Teach yourself modern Persian

Artikelnummer 10125191

PREFACE PERSIAN is an Indo-European language, that is, it is related to the tongues spoken in Western Europe. As a result of the spread of Islam after the death of the Prophet, many Arabic words were introduced into Persian, which came to be written with the Arabic alphabet; yet in its grammatical structure and its basic vocabulary Persian remains Indo-European, hence quite unlike Arabic. Persian is therefore an easy language for us to learn to speak; at first the writing and reading of it seem difficult, but with the right approach we can learn even this quickly. This book attempts to teach the basis of the reading and writing, with the minimum of grammar, in the first dozen lessons; thereafter the grammar and idiom of the language can be explored more fully. A transliteration in Latin characters is given for the first few appearances of every word, phrase or sentence, but you should try as soon as you can to pick out the words direct from the Persian script, reading them several times over to accustom your eye to the forms. Plenty of practice is given in this, in the early lessons of the book. The book is in three main parts—Alphabet, Grammar, and Vocabulary-building, and in addition it has a Key to the exercises, an Index, and vocabularies each way. The book is called Teach Yourself Persian; this is important. Arabic forms of speech and orthography do appear in everyday Persian talking and writing, and where they do we have mentioned them; but there is no more need for the student of Modern Persian to learn Arabic than there is for the person learning, say, French to know Latin first. I do not speak, understand, read, or write Arabic beyond the half-dozen or so examples of it which appear in this book. You ought to enjoy learning Persian—Iran is a fascinating country, unique in her long history of civilisation and art. Now that she is becoming a more and more progressive and important Middle East country, Iran is being re-discovered by thousands of English-speaking people—British and American—and it is their need to understand and be understood among this friendly and hospitable people that has prompted the writing of this book. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking Professor Savory, of the University of Toronto, and Mr. Leonard Cutts, the Editor-in-Chief, for their many helpful suggestions on the text, and my wife who made the drawings. I am also indebted to Messrs. Bruno Cassirer, of Oxford, for their kind permission to reproduce the miniatures on pp. 93 and 117, and to the Trustees of the British Museum for allowing me to reproduce drawings of the archaeological fragments on pp. 39, 79, and 201. JOHN MACE. NOTE: Iran is the country; Iranian the nationality; Persian the national language, originally the tongue of Fars in the south of Iran. In English Persia is used to mean Iran, but this is, really, inaccurate.