Name of Iran

Iran has been the subject of a naming dispute in common Western usage. The two possible names for this country are Iran and Persia; their adjectives being Iranian and Persian, respectively.

History of the debate

File:Persepolis - The Sculptures 3.jpg

A Persepolis sculpture dating back to the Achaemenid period, when the country was referred to as Aryanam.

Serious argument on this matter began in the 1980s, when Professor Ehsan Yarshater (editor of the Encyclopædia Iranica) started to publish articles on this matter (in both English and Persian) in Rahavard Quarterly, Pars Monthly, Iranian Studies Journal, etc. After him, a few Persian scholars and researchers such as Prof. Kazem Abhary, Prof. Jalal Matini and Pejman Akbarzadeh followed the issue. Several times since then, Persian magazines and websites have published articles from those who agree or disagree with usage of 'Persia' and 'Persian' in English.

In view of many of these articles, it seems that the subject has not been explained sufficiently. Some think the name Persia belongs to antiquity, and ought not to be used now. Others believe that "Persia" includes only one province within Iran, and should not be used for the whole country. Also, some people from Afghanistan or Baluchistan call themselves Persians, referring to the ancient empire which covered those lands. There are also many Persians (Iranians) and non-Persians in the West who prefer "Persia" and "Persian" as the English names for the country and nationality, similar to the usage of La Perse/persan in French. An English-speaking example would be "Persian rugs" and " Persian food", which are specifically Iranian rugs and foods.

However, the name has held problems for Iranian ethnic groups inside Iran who do not identify themselves as Persian, or whose native language is not Farsi or "Persian". The usage of the word "Persian" has been used by those foreign to Iran or Persia based on the assumption that the ethnic diversity in Iran is limited or non-existent and that the premier culture and language is Persian or speakers of the Farsi language, and that Persian is synonymous with "Fars". On the contrary, several groups of Iranian identity including Kurds have argued that the use of the word Persian undermines their own distinct identities and cultures. Although there are even debates regarding the classification of these groups as Iranians, the words "Iran" and "Iranian" have been much more widely accepted among these groups.

Many countries and languages have different names in other languages (see Exonym). For example, Germans call their country "Deutschland" but in English people call it "Germany", in French "Allemagne" and in Spanish "Alemania" (after Alamannia), in Finnish "Saksa", in Estonian "Saksamaa" (after the Saxons), in Lithuanian "Vokietija", and in Polish, "Niemcy". People of Greece, Armenia, Finland, Albania, Egypt, Algeria, Japan and China call their countries, respectively Ellas, Hayastan, Suomi, Shqipëria, Mesr, al-Jaza'ir, Nippon or Nihon, and Zhōnggúo or Chung-kuo in their respective languages. Similarly, the native name of "Persia" is "Iran".

Etymology of Persia

Modern reconstruction of the ancient world map of Eratosthenes from c. 200 BC, using the names Ariana and Persis

Starting from c. 600 BC, the Greeks began to use the name Persis for Cyrus the Great's empire. Persis was taken from Old Persian Pars or Pārsa - the name of the people whom Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty first ruled (before he inherited or conquered other Persian Kingdoms) and amongst whom he is counted. This tribe gave its name to the region where they (ethnic Persians) lived (the modern day province is called Fars/Pars). In Latin, the name for the land was Persia.

In the later parts of the Bible, where this kingdom is frequebtly mentioned (Books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemya) call is "Paras" (Hebrew פרס), or sometimes "Paras ve Madai" (פרס ומדי) i.e. "Persia and Media".

The name "Persia" until 1935 was the "official" name of Iran in the world, but Persian people inside their country since the Sassanid period have called it "Iran" meaning "the land of Aryans", the older version of which had been "Aryānām" (the genitive plural of the word Aryan, a cognate form of which is seen in "Airyanem Vaejah" ) as seen in ancient Persian texts.

