PERSIAN
'Pt3ke:r or the addrcssce who will carry out the
mJuested action, Rather, the speaker issues an
order or a recommcndation for others 10 act
upon, usuatly for offieial rather than personal
motivations. For examplc, by urtering (10),
thc spt!akcr, if a police officer, officially issues
a suhpoena even though heJshe i5 nOt Ihe one
who will acrually carry out the action of sum­
moning thln individual.
The fact that issuing a performative i5 ilself
an evem rather than a description of an event
moriv:ltes analyzing performativcs as tcnsdess
eonstfuctions. There are rwo observations sup­
porting this argument. First, Egyptian Arabic
verbs rh:lI are uscd as explicit perlormatives
do nm allow the imperfectivc prefix bi-, which
m3.tks the progressive and habirual aspects, as
in(lIa)and(llb}.
(1Ia) 'a·>addim I"·k,,m
Is-introduce fo-you.:z.mp
'ali
'ib" 'amm-;
Ali wn uncle-my
'I inrroducc to you my cousin Ali'
(li h) 'a-hlir-Ia-k ';,m-,
Is-sweaT-fO-YOU.2.IIlS that-l
lila sara'-t d-{ilü�
Neg slOle-1 s the-money
" swear 10 you Ih:u I didn'l Sieal the
maney'
If these verbs des c ri bc events Ihal are t;.lking
place at speech time, it is eXpt!cted th:1I they
\�Iould Ix grammatical only j( Ihe imperfective
bio forms were used. However, the progressive!
h:thitual marker inhibits performative inter­
pretations.
The other observation is that in Standard
Arabic perfea verb forms are restricted 10
ckdaratiolls (Khalil and McCarus 1999). For
cumple, the utter.mce (12) consritures semen·
eing the defendant ro a y�ar in prison, provided
that all felicity conditions arc sarisfied. These
conditions indude thc requirement Ihal th�
speak�r be a iudge on dur)' in a court session.
However, jf Ihe same utrerance is Isstled b)'
areporter 3S a newspaper h�adline, Le. if Ihe
felkiry conditions ar� nOI sarisfied, Ihe u lter�
anee is a Illere descriplion of a past evenl of
5emencing.
173
(t 1.) �Jakam-at of-mabkam·at-u 'oJa
stntenced-3fs the-court-fem.-Gcn on
l-m"Uaham bi-sana sijn
the-deJendanr with-)'ear prison
'The court sentena'd thc defendanl to 3
year;n prison'
Another way of unambiguously signaling the
communicarive intenl of an unerance is 10
us� a performarivc partide, These parricles
are convenrionalJ)' associated wirh pa.rticular
speech acrs such as lUd (IUOIU tm-"adba), which
is used for lamenting, the verbal suffix -1Ina
(mi" at-talUkid), whieh is uscd tO mark rep­
re�n[ati\'(' performatives (-. energicus), ;ind
insrigative hollti and 'olti ('adalUcit ot-tob�;�),
among many other such particlcs.
BIßl.IOCRAPlItCAl. REf"ERENCES
Ausrin, John. 1961.. HOlu 10 do IIJ/ngJ 1U11" ll'OrdJ.
Cambndge, Mass.: HarYud Unlverslry Press.
--. 1979. Phllosoph/col papns. Ox/ord: Oxford
Unh'erslty PrtSS.
Khalil, Azi!: Bnd Ernest MI:Carus. 1999. MArabic
perform3tive \'erbs�. Zeitsdmft für ArablSt:"e
Lmgu lJ/lk j6.7-l.l.
UVlnson, Siephen. 198J. PragmOltlcs. Cambndge:
C.1mbridge Universily Prcss.
Lyon.John. 1')77. Selllolllla. Cambridge: Camhridge
UmversllY Press.
Searle, John. 1969. Sptec" Qt:ts: An tssuy In the
pll/losop/IY of /at/Silage. Cambndge; Cambridgc
Un1\"ersity Pn.-ss.
--. 1971. MWhal is a spet'Ch act?". TIJe philoso­
plry of langllage, ed. John Searlt. j9-Sj. Oxford:
Oxford University Presto
--. 1')79. ETpreSSloII lI"d lIIf'llmllg. Cullibridgf':
Cambridge Universiry Press.
Srampc:, Oennis. '97$. -MeOlmng and uUlh In the
Iheory of speech aeu·. SyntiU lind S�Qnlla,
111, ed. Peler Cote and Je rry �Iorgan, l-j9, New
York: Academk Press.
MUiTAFA MUCHAZY
(Weuem Mlchlgan UmversilY)
Persia - Iran
Persian
This entr)' includes an Dccouni of the incor­
poration of Arabic vocabulary into ltterary
New Persian in general, and some discussion
of the Arabic vocabulary in Standard Pcrsian,
the wrinen and spoken language of educared
 PE.RSIAN
Iranians today. The topie is peninent also for
other Iranian. Turkic, and lndic literary lan­
guages of Ihe region, such as Chagharay and ...
Ofrom:m, Pashro, -. Urdu, and Bangla ( .... Ben·
g31i), which rcceived rheir Ambic voc3bulary
Ihrough Ihe medium of Classical Persi:!n.
I. HISTOkY AND EVOLUTION
Wirh [he Arab conquesl of Iran in rhe 7th cen·
tury and the conversion of a ma)oriry of the
population to Islam, Arabic came 10 exert a
profound influence on the Persian langu3ge. The
form of J>ersian affected was not literary Mid­
die Persian l1uJrsik, commonly called Pahlavi),
which was idemified with Zoroastrian reHgious
literature ;tnd written in ;t form of the Aramaic
scripl. but rather [he relared vernacular of the
court milieu of Scleucia-Ctesiphon (Madä'in)
and other parts of the Persian Empire, calied
Da" by Ibn al-Muqaffa( (see Lazard (990).
