Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T05:21:55.080Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the terminology designating the Zoroastrians of Iran and their language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2022

Saloumeh Gholami Open the ORCID record for Saloumeh Gholami [Opens in a new window]
Saloumeh Gholami*
Affiliation:
Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
*
gholami@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper* examines how Zoroastrians designate themselves (internal/self-designations), and how they are designated by others (external designations). Focusing on the term Gabr/Gavr as the external denotation for Zoroastrians and the term Gabrī/Gavrūnī as the designation for their language, it argues that these terms, once common in Western scholarship as well as among non-Zoroastrian Iranians, have become obsolete due to their pejorative undertones. However, they have recently been revived by some scholars, who justify such use with reference to the alleged etymology of Gabr as meaning “man” and by the fact that even some Zoroastrians use Gavr/Gavrūn and Gavrī/Gavrūnī as an internal designation for themselves and their language. This paper critically examines these views and argues that neither the etymology nor the internal self-designation justifies the use of these terms and proposes the term Zoroastrian Darī as the more appropriate designation of the language of the Zoroastrians of Iran.

Keywords

Zoroastrian DarīBehdīnīGabrīGabrSelf-designationExternal designation
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 47 - 72
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to express my very great appreciation to Professor Almut Hintze for her careful reading of this paper and her insightful, constructive comments and suggestions.

References

Abrū, Ḥāfeẓ. 2001. Zobde-al-Tavārīḫ II. Moqaddame, taṣhīh va taʿlīqāt: Seyed Kamāl-e Ḥāğ Seyed Ğavādī. Tehran: Vezārat-e farhang va eršād-e eslāmi.Google Scholar
Akhtar, Shabbir. 1990. A Faith for All Seasons: Islam and Western Modernity. London: Bellew.Google Scholar
Al-Muqaddasī, Muḥammad. 1906. Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm. Berlin: Brill.Google Scholar
Anquetil-Duperron, Abraham H. 1771. Zend-Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre: contenant les idées théologiques, physiques & morales de ce législateur… . Paris: Tilliard.Google Scholar
Asatrian, Garnik. 2002. “Tārīḫče-ye vāže-ye gabr”, Nāme-ye Pārsī, S. 7, Š 1, Bahār-e 1381, 29–31.Google Scholar
Bailey, Harold W. 1936. “Yazdi”, BSOAS 8, 2–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bausani, Alessandro. 1991. “Gabr”, in Bearman, P. et al. (eds), The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 970–1.Google Scholar
Bernard, Chams Benoît. 2019. Review of Endangered Iranian Languages, edited by Saloumeh Gholami, 2018, BSOAS 82/2, 371–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernard, Chams Benoît. 2020. “A newly discovered Persian variety: the case of ‘Zoroastrian Persian’”, Orientalia Suecana 69, 57–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bondārī, Šāhfereydūn. 2018. “mā zartoštī hastīm, gabr nīstīm”, Amordād [online]. https://amordadnews.com/10374/. Accessed 19 April 2020.Google Scholar
Bosworth, Clifford E. 1977. The Medieval History of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. London: Variorum Reprints.Google Scholar
Boyce, Mary. 2012. “AHURA.ṰKAĒŠA”, in Encyclopædia Iranica [online]. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ahura-tkaesa. Accessed 25 October 2019.Google Scholar
Browne, Edward G. 1893. A Year Amongst the Persians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Browne, Edward G. 1908. A Literary History of Persia. London: T. Fisher Unwin.Google Scholar
