Iranian people/Language

[KingKhan]

Why are Pashtuns classified as an "Iranian Peoples" and Pashto as "Iranian Language"? I see no source for this, but Wikipedia. All other sources lead hack to Wikipedia.

Is this the truth or Iranian agitprop?

[Karachi]

i dont know about culture, but genetically there is a large difference between modern iranians and modern (pashtuns) according to the studies

modern iran hasn't really been effected that much by central asia or south asia genetically since ancient times, most iranians actually have a lot of arabian and other middle eastern haplogroups with small amounts of central asian and south asian dna. Pashtuns and other people living inside afghanistan on the other hand are mixed. they carry genetics markers of mostly south asia and central asia, but recent studies do reveal that they also have genetic markers of northern middle eastern people also. Modern (afghanistan) is where basically everyone from south asia, central asia and middle east seems to have mixed, thats why all the genetic markers from these 3 areas are found there. I guess this makes sense geographicaly too since afghanistan is the middle of all these 3 areas

[Niazi]

Iranian dose not mean today Iran ,today Iran named i Riza shah time.

[Nick]

Why are Pashtuns classified as an "Iranian Peoples" and Pashto as "Iranian Language"? I see no source for this, but Wikipedia. All other sources lead hack to Wikipedia.

Is this the truth or Iranian agitprop?

Wikipedia is Full of Sh*t. Besides there is no such thing as "Iranian people" nor any Iranain languages.

Although Scythian just posted something that basically rejects the application of terms in Iran. But this is also promoted by many Persians as well the fact that many of us don't know the history behind creation of the word "Iranian" so why bother use it. If it no longer applies to Iran?


Well the word Indo-Iranian totally means something different then it was originally coined and used by Westerners. Many people wonder how did this “Aryanism” ideology came into “Iranian world” well thanks to Raza who was mentally ill person with multi-Personally. He was captured by the term “Aryan-ian” in the word of Christian Bartholomae. Who studied Awesta and some samples of few papers of Palavi text as well as Awesta and other Indo-Aryan text such as Sanskrit. Concluded that Aryanian was also applicable to Awesta, Old Persian, New Persian and Palavi, thus concluding that compared to Indics the mass population of ancient pre-Islamic Iran were also German or Aryanic people. Since then Everything Iran did was mainly to maintain the same claim of being ancestors of superior White Race (Aryanism) who ruled India and much of the world LOL he changed his last name as well into Palavi. Indo-Iranian was simply a joke coined by Iranian Academy equivalent of “Indo-Aryan”, and so in 1930s and 40s the same word made a cycle to become the branch of “Indo-Aryan” LOL which published then by the White European colonist aimed anthropologists and linguistics at aim of white Aryan supremacy.


As years passed and fall of Aryanism this word was further divided into “Eastern Indo-Iranian, and Western Indo” by mid 1950s it was further in confusion to split into many other branches and God knows dozens of unrelated people combined together under this word. Now it’s damaging and bring back questions to its creation and Iranian being as oppose to Persian being which according to Iranian Academic was same.
(Needless to say most of western world was somewhat pro-Persian before WWII and so just during the hitler does not mean west was complately anti-Iranian. By all means anyone researching would find old Persians books translated dating as far as 1800s)

The process of modernization in Iranian Farsi started in 1924 by Iranian military organization. The organization’s main aim was coining new words for foreign terms was a society patronized by the ministry of defence. This organization of ten top military members succeeded in coining terms such as Hawa Apahamah meaning “airplane”, Foroodgah meaning “airport” Wahbast-e-Nazemi meaning “military attaché” and etc. When Raza Shah finally took over the state he continued with supporting this organization which up to the present time exists as famously known Iranian Academy. Raza Shah of Iran ordered a department to be made with the objective of preparing the Persian language for expressing general and especially new scientific and other concepts by coining new Persian words for western terms. In 1935 the first and ever Iranian Academy was formed to remove was to remove loan words from Persian that were Mongolian, Afghan, Arabic, Turkish, and Indian. This organization's activities were absolutely dominated by nationalistic intentions. No linguist or serious grammarian or any linguistic was among the members of this group. Their products were severely criticized by many scholars, partly because they were either awkward or mistaken from the etymological point of view. As years pass many societies within the organization was created some opposing the organization and some with nationalist ideology were supporting the organization.

