of these names: colloquialist, conformist, informalist, conversationalist, broken.

The point of writing as one speaks is, I guess, to allow the reader to “hear” the words, and for the words to have the extra effect of telling the reader something about the speaker, be that person the author, a narrator, or a voice in character.

Still, the usefulness of the “broken” mode is limited, for two reasons: one is, there is no particular need for every text to be “heard”; writing may actually go against its purpose by being too much of a conversation in form.

The other reason is, just like verbosity, brokenness, too, can become too stylized to be expressive of much.

So to the linguist of the future the style will once more have demonstrated the wisdom that lies in choosing the best words along with a fairly plain style to say what one has to say.

Incidentally, one always tends to look for “peaks” in the past, doesn’t one? Just as it always seems a bit superfluous when poets try their hand at composing _ghazals_ even though the khaajey Sheeraaz has already immortalized the genre, so will it seem mildly amusing to the future linguist or enthusiast that the broken style did catch on only after it had had one great peak in the shape of certain verses by A. Shaamloo (Pariaa, Ye Shabe Mahtaab, etc.). Or take Baba Taaher e Oriaan; his verse is hardly part of the canon, having been written in the local dialect, yet it is well liked by all because it probably is the best of its kind.

PS: did you mean to write “the average person”? If not, then “average people” must be a reference to the youth of this country plus the semi-literate. In that sense it is more a deluge than a style, and will need to peak high above social network lingo if it is to bring true joy to the readership. That is not an impossibility.


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## Qureshpor

I don't believe we need to discuss when and how Persian arrived in India to understand what Classical Persian was, even if one of the earliest Persian poets, Sa'd Mas'ud Salman was born in Lahore in 1046. Neither is anyone suggesting modern Persian speakers should be speaking and writing in the manner of, for example, Rumi or Sa'di or indeed even of Hafiz. In terms of prose, there are also numerous authors of the classical period.

I could enumerate features of classical Persian that define and separate it from the language of modern times but I don't feel this would be useful as these have already been provided by others in links already provided.

aaqaa-ye-PersoLatin, if you understand French, you may wish to read,

1) La langue des plus anciens monuments de la prose persane 1963 Professor Gilbert Lazard

2) An historical study of Persian prose works written in twelfth and thirteenth centuries- M. N. Kohan

The former covers a period up to the twelfth century. The latter was originally written in Persian as a PhD thesis and I believe there is an English translation.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> I don't believe we need to discuss when and how Persian arrived in India to understand what Classical Persian was, even if one of the earliest Persian poets, Sa'd Mas'ud Salman was born in Lahore in 1046. Neither is anyone suggesting modern Persian speakers should be speaking and writing in the manner of, for example, Rumi or Sa'di or indeed even of Hafiz. In terms of prose, there are also numerous authors of the classical period.
> 
> I could enumerate features of classical Persian that define and separate it from the language of modern times but I don't feel this would be useful as these have already been provided by others in links already provided.
> 
> aaqaa-ye-PersoLatin, if you understand French, you may wish to read,
> 
> 1) La langue des plus anciens monuments de la prose persane 1963 Professor Gilbert Lazard
> 
> 2) An historical study of Persian prose works written in twelfth and thirteenth centuries- M. N. Kohan
> 
> The former covers a period up to the twelfth century.


 OK thanks.

With reference to the books above & due respect to yourself, I need to be convinced first that, as a Persian speaking Iranian, I/we have lost all that is claimed to be only attributes 'Classical Persian', so I will wait until I am before reading further materials. Also time is very important to me and to all, hence using a shorter route like this forum.


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## PersoLatin

*KEYS: *
CP   - Classical Persian,
ENP - Early New Persian
MNP - Modern New Persian, as spoken in Iran currently

*OBJECTIVE:*  The objective is NOT to prove Iranians who speaks Modern New Persian (MNP) are unaware of a classification called 'Classical Persian' (CP), that we can agree has been established.
The objective must be if the knowledge of those attributes have been been lost at all. If we find some have, we need to find out why, if we can. _Much more importantly, we need to establish if the modern speaker can still read, decipher & understand materials from those early days, without a conscious knowledge of attributes of this classification_. Please also remember that I can only speak as a Persian speaking Iranian.

_I personally believe not only Modern New Persian has all elements of CP within it, that it also has new attributes, as expected, and that some attributes have also become less popular & hence redundant._

*SOME RULES:* In order to make progress I suggest these, some of these go without saying:

1- I am planning to examine every last word that is said in a post, and to respond to it, I will do this by by accepting it (I agree & why), or dismissing it (I don't agree & why), or marking it as irrelevant, and for contentious ones, we collectively agree to put them in a place called Further Discussion Pot (FDP). I am hoping you and others can do the same, no one has to though. So if someone makes an assertion and there's no response to that specific assertion, then that someone can take it that everyone who's read it & who understands the topic, agrees with it, saying nothing is not helpful.

2- Keep one post for discussion of one attribute, label the post e.g. 'Attribute: Classical Persian Verbs', that way several attributes can be discussed simultaneously.

3- Always always provide relevant examples in your post, no general discussions.

4- Please Mark materials irrelevant to a discussion as 'irrelevant/superfluous' in your response or ask for further clarification.

5- If possible, please physically copy relevant posts into this thread, rather than providing links.

