The Persian Language: A Quick Dive into the History and Evolution 

Even though I am an Arab and despite the great political dispute between our two countries, I have always loved Persia, its culture, history and language. Love from Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦❤️🇮🇷

As a Persian hearing you talk about our culture and history was such a pleasure

I am Tajik 🇹🇯 myself and live in South Korea🇰🇷. Zoe thank you very much for your hard work, I am proud that I am also part of this ancient Farsi people

I'm a trilingual Saudi but I started learning Farsi recently because I love the way it sounds. I speak Urdu, so farsi has been easier for me than I thought.

I am currently learning Farsi, it just sounds so beautiful ❤

Persian is a magical language

Persian language has lots of feelings and beautiful poems❤🇮🇷

از این که میبینم افرادی علاقمند به یادگیری زبان فارسی هستند بسیار خوشحال میشم❤

I give salaam to all the Persian-speaking people from the Persians of Tajikistan. 🇹🇯❤

Zoe, this was simply an amazing journey through Persian language and history. Bravo to you! Your Persian accent is so sweet too!

i am an Arab and i have always loved Persians despite political stands,

I am a polygot. I know Punjabi,Hindi,English,Urdu,Japanese,French,Spanish and learning Arabic and Farsi. Thanks because you always inspire me to learn Farsi.

As persian this video makes me feel happy. Thank you for making video and paying attention to persian language

Thank you very much for working hard on the Persian language and sharing information about it❤❤❤🇮🇷

Farsça şarkılar dinlemeyi seviyorum, her ne kadar anlamasam da sadece dilin sesi hoşuma gittiği için arada TRT 2'de çıkan alt yazılı İran filmlerini seyrediyorum.Kulağa çok sevimli geliyor. RU-vid'da böyle kültürel ve bilgilendirici videolar yapan kanallar olması çok değerli, o yüzden Zoe bu içeriklerin nedeniyle ellerine sağlık🙏 Türkiye'den sevgiler 🇹🇷

Thanks!

Excellent. I am Persian and have read a few Persian language historic books. Your explanation is perfect. I have not seen anyone explain the history of the Persian language as eloquently as you have. And as it appears Persian is not your primary or even secondary language. I tip my hat to you.👌👌👌👌👋👋👋👋🌷🌷🌷🌷

Persian one of the best language in the world and this language is so old and beautiful 😍

Very nice effort to show the Persian history and culture. Thank you!

Such an impressive well organized documentary of a very long and complex history. Amazingly well done! In addition, she pronounces Farsi words with such finesse -- like a native speaker.

Thanks for showing our culture and language❤

As an Iranian, I can only say thank you

Your information about my country, Iran, the Persian language, and the history of this land is accurate and excellent👍💯❤🇮🇷🇮🇷

Hello Zoe, great work👏, I am from Samarkand and proud to know all great people from my mother language. I grew up studying literature in my native Persian Tajik language, but nowadays, unfortunately Persian schools were closed in old cities, including Samarkand and Bukhara. This hurts the people of those cities, because their children do not know their mother tongue and history!

In Afghanistan 🇦🇫 near 60% people has Persian as their mother tongue and 80% of people can talk Persian fluently

Excellent job Zoe! One thing to add is that there is a long list of English words with Persian origin as well. Some of the words including Candy, Caravan, Shawl, Lemon, Pajamas, Spinach, Bazaar, Khaki, and Checkmate are all Persian.

This video is so well made! Such beautiful culture and history summarized professionally in one video Thank you so much! I'm so impressed

I am impressed by this gorgeous video filled with tons of information and presented in a dynamic and easy to follow way. All is here for us to be able to delve and research those periods or historical figures that we would like to study deeper. This has the quality of a university presentation. I'm very grateful for this, Zoe!

This video was so good!! But its a bit of a problem,, because I am already studying too many languages and you just made me so motivated to learn Persian / Farsi as well hahahah

Thank you for providing a comprehensive overview of the Persian language dynamics. Regarding Afghanistan I can say that 80-90 % population can speak and understand Farsi and it is a language every ethnic group communicate with each other and widely used as lingua franca. It's interesting to note the political motivations behind the shift from calling the language Farsi to Dari. It is since 1964 that the Dari replaced Farsi and promoted by the Afghanistan government. The decision behind to replacing Persian was more political than linguistic to support an Afghan state narrative. The distinction between Dari and Farsi in Afghanistan seems to be more of a formal designation imposed by the government, while the people continue to refer to their language as Farsi. The term Dari imposed upon them by the Afghan government as an effort detach Afghanistan from the deep-rooted culture, linguistic and historical connections with the wider Persian speaking world, especially Iran, Tajikistan. It's also noteworthy that, despite the formal shift in terminology, the linguistic similarities between the formal written Persian of Afghanistan and Iran, and the mutual intelligibility between them, remain strong. This highlights the deep historical and cultural connections that transcend political boundaries.

