ABSTRACT
Persian is the "standard" and official language of the country known to the Western world as Persia. Until the second decade of the twentieth century A. D. Persia was a geographical concept whose physical limits were not always definable, even though the heart of it endured in spite of changes of fortune as a living and universally recognized entity. Persian soil is opium, which at one time formed a very profitable crop both for local consumption and for export. Its cultivation has in times been officially forbidden. Persian fruits have a long-standing reputation; grapes, apricots, peaches, plums, and figs are especially good and popular. The home of "standard" Persian was in the province of Fars, from which it spread, owing to political circumstances, to become the literary and official tongue of the whole country. In the territory west and north of Persia its cultural ideas were dis seminated through the Seljiiq Turks.