By all means add/change the above & let me know if you are in agreement with all of them, if not, I don't mind doing another one of these.


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## PersoLatin

*ATTRIBUTE: CP verbs*



Qureshpor said:


> These and other features indeed did exist in the Classical and Early New Persian and I shall provide you two references in your "Classical Persian" thread. They don't exist in the modern language because I suspect there has been a gradual evolution in the language resulting in the current form of the language.
> 
> I don't believe anyone is suggesting that by not reciting Classical poets' works with today's pronunciation "spoils" their enjoyment. However, the reading and understanding could be faulty. For example...
> 
> گل ھمین پنج روز و شش باشد
> وین گلستان ہمیشه خوش باشد
> سعدی
> 
> Would you read the words as shesh and xosh? If yes, they won't rhyme! One needs to read them as shash and xvash.
> 
> گر آمدنم بخود بدی نامدمی
> ور نیز شدم بمن بدی کی شدمی
> به زان نبدی که اندر این دیرِ خراب
> نه آمدمی نه شدمی نه بدمی
> 
> I would suggest a modern Iranian speaker would be confused with words such as بدی، نامدمی، شدن، شدمی، نبدی، آمدمی، نشدی، نبدمی


گر آمدنم بخود بدی نامدمی
ور نیز شدم بمن بدی کی شدمی
به زان نبدی که اندر این دیرِ خراب
نه آمدمی نه شدمی نه بدمی

I saw this for the first time last night so I did a search and found, to my surprise, it is a رباعی/robâɛi from my own favourite poet خیام/Xayyâm, that might give you an idea about how much time I spent reading even my favourite poet's works. Now to the point, I will not translate this into English but to MNP:
اگر آمدنم به خودم می‌بود/بود نمی‌آمدم <===     گر آمدنم بخود بدی نامدمی
و اگر هم رفتننم به خودم بود/می‌بود کی می‌رفتم/نمیرفتم <===    نیز شدم بمن بدی کی شدمی
به زان نبدی که اندر این دیرِ خراب <= به زان نبدی که اندر این دیرِ خراب
نه می‌آمدم نه می‌رفتم نه می‌بودم/بودم؟  <===     نه آمدمی نه شدمی نه بدمی؟

I consider myself a 'modern Iranian speaker', I hold no degrees in Persian literature, what degree I have is completely unrelated to literature of any language, however I have been exposed to Persian poetry and language, of my own area and other regions in Iran, yet I have deciphered this fairly quickly after 2 readings of it, which isn't bad for a 'modern Iranian speaker'. Of course the question for you may be, he found help somehow, I didn't, I worked it out, almost instinctively.

Most people know شدن means 'to go' as well as 'to become' (identical to the English 'to go': to go red= to become red), we use شدن in the sense of 'to go' in آمد و *شو* or *رفت* و آمد, also at least in two dialects of the Caspian Sea regions بشو means 'go!' and no doubt other conjugations of it.

The point: This seemingly 'only CP feature' is alive in MNP now, so not lost.


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## PersoLatin

*ATTRIBUTE: PRONUNCIATION
*


Qureshpor said:


> I don't believe anyone is suggesting that by not reciting Classical poets' works with today's pronunciation "spoils" their enjoyment. *However, the reading and understanding could be faulty*. For example...
> 
> گل ھمین پنج روز و شش باشد
> وین گلستان ہمیشه خوش باشد
> سعدی
> 
> Would you read the words as shesh and xosh? If yes, they won't rhyme! One needs to read them as shash and xvash.


This is not clear, are you saying that mispronunciation of شش and خوش i.e. _ŝeŝ _and _xoŝ,_ affects the understanding of this line, if so how & why?
Also,  I can't get my head around how _shash _and _xvash _rhyme at all, as I tried repeated but an't make it happen, so please provide more clarification.

Also by the same logic, were خوراک خوب خوار pronounced xvaar, xvab and xavraak with no vowel after x-خ?


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## PersoLatin

*ATTRIBUTE: VERBS*



Qureshpor said:


> گر آمدنم بخود بدی نامدمی
> ور نیز شدم بمن بدی کی شدمی
> به زان نبدی که اندر این دیرِ خراب
> نه آمدمی نه شدمی نه بدمی
> 
> I would suggest a modern Iranian speaker would be confused with words such as بدی، نامدمی، شدن، شدمی، نبدی، آمدمی، نشدی، نبدمی


خیام/Xayyâm as well as producing the above, produced the following:

در کارگه کوزه‌گری رفتم دوش
دیدم دو هزار کوزه گویا و خموش
ناگاه یکی کوزه برآورد خروش
کو کوزه‌گر و کوزه‌خر و کوزه فروش

which in comparison is quite easy, apart from دوش everything else is the same as MNP, albeit in a poetry style. The point is, the style he wrote this one in, is very different to the one above, but:
  Did he write these for different audiences? *No*
  Did his life span spread over two distinct periods such that by the time he wrote کوزه‌گر, the other style wasn't on-trend any longer?* No*
  Was he influenced by different peers who wrote only in one of two styles? *No*
  Did ordinary people ever speak in that style? *Yes*
  Do ordinary people still speak in that style? *Definitely not*
  Can a modern Iranian speaker understand someone if they spoke in the prosaic version of that style? *Yes with small amount of difficulty at first, until their ears tune into it.*

A master painter uses different colours in his palette, here خیام/Xayyâm used different styles.


