Tajikestan reverting to Persian script
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Topic: Tajikestan reverting to Persian script
Posted By: Zagros
Subject: Tajikestan reverting to Persian script
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 01:18
I hope they get rid of those awful "ov" and "ev" suffixes on their surnames too.
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Replies:
Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 01:34
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I don't think it will ever happen. They most likely will switch to Latin alphabet instead. ------------- Σαυρομάτης 
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 03:02
I take it that is why Rahimov (soon to be Rahimson) said they will primarily give the project go ahead by introducing elementary books using the Latin alphabet then.  Why switch to Latin when their entire history and identity, out-with Tsarist and Soviet assimilation and revisionism, is scripted in Persian? This will move will further restore their historic connections with Afghanistan and Iran of which they were robbed. ------------- |
Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 06:03
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Because the whole thing is a political question. And it's not of a top importance there. Nobody, is really looking in the direction of Iran right now, at the same time Latin alphabet is associated with "progress" and "Westernization." Everything would depend on preferences of Tajik elite. Rahmonov won't switch to Arabic alphabet. However, if a pro-Western leader will follow, Latin alphabet is a possibility. If for some reasons islamists come to power, then Arabic script will become a real possibility. Also, just from the practical point of view, Cyrrilic alphabet is firstly, much more convenient secondly, everybody got used to it in Tajikistan. BTW, Tajiks were not robbed of their great heritage. I remember reading Shah-nameh published by the Soviet publishing house, with numerous references that this epic is a treasure of Tajik people. There were also beautiful Soviet movies made by Tajikfilm, movie company of Tajikistan based on Shah-nameh. I still remember them. Also, 80% of Tajiks were illiterate before 1917 revolution. They were educated in their own language written in Cyrrilic script.
 This is not to say, that USSR was a paradise, of course it was not. But it was not that terrible either. ------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 06:36
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It might be better for them to stick with it. Persian script is very difficult to learn if you are not familiar with it from childhood.
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Posted By: Suren
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 08:10
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It is better for both Persians and Tajiks to switch from Cyrillic and Arabic script to Latin script, so they may read and write in the same way. 1. Cyrillic is not a good choice since majority of Persians are not familiar with it, beside it is an imposed script. 2. Arabic script is hard for Tajiks to learn. 3. Latin script: Many people in Iran and Tajikistan are familiar with this script beside it is an universal script. I will support changing our script from Arabic to Original Persian script (Pahlavi), but it is not easy for many people. Since changing back to Pahlavi script is unlikely, I think changing to Latin script has more chance and benefit for Tajiks and Persians. ------------- Anfører |
Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 08:42
Come one people!!!! There is also the Greek alphabet!!!!
------------- "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. " --- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996) |
Posted By: Cyrus Shahmiri
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 13:55
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Why not Avestan script? This is the most suitable script for writing in Persian langauge, as I said in another thread the Avestan alphabet with 14 vowels and 33 consonants is also one of the most complete alphabets in the world. ------------- 
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 17:00
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That is why it is being introduced at elementary level, Sparten, and it would be a phased process. When Cyrillic was forced on Tajiks, many except intellectuals and aristocrats would have been illiterate, so there would not have been much resistance from the masses, if any. Given that Tajiks have a strong Persian identity I don't think there will be much resistance to the reinstatement of their proper script because it means that the works of Rudaki, Ferdosi, Molavi etc can be read in their original forms. The idea of a Latin script for the Iranic world is a joke, it would mean the loss of a millennium's worth of culture. ------------- |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 17:19
Nobody there is looking in the direction of Iran? What's your source for that? Iran is one of the biggest investors int hat country and the foreign minister of Tajikistan has publicly stated that relations with Iran are a keystone of its foreign strategy. And that does not entail reunification or any such thing. And besides that on the grass roots level, in my experience, Tajiks are very warm to Iranians. People are used to Cyrillic? Yes they are, again that is why Persian is being introduced at primary level. The script won't be forced on Tajiks to whom it's unintelligible.
