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

[Arash Zeini]

On Tuesday 06 January 2004 15:38, Waldo Bastian wrote:

> On Tue January 06 2004 22:47, Arash Zeini wrote:
> > Please note that the list given as ISO 639 is no authority with regard
> > to languages in general.
>
> It is authoritative when it comes to language codes.

Yes, but they are not authorative to our discussion, IMHO.

> > 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.
>
> Webster lists Persian, not Farsi.

It DOES list Farsi. Meriam-Webster, found at the link you sent, lists 
Farsi. Please search again.

> http://www.m-w.com/mw/table/indoeuro.htm
> and
> http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=persian+
> "the modern language of Iran and western Afghanistan"

Have a look here too:
http://www.britannica.com/search?query=Farsi&submit=Find&source=MWBOX

or here:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=60829&tocid=0&query=farsi&ct=

They clearly say: "Persian language also called Farsi".

Or have a look here again:
http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article?eu=400275&query=farsi&ct=gen1
"Persian language or Farsi language"

Or Google uses Farsi:
http://directory.google.com/Top/World/Farsi/

Iran's president seems to use Farsi on his site:
http://www.president.ir/farsi/

And what about Oxford, which lists "Farsi".

> Likewise, the CIA world fact book mentions "Persian" and not "Farsi".
> http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html
>
> Also http://www.iranembassy-sa.org.za/English/Language.htm states
> "The official language of Iran is Persian (the Persian term for which is
> Farsi)."
>
> And http://www.iranemb.warsaw.pl/languages.htm
> "Persian (Farsi) is a member of the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the
> Indo-European languages, and the official language of the government and
> public instruction and is the mother tongue on more than half of the
> population."
> and
> "Persian (locally called Farsi) is the most important of a group of
> several related languages that linguists classify as Indo-Iranian."
>
> So I think the correct english (US) name for "fa" is "Persian".

I don't agree with this, as all major dictionaries are listing Farsi. Very 
often they imply that it stands for modern Persian. There is obviously a 
change inside English which goes along with the fact that Iran is called 
officially Iran and not Persia anymore.
You can not ignore the fact that Persia is an outdated word.

> Anyway, I understand that this is all part of some political game so
> maybe we can find a compromise in calling it "Persian (Farsi)".

Exactly. We can find examples of each usage on different sites. The stand 
of the Farsi league is usually that we use Farsi and that others are 
welcome to use Persian. But a group of poeople with a "militant" POV is 
working hard to stop the development and revert the usage of Farsi to 
Persian. Partly because they hate Arabs and Arabic influence in Iran and 
Farsi. We do not agree with this position.

> Cheers,
> Waldo

-- 
The FarsiKDE Project
www.farsikde.org