سپاس از شما بابت این ویدیوی زیبا ^^ ❤

Thank you for your fascinating video on the history and evolution of the Persian language. It's amazing to see how languages transform over time, from Old Persian to the modern version we know today.

Thank you for this documentary, you have been able to summarize the whole evolution quite nicely ❤🙏🏻

Gosh this is such a fascinating video! Thankyou so much for the introduction!

It takes a superb Chinese scholar ( and also super great look) to give a scholarly presentation about the Persian language. It is the best I have seen so far in last 50 years as an Iranian diaspora. Thank you Professor Zoe, I hope you get the young Iranian and Chinese linguists to do translations between the two ancient cultures who have been living next to each other for more than 2500 years , but not much literature translations between two. Thanks millions from California.

We generally prefer to use the terms Persian or Parsi. The term Farsi originated from Arabic, which lacks the letter 'P.' In Arabic, words with 'P' are often replaced by 'F,' as seen in Persian words like 'پیل' (pil, pronounced fil), meaning elephant in Persian.

I enjoy that you introduce our language. Thanks from Iran❤

As a persian i appreciate ur efforts and love for iran it really makes me proud as an persian 🥹❤️❤️

Iran is so beautiful, history of Iran, culture of Iran and etc🇮🇷🫶🏻

Thank you for taking the time and effort to make this video. It was very detailed oriented, interesting, and well put together. 💯🙌 The guy I like, this is one of his cultural races. So it felt like I was learning a little part about him and felt an unconscious connection. ☺️🙏

Thank you for your time and efforts to make such an informative video! People like you definitely enhance the value of RU-vid

Thank you for hard works you've done on this video and for sharing information. I'm learning persian since 2years ago and i can confirm that sometimes learning new persian words , gave history and ancient vibes.

*Persian Language :* 1. Iranian Persian 🇮🇷 2. Afghan Persian 🇦🇫 (Dari) 3. Tajiki Persian 🇹🇯 Also, there is Karbalai Persian in Irak 🇮🇶 besides some of Balochi (Eastern Persian) and Pashto (Eastern Iranian) in Pakistan 🇵🇰.

best video I have seen about the history of Iran and persian speaking regions, from the begging to modern day, thank you for making the effort to deliver an accurate and engaging content

It is a source of pride for us Iranians that foreigners learn our language or share about our culture and history in virtual space. Your pronunciation is excellent, all your information was complete and accurate, thank you 💜🦋

You are absolutely Genius, in knowing many languages including this beautiful persian language 🤗👏👏

💞ممنون از توجه شما به زبان فارسی

I'm not knowledgeable about Farsi, but truly delighted to hear you pronounce the words/names so accurately. Especially the big "hay" and little "hay" are not easy but you did it flawlessly. Thank you for your devotion to higher professional and academic standards. Regards.

Thank you for taking your time and telling our history to the world which we proud so much. Good thoughts, Good words, Good deeds.

Very accurate and well summarized, thanks ❤🤍💚🇮🇷🇨🇦

Persian language is the sweetest ❤

What a nice yet condense passage of Persian history and evolution. You did a great job here and way to go dear.

You speak Persian beautifully and your presentation made me indescribably happy. Well done! Zendebad!

You are awesome, Zoe! I appreciate your effort a lot! Thank you for giving me inspiration to learn languages!❤

This was very resourceful and very informative. Especially the fact that you have learned Farsi language and are pronouncing the Farsi words correctly. I was impressed and appreciative. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your information about the history of the Persian language❤

Thank you for your video. It was very interesting to watch a progress of Persian language during the centuries. 😊

Dear Zoe. What an enchanting video to talk about Farsi and review the history of Persian language. Nicely done, Thanks.

The Perso-Arabic word Fauj is from the earlier Arabic word Fayj which itself is adopted from the Middle Persian word Payg (meaning "foot-soldier").

I can't find words to describe your valuable work. It was unique🔥❤

Excellent! That was perfect! Short and useful. Thanks a lot.

آفرین به شما، زبان فارسی، شیرین مثل قند و عسله، درود بر شما❤🇮🇷🌹

Well done video. As an Iranian I applaud your broad knowledge. 👏👏👏

it gave me goosebumps.. it was really a complete explanation , thank you a lot Zoe!

so glad to see this video about my language 🇮🇷🇮🇷

سلام وخسته نباشید ممنون از برنامه خوبتون و با ارزویه موففقیت برایه شما و همه ادم خوبایه رو زمین

Thank you for this video. West always sees middle east as arabia. Even in movies and video games that persians are included they portrayed them as arabs and indians its just so embarrassing. sometimes i feel like they seeing the current regime and the mullahs in iran and they think iran was like this back in day.