ßr the middle of the 9th century, this spoken
form of Persian h3d bci:omc a poceical koine,
presemed in Arabic script; wiehin ehe following
cenrury. it systematicaHy incorporated Arabic
loanwords and bccame established :u the quasi·
independent S3manid court of ßukham as a
literary language, New Persi3n. Arabic works
such as at-T3bari's Tdrix and Tarsir were trans·
lared imo New Pcrsian, and a tradition of origi·
n31 prose 'adab developed.
Arabic scripe was quite wdl adapted tO tmn­
scribing Persian. lranian bureallcr3rs continlled
in office even after the langu3ge of adminis­
tration was changed 10 Arabic; and (rom the
ourser man)' Iranians became bilingllnl in the
two rongues. Persian preserves [races of Ihis
vernacul:lr componcm in a few early Arabie
borrowings morphophonologically assimi lated
rO Persi:.n, and which have survived subsequcm
orthographie normalizarion: e.g. moso/md"
'Muslim' (by metathesis and, prob3bly, modi­
fication of a plural, < Arabic ",,,sliml-ii,,J);
the onomastic Im (Ambie 'abii 'father lof)');
mir (Arabic 'amir) 'eommander, prinee' :tnd its
compounds such as mir-nb 'offidal in charge
of water distribution', mir·dxor 'head groo01',
mir-tA 'born of a prinee', which par311c1 [he
3phercsis in Dari reflexes of Pahlavi words
at this time; d. (a))'or 'friend', (a)bQ 'wirh',
(a)"Ahid 'Anahita', erc. Thereafrer, .he bulk
of Arabie loanwords enrered Persilln as mols
sal/alUs in the writings of bilingual poclS and
scholars, mostly from fhe 10th fO the 12th
eemuries, and rrickled down ioto spoken usage
(Telegdi 1973).
2.. PHONOLOGY ANO
ORTHOGRAt'HY
With very few exceptions, Arabic loanwords in
Persian are wrinel1 exacd)' as in Arabic. A l1urn·
ber of Arabic charactcrs represent consonanIS
aBen to J>ersian, which are therefore assimilated
to the c10sest Persian phonemes: 5, !, and 1 Ort
all reaBzed as IsI; t. d, t/, and ? as Iv; land
! a5 111; hand h a5 1hI. Sounds of Pers;an not
fOllnd in Arabic (lI, C, i, g) were wnnen with
lerrers representing similar sounds (b, ;, t, k),
distinguished by diacritics (- Arabic alphabet
for other languagcs).
The glottal stop of Arabic (writlen as l,aIllW)
is pronounced after a consonam, bUI generally
it i5 realized before a consonant a5 a prolonga·
tion of the (short) vowel, and between vowels
a5 a glide: Isow:\V 'question' IArabic slI'dn. Tbc
peculiarly Arabic sound of '0'1" is ignored In
initial (and, col1oquially, in final) position; ir is
realized between \'owels as a glide or a glottal
stop, and before a consonam as a prolongation
of the vowel: Iba:dI for ba'd 'after'; in Persian
of Afghanistan, ehe quality of Ihe vowcl i$ also
changed, as 1b.t:dI. The sounds of qd( and tll)'fl
are pronouneed alike in Standard Persian, as a
voiced velar af(ricate or fricative: Arabic Il'lJqt:»
Persian IvagtJ :> IvaxtJ lafter de\'oieing befort a
voiceless eonsonanr). Thus, Arabic giga' '(ood'
and qa"d' judgmcnl. desriny', as loanwords,
'
beconle homophones: Igar.äJ. Arabic Iwl is rtal­
izcd as 13biooentn l 'vl in Standard Pcrsian. The
other Arabic eonson:;l.nts have dose Pcrsian
counterpartS.
Thc Standard Persian arricularion of vowels
and diphthongs in Arabic loanwords is shown
in Table I. The equi valence of quanriry belWCffl
Arabic and Persian short and long vowels IS
fuHy preserved onl)' in poctry, where the ArablC
prosodie syslem of 'ani(1 has been :;I.dapted to
Persi3n prosod)'. In spaken Standard I)ersian
the phonemie distinCfion is one of qualiry; bUI
fhere is also a division between 'st:lble' vowel5
(corrcsponding 10 the Arabic long vowels; first
three eells) 3nd 'unst3ble' vowels (correspond·
ing tO the Arabic shorr vowels: next thrtt eells),
The smble vowels do nOI eh:lnge :lpprtti:lbly
in qualiry or length in response [Q rhe pho-
 PERSIAN
netie environment, whereas the unstable vowels
may shift 31lophonically in quality and become
shoner when unstresscd, or assimil:ne to adja­
cem vowels or scmivowels (see Ihe diphlhongs
in Table I). Consistent in current Standard Per­
sbn is the raising of word-final fa/ > fcl, which
affects all Arabic [oans in the feminine ending
that do nOI have final -t in Pcrsian (see Sec.
7): qab4a > fgabze! 'handful; handle'. Thc low
back vowel /ä/ is gcnerally unrounded (though
more rounded in Eastern dialccts). Stress in
Persian nominals (to which dass belong mOSt
polysyllabic loans from Arabic) is word-final.