Browne, Edward G. and Mihrabān, Ardashīr. 1897. “A specimen of the Gabri dialect of Persia”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 103–10.Google Scholar
Choksy, Jamsheed K. 2015. “Zoroastrianism ii. Historical review: from the Arab Conquest to modern times”, in Encyclopædia Iranica [online]. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrianism-02-arab-conquest-to-modern.Google Scholar
Coles, Gregory. 2016. “Emerging voices: The exorcism of language: Reclaimed derogatory terms and their limits”, College English, 78/5, 424–46.Google Scholar
Dabīr Sīyāqī, Moḥammad. 1984. Dīvān-e ʾonṣorī Balḫī. Tehran: Ketābḫāne-ye Sanāī.Google Scholar
Della Valle, Pietro. 1843. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, il pellegrino: La Turchia. La Persia, pt. 1. Brighton: Gancia.Google Scholar
Dhabar, Ervad Bamanji Nusserwanji. 1932. The Persian Rivayats of Hormazyar Framarz and others. Their Version with Introduction and Notes. Bombay: K.R. Cama Oriental Institute.Google Scholar
Farudi, Annita and Toosarvandani, Maziar Doustdar. 2004. The Dari Language Project: Summary of findings [online]. http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/pdf/dari.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2020.Google Scholar
Figueroa, Garcia de Silva. 1667. L'Ambassade de D. Garcias de Silva Figueroa en Perse, contenant la politique de ce grand Empire, les moeurs du Roy Schach Abbas et une relation exacte de tous les lieux de Perse et des Indes où cet ambassadeur a esté l'espace de huit années qu'il y a demeuré, traduite de l'espagnol par M. de Wicqfort. Louis Billaine.Google Scholar
Firby, Nora Kathleen. 1988. European Travelers and their Perceptions of Zoroastrians in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Berlin: D. Reimer.Google Scholar
Firūzbaḫš, Farānak. 2000. Barresī-ye sāḫtemān-e dastūrī-ye gūyeš-e behdīnān-e šahr-e yazd. Tehran: Farvahr.Google Scholar
Gholami, Saloumeh. 2016. “Zoroastrians of Iran VI. linguistic documentation”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica [online]. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrians-in-iran-06.Google Scholar
Gholami, Saloumeh. 2018. “Remnants of Zoroastrian Darī in the colophons and Sālmargs of Iranian Avestan manuscripts”, Iranian Studies 51/2, 195–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gholami, Saloumeh. 2021. “Judeo-Hamadani: The language of Jews in Hamadan and its origins”, Iranian Studies. DOI: 10.1080/00210862.2020.1848420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gholami, Saloumeh and Farahmand, Armita. 2016. Zoroastrian Darī (Behdīnī) in Kerman. (Estudios Iranios y Turanios, Supplementa Didactica 1.) Girona: SEIT.Google Scholar
Gordon, Matthew S. 2005. The Rise of Islam. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Hastings, James. 1955. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics: Fiction – Hyksos. Vol. VI. New York: T&T Clark.Google Scholar
Herbert, Thomas. 1677. Some Years Travels into Divers Parts of Africa, and Asia the Great. Describing More Particularly the Empires of Persia and Industan . London: R. Everingham for R. Scot, etc.Google Scholar
Hinnells, John R. 1996. Zoroastrians in Britain: the Ratanbai Katrak lectures, University of Oxford. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houtum-Schindler, Albert. 1882 “Die Parsen in Persien, ihre Sprache und einige ihrer Gebräuche”, Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 36, 54–88.Google Scholar
Huart, Clément. 1888. “Note sur le prétendu déri des Parsis de Yezd”, Journal Asiatique, 8 ser., 11/2, 298–302.Google Scholar
Hyde, Thomas et al. 1760. Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum Religionis Historia. 2nd edn. Oxonii: E Typographeo Clarendoniano.Google Scholar