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## desi4life

There are pronunciation differences between Dari and Iranian Persian, with Dari considered to be more “conservative” and thus resembling Classical Persian to a large degree. Indo-Persian (now extinct for the most part) was the direct source of the Persian words used in Indian languages. Indo-Persian was essentially based on the Dari that was used between the 10th-18th centuries and therefore preserved the features of Classical Persian to a large extent.


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## PersoLatin

*ATTRIBUTE: PRONUNCIATION*


desi4life said:


> There are pronunciation differences between Dari and Iranian Persian, with Dari considered to be more “conservative” and thus resembling Classical Persian to a large degree.


Yes I agree that Dari is more “conservative” as its accent, to a large extent, is unchanged, or at least different, but Dari was a flavour of Persian spoken in that region of the then Persia. There are many living regional accents within Iran now that are equally or even more "conservative", as they have preserved their pronunciations and differences, and some them are close or identical to the Dari accent, unfortunately without much surviving written records. Anyway these many 'lesser' known accents plus what's consider as 'Classical' make up the current accent of the Modern Persian spoken in Iran, so there's no loss, basically if you want to find accents similar to Dari, you can find them in Iran now, if that's of any relevance.


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## Treaty

I think there need to be some clarifications:
1. by MNP do you mean formal/standard/mainstream Persian or an accumulation all Modern Persian accents and dialect?
2. by the word "loss", do you mean loss of the *use* of a feature or the loss of *understanding *it. These are very different (e.g., modern English doesn't use -_eth _for verbs, but I guess many people understand it). 
3. do you think the way we are exposed to a word can define whether it is a native feature of our tongue or not? I mean is your familiarity with CP works originated the same way as your familiarity with MNP did? 


PersoLatin said:


> Also, I can't get my head around how _shash _and _xvash _rhyme at all, as I tried repeated but an't make it happen, so please provide more clarification.


The same way _cash_ and _slash_ rhyme_. _Besides, it can be just _xash. _


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## Qureshpor

@PeroLatin.

I am at a disadvantage in that I have been using my mobile to respond to various posts. Nevertheless, xv is to be taken as a single consonant just like sh. So

xvash = cvc
shash  = cvc

where c is a consonant and v is a vowel. So, you can see there is perfect rhyme. An average Iranian not exposed to this forum and not having had some formal or informal learning in Classical Persisn is going to read this line out of rhyme, i.e shesh and xosh.

You are not an average person in the street because if nothing else you have been and are being exposed to things with which you were not perhaps fully or remotely aware of before participating in this forum. xv consonant and majhuul vowels perhaps could be two components of CP that you are/were unfamiliar with. I say all this with all due respect. My own educational background has nothing to do with language matters and what little I have managed to learn has been through my own endevours.

I am not particularly happy with the premises and guidelines you have suggested. I have not really had time to study them thoroughly and offer a response.


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## PersoLatin

Treaty said:


> by the word "loss", do you mean loss of the *use* of a feature or the loss of *understanding *it.


This 'loss' is the main point of this thread and I am challenging it. What I mean by 'loss' is what I understand Qureshpor and others mean by it, please correct me if I am wrong, so both loss of the *use* and loss of *understanding* some feature of CP*.
*


Treaty said:


> 3. do you think the way we are exposed to a word can define whether it is a native feature of our tongue or not? I mean is your familiarity with CP works originated the same way as your familiarity with MNP did?


I don't understand your intention here, my first impression of is that it is a loaded question.



Treaty said:


> 1. by MNP do you mean formal/standard/mainstream Persian or an accumulation all Modern Persian accents and dialect?


Sorry but the difference between the two options you've given, are not very clear, they seem to be the same thing, by and large.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> You are not an average person in the street, because if nothing else you have been and are being exposed to things with which you were not perhaps fully or remotely aware of before participating in this forum. xv consonant and majhuul vowels perhaps could be two components of CP that you are/were unfamiliar with. I say all this with all due respect.


I didn’t  say an average person in the street but a Modern Persian speaker. Anyway you'll be surprised how much even an average person in the street knows about the 'CP' Verbs features. True I have learnt but believe me a hell of a lot of it was & is re-learning what I already knew, but in more structured way, so consolidating what I knew. I can guarantee any of my peers will get to where I am (as you see me), if they re-learn what they already know in the same way, without ever knowing the label CP. You re-learn what you know when you have to explainthat knowledge in a way others can understand, using a more polished language, if you check my track on this forum, you will see what I mean.



Qureshpor said:


> My own educational background has nothing to do with language matters and what little I have managed to learn has been through my own endevours.


True that I have learnt and hopefully will be learning even more, same as yourself, through my own endeavours, part of which is taking part in this forum. But the whole point is that material I have learnt here, maybe features of CP to yourself, but to me they are features of Persian full stop. If someone reads this post in isolation, they might think to themselves "So what's the problem then, what's in a label?" and they'll be right in thinking so, until they read 'Objective' in post #7.



Qureshpor said:


> I am not particularly happy with the premises and guidelines you have suggested. I have not really had time to study them thoroughly and offer a response


Please do let me know about these.


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## Treaty

PersoLatin said:


> I don't understand your intention here, my first impression of is that it is a loaded question.


