Notes on the colloquial lanǵuaǵe of Persia as recorded in certain recent writings

Abstract

§ 1. There is in all languages a considerable difference between literary and colloquial usage. Sometimes this difference is so great that one can almost speak of two distinct languages. But even when the contrast is less striking it remains true that a large part of the vocabulary and a number of grammatical forms are to be encountered only in books and do not come spontaneously to the lips in natural speech; just as, on the other hand, there are words and expressions to be heard on every side in ordinary conversation that would be unthinkable in formal writing. All this is as true of Persian as of any other language; but whereas in the West the colloquial idiom has long since achieved literary recognition in the drama and in fiction, this is by no means the case in Persia, where recent experiments in the recording of the spoken language have met with strong opposition from the upholders of the classical tradition. The first shot hi this new ‘Battle of the Books’ was fired more than 30 years ago by Sayyed Mohammad ‘Ali amālzāde with the publication of his celebrated collection of short stories known as Yekī būd yekī na-būd, in which he introduced into Persian literature a host of words and phrases in common use by all classes throughout Persia but unrecorded in dictionaries and carefully avoided by men of letters. ǰamālzāde was content to enrich the vocabulary of the literary language: it was left to men like the late Sādeq Hedāyat and his disciple Sādeq Čūbak to take a second and much more controversial step and to make the creatures of their imagination employ, as nearly as possibly, the actual pronunciation and grammar of the spoken language.