Ever wondered how Farsi sounds like to non-farsi speakers?
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Ancient Mesopotamia, Near East and Greater Iran
Forum Discription: Babylon, Egypt, Persia and other civilizations of the Near East from ancient times to 600s AD
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5092
Printed Date: 16-Apr-2024 at 15:46
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Topic: Ever wondered how Farsi sounds like to non-farsi speakers?
Posted By: Aydin
Subject: Ever wondered how Farsi sounds like to non-farsi speakers?
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 01:35
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Just wanted to ask if anyone wondered how farsi sounded like? Like, for example for us Japanese, Chinese sounds very weird and aggressive e.t.c Does anyone know how farsi sounds? I guess you have to be a non-farsi speaker to answer this truly. In my opinion it is closest to Anatolian Turkish. |
Replies:
Posted By: Afghanan
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 03:14
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I think people would mistaken Farsi for French. Farsi spoken in Iran is very soft and it has a hint of French in the way they pronouce things, at least in my opinion.
------------- The perceptive man is he who knows about himself, for in self-knowledge and insight lays knowledge of the holiest. ~ Khushal Khan Khattak |
Posted By: Cyrus Shahmiri
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 03:51
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There is no language called Farsi! ------------- 
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Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 07:47
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Depends on the accent. It can sound like anything from Chinese to Italian to Indian. lol. ------------- |
Posted By: Tangriberdi
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 10:38
| It always reminds me a mix of Kurdish and Uzbek. LoL |
Posted By: Afghanan
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 12:14
Parsi, sorry. Or would you prefer Darbari/Dari? Mazrat Mekhayam. ------------- The perceptive man is he who knows about himself, for in self-knowledge and insight lays knowledge of the holiest. ~ Khushal Khan Khattak |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 12:24
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I think he means in the English language there is no such word as Farsi, it should be Persian. BUT, the word Farsi has actually become part of the English vocabulary thanks to the recent Iranian migrations to the West and their reference to thier langauge to non-Iranians: Farsi. ------------- |
Posted By: Afghanan
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 12:47
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You know most Iranians I know call their language Farsi. Afghans too instead of even calling their language "Dari" they call it Farsi. The only people I know that say they speak "Persian" are Bahais. Im not sure why. ------------- The perceptive man is he who knows about himself, for in self-knowledge and insight lays knowledge of the holiest. ~ Khushal Khan Khattak |
Posted By: hugoestr
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 12:49
It sounds beautiful to my bilingual--English and Spanish-- ears.  ------------- |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 13:08
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I say Persian too just because i believe it is more proper and more recognisable. ------------- |
Posted By: Afghanan
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 13:33
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I think just because it is more recognizeable in the west to say "Persian" it doesnt make it anymore right than saying Farsi. On the other hand, in terms of ethnicity, its the opposite. Most Iranians i know in the US, dont even call themselves Iranians, but label themselves as "Persians."
------------- The perceptive man is he who knows about himself, for in self-knowledge and insight lays knowledge of the holiest. ~ Khushal Khan Khattak |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 13:39
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Yea that is true (and annoying to me), I consider my ethnicity as Iranian because it is just that, a mix of Kurdish and Persian. Here is a Persian online radio station for those that have never heard Persian, excuse the corniness of some of the music. http://hear.aryalive.com:8000/listen.pls - http://hear.aryalive.com:8000/listen.pls ------------- |
Posted By: Cyrus Shahmiri
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 13:56
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http://www.khamenei.ir/ - http://www.khamenei.ir/ As you see even our great leader uses Parsi not Farsi (the arabicized version of Parsi)! -------------
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Posted By: Jalisco Lancer
Date Posted: 19-Aug-2005 at 14:03
with all the due respect,but sounds funny 
I recall to my boss Kiarash talking with his family  ------------- |
Posted By: azimuth
Date Posted: 20-Aug-2005 at 06:47
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http://www.leader.ir/ - in this site http://www.leader.ir/ - http://www.leader.ir/ your great leader is using Farsi not Parsi, which means that there is a language called Farsi ------ about the topic i think Persian sounds smooth (the official TV once) but not like the French which is more like baby talking. Persian langage is a great languge.