Ivanov, Vladimir. 1932a. “Late Professor E.G. Browne's specimen of the Gabri Dialect”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2, 403–05.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanov, Vladimir. 1932b. “Petermann-Justi's Gabri-Übersetzungen”, Islamica 5, 572–80.Google Scholar
Ivanov, Vladimir. 1939. “The Gabri Dialect spoken by the Zoroastrians of Persian”, Rivista degli studi orientali 16, 31–97 (grammar); 17, 1–39 (texts); 18, 1–59 (vocabulary).Google Scholar
Ivanov, Vladimir and Leyli Dodykhudoeva, . 2010. “Prosody in Abyānei language”, in Articles of the First International Conference on Iran's Desert Area Dialects, 1–2 December 2010. Tehran: Semnan University.Google Scholar
Jackson, A.V. Williams. 1906. Persia Past and Present; a Book of Travel and Research, with more than two hundred illustrations and a map. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Justi, Ferdinand. 1881. “Über die Mundart von Jezd”, Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 35, 327–414.Google Scholar
Kešāvarz, Keyḫosro. 1993a. Dastūr-e Gūyeš-e Zartoštiyān-e Yazd. Stockholm: K. Kešāvarz.Google Scholar
Kešāvarz, Keyḫosro. 1993b. Farhang-e Gūyeš-e Zartoštiyān-e Yazd. Stockholm: K. Kešāvarz.Google Scholar
Kestenberg Amighi, Janet. 1990. The Zoroastrians of Iran: Conversion, Assimilation, or Persistence. New York: AMS Press.Google Scholar
Kestenberg Amighi, Janet. 2014. “Zoroastrians of 19th-century Yazd and Kerman”, in Encyclopædia Iranica [online]. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kerman-13-zoroastrians.Google Scholar
Khaleghi-Motlagh, Djalal. 2015. “Daqīqī, Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad”, in Encyclopædia Iranica [online]. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/daqiqi-abu-mansur-ahmad-b.Google Scholar
Korn, Agnes. 2016. “A partial tree of Central Iranian: A new look at Iranian subphyla”, Indogermanische Forschungen 121, 401–34.10.1515/if-2016-0021CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorimer, David L.R. 1916. “Notes on the Gabri Dialect of Modern Persian”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 48, 423–89.10.1017/S0035869X00049339CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorimer, David L.R. 1928. “Is there a Gabri Dialect of Modern Persian?”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2, 287–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maškūr, Ğavād. 1998. Ḫolāse-ye Adyān, dar tārīḫ-e dīnhā-ye bozorg. Čāp-e šešom. Tehran: Entešārāt-e Šarq.Google Scholar
Mazdāpūr, Katāyūn. 1995. Vāže-nāme-ye gūyeš-e behdīnān-e šahr-e yazd. Vol. I. Tehran: Pažūhešgāh-e ʿolūm-e ensānī va motāleʿāt-e farhangī.Google Scholar
Mazdāpūr, Katāyūn. 2006 Vāže-nāme-ye gūyeš-e behdīnān-e šahr-e yazd. Vol. II. Tehran: Pažūhešgāh-e ʿolūm-e ensānī va motāleʿāt-e farhangī.Google Scholar
Mazdāpūr, Katāyūn. 2011. Šāyest Nāšāyest. Matnī be farsī-ye miyāne. Tehran: Pažūhešgāh-e ʿolūm-e ensānī va motāleʿāt-e farhangī.Google Scholar
Mokhtarian, Jason S. 2015. Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran. Oakland: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molchanova, E.K. 2008 “Jezdi (zoroastrijskij Darī) [The Jezdi (Zoroastrian Darī) language]”, in Efimov, V.A. (ed.), Sredneiranskie i novoiranskie Jazyki, 235–343. Moskva: Izdatel'stvo Firma Vostočnaya Literatura RAN.Google Scholar
Muḥammad Ḥusayn ibn Ḫalaf Tabrīzī. 1963. Borhān-e Qāṭeʿ. Vol. III. Edited by Moʿīn, Moḥammad. Tehran: Ebn-e Sīnā.Google Scholar
Paraskiewicz, Kinga. 2017. “In search of Giaour, Notes on the new Persian Gabr ‘A Zoroastrian; infidel’”, in Németh, M., Podolak, B. and Urban, M. (eds), Essays in the History of Languages and Linguistics. Dedicated to Marek Stachowski on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, 473–81. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka.Google Scholar
