ask-iran:

Oh, there are quite a bit of languages spoken by my people! The ones I’ve shown here are just a part of my assortment of languages, with Farsi being the most widely spoken by a little more than half my population. All the languages spoken by my people are, of course, pleasant to the ear~

((I’m no linguist, so excuse me if I don’t have extensive information about Iran’s languages, since there is some discourse over the categorization of the languages spoken in Iran :’)

First off, yes, Persian or Farsi is what’s spoken by a majority of people in Iran, and itself has a variety of dialects and accents. The accent of a Persian speaking Isfahani is different than a Persian speaking Tehrani, which may be different than a Persian speaking Yazdi and so on. Persian has also been referred to as the ‘language of poetry’, and along with Farsi, Dari [spoken in Afghanistan], and Tajiki [spoken in Tajikistan] share similar traits as Persian.

Azeri is spoken most notably in the Ardabil province, and concentrated heavily in the city of Tabriz [located in another province near Ardabil]. Iranian Azeri may be different than what is spoken in Azerbaijan because Iranian Azeri has been influenced by Persian lexicon and other linguistic elements [and this is more apparent when discussions in Azeri turn more academic].

Kurdish is also spoken by Iranian Kurds [however, not all Kurds may identify as being ‘Iranian’ or ‘Syrian’ or ‘Iraqi’ Kurds, so be mindful] in Northern, Western, and Southern Iran and has a variety of dialects as well, as I’ve mentioned in the Kurdish panel.

Gilaki is a native language of Iran, spoken by the Gilaki people mostly concentrated in the Gilan province, and is considered to be similar to Mazandarani, a language spoken in the Mazandaran province.

Arabic is prevalent among Iranian Arabs living in Khuzestan and even further south near the Hormozgan province. Arabic is also taught in schools as the language of the Quran, though native Arabic speakers in Iran have their own dialect(s).

Balochi is spoken by the Balochi people, and Balochis exist in Iran, Pakistan, and even in Oman. They live in the area of what is now known as Balochi-Sistan, thought to Balochis, this is just referred to as Balochistan [and again, be mindful of Balochis’ identification, they have a distinct cultural identity and may not always adhere to nationalist labels like “Iranian” or “Pakistani” or “Omani”].

Other languages not listed: Bakhtiari [a native language of the nomadic Bakhtiari people, in the same language family as Persian], Lori [the language of the Lori people, also in the same language family as Persian], Mazandarani [mentioned above as the language of Mazandarani people, similar to Gilaki], Turkmeni [spoken by Turkomen], Qashqai [spoken by the nomadic Qashqai people of Iran], Armenian [as Iran has quite the population of Armenian christians and muslims] there are even small pockets of people speaking Pahsto, Hindi, and Somali as well!))

Love this. Dear self, always remember that nothing is black and white when it comes to people.

atavus:

Shadows by Kumi Yamashita