The Persian language has been written with a number of different scripts, including the Old Persian Cuneiform, Pahlavi, Aramaic, and Avestan, Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. After the Islamic conquest of the Persian Sassanian Empire in 642 AD, Arabic became the language of government, culture and especially religion.
Modern Persian appeared during the 9th century. It is written in a version of the Arabic script and is full of words of Arabic origin. There are also two methods of writing Persian with the Latin alphabet.
Under Mongolian and Turkish rulers, Persian was adopted as the language of government in Turkey, central Asia and India, where it was used for centuries, and until after 1900 in Kashmir.
Persian is a member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages spoken by about 130 million people, mainly in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. There are also significiant numbers of speakers in many other countries, including Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Israel, Turkmenistan, Oman, Yemen, the UAE and the USA.
In Afghanistan Persian is known as Dari (درى) or Dari-Persian, while in Tajikistan it's known as Tajiki (Тоҷики / تاجيكى).
The official language of Iran is sometimes called Farsi in English and other languages. This is a correct transliteration of the native name of the language, however many, including the ISO and the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, prefer the name Persian for the language. Some speakers use the older local name: Parsi (پارسی). There is some discussion about this topic at: www.iranian.com and wikipedia.
Until 1935, the official name of the country currently known as Iran was Persia, though the Persian people have called their country Iran since the Sassanid period (226 - 651 AD). There's further discussion about this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_naming_dispute
A recording of the Persian alphabet by Bahaareh Asghari (بهاره اصغرى)
Notes and corrections by Ali Jahanshiri
The symbols for 4,5 and 6 are different from the standard numerals used for Arabic.
A recording of these numbers by Bahaareh Asghari (بهاره اصغرى)
Transliteration (from Ali Jahânshiri)
Tamâm-e afrâd-e bašar âzâd be donyâ miâyand
va az lehâz-e heysiyat-o hoquq bâ ham barâbar-and. Hame dârâ-ye
aql-o vejdân mibâšand va bâyad nesbat be yekdigar bâ
ruh-e barâdari raftâr konand.
A recording of this text by Bahaareh Asghari (بهاره اصغرى)
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another
in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Tower of Babel in Persian | Useful phrases in Persian Persian numbers
Language learning materials for Persian
Information about the Persian language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language
http://www.farsinet.com/farsi/
http://www.iranchamber.com/literature/articles/persian_language.php
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/language/about/persian.html
Online Persian lessons
http://www.easypersian.com/persian/New/Farsi_Lessons.htm
http://www.linguanaut.com/learn_farsi.htm
http://www.farhangsara.com/Farsi0.htm
http://www.nyu.edu/pages/gsasweb/dept/mideast/virtualpersian/
Persian Verb Conjugator
http://www.jahanshiri.ir/pvc/pvc.php
Adventures in Persian language and culture
http://www.ajabanzaban.com
Free Persian fonts
http://www.farsiweb.ir/wiki/Persian_fonts
Online Persian dictionaries
http://www.aryanpour.com
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~safari/masood/cgi-bin
http://www.farsidic.com
http://www.ariadic.com
http://www.farsi-dictionary.net
Persian Electronic talking dictionaries
http://www.ectaco.com
Online English <> Persian translator
http://www.parstranslator.com
Online Persian news
http://www.hamshahrionline.ir
http://www.irantimes.org
http://news.gooya.co.uk
Online Persian radio, TV and podcasts
http://www.radiofarda.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian
http://www.epersianradio.com
http://www.radiocp.com
http://radioali.com
http://www.persianweb.net/radio.html
http://www.iranytv.com
FazMide | Persian Music Download
http://fazmide.org
Links to a range of Persian sites (news, radio, etc.)
http://www.gooya.co.uk
Information about Iran
http://www.persian.asia/
Avestan, Baluchi, Kurdish, Ossetian, Persian, Pashto, Shabaki, Tajik, Wakhi, Yaghnobi, Zazaki
Other languages written with the Arabic script
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