My point was whether your knowledge of CP is akin to your knowledge of English as a result of additional exposure and education, or akin to your knowledge of Persian as a result of everyday use of language. Consider your example (below). I don't see any reason an average MoP speaker should easily understand the highlighted words without being exposed to and taught CP. Most importantly, I don't see any reason that a MoP speaker would use these structures or words unless for imitating or reciting CP. This is not because they are jargons of a certain field but that their morphology and structure don't exist in common MoP, in other words, "lost". 
*گر *آمدنم بخود *بدی نامدمی
ور *نیز شدم بمن *بدی *کی *شدمی*
به *زان نبدی *که *اندر *این دیرِ خراب
نه *آمدمی *نه *شدمی *نه *بدمی*


PersoLatin said:


> Sorry but the difference between the two options you've given, are not very clear, they seem to be the same thing, by and large.


Sorry, I meant other NP dialects and accents vs MoP (standard "book" Persian + Tehrani(-ish) accent).


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## PersoLatin

This thread is not going anywhere as people don't read the points I make since they are not answered/addressed specifically, or maybe the points I make are unclear/confusing but then no one has asked for clarifications on those unaddressed points.

Whilst the proponents of CP, on this thread so far, reactively assert that CP features are LOST in Modern Persian, I proactively provide examples to prove that they ARE NOT, let see some solid examples.

*I will try one more time, re: use of 'CP' Verbs and those highlighted conjunctions:*



Treaty said:


> This is not because they are jargons of a certain field but that their morphology and structure don't exist in common MoP, in other words, "lost".


Surely you must have heard *گر, ور ,زان *and* ار *used in modern Persian song lyrics, anthems etc. so LOST: no, USED: yes but not extensively




Treaty said:


> *گر *آمدنم بخود *بدی نامدمی
> ور *نیز شدم بمن *بدی *کی *شدمی*
> به *زان نبدی *که *اندر *این دیرِ خراب
> نه *آمدمی *نه *شدمی *نه *بدمی*



With regards to the verbs you highlighted, these 'CP' feature are mere styles or templates and not a grammatical features of the language, these were adopted by authors/poets, of those times to satisfy their own stylistic/meter/rhyme requirements, these styles have lived through the ages up to the modern times (last 150 years) and still occasionally get used by modern authors/poets, there's plenty of evidence of that, of course the modern author just copies those 'styles' but then so did the so called 'CP' authors/poets.

Persian poetry is full of instances of بود/bovad, بد/bod and بود/bud all variations of the same thing (بودن/budan - to be) and as kids you get to know these, also شد with both meaning 'to go' and 'to become', I mentioned modern examples of شد meaning 'to go' in post #8.
*
نامدمی* is more interesting, to a native speaker, even an illiterate one, %90 of it is comprehensible and that part is *نامدم*, in a majority of regional accents *نامدم *is equivalent of the mainstream Persian *نیامدم* (I didn't come) and majority of not all of Persian speaking population of Iran will understand that it is the simple past, 1st person of verb آمدن-to come/arrive.


The 'difficult' part is the *ی/i* verb endings (نامدم*ی*) but if you completely remove them (please try) you'll find you can still make complete sense of all the lines, albeit in a less accurate tense. These 'CP' features are styles/templates made up of _n +  past stem (âmad) + m + [m]i_ and the rearrangement of  _n + mi + âmad +[a]m_ and here the /i/ ending is actually a mi/می verbal prefix, purely based the context and NOTHING ELSE, i.e. THERE'S NO GRAMMATICAL RULE governing this.

This *ی/i* ending is sometimes simply an embellishment (toes curl when embellishment and Persian poetry are in one sentence), to prove it I refer you to this poetry from عطار/Attâr, please read this and see how many of these *ی/i* verb endings mean mi/می and how many are embellishments and how many are simple second person conjugation and maybe some other verb ending style. You'll also find a mixture of past tense styles in this piece by عطار/Attâr.

Another such template is _mi + na + present stem(yâb) + am_ as in می نیابم/minayâbam which is the rearrangement of نمی یابم meaning 'I don't find', this style doesn't need a context to decipher unlike the former. Obviously نمی یابم didn't fit the meter so می نیابم was invented.

I am sure there are other templates but you get the point.

======================================================
BTW - I started a survey in order to work out the level of knowledge of Modern Persian speakers, with regards to the this LOST knowledge. As a start I spoke to some in Iran & some in the UK, people who I know, and so far 6 have been tested, and apart from one who's lived in the UK for 30 odd years, all the rest had no problems with understanding the above poetry and provided correct analysis of it. At least two of them immediately said their Persian literature  ادبیا ت is not good at all which made them the ideal candidates for this survey.

OK this is not a scientific & extensive survey, not yet anyway, but the results so far prove that I am not far off the mark, that is the average Modern Persian speaker knows quite a bit about their own language.

I am talking to someone in Iran who can help find more candidates. With no facilities and support, the tests have to be conducted on a one-to-one basis therefore can't be published on the internet via social media.


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## Qureshpor

Reply to post 18.

The verbs Treaty has highlighted are NOT "mere styles" adopted by writers to satisfy their own styles just for metre/rhyme but are real grammatical forms of the Classical and Pre-Classical language of poetry and prose!

نامدمے is NOT equivalent to نیامدم

The ی ending in the عطار link you have furnished, to the best of my knowledge and understanding is NOT an "embellishment". Please provide line number and the word in which you believe the ی serves no grammatical purpose and is a mere "embellishment".