That's the whole thing right there: epic treasure of Tajik people? It's an epic treasure of all Iranic people, from Kurdistan to Tajiks China, even many Turkic people. The Soviet and Tsarists made sure to disconnect all references to Tajikistan's Iranic history (same thing happened when the northern part of Azarbaijan was annexed). It's just too bad that the number of times Iran is mentioned in the Shahnameh is too numerous to count. BBC also called Rudaki a "Tajik" poet recently and completely neglected to state which language he spoke. It seems all has-been colonial powers of the Great Game find swallowing this pill very hard. ------------- |
Posted By: Al Jassas
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 17:52
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Hello to you all
I can easily read and to some extent understand Persian however, when trying to read Urdu or Punjabi I really suck. Plus, Tajik not that different from Persian and literary Tajik is Persian, no matter how the Russian tried to make Tajik an independent language. The entire persian heritage, roughly millions of books not just the shahnama but the entire modern persian literature is written in Arabic script. Changing to latin is not just worth it, it is just like making Turkish revert to the Arabic script which is also not worth it.
Al-Jassas
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Posted By: Suren
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 17:55
Unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no Macedonian like Alexander to force Greek alphabet upon us!  ------------- Anfører |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:12
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It's not the same as the Arabic alphabet because it has additional letters.
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Posted By: Al Jassas
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:24
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So the Turks use a "Turkish" script because they have 4 more characters (I think). If you read carefully, you will find that the origin of these excess letters is Arabic, to write sounds that don't exist in the language like g in good. In some Quranic reading styles there are archaic arabic sounds that are represented by letters not used in the mainstream, because nobody uses them any more and from these modefications the Arabic script was modefied to accomidate persian name and then persians added characters of their own on the Arabic model. The goal for transferring to Arabic, since Pahlavi was used till the 10th century, was because by that time most Iranians were muslims and Ferdowsi's great epic was probably the first major work written by the new script. Al-Jassas
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Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:27
No. Of course all the books and sources were mentioning that Shah-nameh is the treasure of all Iranian people from Iran and Afghanistan as well, but Tajiks were emphasized because they were Iranian people of the USSR. The connection of Tajiks to Iranian world was always emphasized as well in the Soviet History books.
Naturally, the Soviet Shah-nameh movie was only using and repeating the name Iran, as it's in the original.
You have a bit biased impression of the Soviet history science. It was rather concerned with the criticizm of the "backward feudal social system" and "religious fanatism," rather than the denial of the obvous common roots of Tajiks and other Iranian people. ------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:31
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Regarding the alphabet. I think we can use both Persian and Arabic. But Arabic IMHO is more correct. Since obviously the ovewhelming majority of the letters are Arabic. Likewise we can say that English, Spanish, German alphabets exist. But there is no mistakes if we just refer to all these alphabets with the general term "Latin." ------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:31
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If it is the arabic script then kindly tell Al-Jassas why you call Pakistan "Bakistan"?
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:33
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lol.
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Posted By: Suren
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:35
Come on Zagros, it's like calling Turkish script a different script from Latin script because they have 3 or 4 extra alphabet  .We just have P, Ch, G and Zh sounds which Arabic alphabet doesn't have. Beside if you really know how to write Persian alphabet you may know we have different type of letters for the same sound like S which we have Sin, Sad and Se. For Z sound: zal, ze, zad and za. For T sound: te, ta For H sound: He (hole), H (do cheshm) For Gh sound: Ghein and Ghaf. This letters are unnecessary because most of Persian don't pronounce all of them. Only religious people pronounce these letters when they want to read Quran. Many letters in our alphabet are just useless. ------------- Anfører |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:41
You can call the Persian script Perso-Arabic but the alphabet is Persian. Al Jassas, I have question for you and I think you will probably know the answer (I don't): Are there any examples of pre-Islamic Arabic language literature? And what script does it use? I have always noted the striking similarity of Sassanid Avestani and the modern Arabic and Persian scripts. I know all of them have their roots in Phoenecian, but I have never seen two so strikingly similar. ------------- |
Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:41
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Here it is, "the obvious denial" of the Iranian roots of Tajiks by the USSR. The masterpiece of the Soviet filmaking industry (for its time). "The tale of Syavush." Only a part of the trilogy which also included 2 other movies "Rustam" and "Rustam and Suhrab." Enjoy http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7101040467964178907 - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7101040467964178907
------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:42
No it's not, it's like calling the Turkish alphabet the English alphabet which is BS. The Persian and Arabic alphabets are not the same - the script is. ------------- |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:46
Like I said, it's just a shame that Shahnameh stated Iran countless times, I wonder, did any of these examples start pre or during the time of Stalin? Anyway, we all know what the 20th c plans of the Tsarists and the USSR was for Iran: a bloody continuation of the breakup initiated in the 1800s. I am just glad it was in America's interest at the time to tell that pig Stalin to get the hell out of Iran, but I bet they regret it now! Would have saved them a hell of a job. After that they gave up because Iran was so entrenched in the West's camp. The USSR up until Stalin was much more brutal - can explain all of the deportations? They are fine examples of tolerance. ------------- |
Posted By: Sarmat
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 18:52
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Why it's shame that Iran was stated in Shah-nameh?
