Talk:Persians/Archive 7

Lead
Hey guys, so this is a bit of a tricky situation as Persian is both a nationality for the people of Iran/Persia, as well as an ethnic group, of course with members in Afghanestan, and other nations. I believe at the moment the article is most lucid in terms of explaning both concepts while maintaining consistency. The point is that Iranian Peoples are used as a general category while Iranis or Persian people is explained from both a Western perspetive in which it means the People of Iran, and also from an ethnic stand point which Persian refers to an ethncity. Either way this article explains both concepts clearly in its introduction. The sources are valid at this point, and it seems to be the best overall cooperative outcome for this article. I like to know how you feel. Please let me know what you take is and how we can improve it, if it needs a change in your view. Thank you! Dr. Persi (talk) 06:12, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This article is about the ethnic group, which is predominant in today's Iran and also a significant minority community in western Afghanistan who are included in Persian people by the Encyclopædia Britannica. These people are also called Farsiwan, a term with the same meaning as 'Persian'. The general concept of Persian as Iranian inhabitants of today's Iran is explained in the disambiguation section.--Artacoana (talk) 07:15, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, but what you are doing is basically hijacking the entire article out of the sphere of the Iran(the nation) and focusing it on the race. Both designations apply here so the lead should really address both, meaning it should not only talk about the race, which is what you are trying to push for but also for the nationality as there is really no article about the People of Iran, or Iranians. This needs changes. Also I hope you would not resolve to the same tactics you reverted to in the article of Avicenna! Keep the wikipedia content neutral and according to the sources, not based on your personal preferences. I am going to change the lead to best address these issues, even though it does so as it is. Dr. Persi (talk) 09:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, I added the content that would clarify the topic to a reader while mainting your original addition. Also you just put links in the ref tags...how about citing them properly? I will fix the citations because they are basically just a and that is not in the wikipedia manual of styles. Another issue I like to discuss with you is your attempt to focus on locations. For instance you keep stating "in Herat, in Today's Afghanistan" as if you are trying to lay credit with Afghanistan as a seperate entity. Herat at one point was also part of the Persian empire, then for a while part of the Seleucid empire, then Sassanid, then Iran (Qajar dynasty), and now Afghanestan. The point is, we are for instance focusing on the art, no so much the location. At any rate, hope this suffices for the moment. Dr. Persi (talk) 09:30, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The cultural heritage of the region doesn't belong to a single country, it's part of the region's heritage. And today's political terms do not count, as most of them were unfairly imposed on people, mostly by the imperialist powers, it is the cultural identity that counts the most. And can you please show me when did I create sock puppets?! And what are those socks? You are absolutely free to report any sock, you might think I have created!--Artacoana (talk) 09:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I might be going out on a limb here, but I really like to believe that you are not just trying to push for a particular POV. I think your recent compromise is a good indication that you are moving in the right direction. You have to understand in Wikipedia we do not operate necessarily based on what "we" as authors believe is the right thing but what the reliable sources give us and also what is commonly and internationally accepted. We are not here to discuss politics as this is not a forum. We are here to include the data from the sources in an impartial manner. This article as it stands now is OK. I do believe there is worry for sock puppetry because some of the IPs that argued with me over the data I presented in the Avicenna article seemed to know a lot about my editing history and some even followed on the same logic as you. I certainly would not bother reporting anybody. I am too old for this stuff! I just want to make sure that if somebody reads the articles on Wikipedia that they get more than the daily agenda and the propaganda of the readers and I try my best to take myself out of the equations. At any rate, the article as it is now, is in good shape. I hope it will not be tempered with further. Additionally, you are right when you say that the "heritage" does not belong to one country and perhaps you should follow that idea because the most annoying aspect of certain edits (and not necessarily by you) is attributing people, or achievements to "locations" or "ethnic groups" without presenting a fair picture of the argument. You know how we can avoid that? By only citing what is SOURCED, and not what is synthesized WP:synthesis or what is our beliefs WP:original research. Anyhow, I am fine with the article as it is now. Dr. Persi (talk) 09:57, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I think we should follow the same example as others have done regarding the French and German for instance. There is the nation of Germany, and there is the German people as an ethnic group, who are found in Austria, Switzerland, USA, South Africa, ... There is also a country called France, and there is the ethnic group of French people in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, ... We should only make sure that all the achievements of the ethnic Persian people is not presented as the achievements of one nation such as Iran. The same way that all the heritage of the French and German ethnic groups should not be presented as the achievements of the nation of France or Germany of today, which has different boundaries than the ethnic group. I am mostly ok with the current article. But there should be an understanding that people's ethnic group don't change with political boundaries. So, while Herat has gone from one empire to another, the people's ethnic identity has always been Persian since millennia. My whole problem began when somebody removed the millions of Afghans from the list of Persian people. I was latter told it was just a mistake. Anyway, good day, I won't bother you guys more. :-) --Yamaweiss (talk) 16:27, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Dr. Persi, I was just doing some thinking. I believe that me and you probably are the opposite of one another. :-)
 * Many Iranians seem to be repeating the same thing here, again and again, that this is not a forum for politics. However, all I can see is a very cheap biased political manipulation on your behalf as well as many others here. I was just doing some research now and I realized the following: did you know that the only great people in the wikipedia whose place of birth is not a country but an ethnic group is the Persians? If someone is born in USA, it is not written that he was English. If someone was born in Austria, it is not written that he was German. If someone was born in Argentina, it is not written that he was Spanish. It is the convention in all pages of Wikipedia, that a person is presented based on the country of his birth. If we were to follow the same common convention, then, regarding Avicenna, we should not be saying that he was a Persian from Afghanistan, but only that he was from Afghanistan and period. Nobody else seems to be including the ethnic group in their birth heading, but only the country. You, however, are not even satisfied that we put Afghan Persian ??? You want only Persian ??? Due to profound ignorance, many people around the world, as well as in Iran, have equated Iran to Persia and Persia to Iran. So, if we do not put Afghan Persian, but only Persian, and if people already think that Persia means Iran, then people will simply assume that Avicenna was Iranian !!! That's totally unacceptable, and I can easily find 50 afghans who would help me rewrite all these pages !!! If there is any political maneuvering here, it is again on your side. On the one hand you are engaged in pure politics, and on the other hand you keep repeating that this is not a political forum! There is only two possibilities here. One is to follow the same convention that all the other people in Wikipedia follow, and only put the country of birth, in which case Avicenna, Rumi, Rabia and others would be "born in Afganistan", therefore "Afghans". Or, we simply put "Afghan Persian", so people will not think that they were "Iranians". The truth is, the "nation" of Avicenna was "Afghanistan" and his "ethnic" group was "Persian". He had nothing to do with the "nation" of "Iran", and this has to be clear, especially when so many of your compatriots seem to ignore this difference. The same should be done about other so called "Persians". For instance, Rudaki should be presented as "born in Tajikistan" not as "Persian". It seems to me that when a Persian was born in Iran, you want us to clearly say that he was born there, but if a Persian was born outside of Iran, then you only want to put Persian, without mentionning his place of birth, so people will implicitly assume that he was therefore "Iranian". There has to be a clear distinction here, so Persian is not seen as Iranian. Anything else would be nothing but filthy politics, and there shouldn't be any place in these forums for politics!!! --Yamaweiss (talk) 18:11, 27 May 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamaweiss (talk • contribs) 17:57, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The article says that persians are a "significant minority in Afghanistan", since when we became a minority in our own country ??? The misunderstanding is caused because many people don't count Hazaras as Persians. The division of Afghanistan is as follows: 35% Tajik, 35% Pashtune, 15% Hazaras, 10% Uzbek, 5% others. If you add the Tajik and Hazaras (who are Tajiks with Mongol mixtures by race but totally Tajik by culture), then you get 50% of the population who are native farsi speakers, thus Persians. 50% cannot be a minority. Is anyone going to change that? Also, many Pashtuns and Uzbeks are Persianized, and the vast majority speak Farsi. So, the native speakers of Farsi is 50% of the country, and the total speakers are 80%. How is this a minority ???--Yamaweiss (talk) 21:49, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been thinking a lot the last few days about all this Iranian hostility towards Afghans and the people of Central Asia, as well as this Iranian impulse to take credit for all our achievements. I think that while some Iranians are saying here that we shouldn't be talking politics, the root cause of all this problem is politics. In the last few decades, Afghanistan has been ravaged by war, due to foreign invasions as well as our own mistakes. In thousands of years of our proud history, the present situation is one of the lowest that we have ever experienced. Millions of our people are now refugees in Pakistan and Iran, where many are treated as second class citizens and undesirables. On the Central Asian front, the Tajiks have been improvished by more than a century of Russian incursions and colonialism. The Russians like to say that somehow they have brought civilization to the native savages, but the truth is that 500 years ago the Russsians were a bunch of semi-savage Viking tribe, while the people of Samarkand and Bukhara had a rich culture and civilization 5,000 years ago! So, today's situation in Central Asia is also a very unfortunate one, relative to their millennia of history. So while Afghanistan and the Tajiks of Central Asia have been empoverished, something quite great and unexpected happened in Iran: they found oil !!! This pure act of chance made the Iranian people relatively rich, and the gap between the Iranians and other Farsiwans kept widening more and more. This had two implications. First, the now `rich` Iranians didn`t want to have anything to do with the `poor` Afghans and Tajiks. Second, the Iranians started a great program of historical revision, which had only one goal: label every great Farsiwan who has ever said anything anywhere as Persian, and label any Persian as Iranian! This historical agenda had no other purpose but to create a glorious nation of Iran, where millions of modern day Iranians will bath in the glories of many who were never Iranian to begin with! The question is, of course, how could this happen É Why was this maliscious historical manipulation ever allowed to begin with É The reasons were simple, and I`ve mentionned them above. The Persians of Afghanistan were ravaged by war, and their only priority was safety and survival, they had no time to `defend`and protect their culture. The people of Tajikistan were controlled by the Russians, and the only intellectual discourse was about learning the Russian culture and communist propaganda. Any sense of national pride, and historical identity, was severely prevented by the Russian autorities. So, the Tajiks also didn`t defend their identity and culture. The Tajiks of Uzbekistan, who constitute the third largest Persian population since there are more Tajiks in Uzbekistan than Tajikistan, were not even ALLOWED to label themeselves as Tajiks because this could create tension with the majority Uzbek population, and the Russians wouldn`t be able to manage all that tensions! So, they were not allowed to call themeselves Tajiks, they couldn`t go to Farsi shcools and they couldn`t publish anything in Farsi. So, in this great vacum, the Iranians, boosted by oil money, started their great revisionist agenda, whereby Iranian ìntellectuals`would comment about their past and histories from the perspective of the modern nation of Iran, and the revisionist books of these Iranians are now considered as the only reliable source or reference for Wikipedia articles ! This situation can obviously not last. As Afghanistan will now stabilize, as its economy will keep growing, as the natural ressources of its mountains will generate greater wealth, as the basic condition of its people will improve, they will focus more on history, culture, and on how to defend their our identity and prevent others from robbing them of that glory. The same pattern will occur in Central Asia as well. The statues of Rudaki are emerging in places where once there was the statues of Lenin or Stalin. The Tajiks of Uzbekistan will go to Persian schools and learn their past and culture, the one that the Uzbeks and Russians have robbed them of. As these changes will occur, more and more people will call themeselves Persians, and identify themeselves with the glories of their past, and they will prevent the modern nation of Iran to monopolize their culture. As these changes will occur on the East and North, the oil that the Iranians depend on will gradually decline. The Arabs will show greater hostility towards Iranians and their political agendas in the Middle East. Then, perhaps our relationship will be as respectful as it was for the past millennia. --Yamaweiss (talk) 16:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)--Yamaweiss (talk) 15:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is how some Iranians think: 1) Ferdowsi is Iranian because he was born in Iran. 2) Rudaki was Persian, Persian means Iranian, so Rudaki was Iranian !!! LOL --Yamaweiss (talk) 16:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * In one of my previous posts, which was erased, I wrote that Ferdowsi could then be considered an Afghan. Of course, some Iranians were outraged and things got ugly. So, I had to refresh my mind and do some research. Here is the situation. Ferdowsi was born at a time when Tus, in Eastern Iran, was part of the Samanid empire, which was from Afghanistan, with its capital at Balkh. Latter, the Samanids were defeated by the Ghaznavids, which was another Afghan empire, with its capital in the city of Gazni, in Afghanistan. In political terms, he was first a citizen of Samanid kingdom, which was Afgahn, and then he was a citizen of Ghaznavid, which was also Afghan. Now, if you can take Rumi, who was from Balkh, and say that he was Iranian because Balkh was once part of Iran, then why can't we say that Ferdowsi was Afghan, when Tus was part of various Afghan empires for so long ??? Either Ferdowsi is Iranian because Tus is NOW part of Iran, and Rumi is Afghan because Balkh is NOW part of Afghanistan, or, Rumi is Iranian because Balkh ONCE used to be part of Iran, in which case Ferdowsi is Afghan since Tus was ONCE part of Afghanistan. You MUST recognize that you can't claim both of them for Iran ?!? (p.s. someone changed the birthplace of Rumi to Tajikistan, I assume that it's one of my Tajik brothers from Tajikistan, please stop that, it's ridiculous, everybody knows he was from Balkh! There might be some Soviet or Tajik source that says that, but most sources always put him at Balkh, which was the greatest city in that region for millennia, and the birthplace of many so called "Persians"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamaweiss (talk • contribs) 17:09, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * How come nobody is commenting anymore ? Did the oil money ran out already ??? :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamaweiss (talk • contribs) 17:20, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