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> The ی ending in the عطار link you have furnished, to the best of my knowledge and understanding is NOT an "embellishment". Please provide line number and the word in which you believe the ی serves no grammatical purpose and is a mere "embellishment".


That’s a challenge for you work out, and of course you have to believe in embellishments to spot them, there are sevreral.



Qureshpor said:


> نامدمے is NOT equivalent to نیامدم


Again this is not what I said, and having to keep saying this, is getting tiresome, please read carefully. This is why there’s no point carrying on with this. You don’t even let any of my hard worked thoughts enter your mind, you dismiss them out of hand at the first instance.

*That’s me done with this thread until hopefully there’s input from others with a different outlook.*


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## Treaty

PersoLatin said:


> That’s a challenge for you work out, and of course you have to believe in embellishments to spot them, there are sevreral.


It's not about belief but a proper interpretation of the story. The story has two parts. The first part sets up the situation and *timeless* repeatable facts while the second part recounts a *single *event (the beggar's impulsive confrontation) and its aftermath. This is why *all *33 instances of ی endings (if I have counted correctly) occur in the *first* part of the poem. They mostly (if not solely) pertain to repeatable general facts or structures, occurring frequently or in a span of time. If it was an embellishment we would have expected to find a few in the second part as well.


PersoLatin said:


> This thread is not going anywhere as people don't read the points I make since they are not answered/addressed specifically,


At least I think I totally understand your points, but do you understand mine? My problem is not the points themselves but the logic behind them. I understand your point that many people use and comprehend CP words, but I find this irrelevant. This seems to be because a difference in how "loss" and "use" are defined for us. I think you didn't get my point in #17 (though I admit it was not crystal clear): the use should be genuine not just to imitate a sense. Imitating CP by using words like گر ور or زان in MoP doesn't make them MoP words. Similarly, imitating archaic -_eth _endings in English doesn't make them MoE. If I use a bunch of English words in a Persian sentence to invoke the sense of a _farang-rafte_ person, I'm sure most of my friends will understand both the words and the sense. But it doesn't mean those English words are MoP now.
My second point was that I don't consider MoP a congregation of every accent and dialects spoken by Persid Iranians. Therefore if someone somewhere uses the verb شدن as "to go" (rather than just a noun residue the older verb like in آمدوشد) or the verb است for "to have", it is irrelevant to the discussion.


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## Qureshpor

Hi PersoLatin,

Please allow me to say a few words to present my standpoint that barring scholars, certain features of Classical Persian are lost from the modern Iranian Persian speaker's psyche. I am not suggesting and have not suggested that this should not have happened and the language that they employ falls short of the range offered, especially the tense system of CP.

1) The majhuul vowels e and o are practically lost, not differentiation between a lion and milk(sher/shiir) for example. Examples with o are gosht (meat), bo (smell). Classical Persian poets did not rhyme -e with -ii. However, -o was permitted to rhyme with -uu. 

The ی we have been talking about in another thread was majhuul, e.g بازرگانے بود اندک مایہ۔۔۔۔

Did you know that the ی in the 1st person plural and second person plural was majhuul? How many people would be aware of this in modern Iran? ( e.g aamadem, aamaded)

2) The ی prefix in the habitual/counter factual or irrealis tense forms was majhuul.

ھر روز پیش از صبحدم برخاستے تا بوقت اسفار سبقھا بخواندیمے و در پی او نماز کردیمے و تا بیرون آمدمانے ھزار سوار۔۔۔۔۔از بر در سرای او گرد آمدہ بودے ۔۔۔۔۔چون بدیوان رسیدے سوار دو ھزار شدہ بودے۔

What do you make ofآمدمانے? Would most Iranian Persian speakers make sense of this?

3) Coming to the consonants. و had the sound of w. Did you know there was a ف which used to be written with three dots and called فای عجمی? It was a voiced fricative bilabial ف. Now, I only became aware of this recently. See chapter 3 of "An Historical Study of Persian Prose of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries" - M. N. Kohan.

Consonant ذ was common as muck in Early New Persian and had the same value as the Arabic ذ sound found in the Qur'an and Classical Arabic and MSA. Please see post 45 for a scholarly explanation and elucidation.

Urdu: plural of ustaad

I don't think many people would be aware that in Classical Peesian ذ could not be rhymed with ز. 

4) Finally with regard to the nasal nuun or نُونِ غنّہ. Please do me a big favour and take the trouble to just read posts 11 to 16.

Persian: Is there a nasal nuun in poetry?

You can accept what I have written or reject it. I have listed just a few salient features and have not attempted to cover the topic in detail.


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## Qureshpor

One correction to above. In CP, ذ could not be rhymed with د. I could not edit my post and therefore this new post.


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## Derakhshan

I wanted to bring up the topic of 'floating' enclitics in MP/ENP/CP wherein the pronominal enclitic does not attach to the word it qualifies but to a preceding word.

پس از مدتی کردن آنجا درنگ
در افتاد *غوکیش *ناگه به *چنگ*

'After waiting there for a time,
suddenly a frog fell into its clutches'

گنجور » جامی » هفت اورنگ » خردنامه اسکندری » بخش ۱۲ - حکایت آن خاد که گوش بر افسانه غوک نهاد و نقد را به امید نسیه از دست بداد

Notice the *ش *in غوکیش above is actually qualifying *چنگ *, not غوکی.