Table I. Correspondence of Arabic and Persian
\'owels
Lang vowcls Short \'owels Diphthongs
Arabic 3 i ü , " ay aw
Persian :\ " , , o ey ow
Stable vowel UnSlable vowel ____
Arabie short/Persian unstable vowels in loan­
words are also subjcct ro assimilation, dissimi­
lation, and syncope in certain environmenrs,
3nd 10 analogieal changes. Thus, Arabic /laluir
'nooo' > Persian lIoIJär 'Iunch' (one of very few
such changes to be retlccted in Ihe spelling);
�do > fsedä/ 'sound' (laI is raised in proxim­
iry 10 a sibilant); (;araka(t) > Iharekatl 'move­
ment', but wrika(t) > rscrkatl 'partnership'. The
vowel shift mllsofara(t) > fmos:lferatl 'journey'
Val is !3ised in an open penultimate syllable),
which applies to the whole form dass of about
'jO mufa"'aia loans in a[] dialects of Pcrsian,
may result from morphological analogy ralher
man phonetic law, i.e. by contamination with
the corresponding participial loanword, as in
Persian mostffer 'passenger', mobärez 'fighter',
mOlläseb 'suitable', erc. This tendcncy to harmo­
nite transparent cognates on familiar (Tureo­
Persian) principles of suffixation instead of the
alien nonscgmcntal morphology of Arabic can
elearly bc seen in the Persian pronunci:nion
ßoj:\atl'bravery' (Arabic sa;a'''a[tJ), by analogy
with the borrowed ad;ectivc so;tf 'brave'.
Arabic posed a challenge [Q the phonotaeries
of Persian by inrrodueing a number of alien
word-final consonant clusters, as in rab!, {iqh.
'adi. In tasrern dialects of Persian (and nlOSt
Turkie and Indic languagcs), [he difficulry of
m
articulation is solved by inserting an epcntheric
vowc! (generally schwa), as Ihlik>ml for tJ/lkm
'decree' or Iqab'U for qabl 'befare'; Standard
Persian prefers to delete OIlC of rhe rwo conso­
nants, as IV3Xtl or Ivax! for /Uaqt 'time', Iso:bI
for �obb 'morning' (wirh compcnsatory vowcl
lengthcning).
3. lEXICAL STATlSTlCS
A dictionary-bascd sampie yields an inventory
of 3pproximatcly eighr thousand Arabic loan­
words in current use (Räzi 1987), or 3bom 40
percent of 3n everyday lirerary vocabulary of
twenty thousand words Icxcluding compounds
and derivatives). Corpus-b3sed inventories, and
freque.ney of USt of Arabic vocabulary per text,
vary with date of composition, srylistie regis­
ter, individual amhor, and rapic of discourse.
Thus, :I sampie from the versified national
epie, the �tflmäme of Ferdowsi (completed ca.
40011010), yields an Arabic vocabulary of only
8.8 percenr and a frequency of 1..4 percent
(MoYnfar 197°:61-66); the eulogies of Ferdow-
5i's younger conremporary Onsori «Un$uri),
modeled on the Arabic qa�ida. yield approx;­
matcly 31. pcrcenr and '7 percenr, respecrively
(Osmanov 1970). In a sampie of Sufi verst from
3bour the 14th century, these proportions rise
ro 51.8 percenr and "2+3 percenr respecrively
(Urns 1977:75-101.); and in prosc fiction from
Ihe 1950s, rhey drop to 46.5 percent and 19.7
percent respecrivcly (Koppe t959-196o:9C>-93i
see also Perry 19913:2°3-205).
Since Arabic lexical morphology is highly
systematic, cerrain prefixed and suffixed forma­
rives of Arabic are salienr in the Persi:1.I1 dic­
tionary, as are cerrain assonanr word patterns.
Thus the letter mim, Ihe initial of three highly
producrive Arabic prefixes, accounts for about
eighteen hundred loanwords, Of almost a quar­
ter or the Arabic invenrory in modern Persian
(inclllding, e.g., seventy words of (he pattern
mofa/al; the overall invenTory of initial m- is
inflated to rwice the si7.e of the average lener.
4. lOANWORD CLASSES
Arabic loanwords in Persian are almost entirely
nominal in origin: noul1s. devcrbal nominals
(action nouns and participles), adjec[ives, and
adverbs. With the exception of lallWI" adve.rbs
(sccSec. s) and fe.minine-ending loans{see Sec. 6),
". I'ERSIAN
Arabic nominals are inducted inta Persian in
their bare STern form, withom inflenion Of arher
modific3rion. Ta this form may bc iuxtaposed
alJ appropri.::uc Persian affixes and endirics:
ketab-M-i 'same books'; bi-vofn-; 'disloyalry'.
Verbs are nOt borrowcd in inflected forms, hm
Arabic anion nOUllS (ma,sdar) .::md arher dever­
bai naminals rnay form Persian verbs, in one of
two ways:
I. Synrhcrically, by suffixation of the Persian
paST stern and infinitive, as (ahm-Man 'to
understand' (rhe original war of forming
denominal verbs in Persian, c.g. mim-idall
'ro name'); Ihis srraragem was favored in
carlier Classical Persian.
ii. Analytically, hy cambioing wirh a dummy
auxiHary such as kardall 'ro da, makI." Of
soda" 'm bccome, bc done': gat kordan '[0
sever, interrupr' (qa( 'cutring',action noun),
mtlne' sodall 'co hinder, prevenr' (mäni'
'hindering Ipar!.I'), This way is prcferred
in Modern Persian. The meaning ma)' be
refined b)' use of an auxiliary wirh some
semanric weight: gob,,/ kordan 'ro accept,
receive', gabul dJstan '[0 agree, concur; co
take for granted' (Arabic qnbiif 'ncceprance';
Persian dJsta" 'ra have, hold'; here, 'to hold
to be, consider as').
The incorporation of ma�dars was recorded,
regularcd, and probably accclerared by the com­
pilarion of Arabic-Persian diclionaries devored
co rhem, callcd ma�ädir, produced in Imn and
India from the I I th tO the 15th cenruries. Drher
Arabic nominats were glossed in dictionaries
ca lied 'asmä' or '(1sämi 'nouns' (Perry 1993).
