Languages of Iran - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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There are many languages of Iran which belong to several language families. Most Iranians speak an Indo-European language, while a significant minority speak a Turkic language. Other Iranian languages come from the Afro-Asiatic, Caucasian, and Dravidian language families. Iran's official language is Persian, which belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.

Iran's current language policy is addressed in Chapter Two of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (articles 15, 16). The policy identifies Persian as the official language of Iran. Accordingly, all official documents, correspondence, texts, and textbooks must be in this language and script.^[1]

Because there is a lot of social and ethnic diversity in Iran, the Constitution allows Iranians to use "regional and tribal languages" in the mass media and when teaching their literature in schools.^[1] The Constitution also requires students in all grades of secondary school and all fields of study to learn Arabic. It reasons that Arabic is the language of the Qur'an, Islamic texts, and Islamic teachings, while it had also deeply affected Persian literature. For those stated reasons, the Constitution mandates Arabic language learning for all students after elementary school.^[2]

Iran is a culturally diverse country composed of many ethnicities, religions, and languages. The Minority Rights Group (MRG) says that although half of Iran’s population are minorities, the government forces a national identity based on the Persian language and Shi'a Islam, which has led to the mistreatment and exclusion of these minority groups.^[3]

Minority Rights Group (MRG) also claims that people who try to use minority languages are oppressed, even though Iran's Constitution allows them to be used. MRG identifies oppression against minority language-speakers in all parts of public life, from the media to education. Minority-language publishing houses have found their offices sealed off in recent years.^[3]

One can purchase newspapers, books, music tapes, and videos in Azerbaijani and Kurdish, and there are radio and television stations in ethnic areas that broadcast news and entertainment programs in even more languages.^[4] In the academic year 2004–05, B.A. programmes in the Azerbaijani language and literature (in Tabriz) and in the Kurdish language and literature (in Sanandaj) are offered in Iran for the very first time.^[5] In addition, Payame Noor University, which has 229 campuses and nearly 190,000 students throughout the country, in 2008 declared that Arabic will be the "second language" of the university, and that all its services will be offered in Arabic, concurrent with Persian.^[6]

Regional and local radio programmes are broadcast in Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Balochi, Garmsiri, Georgian, Persian, Kurdish, Mazandarani, Turkmen, and Turkish.^[7]

Native speakers of Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family make up 78% of the population of Iran.^[8] The largest Iranian-speaking peoples of Iran are the Persians, Kurds, Lurs, Gilaks, Mazanderanis, Talysh and Balochis.

Iranian languages in Iran included Persian, Luri, Kurdish, Gilaki and Mazanderani, and Balochi.^[9] The largest group of people in present-day Iran are Persians who speak dialects of the language called Farsi in Persian.^[10] The Lurs live in northern Fars and southern Zagros mountains, and Kurds live in the Zagros mountains, north of the Lurs, up to and over the frontiers with Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, while the Balochs live in Iranian side of Baluchistan, which have borders on Pakistan, as a smaller minority.^[10][11] The Gilaks, Talysh and Mazanderanis live in the Gilan and Mazandaran in northern Iran.

Old Azeri was the Iranian language of Azerbaijan before the spread of the Turkic language, commonly called Azerbaijani, in the region.^[12] The dialects of Tati, who is suggested to be a descendant of Old Azeri, are still spoken by small communities in Iran.^[12][13] There are also amall Iranian languages, dialects and varieties in Iran including the Achomi, Gorani, Semnani, Bashkardi, Garmsiri, Sorkhei, Sangsari, Kuhmareyi, Sivandi, Khunsari, Natanzi, Gazi, Soi, Gozarkhani, Karan and Karingani.

Native speakers of Armenian branch of Indo-European languages included in the group that includes less than 1% population of the Iran.^[3] Armenians are found regionally in Azerbaijan and in the area of Isfahan, where they had been deported, in the early 17th century by Abbas the Great. Moreover, a considerable number of Armenian speakers immigrated there from the Ottoman Empire in the early part of the 20th century (early and later immigrants mostly settled in the capital and urban centers, but some also in villages).^[14] Since the mid-19th century, Armenians had their own schools where Armenian was the only language of instruction and Persian and French were taught as foreign languages. The closure of these schools and their limited reopening have damaged the Armenian language.^[15]

The Indo-Aryan language has been preserved by some Gypsies in Iran, which is still spoken in two villages near Qazvin and near Quchan in northern Khorasan, these speakers were deported from the European part of the Ottoman Empire, present-day Bulgaria, and have largely retained that variety of Romani language.^[14]

Native speakers of Turkic langauges and dialects make up 18% of the population of Iran.^[8] The largest Turkic-speaking peoples of Iran are the Azerbaijanis, Turkmens, Khorasani Turks and Qashqais.

