Comments and Views on 'Persian or Fársi?'

[editor's comment: the letter is published as it is, without any probable editing; however, some spelling corrections have been made. Some of editor's comments are shown within two square brackets.]

Dear Mr. Moslehi,

I read your article "Persian or Farsi" on persiandirect.com web site. I totally agree with you and do believe our language should be called PERSIAN in English.

I'd like to add one more thing. In my opinion Westerner authorities love to replace the word Farsi with Persian in their citizen minds. The word Persian in most westerners' mind has a possessive connotation. It reminds them of the old good land of Persia, the beautiful Persian cat, the splendid Persian rugs, the glory of 1001 Nights, an old ancient country, etc... while Farsi, since it was introduced to westerners after 1979, may either carry no emotion or sometimes it reminds them of an Islamic fundamentalist Iran of post-1979 and the associated (false or true) images of USA's Iran (the one that the US government want to illustrate before its citizen eyes).

The least thing we can do about it is to keep referring to our language as Persian instead of Farsi while speaking in English. And in some occasions even correct others and ask them to say Persian instead of Farsi.

And by the way even I'd rather not to use the word Farsi while speaking Persian. Farsi is the Arabic corrupt word of Parsi!

I speak Persian.

Man Parsi sokhan migoyam. [IPA2: man Pársi soxan mi guyam.]

Shad o pirooz o tandorost bashid. [IPA2: scád o piruz o tandorost báscid!]

Sam Novid
[sam_novid at yahoo dot co dot uk]