Hunclreds of action nouns and partidples
from ren of the themaric extensions of the
Arabic verb have been borrowed into Persian
and commonly form compound verbs of the
aoove type; these are the action noullS of Form
11, both rypes of Form 111, and those of IV-VIII
and X, and Ihe l1Ia�dar ",imi (for a convenient
overview, largely ill tabular form, see Elwell­
Sunon J 963: I 57-167). Thus, from rhe rrilireral
roOl �.I-!, '(being) right, fit, proper, harmoni­
aus', the following Arabic derivatives appear
in Persi:l.I1, often as verbs or verbal idioms: solh
'peace' (Arabic �jllM, saM/, 'honesty, propri­
ery, fimess' (Arabie �/äM, sold/' ddllcstntl '[0
deem appropriatc, sec fit ' (dJ"esta" 'tO know,
acknowlcdgc'), es/tlh kardan 'tO inlprove, cor-
rect, edir; 10 shave' (Arabic 'i�lah), mosJ/e­
hat 'reconciliarion' (Arabic mll�älapa), este/dh
(Arabic inilafJj and mastalnh (pI. -ät; Arabic
,ml�,alnl1(it) '(tcchnical) term, idiom', mnslchot
'interesl, expediency' (Arabic ma#a!Ja), masfe­
hat didoll '10 deem prudem' (didan '10 see
[asn, rhe plural mnsdleh 'benefirs, imeresrs' (in
Indo-Persian, and hence Hindi-Urdu, > mnsäla
'materials, ingredienrs, spiees'), Ihe adjcctive
säfeh 'wholesome, benefidal' (Arabic �/i!'), the
compounds sa/tlh-Mr 'charitable Igood-doerl'
and esMh·mJ-pazir 'irremediable [reform-not·
acceptingJ'.
There are mall)' olher such multiple roOl­
cognates in the Persian lexicoll, conditioning
educated readers by alliteration tO the conncc­
tion of a particular consonanl combination
wirh a cenain semanric field, even though [hey
may not know Arabic as such. Orher patterns
supplying loans are nouns of place, as mnd,ase
'school' (place of teaehing; d. rhe cognate
loan dars 'lesson'); of instrument, as mezrJb
'dulcimer hammer' (Ambie mi(lräb; eL wrbat
'blow, beal', Arabie (Iarba); of occupation, a$
raggds 'daneer' (Arabie rnqqä�; d. rags, Ara­
bic raqi 'clance', from wh ich are derived both
rags-idml and rngs kardan 'to danee'); several
SOftS of adjecrivc (snri( 'noble" (tldl 'aetive' <
Arabic (a"äl) and quality nouns from adjectivr5
(nciJsat 'impurity', cf. "n;es 'impure'). A fe.....
patterns, norably the dative and diminutive,
da not normally appear as loanwards exeept as
lIames (Akbar, Hoseyn).
Apart {rom panidples (from 18 Arabic par­
tieipial patterns, nctive and passive: see Elwell­
Sunon 1963:162.-163), the largest class of
morphologically saliem Arabic adjectives in
Persian comprises the derivatives with [he ....
nisba or relarive suffix -i « .iyy""), e.g. makh
'Mecean', Saxsi 'personal' (Arabic snx#). This
suffix eoincides in form and meaning wirh the
Persi"n -j « Middle Persian -ik), as in sirdä
'of Shiraz', xJki 'earthen, brown'. Highi) ' pro­
duetive, this hybrid may bc suffixed direcrly
to any dass of nouns, induding assimilared
Arabic loanwords: e.g. teiJrat-i 'commereial',
qabue-i 'coffee<olored, dark brown' (where the
orrhography shows that this is not an Arnbic
form). In many cases, however, ir is not obvious
whethcr an adieetive in -j represcnrs an integral
Arabic borrowing or a Persi"n derivative. The
coineidence also rcsults in homographs such as
dudi 'smoky, smoked' (persian dJld 'smoke' +
 PERSIAN
-ijkJl land d!idi 'wormlike, peristalric' « Arabic
dud 'wonn' + -iyy-).
}. PSEUDOLOANS AND
ROCkWANOEMER
The degree 10 which nOi onl)' individual loan­
""ords bUi also their characteristic patlerns
mlered Persian consciousncss is shown in a
number of common Persian words coined on
Arabic morphological patterns from a native
Ptrsian or OIher lexical base: thus, kaffdj 'cob­
blu' « Persi:m kaß 'shoc'), ncuIkat 'daiminess'
« Ptrsian "a.:ok 'dainty'). The tamIli" accusa­
live lIdverb, commonly borrowed imo Per­
sian (rasma" 'officially', nesbata" 'relatively',
elc.) has remaincd producrive, even forming
ad\'erb$ from Persian nouns and adjectives:
iJnan 'wholeheartcdly', "öcdrall 'willy-nilly'
(nd-Cdr 'having no recourse').
Arnbicized forms of Persian words borrowed
Into Arabic were also accepted back, such as
{,"rest 'list, register', Arabic {jIJrist, originally
Middle Persian pahrist. The form Fdrs 'Pars
prollince' is in origill a conllention of rhe Ara­
bic gwgraphers (sevual of whorn were ethnic
Persians). but {drsi 'Persian (Ianguage)' is a
gratuilous Arabicization, virtually a blend of
Middle Persian pdrsik and Arabic {arisiYY-j
pi 'elephanl' is a Ri;ckwa"derer from Persian
plI, loaned 10 Arabic and returned wilh rhe
enhanced prestige of irs indusion in Ihe Qura",
Same Persiall writers in all pcriods have pre­
fermi 10 ust pörs, pörs;, and pi/, thereby mak­
Ing a politico-<ulfural stalement.