My friend, the Stalin time is bloodiest epoch of henocide for the Russian people in the first place. He killed, butchered and deported them more than anyone else.
But, if you want to get an objective picture of the Soviet history, please look at it as a whole but not only on its darkest and most terrible side. ------------- Σαυρομάτης
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Posted By: Al Jassas
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 19:15
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Hello to you all
P and V are the only sounds that are not part of the modern day Arabic though they used to be part of the proto-Arabic as know from Qatbanian and Sabaean. Zh is know so is g and J and are all called the Gim sounds. People in Southern Arabia still say Jamal as Zhamal and their pronounciations is standard and not wrong. As for Pakistan beeing said Bakistan well I said before, the P isn't part of the Arabic language and the archaic form of it was a three dotted ب. Turkish doesn't have W and yet the script is still called latin.
As for pre-Islamic literature, the oldest texts of what is now known as modern standard Arabic is about 150 years before Islam. There were 2 or three standard writing systems for Arabic at the time of the Prophet but Al-Musnad, which is based on the south Arabian scripts, was the standard. During the time of the prophet most Arabs were from the north and they were accustomed to texts similar to Aramaic so a new text was developed that was easy to understand. the final writing system came about the year 130 after hijrah,c. 750, when Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad,who already codified the Arabic language grammer and his student Sibawayh wrote his famous work, standardized the way dotts were put, however, Moroccans used their own system and When I tried to read a manuscript from Al-Andalus some years ago I had to relearn my Arabic!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Islamic_Arabic_inscriptions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Islamic_Arabic_inscriptions
Al-Jassas
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 19:30
Shame for Soviet/Bolshevik propagandists. The ethnic strategies I am referring to were Stalin and prior, extending back well into the Tsarist era. ------------- |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 19:46
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can you give me any examples of Arabic words beginning with "ch", like chair in English? The first I knew of this sound in arabic was via "Ahmad Chalabi". And thanks for the info.
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Posted By: Suren
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 19:55
It is interesting about Zh sound. As G sound I meant G in Luxembourg not Jim sound. I know Arabic language doesn't have this sound because you guys pronounce Narges as Narjes and many more examples. Che sound: do you have this sound like in Churchill or church? it is a jim with 3 dots in Persian Alphabet. ------------- Anfører |
Posted By: Al Jassas
Date Posted: 07-May-2008 at 20:26
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Hello to you all it is all about the pronounciation, the ch sound is difficult to pronounce for certain people but it is. Remember, Arabic as we know it today wasn't finalized until the mid 650's. Many tribes had their own pronounciation and they kept it to this day and here are the examples: ج is pronounced three ways, and then four way, J as in Jay, g as in good, zh as in vision and later ch as in chalabi. The first three are considered to be standard while the last is not. However, ch is standard if it was ش. ق is also pronounced in two different standard ways, one is gaf, as in good and the other is the normal qaf. Now when writing these conflicting sounds there were several methods used depending on where you were, people from iraq write the persianگ instead of the normal ج. Syrians and Egyptians leave ج for the g sound but write چ when they want to pronounce vision. Niether church nor Churchill can be pronounced in standard Arabic, but can be in colloquial, because standard Arabic doesn’t start with a constant, it always starts with a voul. Al-Jassas |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 08-May-2008 at 04:09
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