Talk:Persian language

Countries Persian is native to..

With a significant number of speakers, as shown on the prevalence map in this article, Pakistan should included in the 'native to' column on the right side. I am dehwari speaking, from Baluchistan, we speak Persian solely ~2026-30922-62 (talk) 16:21, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 June 2026

I suggest that you change all the "Farsi" to, "Parsi". This is because, in the conquest of Persia in the 7th century. The arab script did not have the "p" phoneme. As a workaround, they switched it to the closest phoneme "f", and that is why over the years, it transitioned to "Farsi" Spoondabloon (talk) 19:16, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Why? ~2026-37185-47 (talk) 20:36, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

 Not done. We write this encyclopedia not in 6th-century Persian, but in 21st-century English, and therefore we use the words that are used in the English language today, and we report on the words that are used in Persian today. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:53, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Edit Request: Inaccurate Official Classical Language Status in India

Please update the infobox/text regarding the official language status of Persian (Farsi) in India.

• The Error: The page states that Persian holds official "Classical Language Status" in India.
• The Correction: While Persian is recognized for educational preservation under India's National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, it was NOT included in the final official list of Classical Languages notified by the Union Cabinet of India. The official gazetted list stands at 11 languages (Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia, Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, and Bengali).
• Official Reference: Please see the official Government of India Cabinet notification via the Press Information Bureau (PIB): https://pib.gov.in

Please adjust the parameters to clarify that its status is under the "NEP 2020 educational framework" rather than official Union Cabinet notified classical status. Thank you! ~2026-40223-73 (talk) 18:52, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Nastaliq use?

Can we get rid of the recently introduced affectation of enclosing all cited Persian strings in {{unq}} to trigger Nastaliq typesetting? Those strings in Nastaliq certainly look nice and calligraphic (on systems where it works), but in my experience, Nastaliq is still significantly less accessible to the non-native reader than default Arabic system fonts are, and it visually disrupts the line layout of the surrounding text because of its overall non-horizontal alignment. I realize there may be a stylistic preference for Nastaliq display among Iranian readers, but that can hardly apply to the degree of making display in other font styles somehow "incorrect" or inappropriate – and if it does, we are not even explaining that preference to the reader with sourced text, either here or at Persian alphabet (or indeed anywhere else I can find). Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:03, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Factual error and potential WP:V / WP:OR issue regarding Classical Language status in India

Dear Administrators,

I would like to request a review of a factual issue on the "Persian language" article.

The article currently states that Persian (Farsi) has Official Classical Language status in India. However, this does not appear to be supported by official Government of India sources.

The claim appears to conflate a policy recommendation or public statement with a formal government designation. Under the Government of India's official notifications issued by the Ministry of Culture, India currently recognizes only 11 Classical Languages. Persian is not included in the official list.

The source currently cited in the article also uses prospective language ("to be one of India's classical languages"), which does not establish that such recognition has actually been granted. Unless there is an official Government of India notification confirming that Persian has been designated a Classical Language, the current wording appears inconsistent with Wikipedia's policies on Verifiability (WP:V) and No Original Research (WP:OR).

I respectfully request that uninvolved administrators review this claim and either:

1. provide a reliable source demonstrating that Persian has officially been granted Classical Language status by the Government of India, or

2. correct or remove the statement so that it accurately reflects the official legal status.

Official Government Reference (Ministry of Culture, Government of India):

https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2182753

Thank you for your time and attention.

Drsahir (talk) 22:08, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Well spotted. I have removed the entry. –Austronesier (talk) 00:04, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

RfC on lede

Should the lead sentence be, as argued here by another editor :

Persian, also known as Farsi, is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages.

Or should it be the following:

Persian, also known by its endonyms Farsi and Parsi, is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages.

As per MOS:LEADALT:

By the design of Wikipedia's software, an article can have only one title. When this title is a name, significant alternative names for the topic should be mentioned in the article. These may include alternative spellings, longer or shorter forms, historical names, and significant names in other languages.

–DA1 (talk) 12:22, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

We should of course also add the longstanding previous wording. In general, as per WP:RFCBEFORE, I suggest we halt this RfC for a moment to give us time to hash out what the actual disagreement is. Also, of course, the RfC question itself should be neutral (without mixing the poster's own endorsement in with the question), and technically, options should be suitably enumerated so responders have easy monikers to refer to in their answers. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:31, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I've laid out my position. Is there anything more you would like to add? It's common on WP to have endonyms and alternate names listed in the lede, including for people, places, foreign movies and TV shows, etc. The articles for the German language and Japanese language have it as well. The key difference is that the Persian language has multiple endonyms / alternate names, including state-sanctioned names. Therefore, the lede will look a little different. It can't be fit into a single parenthesis / bracket. DA1 (talk) 12:52, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Are we discussing the form of the RfC now, or already its substance? On the substance, my view is this: The only high-priority purpose of this lead sentence is to introduce the alternative name "Farsi", which is undoubtedly a highly frequent and prominent alternative in English (for many readers it's in fact the primary name). For some obscure reason, patriotically-minded editors have some ideological aversion to this alternate, so for many years editors have tried to downplay it, either by hiding it completely or by juxtaposing it with "Parsi" as if it was only one among many such alternates. But "Parsi" (a) isn't used at all in English, and (b) while it may exist as an alternative synonym in Persian itself, not a single editor in twenty years of revert-warring over this has ever brought forward any sourced evidence that it is in fact a significant, frequent alternative. We know precisely nothing about this word's actual status and use in Persian. Is it dialectal, formal, non-standard, archaic, register-specific, a fashionable neologism, or only used in older forms of the language? How many people actually use it? Without some sources, listing it in the lead as if it were a synonym on par with the standard term "Farsi" is WP:UNDUE. As for "Farsi", we had it framed in the intro sentence by the phrasing of "also known by its endonym …", not so much because we meant to introduce the Persian terms there as such (we're doing that in the footnotes), but in order to give it some explanation and motivation in English (it's used as an English term because it's also the endonym). But if that triggers the misunderstanding that we should list all endonyms at that point including those that are not used in English, then it's better to leave that out. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:07, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

So, if you really want to go ahead with an RfC here, a proper RfC question would be:

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What should be the wording of the beginning of the lead sentence (A being the stable version since 2016):

• [A] Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, …
• [B] Persian, also known as Farsi, …
• [C] Persian, also known by its endonyms Farsi and Parsi, …

Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:20, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

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References