Only in few other regions (Caucasus and Southern Siberia) one can find a nearly comparable diversity of Turkic languages as in Persia. The number of their speakers varies from several thousands to several millions. Altogether, one-sixth of today’s Iranian population is turcophone or bilingual.^[16]

In Iran, there are two distinct branches of Turkic: Oghuz Turkic languages and dialects that represent the southwestern branch of Turkic, and Khalaj, which presents a tiny branch of its own. Most widely spoken is Azerbaijani.^[17] Turkic languages and dialects of Iran included Azerbaijani, Qashqai, Khorasani Turkic, Turkmen, Central Oghuz dialect varieties, Sonqori, Afshar and Khalaj.^[17][16] The Azerbaijani lost the vocal harmony typical of Turkic languages.^[18] Hendrik Boeschoten gives the following estimates for speakers of Turkic languages in Iran, with a total population then of 62 million: Azerbaijani, 13 million; Qashqai, 570,000; Khorasani Turkic, 400,000; Turkmen, 500,000; Khalaj, 28,000. However, Bulut in 2005, estimates 40,000 for Khalaj.^[17]

The Iranian Azerbaijanis who commonly known as Iranian Azeris, are a Turkic-speaking people of mostly Iranian origin^[10][19][20] and Azerbaijani is a Turkic language learned and spoken by Iranian peasants.^[18]

Among Afro-Asiatic languages, Arabic speakers make up 2% of the population of Iran, while Aramaic and Hebrew speakers are in the group that includes less than 1%.^[8] The largest Afro-Asiatic-speking peoples of Iran are the Arabs, Assyrians and Jews, all speaking languages from the Semitic branch.

First Aramaic and then Arabic had considerable contact with Iranian languages.^[21] Their impact differs. Aramaic was made the official language of communication by Achaemenid ruler Darius the Great, and hence is referred to as Imperial Aramaic, which considerably contributed to the success of the empire. It initiated a literary tradition that continued into Middle Iranian times, finally to be replaced by the various literary languages.^[21] Aramaic dialects continued to be spoken in the northwestern regions of Iran by small Christian and Jewish communities, and left their reflexes in the local Jewish-Iranian dialects and local varieties of Judeo-Persian.^[21] By contrast, Arabic had become the new administrative and religious-scientific superstrate language after the conquest of Persia in the mid-7th century, when Arabic tribes and administrative groups began to settle throughout Greater Iran for some three hundred years. Of these, only few pockets have remained in eastern and southern Persia, and until recently they had remained virtually unstudied.^[21]

Although, after the Arab invasion of Persia in the 7th century, many Arab tribes settled in different parts of Iran, it is the Arab tribes of Khuzestan that have retained their identity in language and culture to the present day and there was a great influx of Arab-speaking immigrants into the province from the 16th to the 19th century, including the migration of the Banu Kaʿb and Banu Lam.^[10]

Among Caucasian languages, Georgian and Circassian speakers included in the group that includes less than 1% population of the Iran.^[8] Many thousands of Georgians and Circassians, who were transplanted to Iran by Safavid ruler Abbas the Great were peasants, and they were settled in villages in the Iran hinterland. According to A. F. Stahl, by the early 1900s Georgians were intermarrying with Persians. However, most of them continued to speak Georgian, as is indicated by Basil Nikitin.^[22] Circassian langauges (incl. Adyghe, Kabardian) was also once widely spoken by the large Circassian minority, but, due to assimilation over the many years, no sizable number of Circassians speak the language anymore.

Windfuhr claimed that Georgians and Circassians were quickly assimilated culturally and linguistically, and even excluded Circassian from the Caucasian languages spoken in Iran.^[14]

Brahui language is spoken in Baluchestan (as well as the adjacent areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan). The language is the northernmost remnant of the Dravidian languages, which are now found mainly in the southern Indian subcontinent, but may once have been more widely found in Iran.^[14]