Iran naming dispute
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Iran has been the subject of a naming dispute in common English usage. The two possible names for this country are Iran and Persia; their adjectives being Iranian and Persian, respectively.
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[edit] History of the debate
Serious argument on this matter began in the 1980s, when Professor Ehsan Yarshater (editor of the Encyclopædia Iranica) started to publish articles on this matter (in both English and Persian) in Rahavard Quarterly, Pars Monthly, Iranian Studies Journal, etc. After him, a few Persian scholars and researchers such as Prof. Kazem Abhary, Prof. Jalal Matini and Pejman Akbarzadeh followed the issue. Several times since then, Persian magazines and websites have published articles from those who agree or disagree with usage of 'Persia' and 'Persian' in English.
In view of many of these articles, it seems that the subject has not been explained sufficiently. Some think the name Persia belongs to antiquity, and ought not to be used now. Others believe that "Persia" includes only one province within Iran, and should not be used for the whole country. Also, some people from Afghanistan or Pakistan call themselves Persians, referring to the ancient empire which covered those lands. There are also many Persians and non-Persians in the West who prefer "Persia" and "Persian" as the English names for the country and nationality, similar to the usage of La Perse/persan in French. An English-speaking example would be "Persian rugs", which are specifically Iranian rugs.
Many countries and languages have different names in other languages (see Exonym). For example, Germans call their country "Deutschland" but in English people call it "Germany", in French "Allemagne", in Lithuanian "Vokietija", and in Polish, "Niemcy". People of Greece, Armenia, Finland, India, Albania, Egypt, Algeria, Japan and China call their countries, respectively Ellas, Hayastan, Suomi, Bhārat, Shqipëria, Mesr, al-Jaza'ir, Nippon or Nihon, and Zhōnggúo or Chung-kuo in their respective languages. Similarly, the native name of "Persia" is "Iran".
[edit] Etymology of Persia
Starting from c. 600 BC, the Greeks began to use the name Persis for Cyrus the Great's empire. Persis was taken from Old Persian Pars or Pārsa - the name of the people whom Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty first ruled (before he inherited or conquered other Iranian Kingdoms) and amongst whom he is counted. This tribe gave its name to the region where they (ethnic Persians) lived (the modern day province is called Fars/Pars).
In Latin, the name for the land was Persia. The name "Persia" until 1935 was the "official" name of Iran in the world, but Persian people inside their country since the Sassanid period have called it "Iran" meaning "the land of Aryans", the older version of which had been "Aryānām" (the genitive plural of the word Aryan, a cognate form of which is seen in "Airyanem Vaejah" ) as seen in ancient Persian texts.
[edit] Re-introducing the name "Iran"
In 1935, Reza Pahlavi announced that all Western countries should use the name of "Iran" in their languages too. Opponents claim that this act brought cultural damage to the country and separated Iran from its past in the West, and caused many people to confuse it with Iraq (an Arab state west of Iran). During World War II, in fact, Winston Churchill ordered that the name "Persia" be used for all government documents so as to avoid this confusion. For many westerners, "Persia" became a dead empire that does not exist anymore. Members of the Persian intelligentsia were not happy with this decree either, because of the pro-Nazi incentive behind it[citation needed]. After Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, the Nazi Economics minister, commented on the Aryan origin of Persians, Reza Shah's ambassador in Germany encouraged him to issue the above mentioned decree asking all foreign delegates to use the word "Iran" (meaning "Land of the Aryans") instead of "Persia" in formal correspondence.(The History of Iran, Elton Daniel, p.3)
As The New York Times explained at the time, "At the suggestion of the Persian Legation in Berlin, the Tehran government, on the Persian New Year, March 21, 1935, substituted Iran for Persia as the official name of the country. In its decision it was influenced by the Nazi revival of interest in the so-called Aryan races, cradled in ancient Persia. As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs set forth in its memorandum on the subject, 'Perse,' the French designation of Persia, connoted the weakness and tottering independence of the country in the nineteenth century, when it was the chessboard of European imperialistic rivalry. 'Iran,' by contrast, conjured up memories of the vigor and splendor of its historic past."[1]
The defenders of this name point out that the designation Iran was used by the Greek historian Eratosthenes and derives from the old Persian word ariya, akin to the Sanskrit Aryavarta. The Sassanids also called their empire Ēran-shahr ("empire of the Iranians") or Ēran-zamin ("land of the Iranians"). Subsequent and modern usage derives from this precedent. (The Persians, Gene R. Garthwaite, p.2)
After some Persian scholars protested the name changing announcement, in 1959 Prof. Ehsan Yarshater formed a committee to look into this matter. The committee announced that "changing the name is not justified", so Mohammad Reza Shah announced that both 'Persia' and 'Iran' could be used interchangeably.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Akbarzadeh, Pejman: What is the English Name of Our Country? Iran or Persia?, Rahavard Quarterly, Los Angeles, Spring 2004
- When Persia Became Iran by Prof. Ehsan Yarshater
- Bring back Persia by G. Motamedi
- Iran or Persia? Farsi or Persian? by Pejman Akbarzadeh
- A Particular Iranian Identity Crisis by Amir Rostam Beigie
- Oliver McKee Jr., New Names of Places: Change of Santo Domingo to Trujillo City Recalls Others, The New York Times, 26 June 1933, p. XX9.
