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How did Persian language come to dominate?

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Ardeshir View Drop Down
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  Quote Ardeshir Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: How did Persian language come to dominate?
    Posted: 29-Dec-2007 at 20:00

hi, im a little naive but i always wondered how and why persian became such a successful language throughout most of central asia, persia, western south asia etc...

what was it about this language that allowed it to excel over others.. i mean even the strong 'n proud turkic tribes upon creating vast empires would resort to speaking persian
 
any help?
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Bulldog View Drop Down
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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Dec-2007 at 00:05
Depends which window you look out of.
 
You could just as easily argue the complete opposite.
 
Persian was dominant in Central Asia during the Sassanid and later Samanid eras, developed a literary tradition and was the language of pollitics.
 
Then this Persian dominance was slowly eroded away untill Turkic developed into a literary language powerfull enough to be used in all spheres of governance replacing Persian in Turkistan especially across the masses.
 
So its a matter of perspective.
 
In terms of legacy, today Turkic languages are more widely spoken and Turks managed to keep their mother tongue and not assimilate in newly conquered terretories which few nations have managed to do.
 
 
 


Edited by Bulldog - 30-Dec-2007 at 00:06
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khutulun View Drop Down
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  Quote khutulun Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Dec-2007 at 09:12
Why am I so like, ~*fabulous*~?! LOL
 
 
That is a good question though.  The migration pattern of Turkic tribes was a steady stream West, initially mingling with, conquering and then eventually, gradually, supplanting (swallowing up) the original inhabitants of the area.  In this manner, the customs of the 'natives' were not lost.  Persian, being the fabulous language that it is, was used by the Turkic conquerors in the beauracratic system...    The actual language spoken by the Turkic tribes who changed the face of Central Asia remained the tongue of their ancestors.  So its 'success' can only be seen in an official capacity, not necessarily among the people of Central Asia.  One of the 'coolest' things about Turkic or Altaic languages are in its flexibility...it is very easy to taken on loan words from other languages without losing the basic Altaic grammatical structure.
 
Another fabulous language is Arabic.  Arabic had/has more influence on both Turkic, Persian and countless other languages.
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Al Jassas View Drop Down
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  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Dec-2007 at 15:13
Hello Ardeshir
 
No you are not naive, actually your question is very important and this story might explain something to you.
 
Ahmed ibn Hanbal, the founder of the fourth school of Islamic jurispudence was born in Khurasan to a Bedouin family, this was about 120 years after the conquest, despite both his parents were Arab his mother language was old Persian. He learned Arabic later but the accest continued to his death. When relatives cae to his place in Baghdad he talked to them in Persian and during his life time, Khurasan became independent forever from Arab rule under the Tahirids. Their official language was Arabic but as time went, Arab speakers got smaller and smaller. New dynasties, mostly turkish employed lower level and mid level administrator of other regimes as their top level administrators, all of those men were Persian and most had a weak knowledge of Arabic. It was not untill the late Samanids I think when Persian in it new Arabized form became the court language. But it took a longer time for it to become the language of literature and science because it was not sufficiently developed as a literary languange untill Ferdawsi's Shahnamah.
 
Al-Jassas
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Asawar Hazaraspa View Drop Down
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  Quote Asawar Hazaraspa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Sep-2008 at 14:43
I think the most important thing that made Persian language of the courts again in  the very Central Asia - whose Iranic culture and highly developed languages ( like Sogdian) on those times have been for at least 5 centuries contested with recorded Altaic presence - is the potentials of the Persian language based on another developed language during the reign of the Sassanids i.e. Pahlavi. The turning point of replacement of the Persian language, Iranian languages and cultures was the Mongol conquest of Central Asia which accelerated the rush of various altaic migrations into the region, all in a manner that Central Asia become so altaicized, that it is now hardly could be imagined as sometime Iranic mainland.
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evilbu View Drop Down
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  Quote evilbu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Sep-2008 at 18:18
Does anyone know what the status of the Persian language was under Parthian dominance?
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