--Yamaweiss (talk) 17:30, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I also love it when some polite Iranians often remind us that Iran used to be much greater and that Afghanistan was often part of Iran. Of course that is true! But, also, Afganistan used to be much greater as well, and often Iran was merely a part of Afghanistan. For instance, during the Samanids and Ghaznavids, Iran was controlled and managed from Herat, Balkh, Ghazni and other parths of Afghanistan. So, if Iranians can claim the Afghan heritage because Afghanistan used to be part of Iran, then why Afghanistan cannot claim the Iranian heritage when Iran was part of Afghanistan? And where is that Iranian intellectual who earlier compared the Iranians to the French and the Afghans to the Africans? Since more often that not Iran was a "colony" of Afghanistan, then shouldn't this make the Afghans the French and the Iranians the Africans ??? :-)--Yamaweiss (talk) 17:37, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Why the "people of Iran" is highlighted in black on the main page ??? To stress that by Persians you mean "the people of Iran" ??? Then there is a long list of authors and various people, half of whom are not "people of Iran", listed as Persian. And since when did "the people of Iran" brought the Persian civilization to India??? All the leaders of the Mughals were "the people of Afghanistan and Central Asia"!!! --Yamaweiss (talk) 22:16, 28 May 2011 (UTC) --Yamaweiss (talk) 19:32, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I am assuming that since there are no responses to my comments, I must then be right and our Iranian brothers are aware of what they are trying to do here: "Politically motivated historical revisionism"! The question is, as oil reserves are declining and Afghanistan and Central Asia are rebuilding, how long this illigitimate revisionism will last??? Tic Toc, Tic Toc, Tic Toc,...--Yamaweiss (talk) 23:47, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That's not a good assumption to make. Nobody is obligated to reply to your comments; we are all volunteers. You are already an editor. You will need to become autoconfirmed to edit this page. Persia redirects to Iran because, as this article says, "The term Persia was ... used as an official name for Iran by the West until 1935." If you have a better idea for where Persia should redirect to, then raise that on Talk:Iran. Quigley (talk) 00:01, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You are certainly not obligated to respond, but I read that before editing the main article I need to talk in this talk section to try to get consensus. So, we either need to get a consensus or I would have to start editing by myself. I need a few days to learn the tools of wikipedia but I hope I wouldn't have to do that by myself. So I just had a few questions, you either answer them to get a consensus or I would start editing myself. I know I talked a lot, so let's focus on three points at a time. The first question I need to explore is this: How did the "people of Iran" created the Persian Mughal civilization in India? Now we know that "Persians" created the Mughal Empire, but which "references" or "proof" do you have that by those Persians it's meant "the people of Iran"? The second question is this: Ferdowsi was obviously born and raised and died in what was at that time an Afghan kingdom (Sassanid and Ghaznavid), what proof do you have that he was not a Tajik, or an Afghan? Since most of the Empire was Afghan territory, what make you think he was "Persian" and not "Tajik"? And the last question for now is (and I've been asking this to Iranians quite often with unsatisfactory results): How was Avicenna a "people of Iran", as you defined Persian in the article??? Thank you.--Yamaweiss (talk) 02:05, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I removed the "bold highlight" on the "iranian people". It unnecessarily draws attention to the the "people of Iran", while the topic of the article is the Persian people. Obviously around 65% of the Persians are Iranian citizens, and probably around 50% of all great Persians are from Iran (the rest being from Afghanistan, Central Asia, Mughal India,...), but this doesn't require highlighting the "iranian people". It only diminishes the achievements and contributions of non-Iranain Persians. Thank you.--Yamaweiss (talk) 03:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I added Dari next to Farsi as the common language shared by Persians. Since Dari is much closer to the original modern Persian language of Khorasan, and since it is the Dari dialect, and not the Farsi one, that was the langua franca of India and the main influence on Urdu/Hindi languages. It is important to know these facts, as to avoid the erroneous belief that Iranian culture or dialect shaped the Mughal culture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamaweiss (talk • contribs) 03:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * User Yamaweiss, I noticed you just recently joined Wikipedia. Familiarize yourself with WP:rules. Also I did not respond to your input because of your tone, the irrelevancy and rudness of some of your comments and the fact that your account seems to have been made at the exact time (few days ago) as editing started on this page. I like to also remind you that if you are a sock puppet that it is against Wikipedia's regulations to do so, and if you are not, then please combine your comments in a concise version and present them legibly and avoid personal attacks. Dr. Persi (talk) 07:39, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

