Interaction of Language and politics: Intellectuals ( philologist politicians philosophists and …) Approach in Encountering the Persian Language from Ninth Century to End of the Pahlavi Period

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

omid sheykhph ¹

saeid shafieioun ²

issa amankhani ³

¹ phd student

² associate professor of isfahan

³ associate professor of golestan university

10.22067/jls.2026.97855.1805

Abstract

The act of reflecting on the Persian language and its functions is a relatively recent phenomenon, one that earlier generations rarely engaged with. This claim is not difficult to substantiate. Until the period of intellectual awakening in the mid-Qajar era, Iranians seldom wrote about or commented on the Persian language. The limited evidence of such attention to the language is primarily found in biographical anthologies. However, from the mid-Qajar period onward, discourse surrounding the Persian language increasingly prominent, accompanied by a growing body of literature on the subject. Interestingly, this shift is marked by a transformation in the ideas about the Persian language: earlier notions such as its supplementary role or inherent deficiencies gradually give way to assertions of its sanctity and superiority over other languages. This evolution reflects a significant change in Iranian perspectives on the Persian language and its sociocultural functions.

This article examines the evolution of discourse surrounding the Persian language by analyzing literary and scholarly works from the Safavid era onward—including biographical anthologies, essays, and other texts. Initially, it identifies the dominant propositions about Persian in each historical period, and subsequently explores, through a discourse-analytic lens, the underlying causes of their transformation. In brief, the shift in these propositions and the rupture in how Persian was understood must be traced to the language’s newly acquired role in the second phase of this trajectory,

Keywords

Persian Language

Politic

Identity

Best Prts

Subjects

• Literary Studies

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