6. LOANWOROS WITII TIIE
FEMININE ENOINC
The gr-Jmmatically feminine mnrker in Arabic is
rtalized phonerically as either I-aU (in pre-Iunc­
rute position) or I-al (pausal form), according
tO the contextual syntax of Arabic,but written
with a single graph (rhe tä' ",ar/)';la). nlis syn­
tactically derermined variation in Arabic was
irrelevant ro Persian, where these loans needed
10 be lexicaliu:d sysrematically wirh or without
final t: aocordingly. some were wrinen with
rtgular finalt (e.g. hekmat 'wisdom, philosphy'
< ftikma) and others with nonlinking final h
10 rc-prtsent rhe open final s)'ltable Ial (Iater
/c-J; as in xerga. xerge 'rag; dervish's cloak' <
xirqa). Hisroricall)', mllny have 'shifred' from
m
the originally preponderanl -at inllentory tO
-a, so thai in currenl Standard Persilln there
are more than 800 words ending in -at, and
approximatdy 640 in -a (now realizcd phoneti­
cally as l-eJl; this indudes some forry pairs of
doublers lexicalizcd with both endings. Analy­
sis of the rarionales behind [his dichOtomy and
the associared shift aHords some insight into
the process of loanword incorporarion from
Arabic 10 Persian.
Distribution berwetn -at and -e 111 the
modem invemory is dClermined prim:arily by
semantic features, and addirionally by srylistic
register or hisrorical evolution of (he words
(perry 19913:195-l.14). Thus, nouns with
more absrract and intangible, or less image­
able and coumable, refcrenrs rend [0 end in
-at: roxsat 'pcrmission, leave' (Arabic rltx,sa).
xosllt,at 'asperiry, roughness' (Ambic x,,5.ina),
mojJllebat 'avoidance, nonintervenrion' (Ara­
bic mlljar/aba); nouns wirh more concrete,
tangible, imageable. and counrable referenrs
(more likely ro be plul'tllized) fend ro end in oe:
ttOs,u 'text,prescription' (Arabic 1II15xa), vasige
'bond, securiry' (Arabic waliqa 'documenr'),
mahaUe 'place, neighborhood'. Ellen ma�dar
farms ending in -e are more likely than those in
-at ro form common compound verbs in Persilln
and to halle evolved count-noun rderenrs: este­
(öde kardan '10 use', e5te{dde-hö 'uscs' (Arabic
isti{dda); cIdre kardan 'ro point Out, indicate',
dore-htJ 'indications' (Arabic 'ilära). These
proc�ses are even more apparenl in the dou­
bleiS: Arabic qllluwa > gOVlldt 'strengrh, power'
(general. intangible), V5. gOI/lle "(military) force,
(indusrrial) energy' (pI. gOlllle-JuJ. gOllö); erddnt
'wish, goodwill', �rdde 'rC'Solution, edict' (Ara­
bic 'iräda), elc. (Jlerry • 99S).
In historical persp«rive, rhis process can be
seen as one of 'exaptation',lhe adaptarion of a
redundant fearure 10 a producrive new purpose_
The loans that were adopted in [he form -a were
often morphologically assimilated with the large
dass of naTive substanlilles in -0 (such ns da"n
'grain', bamöma 'program', :md the acrive nnd
passive parriciples), a Icxical dass which al the
time of the Arab conqutst had already lost (in
spoken Dari) the final lIeiar of P;ahlavi (still tu
be setn in earlier Arabic borrowings (rom Per­
sian, such as danaq nnd barlllima/): by analogy
with [he Persi:an dass, this consonanl (whieh
still surfaees ;n der;lIatives of Persian words
in final oe: e.g. gorosne-g. 'hunger' < gorosne
",
'hungry') was supplicd 10 man)' of the Arnbk
10al1s befare Persian suffixes, 35 in xebrc-gJII
'cxperts' (Arabic x/um 'expertise'), bi-s obqe ­
gi 'uncourhness' (Ar3bic sa/rqa 'refincment'.
also borrowed). This expanding dass was rhus
marke<! 35 vern3cular and producti\·e.
Conversely. those loans adopted in -al stood
out 3S unproductive Fremdworter, since by this
time virtually al1 instances of final t in Pcrsian
had been voiced (t )0 d). In the course of rhe
Ilext sevcra[ ccnturics. hundreds of toe -at dass
shifted to the -0 dass, same leaving behind
tmets as doublcts in -at. In other words, an
cxisring vcmacular (orm in -0 was acknowl­
cdgcd as useCul and incorporarcd in fhe written
I:lI1guagc, eithcr 10 replace the -at reflex or tO
supplement ir (Perry 19913: 189-195). Same o(
the resulting doublets were mobilized lO cxpand
the technical lexicon; e.g., nl-Gazäli U$CS gOlluat
tO mcan 'power, potential', bUI gOlllla (pt.
g01l4; see above) for a particular physiological
or mental faeuh"}'. In genemI, the resulting -e
words nre semantieally more spccialized and/or
more firmly eSlablished in the vern3cular.
Thc loss of -t often corresponds addition-
3Hy 10 a change o( regisler, from lilcrary 10
vernaeular: thu$ Standard Persian hekdyat
'(literar)') anecdorc' « Arabic !liktiya) has
rcm::lined more or a literar)' ward (in eomrasr
wilh gesse 'tale, story' « Ambie qi��a), where::ls
in modern ..... T::Ijik ::Ind ..... Turkish ir has
dropped final -I orlhographicaHy and funerions
as an cverydny ward, respecrivdy I1ikoya and
I)ikäye 'Iale, Story'.