User Dr. Persi, your conspiracy theory accusations against other editors are very serious violations of Wikipedia's "assume good faith" (AGF) guideline and "no personal attacks" (NPA) policy. You are not allowed to disqualify editors, such as User:Yamaweiss from editing some articles, simply because of your conspiracy theory accusations against them, as you did here and here. I have been active on Persian and English Wikipedias since 2006. I previously told you that you are free to report me, if you suspect me of Sock puppetry. Please allow other editors to make their contributions as well and stop being so pessimistic or suspicious. Report anyone whom you think is involved in violation of Wikipedia rules, but do not delete their fair and sourced edits, before you made any report.--Artacoana (talk) 10:54, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

A few things I need to say. A few days ago I saw that Afghans were missing from the list of Persian people, I was shocked, so I wantted to change that. Then I saw the discussions of the article, and it was filled with insults and irrelevant demeaning comments against Afghans and Tajiks, such as "Rudaki is Persian but Tajiks are not Persians since they are Mongols" and so on. I was very angry, I felt insulted, so I returned the favor. I do feel bad now about that part, and it will not happen again. However, the editors have to be prompt at removing all demeaning and insulting remarks against Tajiks and Afghans as soon as it appears (even if they are not the one doing the insulting, by the fact that the insults remain on this page they implicitly show their approval or support for those insults - this may not be true, but that's the impression I got at that time, now I know that there are many serious decent people here as well, and I do apologize to them). Second of all, I have no idea what is a socket, I am certainly not a "socket" or anything but a real person. Third of all, I also admit that as soon as I saw all these things I started commenting. In the last two days I've been trying to learn the rules and I will continue learning, I understand now better how the system works and that is fine with me. Last point for now, I still don't understand why my edit were removed. Either someone need to address my points in the talk section, or if they don't then it means I can edit myself. That's the impression I got by reading the rules. I have no problem in following any rules, as long as the rules are just and everyone follow them. But there are still many issues that need to be discussed, since I didn't read anything about it in Wikipedia rules. For instance, who gets to pick what a true reference is? If I find a reference from Afghanistan that says, for instance, that all real Persians are Afghans and that Iraninas are actually Arabs pretending to be Persians, can I us that reference? Who will decide which reference is acceptable or not? Do you have a majority rule? Afghans/Tajiks are minority and of course Iranians are majority so we can never be majority. Is it by consensus, and what if we cannot reach consensus? There are many Iranians who are adamant in believing that Persians are Iranians and Tajiks shouldn't be included as Persians. Me, I am on the other extreme of this debate. As far as I am concerned, Persians began in Sounthern Iran, then, for centuries and millennia, the achievements of Persia came from the region known as Greater Khorasan (the Mashad-Herat-Balkh-Samarkand-Bukhara region). It is this region, and the people of this region, that have produced Ferdowsi, Rumi, Rudaki, Avicenna, and most of the great Persians. It is also from this region that Persian civilization expanded to the rest of Central Asia and South to India where it became the Mughal Empire. All these happened while the West of Persia, today's Teheran and so on, were occupied by Turks and Arabs and didn't contribute at all to the greatness of Persia. Today, however, the Greater Khorasan region is in ruin, the Western Iran region is rich and prosperous, and those Iraninas want to take credit for the achievements of Greater Khorasan, while arguing wither they should include the people of the region as Perians or not. To me this whole debate is laughable and nothing short of hypocrisy. As far as I am concerned, it is the people of Teheran and Western Iran that had nothing to do with Ferdowsi, Rudaki and so on, therefore they shouldn't try to take credit for their greatness. The people of North Eastern Iran, Northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Southern Uzbekistan are the only legitimate heir of Ferdowsi and Rumi. The question is, how can I reach the majority? How can I build consensus? You all know deep down that I am right, are you going to admit that? Or you going to keep my changes and edits? I would appreciate any comments and advices you may have. Thank you.--Yamaweiss (talk) 13:45, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi guys, These are long posts and I ask calm from everyone. I am from Iran, and I can clearly state that Afghan Persian speakers and Tajiks are also Persians. Unfortunately there some arrogant people from Iran that have different ideas, but none of the users at least in this section (including Dr. Persi) have such an opinion. Also in Wikipedia, you have anonymous banned users who keep showing up and make insults, and it is 100% impossible to even verify where these users are from.


 * I think all the users are doing their best to try to solve ambiguities here.
 * Considering the English usage, we can state that Persian means also inhabitants of Iran in the disambigious note and then link it to the article of modern Iran.
 * I also agree that the general definition: " In this definition Persian people can both refer to the people of Iran as a pan-ethnic group, as well as the ethnic Persians who inhabit Iran, and Central Asia such as Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. " should be somewhere in the article.  This article though about: "as well as the ethnic Persians who inhabit Iran, and Central Asia such as Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. ", so this should be in the lead   At the same time, "In this definition Persian people can both refer to the people of Iran as a pan-ethnic group," is also correct by usage in English, but it should be at the end of the 2nd or 3rd paragraph.
 * The definition of "Iranian Peoples" in this article though means those that speak Iranian languages and not people from the modern country of Iran. So when it says Persians are part of the great Iranian people, it does not mean modern Iran.   For example Pashtuns, Baluchis, Nuristanis, Pashais, Pamirs are also part of this greater Iranian people.  There is really no defining border between Iranian peoples (those that speak Iranian language) and Persians.  For example, Ibn Batutta mentions the Pashtuns as a tribe of Persians, and Biruni mentions the Chorasmians as a branch of Persians.  In reality, Ferdowsi and Rudaki and Asadi Tusi use "Iran/Iranian" as opposed to Romans, Turks, Chinese, Arabs and etc.  Persian was mainly used as a language (several of them actually) and used more by Arabs, Greeks, while "Tajik/Tat" were used by Turks.
 * While emphasizing the Old Persian, we should note that by the time of the Sassanids, Bactrians, Old Persians, Medes, Parthians, Scythians.. were basically blended in as Iranians. That is why it is important also to emphasize the "Iranian Peoples" aspect.  Note the definition of Iranian Peoples is different.
 * Overall, I think the users here Dr. Persi, Artocana and Yamaweiss all have good points, and the dispute is due to the fact that these words have been used differently.
 * As an ethnic definition, in my opinion, all Persian speakers from Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan are "Iranian-e Parsi-Zabaan" that is ethnic Iranians who speak Persian.
 * However, the definition becomes a little conflated in the sense that say the Pamiris are Iranians while say Arabs from Iran are not ethnic Iranians. Yet at the same time, Arabs from modern Iran are Iranian in terms of association with modern Iran.   Of course, I shall mention that for example in France, the Arab citizens are also "French", and in Russia, the Chechens are also Russians.  As the users from Afghanistan know, Afghan also has the dual meaning of Pashtu and also citizen of Afghanistan.
 * I look forward for calm comments. Thanks again.  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:20, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I want to emphasize also that Britannica is not a good source, rather the article by Amanollahi in Iran & Caucasus is much more specialized source. I have removed the Britannica definition as Britannica is not a specialist source, but rather a teriatary source. Encyclopaedia of Islam is much better and accurate source, and has a good definition under its article in Iran. --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 15:30, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Few points. I noticed that my small edits were undone. Here is the situation, I am planning to change a lot of stuff here, so we remove political propaganada from facts and common sense. However, even my small edits were removed already. What am I supposed to do now? Change back again? I was courteous enough to include some comments regarding the edits I have made in the talk section so people will know the reasons for the changes. I will appreciate the same level of courteousy. If not it will only become a childish game of edits, undo, edits, undo, and so on. --Yamaweiss (talk) 17:24, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Dorood bar shomaa baraadar-e aziz, I have made significant changes after reading the talkpage by incorporating your comments in the article. Additionaly, much material was incorporated from :"GHERARDO GNOLI, "IRANIAN IDENTITY" in Encyclopaedia Iranica". I recommend people stay away from non-specialist sources. Since you are a new user, can you please tell me briefly what you believe is missing in this article? That is I would like the opinions of you Dr. Persi, Artacoana and you on what you think needs to be added. I read all of your comments and incorporated them in the introduction, while moving the part about Ancient Persians to the Ancient history and origin section. I also kept all the additions of Dr. Persi but moved a good amount of them to the origin section. I hope he can help in making that section more clear.