Now you may say this is just poetic license, but can we really say this when this was a regular feature of MP prose?

e.g.

_spazgīh ma gōwēd čē-*tān* andar dōšox wināh ī spazgīh *az pēš* dwārēd _

'Do not speak slander (_spazgīh_), for in Hell, the sin of slander runs *in front of you*.'

Here -*tān* qualifies _*pēš*_. Under the NP paradigm you would expect something like _*pēšit**ān.*_

This is a very normal occurrence in MP, and continues into ENP/CP, but I'm not sure that it is still used or easily understood in MNP.

Here's a similar sort of thing in this Hafez line. The verb remains in the third person singular, and the affected person is marked by a detached enclitic (here the *ت* in *اگرت*):

به نیمشب *اگرت آفتاب می‌باید*
ز روی دختر گلچهر رز نقاب انداز

'*If you want/need a sun* at midnight...'

Note that this treatment of verbs (specifically modal verbs), as well as this 'floatiness' of pronominal enclitics, actually still exists in a few dialects! But how easily is this Hafez line understood by a Modern New Persian speaker?


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## PersoLatin

*ATTRIBUTE: MAJHUL/مجهول & MAƐLUM/معلوم VOWELS
*


Qureshpor said:


> 1) The majhuul vowels e and o are practically lost, not differentiation between a lion and milk(sher/shiir) for example. Examples with o are gosht (meat), bo (smell). Classical Persian poets did not rhyme -e with -ii. However, -o was permitted to rhyme with -uu.


Hi Qureshpor,
Before joining this forum I had not heard of معلوم & مجهول vowels, so in order to get me & others on the same footing please answer the following:

1- Briefly explain what معلوم & مجهول vowels mean in relation to Persian, please clarify with one simple example for each, in Perso-Arabic. (not in Latin transliteration of Urdu)
2- I think معلوم & مجهول vowels simply mean 'short' and 'long' (o and i), is that an incorrect assumption?
3- If you can, explain what makes one type 'مجهول' and other 'معلوم', what is unknown and known about these, why not کوتاه & دراز/بلند or xxx & yyy or anything else?

Please copy and paste contents of relevant posts/threads here as well the link, it is important to have everything in one place.


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## Qureshpor

مجہُول when applied to vowels implies those vowels that are "unknown" to the Arabic language whilst معروف or معلوم are those that are known. The مجہُول vowels are one section of Classical Persian that has been lost from the psyche of most modern day Iranian Persian speakers.

e as in "sher" شیر lion, nek نیک (good), pesh پیش (before), mex میخ (nail)

mez میز table, aavextan/aavez/Parvez آویختن/آویز, پرویز; nest نیست, guft-em گفتیم (we said), guft-ed گفتید you said, har janaazah-e ھر جنازہ اے each funeral, sang-e سنگے a stone


ھر روز پیش از صبحدم برخاستے تا بوقت اسفار سبقھا بخواندیمے و در پی او نماز کردیمے و تا بیرون آمدمانے ھزار سوار۔۔۔۔۔از بر در سرای او گرد آمدہ بودے ۔۔۔۔۔چون بدیوان رسیدے سوار دو ھزار شدہ بودے۔

بے دل  be-dil,heartless, be-ruun بیرون outside, ہمیشہ hameshah (always), ہمے، مے hame, me

The underlined words have two majhuul vowels and those indicated by ے have one.

(معروف would be "shiir" شِیر milk, درزِی tailor, guftii [گفتِی you (thou) said], shaahii شاہی royal (شاہے a king)

bo ( بو smell), gor (گور grave), roz (روز day), o او he/she/it, gosht (گوشت meat), post (پوست skin), dosh (دوش last night), gosh (گوش ear)

(معروف would be kuuzah کُوزہ ,  namuunah نمُونہ)

No, I do not believe one can call مجہول vowels short.

کارِ پاکان را قیاس از خود مَگیر
گرچہ باشد در نوشتن شیر، شیر

(رومی)


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## PersoLatin

*ATTRIBUTE: MAJHUL/مجهول & MAƐLUM/معلوم VOWELS*
Many thanks, I appreciate this, I hope you don't mind me asking many questions, all for the purpose of learning and understanding.



Qureshpor said:


> مجہُول when applied to vowels implies those vowels that are "unknown" to the Arabic language whilst معروف or معلوم are those that are known.


That's clear, although I now have this question: You may know this as I am not familiar with intricacies of Arabic, are مجہُول and معلوم still used in Arabic, in this specific context, i.e. when Arabic speakers come across unknown vowels and maybe even letters in other languages? Of course the question applies to 1200-1500 years ago and also now, that is if you know.

Reason I asked: I'd like to know if it was the Persian scholars/scribes who came up with مجہُول & معلوم because these were commonly used for the exact same purpose in Arabic at the time. Again this matters because Pahlavi, the predecessor to Perso-Arabic, had the same vowel shortcomings, so one would assume there would have been a Persian name, or a concept, for this shortcoming that scholars/scribes of the time were familiar with, after all Pahlavi was used for many centuries before then.



Qureshpor said:


> No, I do not believe one can call مجہول vowels short.