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Posted By: Behi
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2005 at 06:33
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Hi again Friends it was his openion about Parsi ------------- |
Posted By: Cengiz Kagan
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2005 at 07:45
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I speak nor understand farsi. To me it sounds like Hebraic. ------------- TANRI TURKU KORUSUN |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2005 at 08:41
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There is no such language as 'Hebraic', bright spark. ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2005 at 15:51
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He meant Hebrew I guess. Persian sounds softer than Semitic languages, harsher than European ones, with lots of "sh" and "kh"s. But a soft harmony. To me, it is a beautiful language, unlike Arabic or Hebrew (in terms of sounding)... ------------- |
Posted By: kotumeyil
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2005 at 04:42
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It sounds like Kurdish, but softer. I like the way it sounds, and I want to learn it at a proper time... ------------- [IMG]http://www.maksimum.com/yemeicme/images/haber/raki.jpg"> |
Posted By: Cent
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2005 at 08:48
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"Persian is like Kurdish but you put an "I" at the end of every word" That's how i described Persian when i was about 10 years to my friend. ------------- They don't speak enough about the Kurds, because we have never taken hostages, never hijacked a plane. But I am proud of this. Abdul Rahman Qassemlou |
Posted By: kotumeyil
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2005 at 08:56
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Do you think the same now?
------------- [IMG]http://www.maksimum.com/yemeicme/images/haber/raki.jpg"> |
Posted By: Cent
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2005 at 09:18
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Hehe, nope.
------------- They don't speak enough about the Kurds, because we have never taken hostages, never hijacked a plane. But I am proud of this. Abdul Rahman Qassemlou |
Posted By: jg1960
Date Posted: 13-Apr-2010 at 11:19
| I watched a programme on bbc tv last night about the great Persian poet and mathematician Omar Khaiyam. The presenter and participants spoke Farsi and as a monolingual English speaker, I found the language very beautiful. It sounded to me very similar in sound to Hebrew with a touch of French. Much nicer to English ears than Arabic, which can sound very harsh and aggressive. |
Posted By: Azadi
Date Posted: 13-Apr-2010 at 12:17
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Farisî is a wonderful language, and for me it doesn't sound like any other language. OFF-TOPIC (maybe), but I the problem begins when native Farisî speakers begin to talk in other languages. (Scandinavia) "I" and "E" (or actually "Æ") replaces many consonants, or they just get added it into a word. Like "brother", "bror" in norwegian, - they say "be(æ)ror". Or a certain place, like "Strømmen", they say "E(Æ)-Strømmen". And I totally agree with some of the posters here, Arabic sounds much more harsher than Farisî. F. x. try to make one of each kind angry, and see who you get more intimidated by the most
I promise you, one of them is going to sound like he/she is reading a sweet poem for you ; )------------- 
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Posted By: Zert
Date Posted: 13-Apr-2010 at 15:09
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I haven't heard Persian/Parsi that often, in the movie Talaya Sorkh (Crimson Gold in English, a great movie BTW) for example, it didn't sound really that soft, but that was probably due to the main character.