Please look at this version: and let me know what you think is missing (with good and reputable academic sources). Note Persians of Central Asia are mentioned several times in the introduction.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 17:42, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I personally prefer your new version much more than the old one, and I believe it truly presents the varieties and mixtures of persian people. I didn't had time to go through the whole article. This is what I will do from now on: I will not touch the main article. Each time I have a point, with reference, I will present it in this talk section, and we can talk about it then. I realize that all of you have been doing this for a long time as volunteers, I appreciate that so I will respect that. My only concern is that people should realize that roughly one third of Persians are non-Iranians, while one-third of Iranains who are Kurds, Jews, Turks and so on are not Persians, therefore non-Persian Iranians. Thank you.--Yamaweiss (talk) 18:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I got it now... Dr. Persi thinks I am the same person as the user Artacoana. No I am not. It's just a coincidence. :-) Thank you.--Yamaweiss (talk) 00:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, I saw the comments about the edits that Dr. Persi made, it was in the other page. I don't agree with them, but at least he explained the changes. Sorry for a previous comment in which I asked to comment when editing. I didn't saw the other page.--Yamaweiss (talk) 00:57, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * When we are done turning this page into a forum or a chatroom, maybe you like to take a look at the version I have left now. It must satisfy all your needs: No "bold" mention of Poeple of Iran. Mention of language as a unifying factor. Use of a literature source (Britannica) for definition of Persian. Restoration of the sources as they were before all this craziness started, which is the version you guys all wrote and were content with before! Basically this is the same as the article was before I dared add "People of Iran" for disambiguation Now really there should be no reason to argue as the introduction is by Artacoana which he added from E. Britannica, and the statement on the end paragraph and the beginning is by Khodabandeh, and Yamaweiss, now can enjoy no "bold" mention of the Iranian people. What now? Are we calm yet or are we gonna leave each other a billion inputs here turning this page into a forum? Note that now the lead is clean and short, it does not "chuvenize" into one direction or another. It is clear and has elements that YOU all (and myself) added using our sources. I really hope we can fix this and get over it. Please however do not re-write the whole article and if you do preserve the old sources. What do you think? (Also note that this version vs. the last version in place before my recent edit is only different in two lines stating the difference between term Persian for people of Iran(Persia) and Persian as an ethnic designation. At this point it is wise to make small changes and have a consensus on it before we all change it, unless it is to add sourrces, or links. This way we wont go to bed to come back to an entirely differnet article, because changes are best appreciated and stable gradually.) Dr. Persi (talk) 06:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok. Thank you.--Yamaweiss (talk) 12:28, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The lead should not be repetitive and should not miss important points. I propose this:


 * Do people agree with this? Xashaiar (talk) 13:06, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I don't want to argue anymore, and I won't change the main article. But I do present my points here so you decide what you want to do with it. The problem in the above part is "a significant minority community in Central asia (including northwestern Afghanistan.[31] Tajikistan, Uzbikistan)". This sentence is confusing. Do you mean that a minority of Central Asia is Persian, or that a minority in each of those countries are Persians? In any case, both of them are wrong. Persians are not a minority in Central Asia. If you add the Tajiks of Tajikistan, Tajiks of Uzbekistan, Tajiks of Afghanistan, and Hazaras, and compare this to other people of Central Asia, which are the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turkmens, then the Persian people are probably half, if not more than half, of Central Asia (Central Asia has been Persian for millennia, the whole region used to be Persian lands until the arrival of Uzbeks, Kazaks, Mongols and Russians only a few centuries ago, so it won't be fair to present the native people who are still a majority as the region's minority - that's what the Russian government wanted people to believe, as to separate Central Asia from the Iranian and British zone of influence, and integrate it more easily in the Russian zone of political influence - and the Iranians, knowing that they can't defeat Soviets and claim back Central Asia, simply went along with that notion - now that the Russians have left, things are changing again and the people are looking to Iran as their kin and common root). If you mean a minority by each country, then they are a minority in Uzbekistan (35%), they are a majority in Afghanistan (Persians are not just in North Western Afghanistan, but the whole North as well as most of the population of Kabul), and they are the totality of the people of Tajikistan. Thank you.--Yamaweiss (talk) 14:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

One more comment... We have to realize this: for thousands of years Persian civilization was a vast territory that included Iran, the whole of Central Asia, and neighbouring regions. Then, there were the Arab and Turkish invasions, followed by the Great Game of Britain and Russia, and all of these invasions have reduced the once great Persian culture into a much smaller entity. But as the influence of forign colonialism is now eroding, people are going back to their roots, and those roots are the Persian culture shared by all before all this political mess began. (The Russians controlled Central Asia, while the Pashtune tribes controlled the North of Afghanistan, and all these people tried to destroy the occupied people's Persian identity as to control them easier, and in this vacuum Iran was left as the only heir of all Persian culture (thus, for the first time, thanks to foreighn invasions, iran became persia and persia became iran) - but the Russians have left Central Asia, and most of the people in power in Afghanistan today are the Northern Persians, not the Pashtuns, so they will redefine Afghan identity along the traditional Persian one)--Yamaweiss (talk) 15:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)--Yamaweiss (talk) 15:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I restored to my version:
 * It should be mentioned that the term "Iranian" used in this article is solely used in the ethno-linguistic sense, not in the country sense. So for example the Farsi-Wans are also Iranians (or Iranic) in the ethnic sense but they are not part of the modern country of Iran.
 * The usage of Iranian rather than Persian by the ethnic group itself necessiates much wider explanation.  That is "Persian" is used more by Westerners, not by Persian speakers themselves who use Irani/Iranian. and "Iranian-e Farsi-Zabaan".
 * Minor dialects and languages like Lari/Luri and etc.. are part of the Persian continuum. This needs to be in the article.  The attempt to narrow the definition of Persian to just the Dari-Persian variety is both political and also historically inaccurate.
 * The Old Persian stuff is overemphasized since although the Persian language goes back to Old Persian, it should be noted that it was spread among other Iranian tribes and by the time of Sassanids, Iranian was used as the native ethnonym while outsiders such as Arabs, Greeks and etc. used it for Persians. For example, New Persian developed in Khorasan based on a dialect of Middle Persian, but the older inhabitants were of other Iranian stock such as Bactrians, Sogdians, Parthians and etc. who became consoliated as Iranians during the Sassanid era.  The Medes for example ruled over Rayy/Tehran which are Persian speaking.  So to just claim the Old Persians as ancestors of modern Persians without taking into account Medes, Bactrians, Parthians and etc. who were all consolidated as Iranians during the Sassanid era is historically inaccurate.
 * Giving weight to unscholarly sources such as Britannica rather than Encyclopaedia of Islam, Iranica and etc. will make for a inaccurate article. Britannica is not an accurate source, and its authors for example forgets to mention Central Asian Persians.   The author of it is unknown unlike Encyclopaedia of Islam and Encyclopaedia of Iranica.  It is a teriatary source and should not be used unless there is no available sources.  Also it is much like Wikipedia now where anyone can change information in it.  Emphasis should be given to this article on Iranica .  Britannica (not scholarly source and no author) has one of the most narrowed definition which excludes even the Persian speakers of Kabul.. note it says: "significant minority community in western Afghanistan. "..  This source is not scholarly source nor a specialist source.
 * Caspian dialects should be considered as part of the wider definition of Persian per the available sources list. For example, the Buyids saw themselves as Persian ("Iranian") as did Mardavij, Mazyar and etc.
 * Persian is a really new construct for Iranian (in the ethnic sense not in geographica sense), the Shahnama uses Iranian throughout and Parsi is used for the language, not the ethnicity. That is why the important mention of Iranian that I added throughout the article needs to stay.
 * I also believe we are all on the same team here, however Britannica is a 3rd rate source and it has many inaccurate informations. I can 100% show that on some articles, they have no regards for scholarly traditions and it is not written by experts in the field.  Iranica/Encyclopaedia of Islam are the top of the line scholarship.  The pre-Islamic identity should be based on this article:, as the Sassanids who spoke Middle Persian always considered themselves to be "iranis" as did the Bactrians, Sogdians and etc.  The term Persian then became used by Arabs, Greeks and etc. for Iranians while in Iran, "Persian/Parsi" was used more for a specific variety of Iranian language that came from Fars province.   We need to find the right balance between all these aspects, and non-expert source like Britannica cannot do it.  The "Pre-Islamic Persian Culture" needs to be changed to "Pre-Islamic Iranian culture" which was based on many factors, including Zoroastrianism.
 * Finally, the sentence: "The term "Persian people" can both refer to the people of Iran as a pan-ethnic group inhabiting the nation Iran (as Iran is also refered to as Persia)," should be in disambigious. For example, Arabs or Turkmens in Iran are not really ethnic Persians but geographically one might say they are Persians (from Iran).  However, this article is about ethnic Iranis (Persians in the wider sense) and not geographical Iranis/Persians.
 * Limiting the definition of Persian to one dialect of Iranian (Dari-Persian) is a historical anachronism and should be avoided. Persian as used historically (even those who wrote mainly in Arabic like Biruni) is given its definition in the.
 * I believe Xashaiar, Yamaweiss and Artacoana agree with my version. So I ask Dr. Persi to put exactly what he disagrees with.  Note the Iranica article " Iranian identity" is much more important and we cannot just identify modern Persian speakers as solely descendants of Old Persians, but the Old Persians played the main role linguistically.  That is, modern Persians have incorporated many other Iranian tribes (Bactrians in Balkh, Takharis, Sogdians and etc.).  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 19:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * To make it short: a) Britannica should not be emphasized over Iranica/Encyclopaedia of Islam b) To narrow the definition to Old Persians is wrong. Of course the Old Persians need to be mentioned as the linguistic and partial ethnic ancestors, but it was really the Sassanids who ixed in all the various elements of the empire and gave a definition which was "ethnic Iranis".  So overall, other important Iranian elements need to be mentioned.  Modern Persian language has a very strong Parthian/Bactrian/Sogdian (Eastern Iranian) element due to the fact that it was Middle Persian that developed in Khroasan.  By the time of the late Sassanids, the Achaemenid history was greatly mythicized and in reality, the Sassanids played much more immediate role.  Of course without the Achaemenids there would be no Sassanids either as Middle Persian of Sassanids is an off-shoot of the Old Persian of Achaemenid.    We should mention Modern Persian is descendant of Middle Persian which is itself descendant of Old Prsian.  For example people of Balkh/Herat were part of the Ari/Bactrian Iranian speakers and not Old Persians, but all of these spoke mutually intelligble Iranian dialects (per Strabo).  c) All the information about Irani needs to be in the article to make sure we have emphasized the actual ethnonym that is used by the group here.  Please note in the Shahnama which is the national Iranian epic and the reviver of the Persian language, the term Iranian is used throughout as an ethnic designator.  So we cannot de-emphasize these things.   Unless the authors of Britannica are known, they should not be used in this article as much better sources exist.  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I do prefer the version of "Khodabandeh" much more. Thank you.--Yamaweiss (talk) 19:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Artacoana, Dr. Persi, Xashaiar, me and you are working in good faith here. I have kept all the information of Dr. Persi (with sole exception of one source which I talked about above and moved the Old Persian stuff further down, after proper intoduction to Iranic tribes), but the wider definition of Iranian (in the ethnic Shahnama sense and not the modern country sense) needs to be emphasized here.  "Parsi" is not used as much as by Iranis themselves, and all evidence indicates that in the country of Iran, Parsi is 90% used for the language and Irani is 90% used for ethnicity.  This is how Rudaki, Shahnama and etc. have also used it as well.  For foreigners the two terms Persian and Irani became interchangeable, and then the Arabs also used 'Ajam for all Iranis while the Turks started using Tajik/Tat for Iranis.  Overall, the correct definition is the Shahnama for all Iranis/Persian speakers while in the West the wide and historical usage of Persian (for ethnic Iranis from Central Asia to Iran) needs to be maintained.   Note, I have researched such issues for a long time, and that is why I brought top of the line sources such as Encyclopaedia of Islam, Iran & Caucasus and Iranica, which are written by the experts in the field.  I await Dr. Persi's Artacoana and Xashair's comments to my version, but please note my comments on the inaccuracy of Britannica which does not even mention Kabulis, Badakhshanis, Samarqandi Persians,  Parsis of India, and etc. who are all Iranis/Persians.--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 19:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Khodabandeh14, I do not agree with page as it stands now because you are almost making this page the same as the article for Iranian peoples. Persian people have their origin, as the source in the link you removed (Encyclopedia of Athens), in Persis, even though they are PART of the Iranian peoples. It really makes no sense when the explanation here is almost similar if not the same as Iranian peoples, yet we are stating Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples. You are repeating the stuff that you wrote in the Iranian people's article here, perhaps? The origin of PERSIAN people is not the same as Iranian peoples, as Iranian people is a more inclusive ethnic grouping that exists today becasue of the influence of the Persian people and their empiric geopolitical reach. Also you keep repeating certain links like Iranian peoples and Ancient Iranians so many times in the leads that it is almost excessive sometimes a few times in a sentence. The other issue is your use of the (made up?) term "Iranic people" which I have to admit I am hearing for the first time. Honetly, If you had left the origin portion in the lead intact using the Encyclopedia of Athens I would have agreed with the changes. Keep in mind the original issue was over the bolding of the PEOPLE OF IRAN as Persian people not whether or not the content is proper. It seems you are rewritting the whole article using this as a reason? Also you cut out the portion put in by Artacoana from Encyclopedia Britanica! You are saying that Encyclopedia Britanica is less reliable than Encyclopedia of Islam? Really!!? Since when? I agree with the version set by Xashiar, and I AM NOT OK with the status of the lead or the changes you made, as it is now, and my lists of issues are


