Persian language

Persian, also called Farsi, is a Western Iranian language. It is the official language of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It is also spoken by many people in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and other neighbouring countries and by immigrants from Central Asia in Russia. Persian was also taught as a second language in schools in Pakistan until 2006. In the past, many of those places were parts of the Persian Empire.

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Persian
Farsi
فارسی
Farsi in Persian script (Nastaʿlīq style)
Pronunciation	[fɒːɾˈsiː]
Native to	Iran[1] Afghanistan[1](as Dari) Tajikistan[1](as Tajik) Uzbekistan Iraq Pakistan[1] Bahrain Azerbaijan[2]
Native speakers	60 million (2009)[2] (110 million total speakers)[2]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Southwestern Iranian Persian
Early forms	Old Persian Middle Persian
Dialects	Western Persian Eastern Persian Central Asian Persian Bukharic Pahlavani Hazaragi Aimaq Judæo-Persian Dehwari Juhuri[2] Caucasian Tat[2] Armeno-Tat[2]
Writing system	Arabic (Persian alphabet) Cyrillic (Tajik alphabet) Hebrew script Persian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Iran  Afghanistan  Tajikistan
Recognised minority language in	Iraq  Uzbekistan  Pakistan  Azerbaijan  Bahrain  Bulgaria  Greece  Israel  Portugal  Romania  Russia  Turkey  United Arab Emirates  Kuwait
Regulated by	Academy of Persian Language and Literature (Iran) Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan
Language codes
ISO 639-1	fa
ISO 639-2	per (B) fas (T)
ISO 639-3	fas – inclusive code Individual codes: pes – Western Persian prs – Eastern Persian tgk – Tajiki aiq – Aimaq bhh – Bukharic haz – Hazaragi jpr – Dzhidi phv – Pahlavani deh – Dehwari jdt – Juhuri ttt – Caucasian Tat
Linguasphere	58-AAC (Wider Persian) > 58-AAC-c (Central Persian)
Approximate extent of the Persian language area. Map includes all three dialects of Persian.
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Persian has many dialects and is officially called Farsi in Iran, Dari and Farsi in Afghanistan and Tajiki in Tajikistan. The literary language of each country is a little different, but people from each country can understand one another when they have a conversation. It has words from French in Iran and many from Russian Tajikistan.