Ordinarily I would consider 'labels' and 'names' (majhul = short) as irrelevant but in this context I can't, so what is it about this that I don't understand, isn't the difference between /o/ in _dosh _and /oo/ in _doosh_, simply about the length of each vowel?
This matters because I need to get a feel for the distinction between majhul /e/ and a short /e/, e.g. as you said, in "guft-em گفتیم" /e/ is majhul but what is /e/ in _goft*e*m_ گفتم (I said), which is acommon pronunciation in regional accents in Iran (same goes for o in goft*o*m)


Also a مجہول can be changed to a معلوم (not the reverse), is that right? As I can see that in کردیمے the final /i/ is a مجہول but the first one is NOW a معلوم whereas it is a مجہول in کردیم, based on "_guft-em گفتیم (we said)_"


I have said this before, I have produced software suite (for PC's & an app for smartphones) for 'correct' transliteration of Persian to Latin, based on a standard set letters and vowels. You probably have seen the evidence of it in my posts (e.g. see here, both sets of scripts are produced by the app). The reason I mentioned it, is that in the logic & algorithms I designed, I make a distinction between /i/ in many words, e.g. /*i*/ is used for رفته اید/rafté*i*d (you have gone) and /*ŷ*/ in پایه ای/pâyé*ŷ *(a foundation/footing). This distinction in the sounds was based on my own observation of how I, and other people speak and nothing else, of course I verified this by asking a university lecturer in Iran, who's also confirmed it & said it was based on his experience, so no books, references or written rules. Of course this doesn't prove or disprove anything but the idea of short & long /i/ is something that can be observed in modern Persian in Iran.


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## Derakhshan

PersoLatin said:


> so what is it about this that I don't understand, isn't the difference between /o/ in _dosh _and /oo/ in _doosh_, simply about the length of each vowel?


The majhul _ō_ is not the same as a short _o_ in Iranian Persian. It is the long version of _o_ by definition.

IPA:
/o/ short _o_, like a _zamme_ in Iranian Persian
/oː/ long 'majhul' _ō_

I think the confusion here is stemming from Urdu vs Persian transliteration, generally _*ō* _is used to represent a majhul _o_ in Persian (especially in MP transliteration), but the _o_ used by our friends in this forum for Urdu transliteration is the majhul _ō _(/oː/).

Same goes for _e_ and _ē_.


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## Derakhshan

To illustrate, majhul _ō_ sounds like the vowel in 'boat' but without the w-offglide of English. Majhul _ē_ is like the vowel in 'hate' but without the y-offglide.


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## PersoLatin

Derakhshan said:


> To illustrate, majhul _ō_ sounds like the vowel in 'boat' but without the w-offglide of English. Majhul _ē_ is like the vowel in 'hate' but without the y-offglide.


I see, so in Persian, is majhul /o/ pronounced like /و/ in فردوسی ,دولت or قوم say, in Tehrani accent and majhul /e/ like /ی/ in غیر (qeyr) ?


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## Derakhshan

PersoLatin said:


> I see, so in Persian, is majhul /o/ pronounced like /و/ in فردوسی ,دولت or قوم say, in Tehrani accent and majhul /e/ like /ی/ in غیر (qeyr) ?


As far as I know, those و in دولت, فردوسی etc. in Tehrani accent are a normal short _o, _like in _x*o*d _خود? Unless I'm mistaken.

Listen at 0:41 of this video for majhul _ō_ in _xarg*ō*š:
_





The ی in غیر is a diphthong /ey/, at least that's how I pronounce it.

Listen at 1:00 for the majhul _ē _in _n*ē*st:
_


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## Qureshpor

@PersoLatin, I can send you my voice recording on WhatsApp for the pronunciation of Persian majhuul vowels if you wish.

Tareekh e Zaban e Farsi

See, تاریخِ زبانِ فارسی، پرویز ناتل خانلری page 52 volume 2 where the learned author quotes
اسیبویہ، حمزہ اصفہانی and خواجہ نصیر who describe the existence of these vowels in Persian. These  were Persian scholars, to the best of my knowledge.


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## Derakhshan

The funny thing is, all extant Arabic dialects now have the two majhul vowels, after the monophthongization of /aw/ > /ō/ and /ay/ > /ē/... The only people they are 'majhul' to now are Iranians themselves


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## PersoLatin

Derakhshan said:


> The funny thing is, ... The only people they are 'majhul' to now are Iranians themselves


For Iranians (the great majority) the whole subject is 'majhul' but vowels are maɛlum or they are just vowels , but for Afghan/Tajik(?) Persian speakers and Persian words in Urdu, those vowels are still 'majhul'.

I know what this majhul means now so when I hear it again I might stop thinking about 'finding majhul in algebra'. .


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> @PersoLatin, I can send you my voice recording on WhatsApp for the pronunciation of Persian majhuul vowels if you wish.


If the Afghani pronunciations of the majhuls in those clips Derakhshan sent are the same as Urdu's, then I am fine Quershpor, many thanks. 

Any thoughts on the questions and points in post #27?


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> If the Afghani pronunciations of the majhuls in those clips Derakhshan sent are the same as Urdu's, then I am fine Qureshpor, many thanks.
> 
> Any thoughts on the questions and points in post #27?