 * 1)You are basically turning this article into the Iranian Peoples article, and
 * 2)You keep overusing the Iranian Peoples.


 * I like you to change your own edits I will no longer edit this page because basically you have again restrated YOUR OWN version which is a complete rewrite of the page. I also object to the messy, improper usage of sources that you participate in and the fact that now the statement on the top of the page doesnt even link. There is a "Persian (disambiguation)" note on the top that doesnt even work, and you have managed to turn theDr. Persi (talk) 03:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

So what now, we are going to say that Persians are people of North Western Afghanistan, therefore including Herat but excluding Balkh? And then are we going to keep the achievements of Bactrians as Persian or are we going to remove them from the list of Persian achievements? I really don't understand. My dilemma and question is so simple and obvious and yet nobody wants to answer it. I do understand that others are not obligated to respoond, but when you are adamant in supporting a position, like Dr. Persi, shouldn't you explain or present your case? How else we are going to build consensus? The question is very simple, if you are going to exclude the Bactrians as Persian people,are you going to keep the achievements of Bactrians as Persian achievements or not??? That's the only simple thing I want to know. I will stick with the definition of Khodabandeh, unless someone EXPLAINS to me how "Bactrians are not Persians but their achievements are Persian"!--Yamaweiss (talk) 05:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Interesting quote from the Bactria section of Wikipedia: "Regarding Tajiks, the Encyclopædia Britannica states: The Tajiks are the direct descendants of the Iranian peoples whose continuous presence in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan is attested from the middle of the 1st millennium bc. The ancestors of the Tajiks constituted the core of the ancient population of Khwārezm (Khorezm) and Bactria, which formed part of Transoxania (Sogdiana). They were included in the empires of Persia and Alexander the Great, and they intermingled with such later invaders as the Kushāns and Hepthalites in the 1st–6th centuries ad. Over the course of time, the eastern Iranian dialect that was used by the ancient Tajiks eventually gave way to Farsi, a western dialect spoken in Iran and Afghanistan.[14]" This shows that Central Asia and Afghanistan were farsi speaking Iranian people about three millennia ago. Long before the Uzbeks and Turks and Mongols appeared in the region. They are still the dominant people there. They are not a minority.--Yamaweiss (talk) 05:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Dear Dr. Persi, I hope you do not quit, just hear me out here.
 * Yes Encyclopaedia of Britannica has no reliability relative to Encyclopaedia of Islam. Encyclopaedia of Islam is the premier Encyclopaedic tool.  Britannica in my opinion is not even good as Wikipedia.  It is not even comparable as Encyclopaedia of Islam  is the premier academic tool while Britannica does not even have an author listed for its article.  Britannica is not a good tool, it is written by unknown authors and frankly, I can show it is poorly written, if not ill-intentioned.  For example, it does not mention the Persian speakers  of Kabul as Persian, but the people of Herat as Persian.  That is simply inaccurate (if not bad-intentioned) or it has under "Khuzestan" as "mostly Arab", while Khuzestan is actually mostly a Lur/Bakhtiari (Persian dialects) province.  If a source does not have an author, it should be avoided here.
 * I do not see Athens Encyclopaedia online, but description of Old Persians does not necessarily mean they are the sole ancestors of modern Persians. By this narrow and incorrect definition, we are excluding even people from Isfahan, Tehran, Caspian sea, Kerman, Mash-had, Herat, and etc.   So not only it is inaccurate, but it gives an excuse for those who want to partition Iranians.  The romantic idea that the "Kurds are descendants of the Medes" and the modern Persian speakers are solely descendant of Old Persians is inaccurate.  Not only inaccurate but perhaps based on a divide & conquer approach of historiography.  The history of the land of Iran and Iranians was historically identified with the Shahnama until the 20th century.  Despite a portion of it going back to the mythical age, it provides a much more clear and coherent unifying factor.
 * The modern Persian language goes back to Middle Persian of the Sassanid era, itself going back to Old Persian of the Achaemenids. This is the one of the major roles of the Old Persians.  However, the Middle Persian language became widespread amongst other Iranian peoples, it was planted in Khorasan and was influenced heavily also by Parthian, Sogdian, Bactrian and Chorasmian, which spoke very close Iranian/Persian languages.  During the Sassanid era, the term “Persian” was used again for Iranian by Western/Greek and etc. sources.  But amongst Iranian themselves, a “Persian” would be someone say from Fars province, not Khorasan.  That is Persian or Middle Persian “Parsik” would be used as the language of Fars province and as an inhabitant of Fars province.  However, as an ethnic term used by natives, Iranian predominated.  So when someone like Biruni states: "The Chorasmians are  branch of the Persians (Iranians)", he has used the term "Fors" and Iranian as interchangeably.
 * The emphasis on Iranian (as an ethnic term) is simple and that is why there will be an overlap. The Sassanids only used the designation as “Iranian”/”Irani” as an ethnic term, but in the West they are called Persian.  So does the national Iranian/Persian poet, Ferdowsi, Asadi Tusi and hosts of other writers and poets.   They used Iranian as their ethnonym while using Persian as their language.  So Persian was used as a language and Iranian as an ethnicity.  The reason I am repeating the stuff I wrote in Iranian people is because both the ancient Persians (Old Persians) used Iranian to refer to their ethnicity, the Sassanids used Iranian to refer to their ethnicity and the Shahnama of Ferdowsi uses Iranian to reference an ethnicity.
 * The Old Persians, Medes, Parthians, Bactrians, Arias, Sogdians and etc. saw themselves as part of the Iranian unit (see the quotes by Gnoli, Strabo and etc.). This is precisely why today, we need to mention the rest of these groups as they were the inhabitants of say Khorasan, Balkh, Rayy and etc who speak Modern Persian.  All these people became one unit during the Sassanid era, “Irani” and speaking Middle Persian variants (which was mutually intelligle with Parthian as both were NW Middle Iranian languages).
 * Persis is basically the modern Fars province of Iran and we cannot claim a Person from Khorasan (Tus) is necessarily related to Old Persians. Yet modern standard Persian became established in Khorasan before Fars. As I explained, during the Sassanid era, Middle Persian, which became the official language of their empire, spread far and wide, and its Khorasani variant (modern Persian or Parsi-Dari), went under the influence of Parthian, Sogdian and etc., and hence we have Modern Persian today.   So when we describe history, we need to consider all these Iranian groups and not just the Old Persians.  The Old Persians no doubt played an important role.  The Sassanids played probably the most important role.  So when describing culture, we need to mention the Old Persians,  but also the Sassanids, Bactrians, the Avesta people and etc.  Because the Sassanid empire allowed for the unification of all these Iranian units into a single entity.  That is why the poet from Bukhara like Rudaki can communicate with the poet from Fars such as Hafez.
