ABSTRACT
The Persian language spoken today in Iran, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia is a member of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of languages, and a direct descendant of Old and Middle Persian. For over a millennium this language has been the primary means of daily discourse as well as the language of science, art and literature on the Iranian plateau. Before colonial rule, it was also the language of statecraft, jurisprudence and culture in the Indian subcontinent. At different times in the past it has been the language of literature in parts of the Caucasus and at the Ottoman courts. Today, all Iranians and Tajiks, and a majority of Afghans, use it. In the wake of the Iranian revolution of 1979, the civil war in Afghanistan, the collapse of the Soviet empire, and more recently the war in Afghanistan led by the USA and Britain following the September 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers, Persian is also emerging as the language of a large 2014; and growing 2014; diaspora community.