These rules for binary soning in Persian were
transmitlcd ro Turkish, Urdu, ere., togelher
with the Arabic loans th:H Ihey ineorpomred
via Persian, and were sHghlly expanded or
modificd (perry 199Ia:139-188).
Salienr among rhe e:trliesr loanword classes
(eoined in Arabic during the philosophieal­
scientifie heyday of Islam in the jrd/9th and
4th/10th eenturies) was rhe msba subseI of the
feminine subsrantives, incorporared as -irotl
-i)'a. e.g. e"sal/irat 'huIT13niry', zo;djira 'crysral­
Hne lens'. Then during Ihe 1 9th eeßtmy, a wave
of Arabic (and 3rtificial Arabieate) ncologisms,
many ealqued on French and originaring in
Ottoman Turkish, supplcmemed ,he rechn;­
cal and legal-administrative lexieon or Persinn;
these, too, includcd a large lIisba-noun compo·
ncnt, stich as me/ll)'a( (Turkish m illi)'cf) 'nat;on·
alism', agalli)'at 'minority' (Arabie 'aqalliyya),
elJuJri)'e '(writ of) summons, subpoena' « Ara­
bic 'ihdär 'summons'), balm)'e 'naV}" « Arablc
ba!)r 'sca'; sec Farsidvard 1969:61-6j). Same
or these coinages, paradoxically, were circulal·
ing in Turkish and Persian before [hey were
ineorporal"oo into Arabie.
7. CHANGE OF CATECOKY
Scmantic change, especially vernaeulariz.arioß,
in a loanword ,"ay entail a shift or gr:lmmati·
cal catcgories, An early example is tomit 'clean'
(adjCC1ive, wrth onhographie modific3tion, <
Arabic tam)'il 'discemmem, disrinelion'). Sev­
eral qualiry nouns of Ambie origin are now
used primarily ns :td;ccrives in Persian, e.g.
xallla( 'private, quicr' (Ar:tbic xalwa 's«:lu·
sion'), rdllat 'casy, eomfonablc' (Arabic räbo
'ease, rest'), saldmot 'safe, weil' (Arabie sotanlJ
'safety'); the change was presumably achie\·ed
by wa)' of a «"analysis of the ward as predicale
(i" rdhat mst '[his is not Im)' idea of) comfen'
� 'nOt comfortable'). Mos[ such words may
now bc uscd rmriburivcly (:In exception i5
sohre 'famous; a byword', a doublel or iohral
'fame; surname', bolh < Arabie $,,/,,0); Ihty
may usually derive a new qualit)' noun by suf­
fixing ·1: salJ",ati 'health', ere. Other nouos
havc become adverbs: xo/d.sa 'gisr; in shon'
(Arabic :("Ijlti�). Dthers were produced by dele·
rion of the head noun in a phrase: ko/fat 'maid,
cleaning wornan' < um-i! ku/fat "vornan lor
chores' (Arabic kllffa 'inconvenience, chore');
bafad 'familiar (with), knowledgeable (abauI)'
< ?(ahl-e) ba/Oll 'Iocal, narive' (Ambic colloca·
rion '0111 af-balad 'belonging tO the locale'l,
8. GRAMMATICAL ELEMENTS
Arabic plurals rnny somerimes be used
inSTcad of Persian plurals: keldb-hd or kotob
-books', moallem-d,i/-hd/-i" 'tcachers' (Arabic
,,,,Ial/imi,,). The choiee is usu311y stylistic, but
some plural lo:ms h:lve becn lexicali1.cd witb tI
singular meaning (arbdb 'landlord; bo$$'; tbc
singular rabb 'Lord' refers only to Codl; or the
choiee of plural is lexicalized, eaeh form den(\(­
ing a pari of the semantic range 01 the singular,
e.g. Arabie pi/nb> sdheb-d" 'owners', SlJhdbt
'the Companions (of the Prophet)', ashdb-e X
'pcople ch:tractcrizcd by X'; Arabic horf> harf­
IJä '(spoken) words, uttcr:mce', 1I0mf 'Ieners
(of the alphaber), wrirren chameters'. ArablC
 PE.RSIAN
broktn plurals hav� oceasionally been appli�d
ro P�rsian and orher non-Arabic nouns, some
StIli curr�nr: battdder 'rhe lower Gulf linoral' < The ficld of (Islamie) religion is not (and
Pttsian bandar 'harbor'_
Th� f�w nouns in whieh th� At:lbic definile
anide 0/- is incorporaled in Pers;an funerion as
Inlerj«tions or adv�rbs: al-'a1ll0" 'm�rey!-, al ­
l'tdd 'farewcll' (Arabie al-wad«), a/-'d" 'now',
al-baffe'of eour�'. Arabic nominal eollocarions
(adverbial and noun pht:lses), frozen and I�xi­
alized, play a larger role: bel-'aks '"iee versa'
IArabie bi·I-'aks; also Persianized as bar aks).
In reeen! ctnturies, macaronic collocations such
'
.u lJasab a/·{anllon 111 accordanee with decrer'
Imooeled on Arabic basob al-'amr) wer� in
\'08UI::, Some P�rsian compounds originated as
Arabic eollocations: kotob-:(t1ne 'Iibrary', origi­
rully in Ihe form 01 a direet calque on Arabie
dar af·kulJlb 'hou� of (Ihel books·. was soon
normalized as ketdb-xd"e. wilh rhe modifier
�s a generie singular (allhough Ihe original
(orm survives in Turkishl. Arabic semenccs
aod \'erb phr:!ses (inlcrprtted as rcdueed rel:!­
U\'C d3Uses) also serve as adjective5: /d·yon{akk
'inseparable' (Arabic '[it, eIe.) is nOI dClached'),
aras nouns: mo-;ard 'advemurc, affair' (Arabic
'what Iranspired'; see Jazayery 1970).