After hearing a few songs, it does indeed sound harmonical and sweet, but maybe that's just 'cos I'm influenced by the view of "Crude Kurdish, Harmonical Persian" .I'm a Kurd myself, but it CAN sound a little harsh sometimes, probably because a lot of the songs are melancholical and deal with sad stories. Anyways, it suits our people. |
Posted By: opuslola
Date Posted: 13-Apr-2010 at 18:34
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How about Pharsi? Or, how about Pharis? Or how about Phrygian? Or, how about any other words where "ph" can be substituted? ------------- http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/ |
Posted By: Ince
Date Posted: 15-Apr-2010 at 16:21
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Like somebody said here, it sounds like Softer Kurdish to me as well. Kurdish sounds a little like Slavic. Kurdish http://www.youtube.com/user/kurd1#p/u/12/0BEYZIVKK0k - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BEYZIVKK0k Kurmanji http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tv0N86PsrE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tv0N86PsrE Sorani Farsi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3rczDk_mWM - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3rczDk_mWM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM3hY6nPfR4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM3hY6nPfR4 {Edit} Rememberd that Farsi sounds most like Kurdish Laki dialect. It does contain many Persian words. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvLheIYz-fE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvLheIYz-fE Heres Gorani Hawramni. Love the video :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GERJdZl5goo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GERJdZl5goo |
Posted By: LekiKurdish
Date Posted: 26-May-2010 at 00:47
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This is Leki not that one you posted!!!!! that one was persian just the verbs was Leki!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fi3wacM8As http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u9drrFwkRQ |
Posted By: LekiKurdish
Date Posted: 26-May-2010 at 00:56
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Rememberd that Farsi sounds most like Kurdish Laki dialect. It does contain many Persian words. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvLheIYz-fE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvLheIYz-fE Heres Gorani Hawramni. Love the video :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GERJdZl5goo - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GERJdZl5goo [/QUOTE] These videos are Leki not that one you posted!!!!! that one was Persian just the verbs was Leki!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFiOkTiHQkk&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFiOkTiHQkk&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbbn76S5Yh0&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbbn76S5Yh0&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fi3wacM8As - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fi3wacM8As http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u9drrFwkRQ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u9drrFwkRQ |
Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 26-May-2010 at 01:47
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I read somewhere, something written by some writer, likely a Muslim. Goes something like this: "When God speaks to man, He does so in strong, robust Arabic. But to the angels, He speaks in gentle, melodious Persian."Anyway, to me, Persian sounds a bit like Hindi, with its soft, sweet lilt. But Hindi can sound glorious and grandiose when spoken in powerful, theatrical style by trained actors. E.g. "Aur gai bhaza hai ga."
 Excuse my Hindi. I wonder if Persian can do that too. ------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |
Posted By: Ince
Date Posted: 26-May-2010 at 08:12
He was singing in Persian? I did not think it was Persian as the words were prounouced in NW way, like "Wash" where as Persians say "Xosh". In the song he even says I am Laki and they are wearing Kurdish clothes and dance. And those videos do sound like a bit like Persian accent. It also sounds similar to Kurmanji. ------------- |
Posted By: Kamran the Great
Date Posted: 26-May-2010 at 15:53
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Now this might sound "a bit" off-topic, but i would like to ask all to use the correct English word for the language, i.e. Persian ... unless, of course, you are communicating in Persian! i always wonder why "some" people, when communicating in English, use the word "farsi" but never "deutsch", al-arabiya", "italiano", "t /wiki/T%C3%BCrk%C3%A7e - ürkçe ", "français", etc.
Would anyone start a thread titled "ever wondered how Svenska sounds like to non-svenska speakers"? NO ... because Svenska in English is Swedish, and english-speaking people don't necessarily know what svenska might mean.
Does anyone know why this is, apparently, SO difficult for some to comprehend? or... is there, perhaps, another drive behind this?
Thanks for taking the time to read my two cents' worth!
