Persian or Iranian?
As a Persian-Iranian, I have heard this question from many foreigners:
"So, should we consider you Iranian or Persian?" I'd say both! However, there are other ethnicities who are also considered Iranian. Being Iranian (as nationality) has no conflict with being, Persian (Pars/Fars), Kurdish (Kurd), Azeri (Turk), Lori (Lor), Baluch (Baluchi), Gilaki, Taleshi, Tati, Arabic (Arab), … Why am I naming these? because most people around the world think being Iranian is synonymous with being Persian; it is not!
As you can see in the following language map, there are many different languages and ethnicities living in the borders of Iran today. Of course, if you say "Iranian peoples" that could include many ethnicities who are or once were "#Iranian", including the Afghans and Tadjiks and some central Asian Turkic tribes who were once Iranified.
So now that we know Persian is the title of an ethnicity in Iran and Iranian would be an adjective for anyone who has an Iranian nationality or anything related to the country Iran, we need to know when this misconception between names happened?
Iran or Persia?
For many centuries the "land of Arians, the noble people" (just like Ireland) was called with a name attributed to and derived from the names of the historic capital city of Achaemenids, Parseh or "Persepolis" (near Shiraz today within the Fars Province*), in which the dominant ruling ethnicity was Persian. So in almost all old historic maps and itineraries, Iran (regardless of its borders), can be seen as “Persia”. This western conception of the word, for a territory that was locally called “Iran”, had an official shift in 1925 when the official name of the country was changed to “Iran”. Fars is the name of the province in which Persepolis is located. However, Pars/Fars are synonymous with the name of ethnicity as well (do not worry I have made a list, so you won't get confused).
Iran is, therefore, the title of the mainland of the realms that consist of all of Iran today and parts of its neighbouring countries. To avoid confusion, the call it, Iran today, and great Iran.
Parsi or Farsi?
As such, Parsi and Farsi are one and the same word for the language of Persians. It is noteworthy that when we use Parsi as the name of the language, there is a slight preference for the historic originality of the language without or with the minimum number of words borrowed from the Semitic, Turkic and other languages.
"I have seen your written documents, do you speak Arabic?"
No! There are Arabic Iranians in South-West Iran as well. However, Parsi/Farsi and Arabic belong to two different language categories. One is Indo-Aryan-European and the other is Semitic. There are lots of Arabic loan words due to the socio-politics and religious evolutions in the region. To make the long story short, after the Islamic era, some old Parsi letters, were Arabicized and Iranians adopted a new alphabetical system which is more or less that of today's Arabic alphabet, which once had many derivatives from the Avestan alphabet (existing in Iran) and other alphabetical systems devised to be used for a unified alphabetical system of the Islamic territories.
Are there other languages spoken in Iran?
Yes! Almost half of the people in Iran speak another local language, dialect or accent other than the received pronunciation of Parsi/Farsi which is the Tehrani accent.
Note for Tourists
As a tourist you would not have much trouble if you speak English, because not only many among the youth speak at least English as their second or third language, but also people are very hospitable and will try to find someone who would help you convey your message.
A summary of these names can be found in the table below:
| Name | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Iran | historic Iran, and its mainland today is known as the Islamic Republic of Iran |
| Persia | historic Iran |
| Iranian | nationality, or an adjective for anything Iranian |
| Persian | ethnicity |
| Parsi | language (purified or literal), also Iranian Zoroastrians who immigrated to India at the turn of religion |
| Farsi | official international title of the main language spoken in Iran |
| Pars | anyone who is Persian |
| Fars | a person who is Persian, province of Fars |