 * So I hope these ideas shows why I precisely made the changes I made. Also I did not delete any of your texts as you can see, but I think we need to emphasize the Iranian aspects specially not only since Darius/Xerxes do, but specially with regards to the Sassanids.   Thank you--Khodabandeh14 (talk) 13:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Dear Yamaweiss, I believe if we count Afghanistan as Central Asia, you might be right and Tajiks may be the largest group in Central Asia (Afghanistan+Tajikistan and a very large minority in Uzbekistan). Please point out the sentence you believe needs correction with this regard.  --Khodabandeh14 (talk) 13:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Dear Khodabandeh, I don't have any problem with your version/current version. I don't want to change your version to add that Tajiks are a majority of Central Asia. I just don't agree with the version proposed by Dr. Persis which erroneously says that Tajiks are a minority in Central Asia. As long as that is not said it's fine with me. I trust your greater experience and informed opinion, so you have my support and you decide how to deal with username Dr. Persis. I will wait a few monthes before directly changing the main article, so I gain some seniority here, as well as experience in using the system. Thank you for your accurate contributions.--Yamaweiss (talk) 15:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I am going through other pages of Wikipedia to see other "persian" related materials. I am shocked how if an author is from today's Iran, his place of birth is presented as Iran, and how if he is outside of Iran, it's written "Greater Iran" or "Persia". How would you feel if we put a persian poet born in Afghanistan as Afghan and those like Ferdowsi, born in Tus, as Greater Afghanistan. You make it look as if this whole process was nothing but an objective assessment based on facts and references, while in reality at every turn the editors have made subjective calls, and have used their own versions and references to support the most hypocrite and insulting version of the past. I was reading the part about persian literatture. It's amazing to read that one of the richest part of the persian literatture (as defined by Wikipedia itself) is the mystic sufi tradition. The bulk of sufi literatture, by people like Rumi and Rabia, was from "Afghanistan", more precisely the Bactrian regions (Balkh and surroundings). Now, that great sufi tradition, which is probably one of the greatest Afghan achievements of all time, one of the greatest gifts of Afghans to mankind, is labelled as "Persian", Rumi and Rabia are labelled as "Persian", while the people of Bactrian region are not included as Persian (I am talking about the version of Dr Persis)??? What kind of "references" or "facts" do you expect me to present so you will correct your hypocrisies? All the facts are in front of you, you have simply decided to ignore the facts, and millennia of history, to serve you narrow nationalistic agenda! Stop pretending that you are somehow an objective and neutral critic! You are nothing more than a bunch of amateurs twisting facts to fit your own agendas!!! --Yamaweiss (talk) 17:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamaweiss (talk • contribs) 16:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yamaweiss (why do you sign this way although your talk page has another name?) we consider the Britannica to be a reliable source. Our criteria are at WP:RS. If you disagree you will have to convince people at WP:RSN and I don't think you will. If reliable sources disagree with each other, we should simply cite them both. Although it doesn't happen often enough, we should use reliable third party sources to say whether someone is Persian, Iranian, whatever. I've put a note on your talk page about commenting negatively on other editors. Dougweller (talk) 17:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I sign this way because I can't figure out how to use the other signatures. I tried everything and I keep getting this one. I will appreciate any advice you may have on that part. As far as the references are concerned, you must realize that different references are saying different things regarding these issues. As noted by user Khodabandeh, the Iranian and Islamic encyclopedias have different definitions and interpretations of "Persian" than those found in Britannica. Who gets to decide which of those references are accurate? That's why I am trying to explain everything so people will realize that the Islamic's interpretation is better than the Britannica one. You have to uderstand that a lot of politics is involved here. Many contributeurs of Britannica are people from various places who present their own countries in better light, and tey do not even sign their names, as mentionned by Khodabandeh. Thus, if Britannica says that only North Western Afghanistan is Persian, then it's obvious that politics is involved there (the Eglish have always tried to diminish the achievements of Persia, and the Iranians want to take credit for all the achievements of Persia, so this fulfills both of their agendas!)! There is absolutely no difference between the North Western Afghans and other Afghans in the North or in Kabul. This is only a fabrication in order to divide the Afghan people and tarnish their legacy. In any case, as I mentionned, if you do include only the North Western Afghanistan as persian people, then why do you include the achievements of North and North Eastern Afghanistan as Persian achievements??? This is a matter of JUDGEMENT and not REFERENCES! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yamaweiss (talk • contribs) 17:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC) --Yamaweiss (talk) 18:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Rumi was born in Balkh (Afghanistan), while Ferdowsi was born in Tus (Iran). Both of these are FACTS backed by your BRITANNICA! Now, however, why is it that in Wikipedia, for Ferdowsi we have “Born: Tus”, while for Rumi we have “Region: Rum, Persia”??? This is why I am angry, because I have never seen such lack of consistency and open hypocrisy in my life!!! If you put place of birth for Ferdowsi, which is Iran, then you should also put place of birth for Rumi, which is Afghanistan. If you will put “region” for Rumi, rather than place of birth, then you should also put “region” for Ferdowsi, which was Tus, Kingdom of Samanids, a BACTRIAN kingdom!!! In Britannica, there IS a consistency, since they always put the place of birth, but in Wikipedia, they pick and choose, wither to put place of birth or “region” (Whatever that’s supposed to mean!!!)., whatever fancy their political agendas!!! And you want me to be polite??? Most of you in Wikipedia are Iranians, and you have turned it into a laughing stock, and what do you suggest I do? All I am asking is for CONSISTENCY!!!! If you put place of birth for ONE Persian, put place of birth for ALL Persians. If you put “region” for ONE Persian, then put region for ALL Persians! This has nothing to do with the Reference issues, it has to do with INTEGRITY, DIGNITY and TRUTHFULNESS, all “Persian” values that many of you seem to have FORGOTTEN! You like BRITANNICA, fine, stick to it ALL THE WAY!!! Don’t give up BRITANNICA whenever it stops fulfilling your patriotic agenda! --Yamaweiss (talk) 18:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I just bought a subscription to Britannica. I will go through all the sources there, and present the results to all of you, hopefully you will not tell me then that Britannica is not a reliable source!!!--Yamaweiss (talk) 18:48, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Please read some books. If you didnt know, afghans and persian have fought many time. Can you believe that 2 people of the same kind would fight eachother? I think afghans should just be proud of themselves and stop leaching and trying to cling on to us. 2 different people, please understand.... Sharing a language does not mean the same ethnicity and genetics. SOUTH AMERICANS ALL SPEAK SPANISH. DOes that mean they are all spaniards? NO. Majority are natives. SO get your facts together

I can't do this anymore. I am going to sign out. Sorry if I have offended any of you. I just hope that your desire for truth will be greater than your patriotic feelings. --Yamaweiss (talk) 20:52, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Tajiks from Afghanistan are not Persians
Tajiks from Afghanistan are Persianized Pashtuns. Tajiks from Tajikistan are soghdians and pamiris not Persians. Persians are only in Iran. Afghanistan is 80% Pashtun ethnically, some Pashtun changed their language during occupation of afghanistan and start speaking Dari just like Hazara that are mongolians and speak Dari. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.211.97 (talk) 22:31, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

How are the Hazaras ethnic Persians?
An ethnicity is defined by factors of common heritage, history, culture and language not just language alone. The Persians of Iran and the Tajiks of Afghanistan/Tajikistan (Tajikistan to lesser extent) may share that but the Hazara people do not share anything bar a language.

