Coll 28/39(2) ‘Persia. Printed Correspondence, 1937–’ [‎58r] (115/320)

2. The general tone of this address which sets out the aims and objects by which
those who are interested in the improvement of the language should be guided is
moderate and well-informed and the matter appears to be of sufficient interest to
justify me in sending you the enclosed copy of a minute written by the Military
Attache to His Majesty’s Legation summarising the various points made by the
lecturer and adding his comments thereon,
3. I am sending copies of this despatch to the Secretary to the Government
of India in the External Affairs Department No. 222,
1. Linguistic individualism must exist .—Quite so. Every work on comparative
philology says the same.
2. Incorporation and borrowing is inevitable. —This is equally true.
3. Doubtful urisdom of recent introduction of Latin script in Turkey. —A few
years ago Iranians were watching this experiment closely and many competent
observers thought that Iran would soon follow suit. The recent swing back (as
evinced by the new order prohibiting the use of foreign languages and scripts in
shop signs and commercial institutions) has, of course, caused the lecturer to voice
this doubt even if he does not feel it.
4. The universal desire of all Iranians to improve their mother tongue. —An
officially inspired utterance. Those Iranians who are not learning foreign languages
in the course of business or in hopes of professional promotion are proud (and justly
proud) of their own tongue.
5. No change is desirable which would sever the \connection with Iranian literacy
or national history. —I am glad to hear this. Had the “ back to Firdausi ” seed
ling continued to sprout with its initial rapidity the resulting crop of Wardour
Street Persian would have rendered an ode of Hafiz utterly unintelligible to any
Iranian child of the next generation.
6. Unnecessary Arabic words should be eliminated and replaced by old Persian
words and new Persian words should be made out of old Persian roots. —It is difficult
to be brief in criticising this very ambitious project.
Arabic is, probably, of all languages (not even excluding Greek or Latin) the
one best suited for word building. Provided a verbal root exists which expresses
the idea it is desired to convey, there is (in grammatical theory, though not always
in usage) almost no limit to the number of derivatives which can be formed. Such
is the symmetrical perfection of this Semetic language. Persian, though a very
fair specimen of an inflectional i\ryan language, cannot compete. An Arabic
dictionary will render “ he electrified ” by . The most modern and
widely-used Persian dictionary translates the same phrase by :—
However, no attempt to tell the Iranian what fun he could have
had with the Arabic root will avail and, if he has decided to do without it, we must
see what material he has available for his own project.
His own language is luckily very rich in suffixes to express the following ideas :•—
The doer, the place where something is done, the doing and the business of
doing the container, source or locality of anything : abounding in : causing,
producing, displaying, similar to, made of, filled with, of the colour of ete., etc.
With these he will make shift.
7. The greatest harm to Persian has come, not from imported single Arabic words
but from whole phrases and their subjection to Arabic grammar rules even when used in
Persian. —Such phrases seem to me to ffill into two broad categories, viz :—scrip
tural and lay.
An example of the first category is a phrase continually on the
lips of every Iranian. Though a national spirit seems to have replaced a religious
spirit, though the power of the clergy has been broken and their powers transferred
to the civil administration, though the average townsman is lax in his religious
observances, though in brief, every effort has been made to reduce Islam in Iran
to the position of a museum piece, old usages and phrases die hard and it is very
unlikely that any legislation will replace by
An example of the second category is :—
(on this supposition) one of those unnecessary foreign
importations used to “ shew off ” by the would be erudite. As regards these (of
which there are many) I am in hearty agreement with the lecturer. (In this field
A. P. H. would find ample scope.)