By 1937, some 600 terms and places names had been coined and replaced with old terms and places of Iran, reached 1700 words in 1940 and amounted by March 1941. Raza Shah’s Nationalistic and Aryanization agenda upset many people from north East the Turks and Azaris from north as well as Kurds to the western provinces to Afghan and Balochis in the East, Loris and Arab minorities of the south. People were very sick and tired of Raza Shah’s fantasy of “Nazism” and supporting Aryanism myth that actually as we know now had never taken place. Up on invasion of Nazis and allies of west getting stronger in early June of 1941 a clear warning was given to Raza Shah remove from power or be ready for invasion. In July-August the Allies of Russia and Britain invaded Iran and within 3 days of invasion by sea, air, land, and naval assault British embassy announced that if Raza Shah denounces violence, his kingdom will still be “Palavi” under his son’s leadership and for political reasons and pro-Nazi agenda of Raza and his bad reputation there was no other choice. So it was Mohammad Raza was given the seat of his father and Raza Shah as captive was taken to South Africa in house arrest until his death.

From 1941 to 1943 the Iranian Academy was closed however open in 1943 under Mohammad Raza Shah but with little support due to still British presents in Iran, however the books and maps published during this time as well as Iranian media continue to use the newly coin words for places and towns. Although little support from people, under low budget from government and still a fragile new king Mohammad Raza the organization was finally closed in 1953 after death of its Dean H. Samii. In the meantime their associates were with project still administered by nationalist motives assigned by Mohammad Raza. In 1959 Dahar-e-at Ol-Maharuf-e-Farsi, a Persian encyclopaedia (By:General Mosahab, Abdul Aram, S. Asfia, Hayatullah Goligulab, and Mohammad Moqarrabi), published by General Mosahab himself with addition 700 new coined words and terms both geographical, historical, and geological. In 1968 Mohammad Raza finally ordered Iranian Academy to be reopened over 15,000 new coined words that were never existed before 1921 is now officially protected and enforced by the son of Raza Shah. (Hassan Kianush, “The Persian Equivalents Coined by the First and Second Iranian Ac Ademies of Persian Language and Literature” ISBN 964-435-733-7 / 9789644357336)
One might wonder why I went so detailed into this this topic. Well the basic foundation of such confusion comes from Raza Shah to most of us Afghans he was nothing but a loser. Indeed a loser like Adolf Hitler but unlike Adolf Hitler, Raza Shah’s nationalist ideology survived and its influence is seen today with rise of pan-Iranism (1985-2005).


Signed Photograph of Adolf Hitler for Reza Shah Pahlavi in Original Frame with the Swastika and Adolf Hitler's (AH) Sign - Sahebgharanie Palace - Niavaran Palace Complex. The text below the photograph: His Imperial Majesty - Reza Shah Pahlavi - Shahanshah of Iran - With the Best Wishes - Berlin 12 March 1936 - The signature of Adolf Hitler [/URL]

[Nick]

The term "Iranian" or "Iranic" in the field of Linguistics does not refer to the modern state of Iran or its citizens in particular and it was used in the academic world before the modern state of Iran even existed.

Similarly the term "Germanic" refer to not only German people but most Europeans (including English people) and their languages and "Turkic" not just Turks but a collection of related ethnic groups and their languages. Ive consistently insisted on wikipedia for people to use the term "Iranic" instead of "Iranian" to avoid confusing this term with the state of Iran.

