Persian

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Persian (local name: Fĝrsī or Pĝrsī) is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and by minorities in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. It is derived from the language of the ancient Persian people. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian language family.

This is one of many languages used by Guru Gobind Singh in the Sikh Scriptures call Dasam Granth. The famous Zafarnama, the "letter of victory" written by the Guru in 1705-1706 was written to Emperor Aurangzeb in this language. It was also the language of choice for Bhai Nand Lal ji and many other Sikh writers in the times of the tenth Gurus.

Persian has been a medium for extensive literary and scientific contributions to the Western world as well as the Islamic nations. It has had an enormous influence on certain neighbouring languages, particularly the Turkic languages of Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia and the Indo-Aryan languages of Punjab. It has had a lesser influence on Arabic and other languages of Mesopotamia.

For five centuries prior to the British colonization of south Asia, Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent; it took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts in the subcontinent and became the "official language" under the Mughal emperors. Only in 1843 did the British force the subcontinent to begin conducting business in English instead of the traditional Persian.[1] Evidence of its former rank in the region can still be seen by the extent of its influence on Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, and Sindhi language, as well as the popularity that Persian literature still enjoys in the region.

Persian and its dialects have official-language status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. According to CIA World Factbook, based on old data, there are 71 million native speakers of Persian in Iran [1], Afghanistan [2], Tajikistan [3] and Uzbekistan [4] and there are about the same number of other people who can speak Persian throughout the world. It belongs to the Indo-European language family, and is of the Subject Object Verb type. UNESCO was asked to select Persian as one of its languages in 2006.[5]

Persian Language In Zafarnama

Guruji used very simple Persian while writing the Zafarnama. It is not possible for any one to give exact pronunciation of the Persian words in English or in Gurmukhi scripts but I have tried to be as close (especially in Gurmukhi script) as possible to the original Persian. The reader will notice that many words have been used by Guruji, which differ only marginally from each other. This is because the Persian words, especially verbs, can be changed to their present, past, singular, and plural forms by slight modification to their basic form. Just to give a few examples: (a)"aamdan" or "E`mdn" and (b) "khordan" or "<Ordn" are the basic verbs meaning, "to come" and " to eat/to drink" respectively (these words have been used quite frequently in Zafarnama). Their present and past stems are "aa-E` " and "aamad-E`md" respectively for (a) and "khor-<Or" and "khord-<Ord" respectively for (b). These undergo changes as per the following ( use of personal pronouns can be dispensed with when these forms are used):

For "aamdan - a;mdn" to come(present tense from present stem "aa-E`") (past tense from past stem"aamad-E`md") aayam or a;ym I come aamdam or a;mdm I came aa-ee or a;XI You come (singular) aamdi or a;mdI You came aayad or a;yd He comes aamad or a;md He came aayeem or a;yIm We come aamdeem or a;mdIm We came aayeed or a;yId You come (plural) aamdeed or a;;mdId You came aayand or a;yMd They come aamdand or a;mdMd They came

For "khordan - <Ordn " (to eat/drink)

(Present tense from present stem "khor-<Or") (Past tense from past stem"khord-<Ord") khoram or <Orm I eat/drink khordam or <Ord I ate/drank khori or <OrI You eat/drink (singular) khordi or <OrdI You ate/drank khoradd or <Ord He eats/drinks khord or <Ord He ate/drank khoreem or <OrIm We eat/drink khordeem or <OrdIm We ate/drank khoreed or <OrId You eat/drink (plural) khordeed or <OrdId You ate/drank khorand or <OrMd They eat/drink khordand or <OrdMd They ate/drank


Other changes in the verbs are brought about by adding suffix to these roots. For example when "ni-nI" is added to the root ( present or past ), it conveys the meaning of "no, not"; "niaayam-nIa;ym" means "I ( will ) not come" and "nikhordam-nI<Ordm" means " I did not eat". If "b-b" is prefixed to the present stem only, it changes the verb to imperative form. For example "bkhor-b<Or" is an order "eat"; and "biaa-bIa;" is an instruction to a person "come here". For negative commands "m-m" or "n-n" is prefixed to the present root. "mkun/nkun-makun/nakun" conveys "do'nt do". There are many other variations of these verbs and other words. To understand all these one has to learnPersian language. However, for ease of understanding, Individual meanings of the Persian words have been explained immediately after each verse in English.