As last week Persian speakers around the world celebrated the works of Ferdowsi, and marked 1000 years since his death, our blogger Iskandar is back to guide us through some of the quirks of reading Classical Persian literature. One of the great joys of learning Persian is that very old literature, going back much further …

Continue reading “Tips for Reading Classical Persian Poetry 1 – What is happening to whom? – Affixed pronouns in Classical Persian”

Tajik Persian has a few phonetic and phonological idiosyncrasies which speakers and learners of Iranian Persian may not be immediately used to. In this post I will talk about some of the main differences. Bear in mind, however, that Tajik Persian, like Persian varieties elsewhere, is not ‘one language’, but consists of many regional dialects/accents. …

Continue reading “Iskandar Ding: Introduction to Tajik Persian 2 – Differences in Pronunciation”

Not many learners of Persian have realised that modern Persian, in fact, currently has two official alphabets – the Perso-Arabic one many are familiar with, and the Cyrillic, used to write Tajik. The debate on whether Tajik is a separate language from Persian is a socio-political one and has drawn much controversy both within Tajikistan …

Continue reading “Iskandar Ding: Introduction to Tajik Persian 1 – the Alphabet”