"Iranian" is just another form of the word "Aryan" which was the ethnic self designator used by the ancient Indo Iranian peoples
Indo-Iranians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Earlier in Linguistics the term Aryan was used for it but it has now become obsolete due to the whole Nazi issue (by the way the Nazi conception of Aryan has nothing to do with this term here)

The reason why Pashto is classified as an "Iranian" language and in particular an Eastern one is because of its Linguistic (lexical, morphological, phonological and syntactic) similiarity with other languages in this language family (Iranic family), Pashto is closer to the languages in this family than it is to any other language family and in particular closer to the Eastern category in this family (languages like Bactrian, Avestan etc).

Refer to the concept of a language family in the field of Linguistics here
Language family - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
language family - definition and examples of language families

The term "Iranian" or "Iranic" in the field of Linguistics does not refer to the modern state of Iran or its citizens in particular and it was used in the academic world before the modern state of Iran even existed.

Ok My dear that is not the case we are talking about racial identity and pro-Persianism in English (English language in its elements and forms: with a history of its origin, William Chauncey Fowler, as well as others such as Races of europe by William Ripley) because I have long been researching and there is nothing that exists which by any means refer to the term "Iran", "Iranic", or "Iranian" as thestate we know "Arana" to the world in general and ever before creation of Iran this is not to say there was no Aryana. As I said in the above post the Persians produced their own Equivalents of the Western terms such as Indo-Aryan=Indo-Iranain, As well their claim of Aryan=Iran. This idealogy was supported by British for years in making sure the concept of White Race ruling all over India remains alive. As India was a Caste society the chances of their stay was long as people are fooled into accepting foreign role. The theory and coinage of us Afghans into this "Iranian" was the work of many others including 1957 theory by Laroche.
The Europeans then used these newly coined terms "Indo-Iranian, Iranian" such as Amiet Lamberg-Karllovsky Shahr-i-Sokhta

The term Iranian=Persian, which basically disrespects many people is by all unacceptable to the great people of over thousands of years of historical documents such as Afghan who have far better revival and 5000 years of historical claim over much of Aryana as well as the many discovered source today disproves the Persians whose history only date to 2700 years or some awkwardly say 3000 years.

[KingKhan]

Thanks nick!! I knew this whole Iranian nonsense was suspicious.

[Alchemist]

Aside from the fact that "Iran" is a "bad" label, is pashto even linguistically similar to farsi? I figured the reason why pashto and many other languages (dari) native to afghanistan have been classified as "irananian" was due to their similarities if nothing else.

Under the larger heading it is Indo-Iranian with sub catogeries a) Indo Aryan b) Iranian c) Nuristani.

Pashto is category b, so how come not c or a?

Considering that Sanksrit is in category a, while some members have previously argued that a is more fitting for pashto.

[Karachi]

^ the main question is, is pashto closer to dardic and other languages of the region or farsi?

Dardic languages of northern pakistan and kashmir are also in catogery A: Indo Aryan languages

This is the map of all indo aryan languages, pretty much covers all of (north south asia)





there is no definite classification of the Indo-Aryan languages. However, they are commonly divided as follows:

• Dardic languages, such as Kashmiri: their exact position within Indo-Aryan, or between Indo-Aryan and Iranian, is uncertain.
• Northern languages: Nepali, Kumaoni, Garhwali
• Northwestern languages, such as Panjabi, Sindhi, and the Western Pahari languages
• Western languages, such as Gujarati, Rajasthani, and perhaps the Romani language[citation needed]
• Madhya, Hindi, or Central languages, such as Hindustani and Awadhi
• Magadhan, or Eastern, languages, such as Assamese, Bengali, Oriya , Maithili and Bhojpuri
• Southern languages, such as Dhivehi, Konkani, Marathi and Sinhala

[Karachi]

The language of Kalash people is also (indo aryan):