Thank you Zoe for this video، I really enjoyed it 🥹💗✨

Salom from Tajikistan🇹🇯 It is very nice to hear your pronunciation in Persian❤. I will add from myself that, In Tajikistan, although the Persian language is called Tajik, it is Dari. Calling it Tajik was a necessity without which our country would not have become independent as a state. Therefore, Tajik is the same as Dari, except for the writing. We use letters from the Cyrillic alphabet:)

Thank you for this introduction about Persian language! 💚🤍❤️

آفرین به شما بسیار خوب پارسی را گفتگو کردید آفرین به شما بانو❤❤👏👏🇮🇷🤝👍

Amazing video!!! Thank you for promoting this wonderful language and culture

درود ، دوست من 👋🏻👋🏻D: Persian speaker here! Good luck on learning persian my friend I'm glad our language is getting more attention :)))

Wow!!! This is so perfectly described. Thank you so much ❤

Thank you so much Zoe for making this great video.😊😊😊😊

Dear Zoe , you truly are a sweetheart and very talented , Parsi is the native name of this language ( used in Shahnameh by Fredowsi) and "Persian" (as you used) is the correct name of this fascinating language in English . Youre amazing, subbed and ❤

Good for you, thanks for such a great explanation of Iran's culture

زیباست سپاس از شما که آگاهی ما را نسبت به زبان پارسی افزایش دادید و زیبایی این زبان را نشان دادید.❤️‍🩹

That was an awesome video....new style for Zoe and was a fun and informative journey that brought up points many others just don't think to include...definitely looking forward to more vids from her!!! 100%

This was lovely! thank you.

It was superbly presented. Well done❤❤❤

This episode is more than enjoyable and more than useful because you explained a lot of important information in a clear and enjoyable manner. I thank you for that and I invite you to continue and present an episode on the ancient Pharaonic language, the Phoenician language, and the Latin language.❤

Love your channel as you are amazing and I adore languages, I am a polyglot as well! You inspire me to continue studying languages!

Wow im realy impress by your vast knowledge of both Iranian culture and history and im also aware of you having quite good informations on both Arabic and Turkish culture and history as well makes me speachless...realy amazing

Thank you for an enlightening video. Superb effort

خیلی خوب توضیح دادید 😍

You speak Farsi like native Iranians, great. Thanks for your valuable information. Greetings from Iran. سلام و درود

Thought long and hard on this topic. That was an outstanding summary of an outstanding culture.

Great video, I will repeat it to listen again ❤

The most beautiful channel, keep making these beautiful and wonderful videos ❤

Thank you so much for this amazing video Zoe! It's much harder to find videos about Persian so I am glad you are covering this wonderful language too. Is it possible you could make a video about Persian like your "How to Learn ___ from 0 to Fluency" series? It would really help those of us learning Persian if you could share your resources, methods, and tips with us since not many people cover this language!

Great effort to summarise a long history in a relatively short video. It can be a thesis.

Wow, high quality production.

خیلی شیرین صحبت میکنی 😍😍🥰🥰 خیلی ممنون بابت اینکه از فرهنگ ما ویدیو درست کردی که بقیه این رو درک کنن چه فرهنگی داشتیم برخلاف الان که فقط اسلامی هستش و تمام بناهای تاریخی در حال خراب شدن هستن 😪😪😭😭

با سپاس فراوان از ویدئو ی شما در مورد ایران. بسیار ممنون چون متاسفانه همه فکر می کنند ایرانیا عربی صحبت می کنند و راجب ایران چیزی نمی دونن

Nice work and thanks for sharing, I am a Persian guy and enjoy your effort on this video.

خیلی ممنونم که درباره ی زبان فارسی و فرهنگ ان ویدیو ساختید این ویدیو خیلی شگفت انگیز بود

خیلی قشنگ فارسی صحبت کردید... درود.... زنده باد بسیار مفید و دقیق و پرسون بود..ممنون

Hi Zoe and thank you for putting together this great informative video on Persian language. I'm a native Persian speaker and to answer your question in regards to whether to use "Parsi" or "Farsi", I must say "Parsi" is the correct term. Unfortunately "Parsi" had been changaed to "Farsi" post Arab invasion of Persia around 1400 years ago. The reason being is that Arabs do not have the letter "P" in their alphabet. During their invasion, they forced scholars to publish their work replacing "P" to "F" in this specific context and that's how this was changed. So "Parsi" is the correct term even though some less literate Iranian/Persian don't know the difference and why they say Farsi.

I really enjoyed this video. Your take and interpretation of Farsi/Dari and the cultural history associated with it along with it's influence was beautiful to see, Thank you 🙏 I am a Hindu Afghan living in Vancouver/Victoria BC for the past 40 years. I truly enjoy learning about other cultures and really appreciate seeing my fellow human beings doing the same. I'm looking forward to watching your other video in the near future. Shab bakher!!!