The Hazaras are a distinct ethnic group by themselves and cannot be denied their right as one, this is fact and are treated as a distinct ethnic group in all academia etc, and cannot be deemed ethnic Persians. Please cite any credible source specifically categorizing them as ethnic Persians before including them here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aryan Pars (talk • contribs) 01:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

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Pics of Persians
Zoroaster was not a Persian, because there were simply no Persians back then, only Iranians. Mithridates is a Parthian, Mani might have been a babylonian, Khwarizmi was a Khwarizmian with a distinct language from Persian (so was Biruni) and Rhazes was most probably a Central Iranian (a typical Medean). Also, Nizami is ethnically Azeri, Babak was from an Azeri mother and a Hamadani (Medean) father, Alhazen might have been an Arab. There are so many factual fallacies in this section and they are all in conflict with statements already present in Wikipedia itself. Avicenna was tajik, Mossadegh was azerbaijani.

Seriously, why do we need so many pictures of Persians in the first place, is that necessary?حضرت محمود (talk) 16:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Well said. In jabe kamkam dar haal-e monfajer shodane. --Z 22:49, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Persian vs. Iranian difference
Persian refers to specifically the language/cultural and ethnic group that can be associated (predominately) with the original Persians whom settled and ruled the Iranian plateau. Persians make up about 40-50% of the modern population, and are diminishing by each generation. Obviously, Turkmen, Iranian 'Arabs', Assyrians, Balochis (with clearly unique genetic histories), can't be considered Persians - though they are all (geographically) 'Iranians'. I understand the pan-nationalistic view that is been upheld by some, but that length of simplification is absurd - as is the stance that this article takes. However, it is worth noting that year after year, and notably since the 1979 revolution, Iran is becoming less of a 'Persian' nation, and more a nation of 'Iranians', with an identity that is evolving culturally, genetically, and politically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.196.88.228 (talk) 02:02, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Having disagreed with you elsewhere, I think I should chime in here to say this makes sense to me. Dougweller (talk) 06:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Including Freddie Mercury in the picture gallery
Its strange that Freddie Mercury hasn't been included in the list of Persians on the front page. Freddie was a Parsi, which means that he was descendant of Persians who fled to India from Iran after the Arab conquest to retain their religion (Zoroastrianism). Besides his obvious cultural and ethnical links with Persians, Freddie was proud of his Persian ancestry too. I quote:

His background made his sense of identity complex. Being a Parsee meant he identified more with his Persian ancestry than India, where his parents were brought up and he was educated. Hurtfully, there were people who said he was burying his Asian roots. Roger Cooke, his brother in law, said: "To an English mind, Asian means Indian. It doesn't in Freddie's particular case, he was Persian by ancestry. He was accused of denying his Indian heritage. I don't think he ever did, but if he did, it would have been because he was Persian." His mother added: "Freddie was a Parsee and he was proud of that, but he wasn't particularly religious."

Could someone adjust the list?

Thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.173.202.165 (talk) 05:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request
Please upgrade this paragraph so it says "Persian carpets" instead of Persian rugs. The proper term is carpet.

Persian cultural contributions include artistic (Persian rugs, Persian artworks and crafts, miniature paintings, calligraphy), linguistic (Persian literature and poetry), Societal (Architectural influences, customs & clothing, Gardening, music, social norms and standards), culinary, political and ceremonial (Nowruz festivity, Chaharshanbe Suri festival) contributions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.238.112.226 (talk) 00:32, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Section Persian Rugs should be renamed Persian Carpets

Also, the section is very poorly written. The carpet weaving centers of Nain and Qom are not even mentioned. Nain carpets are among the most highly desired carpets in the world today and the Nain 4La carpets rank as the finest, are exhorbantly expensive, and quite rare.

The carpet section should make a clear distinction between city-woven carpets and nomad carpets. None of the famous nomad carpet producing tribes are mentioned, which should include the Qasqai, Lori, Bakhtiari, Asfar, Kurdi, Turkamen, Afghan, and the Persian Gabbeh (mostly produced by the Qasqai). Persian carpets are actually knotted, not woven. The woven carpets are classified as kilim. More photographs are required. There should also be mentioned the age classification of carpets: antique, semi-antique, and new as these directly affect the value of a carpet.

Upon request, I would be willing to write a complete section with references and photographs. I may be contacted at martimasters@gmail.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.238.112.226 (talk) 00:46, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

✅. You should just go ahead and rewrite it if you want to improve it. Irānshahr (talk) 02:32, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Can I add Moshe Katsav to the table?
He is the eight president of Israel, and is a Persian Jew, probably one of the prominent Persian Jews, despite that Iran and Israel may be enemy states.PacificWarrior101 (talk) 04:32, 7 September 2013 (UTC)PacificWarrior101

Suggestion to move to Persian peoples
This article is not clearly about a people but peoples. I suggest this to move to "Persian peoples". "peoples" who all called Persian irrespective of their dialectical and language differences.-Raayen (talk) 18:22, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Misspelled "Parthian Empire"
Someone misspelled Parthian Empire, and that made the wikilink show up RED. Let's use some common sense: the primary cause of a RED wikilink is a misspelled word. Please listen.98.81.4.240 (talk) 00:14, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 December 2013
There is a typo in the section "Traditions" - see the bolded word below, it should be stri'pp'ed with 2 p's not striped with a single 'p'.

Traditions Further information: Nowruz and Chaharshanbe Suri One of the most well known cultural traditions dating back to the Achaemenid era is the tradition of Nowruz or the celebration of the new year by the Achaemenids.[89] Nowruz has Zoroastrian roots, but has since the time of Islam been mostly striped of its Zoroastrian references.

69.158.30.58 (talk) 02:43, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done RudolfRed (talk) 03:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 03 January 2014

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not moved for lack of consensus. There is no overriding policy compelling the article to have one title or the other, and no consensus in favor of the proposed move. bd2412 T 19:42, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Persian people → Persians – The name "Persian" and "Persians" is common in English media as an ethnicity and people of certain ethnic group. I suggest to remove "people" from the article name. Persian as an ethnicity is common, there is no need to clarify it with "people". The plural form "Persians" is much better than "Persian people". Like other articles in En Wiki for ethnic groups. Also the "Persians" is more common than "Persian people". For example compare Google search (books) for them: Persians and Persian people. Also in other European language, the plural form is common. For example, in French language: Persans. I suggest to move this article. When "Persians" is widely used in many sources (from history and scholary sources to news content), why not to use it in English Wikipedia? It's a better name for this article. Like many articles that use "Xs" instead of "X people". Zyma (talk) 19:31, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.


