Persian is one of the world's oldest languages, a standard and
well-recognized tongue as early as the 6th century B.C. It is one of the
Iranian languages which form a branch of the Indo-European family. To native
speakers Persian is known as Farsi.
Old Persian was the language of the great Persian Empire which at one time
extended from the Mediterranean to the Indus River in India.
The language was written in Cuneiform, the wedge-shaped characters used
throughout much of the ancient world. In the 2nd century B.C. the Persians
created their own alphabet, known as Pahlavi, which remained in use until the
Islamic conquest of the 7th century. Since that time Persian has been written
in the Arabic script with a number of additional characters to accommodate
special sounds.
Modern Persian is spoken by over 40 million people in Iran and another 5
million in Afghanistan. In Iran it is generally referred to as Farsi, in
Afghanistan as Dari. A variety of Persian called Tajik is spoken in the
Tajikistan, but there it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. English words of
Persian origin include shawl, pajama, taffeta, khaki, kiosk, divan, lilac,
jasmine, julep, jackal, caravan, bazaar, checkmate, dervish, and satrap.
Shams ud-Din Mohammed, or Hafiz, who lived in the 14th century, is
considered Persia's greatest lyric poet.