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Posted By: Ariapars
Date Posted: 28-May-2010 at 13:23
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I didn't know Farsi/Persian-and i use most of the times persian-sounds that good to non-iranians,it sounds better than Arabic and Hebrew,my opinion French and Italian sounds lovely anybody heard Serilankan,it's horrible,no disrespect but you'll get headache after hearing that for a while. which language you think sounds the worst of all? |
Posted By: Putty19
Date Posted: 28-May-2010 at 14:07
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I think Persian is a beautiful language, unfortunately it borrows too much from Arabic which takes away from its beauty I believe, Kurdish sounds a little harsher but it seems that it borrows less from Arabic, at least that's how I hear it. I find Eastern Iranian languages more beautiful and pure, here's a clip of Pamiri in Tajikistan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaecMDew60 |
Posted By: Ince
Date Posted: 29-May-2010 at 16:10
How much does Persian borrow from Arabic? I don't notice much at all, apart from the Islamic words. Most of the Arabic words in Kurdish are from Islam. I do not think Persian sounds like Arabic as well. ------------- |
Posted By: Putty19
Date Posted: 30-May-2010 at 16:02
I don't speak Persian to know how much it borrows, but I do know Arabic and I hear it quite often in Persin and Kurdish as well, not so much in the Eastern Iranian languages however. I guess Islam is the reason for that since I hear a lot of Arabic in Urdu as well (Which probably traveled through the Persian). |
Posted By: Nurica
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 16:12
| it sounds like hindu, but something in its phonoogy makes me think to turkish languages also. It is clearly not so emphatic and with broken rythms like arabic or ivrit. |
Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 17:48
Now, my 2-dirham's worth.
No, it's not about any difficulty to comprehend, my friend. It's more about respecting, dignifying, appreciating and paying tribute to the original name of the language. And I don't think any native speaker of the English language mind it as much as you seem to do.
'Persian' in Persian, for instance, is 'Parsi' (it's not even 'Farsi'), and there's nothing wrong, absolutely nothing, with using the term 'Parsi' in a full-blown English sentence. Just like using 'Hindi', 'Mandarin', 'Turki', 'Nihongo', 'Swahili', 'Paroosky' or whatever. Only, with 'Parsi', there happens to be a widely used English translation for it, i.e. 'Persian'. But in no way does 'Persian' preclude the use of the original 'Parsi'.
Not even the Queen of England has the authority to oblige or enforce such a rule. On the contrary, she would be the first person, I am inclined to believe, to encourage the use of the original language name 'Parsi'.
As a matter of fact, I myself personally believe that proper nouns, e.g. especially the names of foreign languages, foreign countries, foreign cities should not be translated at all, but be maintained in their original form. Translation, into English for instance, is simply a device of convenience for native speakers of English, who to me should have made the extra effort to use and pronounce the original foreign name properly. Instead of simply asserting the perceived dominance of their language and culture over another.
But then, I suppose that's a tendency that seems to prevail among many peoples and many nations. Even Iranians would have their own preferred translation in 'Parsi' of the term 'English' (the language, Inglisi?) and 'England' (Inglistan, perhaps?). ------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |
Posted By: Ince
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 18:01
It could be that those words that are similar to Persian/Kurdish are in infact Iranian in origin. I know a couple of Algerians and they speak Arabic around me alot and I cannot pick up any words that are similar to Kurdish at all. I can pick some that are similar to Turkish. Also maybe Arabic spoken in Iraq has Persian influence? ------------- |
Posted By: Kamran the Great
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 19:54
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not to drag this discussion out of proportion, Shield, but are you saying that if i said to an English-speaking person "i speak svenska" or, talking to a Persian, told them that "man deutsch sohbat nemikonam" (you do appear to know Persian) ... that is absolutely fine? even though neither of them might have the slightest clue what i'm going on about?? don't any of those two sentences sound odd?
I respect your opinion, but am entitled to my own and rest my case.
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Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 20:08
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Just to drag it a bit further ...
"I speak Svenska" would be perfectly alright. The man listening would then ask, "Excuse me?". Then you could answer, "Svenska is Swedish for ... well ... Swedish." Then he would say something like, "Oh! I see. That's amazing! Well, learn something every day."
It would have made for an even better and richer conversation.
Equally so, "Ich sprechen Parsi" would be fine too. ------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |
Posted By: Kamran the Great
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 20:39
i think "the man listening", after the speaker's explanation about what svenska means, might say "Oh! I see. Why on earth are you using Swedish words when speaking in English??" (scratches head)
lol ... i'm usually not a "dragger" ... i can already see that none of us will accept the reasonings of the other, but that's perfectly fine! it's an interesting discussion, anyway.