,. SEMA NTIC DISTRIBUTION
Sludies of rhe Arabie eomponcnt o( s�cifie
srm.1nric and experiential fields in Persl3n are
as yel few and limired (see Asbaghi 1997).
Arabie loans in Persian appear 10 eompri� a
urater proportion of absrrael and inrangib!c
rdcrems than of enrities and orher (angib!e
lind eountl
; ble referenrs - Le. more intellec­
mal and high<ulrural \'ocabulary (see Koppe
1959-1960; Perry t991a: 1.06-1.08). In one
rx�riment. eompanng a random s..'l1lpl� of
Arabic loans in four languages, the vocabulary
of material culfUre in Spanish was 51. pereem
of the Arabie loan inventory. while in Persian
thr 10lal was 14 percent; the Arabie vocabulary
01 imdlectual lifc was 8 �reenr in Spantsh. 1.4
perccm in Persian. This result for Persian i5
C{)nsislent wLth a sophistkarcd sociery aC!ively
im'olved in the ideologieal and inrelleclual
aspr:cls of Ihe sUJX'rimposcd culture Ihrough
LIS language (Perr)' 19�1 b). On the other hand,
11 15 evident that man)' Arable loanwords have
(and had) e\'cryday synonyms in Persian (e.g.
Anbie mari{l, Prrsian b",r4r 'siek, il1'), and
were probab!y borrowed for reaSQns of prestige
01' lilcrary variery rather than necd.
never was) dominated by Arabie loanwords.
Scores of Persian words, from oxmrd 'clerk' tO
::.e"dtq 'herelie' (the larter in Arabicized (orm),
are Persian, ineluding the everyday terms for
God, prophet, pmyer, prayer leader, lasting,
angel, ereation, cr�aror, heaven, hell, soul, sin,
to worship, (0 repenr. ro forgive, ete. This is
not surprising, since rhe proccss of conversion
dc�nds for irs early sueeess on eomprehrnsion,
aehieved by translarion inro, analogy wirh, and
use of the language of the target population.
10. PURISM ANO II.ELEXI FICATION
The debate over the U� of Ihe vemaeular in
scholarly wriling was already lively In the I nh
ecntury. 80th Ibn Sinä (d. 41.811°37) and al­
Gazäli (d. 505" I I I), known for their works in
Arabie, wrotc thelf less specialized Irrattses in
Persian and consciously resurrected 01' invcntcd
terminology in Pcrsian; but al-Biruni (d. after
441.h050) argucd that Persian should be eon­
fined to popu!:Jr lilerature and onl)' Arabie
was lexically sophistiealed enough for seien­
lifie writing (L31ard 1975:6} I). After thc Mon­
goi conque5t of Baghdad (656112.58), Arabic
became a dead langu:!ge in rhe Tureo-lranian
world, and Ihis sourer of loan vocabulary soon
dried up; Persian. wirh irs ex.isting slock of Ara­
bisms, beeame a medium of scientifie wriling in
virtuaJly all fields execpt malhemalics.
Wirh thc language purism 1ll0VClUcm of the
193°$-19405 in -. Iran, Arnbie vocabulary was
largered for replacement by Pcrsian neologisms.
Although IhlS reform was not as drasrieal1y
implcmenrcd as in Tur!.:c)', many o( the more
recenr lechnieal terms were replaeed, and of6-
eially sanclioned lexieal poliey ever sinee h:lS
prefrrr�d eoinage of J>ersi3n t�rms 01' IOI�ra­
don of Europcan loanwords (Perry 1985I. The
Islamie Revolurion o( 1979 has not fundamen­
rally affecred rhe� Irends. A few ideologic3l1y
inspired Arabisms have been imrodueed, such
as /IIostm:'a{ (with Persian pI. -dn Ot Arabic pI.
-in) 'dispossessoo, underprivileged' (ml/sta(faf);
but vocabulary is still being expanded primarily
by ap�al to native Persi:1Il words and morphs
(supplcmented in Ihe spakcn language by bor­
rowings from Englishl. Arabie i5 no longer 1)
live lex..cal souree for Persian.
,80 PERSIAN lOANWOII.OS
B I B L I O C R A " U . C A L REFERENCES
Asbaghi, Asyl!.. 1997. 1Jie semantISche Entwick­
/ung arabucher Wörter 111' PerslU:hen, Snmgoan:
F. Steinet.
Elwdl-Suuoll. Lawrtncc 11, .,6). Elementary Persu",
grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge Univenity
Prcss.
Fariidvard. Xosrow. 196,. 'Arubl tLI, (dm [ArablC
n
i Persi:!nl. T('hnlß: Ahun.
Jauytry, Mohammad Ali. 1970. "The Arabic element
n
i PerStaD grammar: A prchmlOary r('po"�_ fron
8.1 1 5-11.4_
Koppe'. Reiner. 1959-1 ,60. MStausuk un d Scmanrik
der Ilrrabischtn Lthnwoncr in der Sprache ·Ala....is...
Wlsurud,a{tlicl;r ZeItschrift der Humbold,­
Umvewtiit zu Berlm ,_}85-61',
Luard. Gil�rt. 1975- MThe risc of Ihe New Persian
languagtM, C,mbridgt' hiS/Dry or Imn, IV. 595-
63l.. Clmbridgc: Cllmbridge Univcrsiry l'reß.