Re-introducing the name "Iran"

March 21, 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi announced that all western countries should use the name of "Iran". Opponents claim that this act brought cultural damage to the country and separated Iran from its past in the West, and caused many people to confuse it with Iraq (an Arab state west of Iran). During World War II, in fact, Winston Churchill ordered that the name "Persia" be used in all government documents to avoid confusion. For many westerners, "Persia" became a dead empire that does not exist anymore. Members of the Persian intelligentsia were not happy with this decree either, because of the pro-Nazi incentive behind it. After Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, the Nazi Economics minister, commented on the Aryan origin of Persians, Reza Shah's ambassador in Germany encouraged him to issue the above-mentioned decree, asking all foreign delegates to use the word "Iran" (meaning "Land of the Aryans") instead of "Persia" in formal correspondence.

As the New York Times explained at the time, "At the suggestion of the Persian Legation in Berlin, the Tehran government, on the Persian New Year, March 21, 1935, substituted Iran for Persia as the official name of the country. In its decision it was influenced by the Nazi revival of interest in the various Aryan races, cradled in ancient Persia. As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs set forth in its memorandum on the subject, 'Perse,' the French designation of Persia, connoted the weakness and tottering independence of the country in the nineteenth century, when it was the chessboard of European imperialistic rivalry. 'Iran,' by contrast, conjured up memories of the vigor and splendor of its historic past."

The defenders of this name point out that the designation Iran was used by the Greek historian Eratosthenes and derives from the old Persian word ariya, akin to the Sanskrit Aryavarta. The Sassanids also called their empire Ēran-shahr ("empire of the Iranians") or Ēran-zamin ("land of the Iranians"). Subsequent and modern usage derives from this precedent.

Another perspective as to why some Iranians may have advocated Reza Shah's recommendation in using the word Iran as opposed to Persia was to create a sense of national unity among the people in Iran. In contrast to political debates on an international level regarding the introduction of Iran as opposed to Persian is the debate among Iranians at the national level. The word "Persian" has often been used to describe one distinct Iranian group and does not acknowledge the diversity of Iran throughout its long history. Persian has been used to describe people whose native language belongs to the Persian branch of Indo-Iranian languages (and has been used synonymously with Farsi), as well as the culture of Persians, which may differ from other Iranian groups. The usage of the term excluded other groups within Iran including the Kurds.

After some Persian scholars protested the name changing announcement, in 1959 Prof. Ehsan Yarshater formed a committee to look into this matter. The committee announced that "changing the name is not justified", so Mohammad Reza Shah announced that both 'Persia' and 'Iran' could be used interchangeably.

In 2006, a large collection of historical maps of Iran was published in the Netherlands entitled "Historical Maps of Persia". Also, in modern times, many of those exiled or alienated by the post-revolution Iranian government now refer to themselves mostly as Persians, this is done to separate themselves from the current government of Iran.

Persian language

Main article: Nomenclature section of Persian language

Defying the general conversion in usage, the term "Iranian" with reference to the language of Iran has never gained currency in the west; the language is correctly called "Persian". Farsi is another form of pronunciation of the original word (Parsi) meaning Persian. Farsi has been the local name for the language ever since the Arab invasion, whereby they were forced to speak Arabic for several centuries. In Arabic the phoneme /p/ does not exist, hence the pronunciation being altered to an /f/. In linguistic usage, the term "Iranian" refers more broadly to the Iranian languages, a larger family of languages of which Persian is a member.

Referring to Persian as Farsi is incorrect within English. An analogy would be requesting that the German language be called Deutsch by those who speak English

See also

• Persian language

References

• Akbarzadeh, Pejman: What is the English Name of Our Country? Iran or Persia?, Rahavard Quarterly, Los Angeles, Spring 2004
• Bring back Persia by G. Motamedi
• Iran or Persia? Farsi or Persian? by Pejman Akbarzadeh
• Persians Are Not Arabs
• A Particular Iranian Identity Crisis by Amir Rostam Beigie
• The History of the Idea of Iran, A. Shapur Shahbazi in Birth of the Persian Empire by V. S. Curtis and S. Stewart, 2005, ISBN 1845110625

External links

• Publication of General Maps of Persia (Iran) in The Netherlands