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Posted By: Putty19
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 20:50
No, most of those words are not Iranian, they're Arabic, the Iranian populations borrowed these words during the expansion of Islam, also you did not understand the Algerians because their Arabic is not that pure, heck I speak fluent Arabic and I don't even understand them, half of what they say is like in French so their Arabic dialect is very non-Arabic like. As far as the Iraqi Arabic, yes it borrows a lot of words from Persian and Turkish as well, so there's an influence there, but the Arabic influence in Persian is far greater than the Persian influence in Iraqi Arabic, and once again that falls back on the expansion of Islam. |
Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 21:05
Then the man answering could say, "Why on earth not? When so many Englishmen use so many English words when speaking in Svenska."
 BTW, 'Swedish' is not an English 'word' in the truest sense of the word. It is, merely, an English translation for 'Svenska' (the Swedish language) and other Swedish things. Similarly for 'Persian'.
One musn't feel that, I think, English is like the 'Shah', let alone 'Shah-en-Shah', of all languages in the world. We only use it relatively more often - compared to other languages - because it's better understood by many more people all over the world. That is all.
------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |
Posted By: Kamran the Great
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 21:13
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Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 31-May-2010 at 21:19
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Clutching at each other's hair? Good Lord! Then it must've been 2 women. ------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |
Posted By: Ince
Date Posted: 01-Jun-2010 at 16:11
Did not know that Arabic spoken in Algeria was different to others. I also noticed that Algerian Arabic sounds also like Berber which was what people in Algeria spoke before the Arabs came. The main Kurdish dialect spoken in Iraq is Sorani, which might have some Arabic influence other then Islam. As for Kurmanji I know that words like Dunya,Hayat,Haywan might be Arabic in origin most likely do to Islam. I noticed that Farsi uses Esmeh for name whch might be Arabic in origin. Kurds and other Iranains use Nav/Nam. ------------- |
Posted By: Xorto
Date Posted: 02-Jun-2010 at 02:43
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it sounds for me a bit too soft if you understand what i mean but it is a nice language the problem is they have many loanwords which don´t fit in their language.
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Posted By: Putty19
Date Posted: 02-Jun-2010 at 11:01
Absolutely, Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian to an extent are all a mix of Arabic/Berber along with French and Spanish, I would put them on the same level as Maltese as far as distance (Maltese is also a Semitic language that borrows a lot from Arabic and has an Italian influence in it), the thing is for other Arabs to understand Algerians/Moroccans/Tunisians, classical Arabic needs to be used, but if I spoke to any other Arab using my dialect and they use their dialects, it should be ok. As far as Sorani goes, I actually had a Kurdish friend from Duhok and his family speaks Bedani (Kurmanji), he says Sorani is so far from them that it might as well be considered a whole separate language, either way they both borrow quite a bit from Arabic and usually those words are mostly Islam related, so it's understandable I guess. In Iraqi Arabic you have many foreign Iranian words that are used, I'll try to find a list but some of them are very obvious, I would also say in my native tongue (Assyrian) we also have many Iranian words, just as much as Iraqi Arabic, of course people don't realize this but Assyrian was the main language in the region and was spoken by all in the area, some of these people were also Iranians and some were Christians before the arrival of Islam, so in our modern Assyrian community I would not be surprised if we have some Iranian ancestors.
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Posted By: Ince
Date Posted: 04-Jun-2010 at 06:38
I don't think it Sorani does not have major difference to Kurmanji. They are very similar and it is believed Sorani is offshoot of Kurmanji that had other influences over time from Gorani and other NW dialects. When you combine both languages, it gets even more closer to Persian, specialy Tajik. ------------- |
Posted By: Shield-of-Dardania
Date Posted: 04-Jun-2010 at 10:46
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I met a Tajik girl once before. I think she was a tourist. She was extremely beautiful. Tall and long limbed, almost 6 ft tall, I think, with long black hair, light brown eyes, very fair skin.
Features like Northern Indian or Persian, but striking and very goodlooking. Very above average, like. I should have asked to take a pic of her, but I didn't. Silly me. ------------- History makes everything. Everything is history in the making. |