Language

Persian (فارسی) is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran (Persia), and the neighbouring Afghanistan (officially known as Dari since 1958 for political reasons), Tajikistan (officially known as Tajiki since theSoviet era), and other countries which historically came under Persian influence. The Persian language is classified as a continuation ofMiddle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanid Persia, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Persian is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages. Persian is unrelated to Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, although there are many Arabic loanwords in Persian. Persian is so called because it originated from Persis (Pars) with the advent of the Achaemenid Empire, hence the name Persian (Parsi or Farsi).