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Modern Tajiki Persian: Gharbzadagi of a Different Kind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Jan W. Weryho
Jan W. Weryho*
Affiliation:
McGill University Library
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Extract

The leader of the Iranian Revolution Āyat Allāh Rūḥ Allāh Khumaynī has strongly condemned what he considers had been a slavish imitation of the West under the overthrown Pahlavī dynasty and coined the neologism Gharbzadagī (literally “Weststrickenness”). He has called for a cultural as well as political emancipation from Western dominance. So far this emancipation has not extended to a purification of the Persian language from the numerous French loanwords which had entered it during the last sixty years. Thus the newspaper Jumhūrī-i Islāmī (“Islamic Republic”) has the subtitle Urgān-i Ḥizb-i Jumhūrī-ī Islāmī (“Organ of the Islamic Republican Party”). Urgān is of course French organe. Even more striking is the use of the term kumītah or komiteh by the revolutionary committees, usually presided by Muslim clergy, which have taken over the functions of local government in Iran. Again, kumītah is the French comité. While not many Iranian mullahs know French, or any Western language, they cannot be unaware of the Western origin of these words. We should not be surprised therefore if in the near future we witness a movement to expel from the Persian language the Western loanwords, most of all from official terminology. Most likely they will be replaced by words of Arabic rather than pure Persian origin in view of the regime's identification with Islam rather than ancient Persian culture.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Spring 1983 , pp. 27 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities (USSR and East Europe) Inc. 

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References

Notes

Note on transliterationGoogle Scholar

The Library of Congress transliteration has been used in this paper for Russian, Persian and Tajik (Cyrillic-Persian) words. Hence the same word may apear in a different form, depending which language it is transliterated from, e.g. Engl. Tajikistan, Pers. Tājīkistān, Taj, Tojikiston, Russ. Tadzhikistan.Google Scholar

1. The term Darī is somewhat ambiguous, having at least three different meanings: 1. The classical Persian language (literally “Court language”). 2. The Persian of Afghanistan. 3. The peculiar Persian dialect of the Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman.Google Scholar

2. consonants, Regarding, the differentiation between qaf and ghayn persists in Tajik, as indeed it does in the Persian of Shiraz and Khuzistan.Google Scholar

3. Modern Tajik has lost the distinction between long and short /i/ and between long and short /u/. On the other hand it has retained the yā-yi majhūl (long /ē/) and vāv-i majhūl (pronounced like a short /ŏ/, written /ȳ/ in Cyrillic, transliterated /ū/ by L.C.Google Scholar

4. Rakowska-Harmstone, Teresa, Russia and Nationalism in Central Asia: the Case of Tadzhikistan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press [1970]) p. 243.Google Scholar

5. For a short bibliography of Soviet Tajik authors published in Arabic script see Rypka, Jan, ed., History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel [1968]), pp. 830–831.Google Scholar

6. Article by his former student, Lazer, Dawid, “Alf laila wa' laila” (in Polish) in Wiadomości (London), June 2, 1974.Google Scholar

7. See Majidov, R. M., Rivoji ateizm dar Tojikiston (Dushanbe: Irfon, 1975) (Ba ėṛii ateist).Google Scholar

8. Austin, Paul M., “The Development of Modern Literary Uzbek: Some Historical Analogies,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. XVIII: no. 2/3, 1975, pp. 510–523.Google Scholar

9. Rakowska-Harmstone, p. 243.Google Scholar

10. Apparently it is not true of Uzbek grammar either. See Austin, , pp. 518–519.Google Scholar

11. For a transliteration table of Cyrillic Tajik see Allworth, Edward, Nationalities of the Soviet East: Publications and Writing Systems: A Bibliographical Directory and Transliteration Tables for Iranian- and Turkic-language Publications (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1971), p. 364. Like most transliteration systems it does not attempt to indicate the pronunciation and may mislead the layman in this respect.Google Scholar

12. For a transliteration table see Storey, C. A., Persidskaia literatura: biobibliograficheskiĭ obzor, perevel s angliĭskogo IU. Ė. Bregel; I (Moskva: Glavnaia redaktsiia vostochnoĭ literatury, 1972), p. 49.Google Scholar

13. For the most thorough study of Russian loanwords in Tajik which no doubt expresses official Soviet views see Sharofov, Nasriddin, Kalimahoi russiiu internatsionalī dar zaboni adabii tojik. (Dushanbe: Donish, 1972). The book presents a detailed study of the history and present-day usage of Russian words in Tajik. It is out of print and I am very grateful to Dr. Sharofov for giving me a copy. Unfortunately it is very poorly reproduced from typescript and difficult to read. Hopefully a new, more legible edition will be published. For a modern Persian (Iranian)-Tajik glossary see H. Karimov, Zaboni forsī baroi sinfhoi 5-ȳm va 6-ūmi maktabhoi tojiki (Qismi I. Nashri III. Dushanbe: Irfon, 1971), pp. 160–256.Google Scholar

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15. Konstitutsiiai (Qonuni Asosii) Respublikai Sovetii Sotsialistii Tojikiston. (Dushanbe: Irfon, 1975) Moddai 111, pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

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20. See art. “Malta” by Rossi, E. in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. III (Leiden: Brill, 1936), pp. 213–214.Google Scholar

21. Engl. tea, Fr. thé, Sp. té, etc. are derived from Amoy Chinese dialect t'e. See “tea” in The Shorter Oxford English dictionary, vol. II, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press [1956]) p. 2138.Google Scholar

22. See my art. “Sīstānī-Persian folklore” in Indo-Iranian Journal (The Hague). vol V, 1962: no. 4, p. 279.Google Scholar

23. Dushanbe (“Monday”) had been the name of a large village situated where the modern city now stands. The name was derived from its weekly fair, always held on Monday. The foundations of the new city named Stalinobod (Russ. Stalinabad) in honour of J. V. Stalin were led in 1926. (See Joshua Kunitz, Dawn over Samarkand: The Rebirth of Central Asia (London: Lawrence and Wishart; New York: International Publishers [1936]) pp. 240 ff.). In 1961 the original name Dushanbe was restored by Soviet Federal Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev whose policy was to abolish the personality cult of his predecessor.Google Scholar

24. Atlas Tadzhikskoĭ Sovetskoĭ Sotsialisticheskoĭ Respubliki (Dushanbe: Akademiia nauk Tadzhikskoĭ SSR, Sovet po izucheniiu proizvoditel'nykh sil; Moskva: Glavnoe upravlenie geodezii i kartograffi pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, 1968).Google Scholar

25. See art. “Karā Khitāy” by Bosworth, C. E. in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New ed., vol. IV, (Leiden, 1975), pp. 580–583.Google Scholar

26. Rahimi, and Uspenskaia, , “Geograficheskie nazvaniia — Nomhoi geografā,” op, cit., pp. 522–528.Google Scholar

27. Arberry, A. J., British Orientalists. (London: Collins, 1943), p. 8.Google Scholar

28. Art. 14 of the Constitution of Tajikistan states: “The Soviet Socialist Republic of Tajikistan keeps for itself the right to freely secede from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” Konstitutsiai …, Moddai 14, p. 8.Google Scholar

29. Braginskiĭ, I. S., Problemy tvorchestva Sadriddina Aĭnī (Dushanbe: Irfon, 1974), pp. 149–150.Google Scholar

30. Stalin, J. V., Marxism and the Problem of Linguistics. (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972), p. 24 (reprint of Moscow 1954 ed.).Google Scholar