Kalasha (also known as Kalasha-mondr) is an Indo-European language in the Indo-Iranian branch spoken by the Kalash people, further classified as a Dardic language in the Chitral Group. Georg Morgenstierne maintains that "The Kalasha do not belong to the special Kafir branch of Indo-Iranian but speak a true Indo-Aryan language."[3] The Kalasha language is phonologically atypical because it contrasts plain, long, nasal, and retroflex vowels as well as combinations of these (Heegård & Mørch 2004). According to the Chitrali researcher Rehmat Aziz Chitrali, the correct name of the language is Kalasha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash_language


The other mystery language of region is the Burushaski language of Hunza people, it not related to anyone, Though i am not sure if you can understand some words in the video:

YouTube - ‪Burusho elders discussion on Burushaski Language.wmv‬‏

[Nick]

^ the main question is, is pashto closer to dardic and other languages of the region or farsi?

Dardic languages of northern pakistan and kashmir are also in catogery A: Indo Aryan languages

This is the map of all indo aryan languages, pretty much covers all of (north south asia)





there is no definite classification of the Indo-Aryan languages. However, they are commonly divided as follows:

• Dardic languages, such as Kashmiri: their exact position within Indo-Aryan, or between Indo-Aryan and Iranian, is uncertain.
• Northern languages: Nepali, Kumaoni, Garhwali
• Northwestern languages, such as Panjabi, Sindhi, and the Western Pahari languages
• Western languages, such as Gujarati, Rajasthani, and perhaps the Romani language[citation needed]
• Madhya, Hindi, or Central languages, such as Hindustani and Awadhi
• Magadhan, or Eastern, languages, such as Assamese, Bengali, Oriya , Maithili and Bhojpuri
• Southern languages, such as Dhivehi, Konkani, Marathi and Sinhala

Dear Karachi that is by far so incorrect but anyways for those interested in this subject there will be lots of confusion. I used post lots of topics related to this field I will try to post few in the future as well.

[Karachi]

^ whats incorrect?

[KingKhan]

I would like to learn more about the Afghan/Pashtun people, and was wondering if users have info for me about the people/language.

[Lemar]

These articles are about Pashtu languages, I hope you find them helpful.

Closeness of Aryan Languages

Shaal and Bolan

[Alchemist]

Persian belongs to the Western branch of the Iranic languages, yes there are similarities but Pashto is much closer to languages in the Eastern branch.


Briefly, without going into technical details and very technical differences, some basic notable similarities and differences are:

Both are SOV (Subject-Object-Verb order) languages; however Pashto, unlike Persian, is also partially ergative (i.e. in Pashto sometimes the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are marked in the same way).

Both have similar syntax, although the syntax of Pashto is more complex. One major difference is that Pashto has grammatical categories not found in Persian, namely case and gender.

Nearly all the phonemes found in Persian are also found in Pashto but Pashto has more additional phonemes not found in Persian.

Basically one could roughly say that most of the features of Persian are paralleled in Pashto but Pashto has more features not found in Persian (this may mean that a Persian speaker, ignoring all other factors, would find learning Pashto more difficult than a Pashto speaker learning Persian).

Why is Pashto classified as Iranian and not Indo-Aryan? I imagine it is because the influence of Indo-Aryan (in particular features that are peculiar to this category) seems to be almost exclusively from Sanskrit but Pashto also shows remarkable similarity with various Eastern Iranic languages (in particular Avestan, Bactrian and to some extent modern Ossetic and Pamiri).

I speak farsi and I understand arabic and what I find is that about 30% of farsi vocabulary is actually arabic.
Point being that you said that case and gender is found in pashto but not in farsi...however it is found also in arabic.

What I would like to know is what the similarities with the eastern branch (indo aryan?) are and how is it closer than "iranian" (western?) ?

[Alchemist]

These articles are about Pashtu languages, I hope you find them helpful.

Closeness of Aryan Languages

Shaal and Bolan

some of the words described are also in common use in farsi - dushman, aab, asp, nam.