[Kde-i18n-fa] Re: [Sysadmin] KDE Translators Center : FARSI vs. PERSIAN

[Arash Zeini]

Hi All,

Welcome back to the past. You are now transformed to 1000 years back where 
"F" was still a good old Iranian "P" and we did not need to deal with 
change and progress. Oh, how we hate progress.

Either take this cynical statement of mine, or read on for my arguments.

On Tuesday 06 January 2004 12:18, Waldo Bastian wrote:

> http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm uses "Persian" indeed:
> 	fas/per  fa    Persian
> 	peo            Persian, Old (ca 600 - 400 B.C.)
>
> As does our own all_languages.desktop
>
> So I guess it indeed needs to be changed on http://i18n.kde.org/teams
>
> Cheers,
> Waldo

No, it doesn't need to be changed. I am getting sick of this 
semi-religious, fundamentalist movement of "back-to-the-roots" Iranians, 
who just deny progress and development of languages. Some of them even 
refer to the Oxford English Dictionary editions prior to 1979, because at 
that time Farsi was not listed. Ignoring the fact that now it is listed.

The word "Persian" is also very often propagated by the pro-monarchy 
movement, from which we distance ourselves by using "Farsi". But there is 
more why we choose Farsi.

You can read my view on this topic either here:
http://www.linuxiran.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=524&com_id=590&com_rootid=586&com_mode=thread&#comment590

Or continue to my reply to this email.

Please note that the list given as ISO 639 is no authority with regard to 
languages in general. All major English dictionaries have an entry for 
Farsi as the modern name of Iran's official language in English, which 
makes it correct to use it.

A simple fact: Iran's name was changed to Iran and it is wrong to call it 
Persia. This fact is accepted by all parties involved. IMHO it is just 
correct not to use an adjective that refers to an outdated word. The 
English language took care of this by introducing Farsi into its 
vocabulary.

> On Tue January 06 2004 18:50, PEJMAN AKBARZADEH wrote:
> > Dear Sir/Madam,
> > I hope you are doing well.
> > I noticed that you have used the word "Farsi" (instead of "Persian")
> > as English equivalent of our language in your web site :
> > http://i18n.kde.org/teams/
> >
> > http://i18n.kde.org/teams/index.php?a=i&t=fa
> > and :
> > www.farsikde.org
> >
> > I would like to point out that FARSI  (which is originally PARSI) is
> > the native name of our language and PERSIAN is its English equivalent;

This thing happened 1400 years back or so. Our language has changed and now 
we use F instead of P in Farsi; what is wrong with that? Please bring 
valid arguments or don't mention that thousands or even hundreds of years 
back a new sound was introduced to our language. The fact that you mention 
this, denotes from which side of the river you are coming!
I don't hear you calling "Deutsch" "Teutsch", which- if I am not wrong- was 
the old way to say "Deutsch".
Or is change OK for all other languages but ours?
Our beloved Persia, oh the good old times, when we were kings. Wake up 
Pejman, your last name is a perfect Arabic influenced name.

(BTW: if you haven't seen the movie "When we were kings!", SEE IT ;)

> > as the native name of German language is 'Deutsch', but we never use
> > 'Deutsch' in place of 'German' in English; or native term of Greek
> > Language is "Ellinika" and always in English we say 'Greek' language,
> > not 'Ellinika' language.

What a weak argument. But we do say "Hindi", "Urdu", "Tamil", "Marathi" and 
... in both English and the native tongue itself!!! What now? One language 
name against the other!!!

Go gather facts and arguments, examples don't count as you saw.

And please change your email to say Iran_1980 instead of persia_1980 as 
this is not Iran's official name anymore, and you know that :)))))))
Oh my god!

For all our non-Iranian friends: There are a bunch of people who prefer to 
use Farsi. The only difference is that those are not militant about their 
arguments and hence don't go around and bother people.
But there are some other people that don't do anything else actually than 
surfing around, fishing for the word "Farsi", which they will then 
sometimes forward to other people so that they all complain too.

Greetings,
Arash
-- 
The FarsiKDE Project
www.farsikde.org