--. 1990. �"ärsi CI dar;: Nouvdh:s remarques". l'"
8/jlle/m u( /he Asta Im/i/llte N.S., ".) Aspcc/s o(
Iralli/JII CI/I/lire, m 110m), o( R,cJJllrd Ne/SOli Fr)'e,
td. O. Sixrv" and A. Sh. Sh:ahbazl, 11, 1. j9-1\1
. ..
AmeS, lowß.
MO'infar, Mohammad Diafar. 1970. L� tIOcabulaire
arabe dmu I� Livre des rois de Firdalls,. Wiesb<lden:
O. Harrassowitz.
Osmanov, M.N. 1970. 6.S/O/II),I s/ovar> Uns,,,,
ISlatisliC41 glossary of 'Un�uril. Moscow: Nauka.
Perry, John R. ly8J. �L:rnguage reform ," Turke)'
and Imn." I"/e",a(,o,,al }ullfflaf o( Aliddle &lst�
S/lId,es 17.1.YJ-J 1 1 . (Rtpr. wilh correetions.
Ale" o( order: AII/hOrltannn modrnllUlIIO" In
Tllrktry a" d Iran, l:d. Toumi Alabaki and Erik-Jan
Zürcher, 1.j8-1J9. London and Nl:w York: I.B.
Tauns, 1OOj.)
--. 1991 a. Fa"" ami "'I:""'''g In Pefsum
vo<:abll/ary: The A,a!Jic ("nm,me e"ding. Cosra
Mcsa, Calif.: Mazda.
--. 1991 b. ArllblC IQan v.xabulllry '" Persian,
�
Turkish, Urdu, Hmd., Sp:ulIsh: Comparanve
Indiccs". I'aper delivercd a. Ihe 10lSI Annual
Mccling of .he Amerlcan Ommal Sociery,
U01versity of Californ ia, Berkeley.
--. 199j. �E.1r1y Arahlc-Persian lexicography:
Thc asa",; :md maJad" gtnrts". Prucccdillgs
o( Ihc Colloqllimtl 0/1 Arubie Lcxieo/ogy al1J
LuieografJh)', I, cd. King:1 Dfvenyi, T:lImis Ivanyi,
and Avihai Sh,Vlid, 1.47-160. ßudapesl: Eötvös
Lorand Ulliversity.
--. '995. �Lexical dOllbltls as a derivational
device in flerSl:1n: Thr Arnh,c feminine rnding".
A{'ta Oritmtnlill H'lIIgarieo ,,11.11.7-1 53.
R:izi, Farida . 1 36611 9117. Forhollg-� 'arah, dar (tiN'­
I mo'dser lArablc vocablll:ary 10 c01llcmporary
Persianl, Tthran: Markal..
Tclc-gd i, Zsigmond. 1 973. MRemarqllts sur Its
.
emprums arnbes eil persan .. Acta I.lIIgUlst/{'O
IBudapesl) 1.j: 1-1..j '-J8.
UI:lS. 80. 1'177. A PUS/OlII Sufi �m: Vorabulary
o"d urmlllo/ogy. I.ondon and Malmö: CIln:on.
JOIIN R. 1'f.RRY ( Unlversny of Ch1C3g0)
Persian Loanwords
The hisrory of mankind is charaeterizcd by
an ongoing cul[Ural exchange bttween diffrr­
ent nalions lind cultures. Generally speaking.
older cultures exert a much greater influenct
on (he younger ones bectu� ,her posseu a
grelltcr number of achie\'emenls wi,h regard
tO civilization. This proccss also h3S hnguistic
implic3tions. Ikcau� ,he Arabs lived in a rcla­
tively remore are:a before Ihe advenr of Islam
and had only Iimiled culruml exchange w.m
other peoples, Ihey did not possess words for
things uncommOn in [hcir eultural and eco­
logieal environment. Even in the pre-Islamic
pcriod, the Arabs borrowed words {rom the
Persi:an l:anguage, but Ihe prOCeSS increascd
:after the sprcad of Islam throughoul the Micldle
E.1St, which uniled pcoplcs of diUerc:nt euhural
b:ackgrounds.
In the pre-lsl3mie pcriod, Arnbs and Prr­
sians hOld some conlael in border 3rras of lbe
Arabian Peninsula. There wert, fQr ex:ample,
the Lakhmids. who were in the service of Sas­
sani3n Persia and sccured the border :agaillSl
invasions from Bedouin tri� {rom the d�n.
Almost half a century before the advent of
Islam, Yemen came under Ihe rule of S:assanians
and Persian govemors, who ruled Iheft! t\'rn
afrer the advent of Islam. These: eontaets had
linguistic implieations, and we lind a eompara·
lively large number of Persi3n loanwords i n lhe
Arabic language already before the :advenl of
Islam, e.g. 'ibriq < Middle Persian äbrit. 'iug';
lotlj < Middle Pcrsian iatlg 'harp'; Idi < Middlc
Persian lai 'erown'.
After Islam bceamc Ihe dominam religion
throughoul the M iddlc EaSI, including 1mn,
this process ehanged to a cermin dcgrec: in .he
opposile dircction. However, sinee the new
Arab rulers had 110 cxperience in the admmis­
Iration of a greal empire :and were depen dent
on Iraniall experts, l13nian culture still t;(ertrcl
a very remarkable inAuence. That influcnu WiI�
fell, for examplc, in rhe Iransl:ation of Middlt
Persian ueatises on adminlSlfalion IOto Ar3mc
and Ihe adapt3tion of such Middle Persian
administr31ivc It'rminology a5 dartor 'register,
accounl book'; diwa" < Middle Persian diw4n
'archive, collt'ctcd Wrilings'; iiz)'o 'hcad IllX,
tax' < Middle Persian gazidag 'poll lu'; ßml5n
'edict. decree' < Middlr I'ersian {ramatl ·order.
eonunand'_