Rehatsek, E. 1837. “Deri phrases and dialogues”, Indian Antiquary 2, 331–5.Google Scholar
Renard, John. 1994. All the King's Falcons: Rumi on Prophets and Revelation. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Rezai Baghbidi, Hassan. 2005. The Revāyat of Ādur-Farrōbay ī Farroxzādān. Tehran: Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia.Google Scholar
Sa'di. 2000. Būstān. Tehran: Našr-e Rahnamā.Google Scholar
Šakibā, Ḥ. 1948. “Dar Aṭrāf-e Lahğe-ye Zartoštīyān-e Moqīm-e Irān”, in [On Dialect of the Zoroastrians of Iran], Pašūtan 1 (1327), 11–23.Google Scholar
Sanasarian, Eliz. 2000. Religious Minorities in Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seebauer, Renate and Rothenhagen, Richard. 2016. “Diskriminierung durch Sprache”, in Seebauer, Renate (ed.), Mosaik Europa. Diskussionsbeiträge zur ethnischen und sprachlichen Vielfalt. Münster: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Shaki, Mansour. 2000. “Gabr”, in Encyclopædia Iranica [online]. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gabr-.Google Scholar
Sheʿār, Jaʿfar and Ṭabāṭabāʿī, Maḥmūd. 1994. Gozīde-ye Tārīḫ-e Balʿamī. A collection of the Persian Literatures, no. 9. Tehran: Ghatreh Publishing.Google Scholar
Sorūšīyān, Ğamšīd Sorūš. 1978. Farhang-e Behdīnān. Tehran: Farhang-e Iran zamīn.Google Scholar
Sorūšīyān, Ğamšīd Sorūš. 1991. Tāriḵ-e zartoštiān-e Kerman dar in čand sada. Kerman: Ğamšīd Sorūš Sorūšīyān.Google Scholar
Steingass, Francis J. 1892. A Comprehensive Persian–English Dictionary, Including the Arabic Words and Phrases to be Met with in Persian Literature. London: Routledge & K. Paul.Google Scholar
Stewart, Sarah. 2016. “Ideas of self-definition among Zoroastrians of post-revolutionary Iran”, in Williams, A., Stewart, S. and Hintze, A. (eds), The Zoroastrian Flame: Exploring Religion, History and Tradition, 353–70. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Unvala, Ervad Manockij Rustamji. 1922. Dārāb Hormazyār's Rivāyat II. Bombay: British India Press.Google Scholar
Utchenko, S.L. et al. 1956. Vsemirnaya Istoriya II [The World History]. Moscow: Publishing House of Political Literature.Google Scholar
Vahman, Fereydun and Asatrian, Garnik. 2002. Notes on the Language and Ethnography of the Zoroastrians of Yazd. København: Det kongelige Danske videnskabernes selskab.Google Scholar
Vinogradova, S.P. and Pirejko, L.A.. 1989. Karmannyj Darī-russkij slovar’: okolo 9600 slov. Moscow: Russkij Jazyk.Google Scholar
Williams, Alan. 2009. The Zoroastrian Myth of Migration from Iran and Settlement in the Indian Diaspora. Text and Analysis of the 16th Century Qesseye Sanjān “The Story of Sanjān”. (Numen Book Series, Studies in the History of Religions, Text and Sources in the History of Religions. Vol. 124.) Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Williams, Alan, Stewart, Sarah and Hinze, Almut. 2016. The Zoroastrian Flame: Exploring Religion, History and Tradition. London: I.B. Tauris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, John. 1843. The Parsi Religion as Contained in the Zand-Avasta, and Propounded and Defended by the Zoroastrians of India and Persia, Unfolded, Refuted, and Contrasted with Christianity. Bombay: American Mission Press.Google Scholar
Windfuhr, Gernot L. 1989. “Behdinān Dialect”, in Encyclopædia Iranica [online]. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/behdinan-dialect.Google Scholar
Zykov, Anton. 2015: “Two of our recent bursary recipients report on their time at the Trust”, Indiran, The newsletter of the Ancient India and Iran Trust, Issue 10, Summer 2015, p. 10. https://www.indiran.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/indiran10.pdf.Google Scholar