Well, I would n't say the clarity of pronunciation of the presenter matches the coherence of Margo (Penelope Keith)'s speech of "The Good Life" fame but if you are satisfied, that's fine. He pronounces ھستید hast-ed as per CP, the -ed part rhyming with English "aid". نیست nest, rhymes with "taste" and the "-em" of گفتیم and میگوئیم rhymes with English "aim". روز rhymes with English "rose" and گوشت rhymes with English "most". In these examples it is the vowel rhyme that I have in mind not the consonants.

Re: # 27

Forget about what Arabic speakers know in 2019. When the Persian scholars were comparing the vowels of the new language (Arabic) they had learnt and compared it with their native language (Persian), they realised that there were at least two vowels -e (as in نیست) and -o (as in روز) which did NOT exist in the Arabic of that time and these vowels were therefore "unknown" or مجھول to the Arabs (Please note the verb ِجَھِلَ jahila means "not to know" as opposed to "عَلِمَ or عَرَفَ "to know"*). I have already provided you with a source with page reference for confirmation and I shall give this once again.

* The vowels that were "known" (معلوم or معروف) to the Arabs were the -ii (as in شیر milk and -uu as in کُو a lane).

Tareekh e Zaban e Farsi

See volume 2 page 52 of this book where the learned Persian authors اسیبویہ، حمزہ اصفہانی and خواجہ نصیر talk about these مجھول vowels in Persian. Please also note, this was NOT a "shortcoming" within Persian. On the contrary, it was a plus point for Persian, if one can describe it as such, that it had these extra vowels.

کردیمے has two majhuul yaa-s (kard-em-e). In today's Iranian speech this would be written and pronounced as کردیمی kardiimii.

In conclusion, the majhuul vowels is one feature of the Classical Persian language that modern Iranians on the whole are oblivious of. Another is the nuun-i-Ghunnah نُونِ غُنّہ which I have already alluded to and provided a link and specific relevant post numbers. Certain tense formations that existed in CP but no longer current in the modern language is yet another feature even educated speakers are unlikely to be familiar with unless they have an interest in reading their CP literature. Here once again they will be reading words like کردیمے and شاھے (a king) with معروف vowels, the latter possibly being confused with شاھی (royal).


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## PersoLatin

I AM AFRAID YOU DO NOT READ WHAT I WRITE.

Here's some proof:
1.


Qureshpor said:


> Well, I would n't say the clarity of pronunciation of the presenter matches the coherence of Margo (Penelope Keith)'s speech of "The Good Life" fame but if you are satisfied, that's fine. He pronounces ھستید hast-ed as per CP, the -ed part rhyming with English "aid". نیست nest, rhymes with "taste" and the "-em" of گفتیم and میگوئیم rhymes with English "aim". روز rhymes with English "rose" and گوشت rhymes with English "most". In these examples it is the vowel rhyme that I have in mind not the consonants.


I really don't understand why you have this tone, don't forget I am one of those who is OBLIVIOUS to these vowels so I can't be a good judge of how they should be pronounced, so I said:


PersoLatin said:


> *If the Afghani pronunciations of the majhuls in those clips Derakhshan sent are the same as Urdu's, then I am fine Quershpor, many thanks.*




2.


Qureshpor said:


> Please also note, this was NOT a "shortcoming" within Persian.


Never said that, note I was talking about the script and not the language, as below:


PersoLatin said:


> *Again this matters because Pahlavi, the predecessor to Perso-Arabic, had the same vowel shortcomings*




I am afraid we seem to have slipped back to the bad ways of not addressing the raised points and repetition of:


Qureshpor said:


> In conclusion, the majhuul vowels is one feature of the Classical Persian language that *modern Iranians on the whole are oblivious of*.


Surely it is better to read & address my questions & to educate me, rather than to repeat the same things over and over again. Believe it or not I now understand the concept of majhul and maɛlum and why they are called that, so no need to repeat, please don't confuse my apparent refusal to accept these, with me not understanding them.




Qureshpor said:


> Forget about what Arabic speakers know in 2019.


Maybe my mind doesn't work like yours, I asked these questions for a reason, fair enough if you don't like my 'weird' questions but it's not fair to tell me to forget them. Also I don't believe everything that's written even if it is by *learned Persian authors*, not until I am convinced they are not repeating the same knowledge from the same sources.




Qureshpor said:


> When the Persian scholars were comparing the vowels of the new language (Arabic) they had learnt and compared it with their native language (Persian), they realised that there were at least two vowels -e (as in نیست) and -o (as in روز) which did NOT exist in the Arabic of that time and these vowels were therefore "unknown" or مجھول to the Arabs ...


What is so hard to understand that Pahlavi has the same shortcomings as Arabic when it comes to these vowels (not a claim, a fact) and that the Persian scholars of the time, who more than likely were experts in Pahlavi too, must have been aware of these shortcomings in Pahlavi which they also  saw in Arabic, therefore it is very likely they had Persian names for these missing vowels in the Pahlavi script. Isn't that how research works.




Qureshpor said:


> (Please note the verb ِجَھِلَ jahila means "not to know" as opposed to "عَلِمَ or عَرَفَ "to know"*)


Do you really believe an average Iranian born to a Muslim family is unaware of this verb and its derivatives? So when I asked why the vowel is called majhul, I wasn't not asking what majhul means, I wanted to know what is majhul/unknown about these vowels (all repeats). And I got the answer thanks to you, so I get straight answers sometimes.


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