Persian people
From Metapedia
The Persians (or the Persian Speakers) are Iranian ethnic group who speak the Persian language and share a common culture and history.
The term Persia was adopted by all western languages through the Greeks and was used as an official name for Iran by the West until 1935. Due to that label, all Iranians were considered Persian. Therefore, many Western sources, when regarding Iran's history, will label many non-Persian Iranians as Persians, which distinguishes nationality, not necessarily the Persian ethnic group. Also, many others who embraced the Persian language and culture are also often referred to as Persian, not necessarily meaning ethnic group, but rather as a part of Persian civilization (culturally and linguistically).
The first known written record about them is from an Assyrian inscription of the 834 BC, which mentions both Parsua (Persians) and Muddai (Medes).[1][2] The term used by Assyrians 'Parsua' was a general designation to refer to southwestern Iranian tribes (who referred to themselves as Aryans). Greeks rendered this word as 'Persis' which is where the word Persian in English comes from. In Arabic as there is no letter "P", they referred to Persia and Persians as 'Fars' ('Faras') and 'Farsis'.
In its modern definition, the term “Persians” refers to the people speaking the Western dialect of Persian language and living in the modern country of Iran, as well as the descendants of the people who emigrated from the territory of modern-day Iran to neighboring countries, such as the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, and more recently, to the West (notably USA, Turkey, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada…).
[edit] Note
- ^ Abdolhossein Zarinkoob "Ruzgaran : tarikh-e Iran az aghaz ta soqut-e saltnat-e Pahlevi" pp. 37
- ^ Bahman Firuzmandi "Mad, Hakhamaneshi, Ashkani, Sasani" pp. 155
