ABSTRACT
The boundaries of the Persian state, especially in the north-west and the east as a result of nineteenth-century Russian expansion and the emergence of Afghanistan as a political entity distinct from its neighbours are essentially those established by the Safawid shahs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Historically, the Persian cultural and even political sphere was much wider than the present national boundaries. The official name of the country is Iran, and in 1934 Reza Shah Pahlavi decreed that even foreigners should use that name when referring to his country. Persian itself is the official language of the country and the natural first language of perhaps two-thirds of the population. Structurally it is classified as Indo-European: it is quite different from Arabic, a Semitic language, even though it is written in the same script, with the addition of some extra letters has absorbed a large amount of Arabic vocabulary.
