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Re: Learning languages

From:<jcowan@...>
Date:Thursday, March 11, 2004, 18:47
Danny Wier scripsit:

> I bought a "Teach Yourself" book once in Seattle; for Modern Persian (it's > called Farsi, morons!).
Well, actually not. It's called "Farsi" in Persian, right enough, but it's called "Persian" in English and always has been. This is the English-language name used by ISIRI (the Institute for Standards and Industrial Research of Iran, http://www.isiri.org/English/edefault.htm), the Academy of Persian Language and Literature (http://www.persianacademy.ir/ ; in Persian), and by ISO/IEC 639-1, the standard for language codes, which says that "fa" is the code for the language called "Persian" in English and "Parsan" in French (see http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html#op). Calling Persian "Farsi" in English is like calling German "Deutsch". It isn't exactly *wrong*, just unidiomatic and unhistorical. In addition, saying "Farsi" implicitly excludes the Persian spoken by Afghans ("Dari"). -- Some people open all the Windows; John Cowan wise wives welcome the spring jcowan@reutershealth.com by moving the Unix. http://www.reutershealth.com --ad for Unix Book Units (U.K.) http://www.ccil.org/~cowan (see http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/unix3image.gif)

Replies

Joe <joe@...>
Chris Bates <christopher.bates@...>