 * Oppose – it is typical in WP to title articles on ethnicities and nationalities this way. Let consistency abide.  Dicklyon (talk) 03:18, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Support Nope, it's not "typical" in Wikipedia: Armenians, Swedes, Danes, Lithuanians, Jews, Russians, Italians, Germans and many more.
 * Also, per Google Ngram "Persian people" is almost never used in academia. -- Ե րևանցի  talk  03:29, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I was looking at Japanese people, Scottish people, British people, Indian people, French people, Chinese people, Filipino people, Palestinian people, Romani people, Māori people, Iranian people, Pakistani people, Portuguese people, Hui people, Jat people, Catalan people, Brazilian people, Maya people, Tibetan people, Cornish people, Khmer people, Javanese people, Hakka people, Swiss people, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 04:03, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I hope you checked the ngram, too. -- Ե րևանցի talk  04:08, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * User:Dicklyon, many of the examples you give require "people" as a disambiguator for linguistic reasons, i.e. that there is no distinct plural form (e.g. one cannot say Cornishes, Japaneses, or Swisses). But Persians works just fine. —  AjaxSmack   21:19, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Support. Per my request and rationale (as the move requester). Also above comments by Yerevantsi. --Zyma (talk) 13:18, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. In addition, as noted above some question whether "people" or "peoples" should be used for the article.  A move to Persians would solve that.  —  AjaxSmack   21:19, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. It is the default norm, with a few exceptions.  It's not merely for linguistic differentiation (there is "Persian language" article in this case too).  "Persians" could be referring to old empires, non-Persian subjects of Persian states, cats, carpets, etc. rather than the ethnicity per se.  Walrasiad (talk) 06:47, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see an example where it is used in reference to "old empires, non-Persian subjects of Persian states, cats, carpets, etc"-- Ե րևանցի talk  06:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you're asking. In any historical textbook, "The Byzantine offensive on Nisibis was defeated by the Persians" (meaning: the Persian State, not ethnically Persian people; on this particular frontier, likelier to be ethnically Kurdish rather than Persian).  In a carpet store: "Persians on sale this week, 10% off".  In a petcare manual "Persians require a lot of grooming", etc. Walrasiad (talk) 14:34, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Doesn't that apply to every ethnic group? -- Ե րևանցի talk  15:34, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Often yes. Which is why we use "X people" in articles specifically dedicated only to the ethnic group. Walrasiad (talk) 16:00, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You know, that articles "specifically dedicated only to the ethnic group" also cover the history of those ethnic groups, right?-- Ե րևանցի talk  03:52, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes? And so? I'm afraid I don't see what you're driving at. Can you elaborate? Walrasiad (talk) 04:22, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * So that when saying "Germans" people usually refer to persons living in Germans and people of German ancestry. How is it different from Persians? As noted by AjaxSmack, "X people" is usually used when "Xs" isn't correct, e.g. "French people" vs "Frenchs". Persians works just fine and I don't see any reason why the article should be titled "Persian people" and not "Persians". -- Ե րևանցի  talk  06:51, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have already given you reasons. "Persians" has multiple usages - the most notable being the subjects of the historical state known as "Persia", an empire with multiple ethnicities.  Since this is an article about a particular ethnicity (only one of several in the Persian State), it helps keep it clear what the article is about. I don't see the harm of retaining "people", as in most other ethnicity articles, and don't see what is gained by dropping it, only the prospect of causing confusion.Walrasiad (talk) 16:11, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You're arguments are good examples of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. The primary use of "Persians" is for referring to the ethnic group. People of other ethnic groups in the Persian Empire were never called "Persians", unless they considered them Persian. That's totally misleading. "I don't see the harm" is also not an argument. I also don't see the "harm" of dropping "of America" from "United States of America", but the article is titled "United States" since it is the most accurate and most common name of that country. And how does "Persians" "cause confusion"? Am I missing something? Why don't "Germans" or "Armenians" cause confusion?  -- Ե րևանցի  talk  05:05, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Persian people" is accurate. Subjects of the Persian empire were called "Persians".  Indeed, many of the "Persians" confronted by ancient Greeks our friend  cited below, weren't ethnic Persians at all but Medeans, Phrygians, Lydians, Armenians, Mesopotamians, etc.  The ancient empire itself was Medean.  Persians were just one of the distinct constituent ethnic groups, that happened to lend its name to the whole.  Greek sources decided to call them all "Persians", while the Hebrew Bible consistently refers to them distinctly as  "Medeans and Persians".
 * As for liking/disliking, that's rich. I don't think you've paid attention to anything I wrote. I have earnest concerns about the ambiguity and confusion that can be created, nothing else. And that prospect is not imaginary - you and Zyma below have given ample examples of that confusion yourselves! ("Subjects of Persian empire were not called Persians", "Greeks fought ethnic Persians and no one else", etc.)  Your confused statements on this are exhibit A & exhibit B of why dropping "people" would be a mistake.
 * That said, I don't have to prove harm (even though harm has proven itself!). I am not proposing a name change, I am just expressing concerns about it.  It is you who have failed to give grounds for dropping "people" other than "why not?". Since this is a proposal to move, you have to provide reasons.  And you have not provided one yet.  Walrasiad (talk) 14:49, 8 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose we should distinguish the ethnicity from the jurisdiction known as Persia, many of whom were not ethnic Persians, as it was an Empire of many ethnicities -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:31, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * And, in English language, we make this distinction -- how? The same could be said for about any similar situation, like Russians and Germans. Do we have an article about subjects of the Persian Empire throughout history? No. Is its existence in encyclopedia even conceivable? Hardly. So, in practice, there is nothing to disambiguate, and the ambiguity exists only in theory. That means suppport, I guess. No such user (talk) 16:27, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm suggesting we use Ethnic Persians or Ethnic Persian people. But moving it to an even more ambiguous name is not useful. WP:PRECISE, we are failing in the needed precision to identify the subject, as in history books, "Persian" can refer to any person from the Empire, not just ethnic Persians. And we should have such an article on the peoples of Persia. We have demographics in a whole range of articles on various empires, IIRC, sometimes as separate articles also. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 05:49, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Natural language is not mathematics; it is not possible for every title to be perfectly unambiguous, it is not required, nor it is desired, after all. We have naming conventions, which give five criteria to consider: Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness and Consistency. The WP:COMMONNAME states that " Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural". Ethnic Persians is neither. No such user (talk) 08:25, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Persians are cats.  The suggest title is too short, too imprecise.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:27, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Persians are cats" WTF? --Z 11:35, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have known several expatriate Persian people. Polite, well groomed, very proud of their cultural and intellectual heritage without any boastfulness, quick to explain that the Arabs are not Persian, and a brief mention of Afghanistan. I have been left with the clear impression that Persian is much more than the people, it is the history, culture etc. However, when these people are not in the room, and someone mentions Persian, as often happens, they are, in my experience, only ever referring to the breed of cat. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:28, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * . --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:32, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Support. The "... people" naming pattern has never been more than an ugly necessity for those ethnic names that have no proper plural (such as "French") and should not be used where it isn't needed. Alleged disambiguation issues are unconvincing, as per No such user above. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:24, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:

Per Wikipedia policies and rules, we should use the most common name for the articles. "Persians" is more common than "Persian people". Just search books, articles, papers, scholary sources, academic references, web contents, and etc. You will see most of them use "Persians" instead of "Persian people". "Persians" directly refer to an ethnicity not anything else. For example, do internet users search "Greeks vs. Persians" or "Greeks vs. Persian people"? Clearly, they search "Persians". It's not confusing. "Persians" has a clear meaning, specially in the modern and new sources. Nobody use the name "Persians" for the "Persian cats"!. Compare the title of En Wiki article with other Wikis. "Persians" means Persian ethnicity or Persian-speaking person. Supporters of this move request wrote reasonable comments and discussed the benefits of this rename, so this move process is reasonable and helpful for this article and future searches. --Zyma (talk) 18:42, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * That you think "Greeks vs. Persians" refers to people of Persian ethnicity "nnd not anything else" is a prime reason for why this article should be "Persian people". The "Persians" of the Persian empire, implied by that phrase, include people of other ethnicities, e.g. Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, etc. Walrasiad (talk) 18:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Problem: the proposed title Persians is already taken by a dab page, so this RM is malformed and should be cancelled. Dicklyon (talk) 03:37, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Persian" or "Iranian"?
The article uses both of them. I suggest we instead use "Persian" as the term mainly because:

1. "Iranian" might be confusing and make readers believe that we are solely speaking of Iranian people/people from modern day Iran, which is obviously not the case.

2.In the history section a lot of the content involves other Persian peoples, such as forexample East-Persian-Tajiks.

--90.149.188.205 (talk) 22:37, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Messed up refs
The sources indicated in the infobox (starting from Tajikistan) are messed up. Somebody should correct them. N ataev talk 11:43, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Article needs overhaul
After reading the discussion above, I want to add that this article and the whole matter needs an extreme overhaul. Both denotations 'Persian People and Iranians on Wikipedia are far to confusing and misleading.

Even though Iranian is a nationality and Persian an ethnicity, I think it might be helpful to create a separate article for the people of Iran, naming it Iranians, while maintaining this article only for the peoples of ethnic Persian descent.

By that way, it's far easier for people to know what they're searching for; either the ethnicity (Persians), or people from the country Iran/who have Iranian nationality (whether Armenians, Persians, Georgians, Azeri's, Kurds etc)

I think the Iranian diaspora article can help greatly with forming that.

LouisAragon (talk) 22:27, 24 April 2014 (UTC)


 * We have Ethnicities in Iran, Demographics of Iran, Iranians, and Iranian peoples. You say people use "Persian" instead of "Iranian"? Maybe this article needs some clarification. Historical usage of "Persian" and modern ethno-linguistic usage of "Persian" or usage of "Persian" as an ethnicity. --Zyma (talk) 23:59, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 10 May 2014

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved; premature attempt. Previous RM was at /Archive_7. No such user (talk) 12:51, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Persian people → Persians – Common and standard form. --Relisted. Armbrust The Homunculus 10:47, 17 May 2014 (UTC) Jaqeli (talk) 13:42, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.


 * Oppose per reasons on Talk:Assyrian people, no reason given to move aside from personal preference. SnowFire (talk) 22:32, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Too soon after preceding identical proposal, with a nomination far inferior to the previous discussion. Without the nominator summarising the previous discussion and arguing why it got it wrong, there should be at least 6 months between attempts to rename. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:23, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:

This has already been discussed before, look up above. --Mossadegh-e Mihan-dust (talk) 20:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Tajiks in Uzbekistan
Tajiks in Uzbekistan for a lot longer than it says there are about 6-11 million on non formal assessment  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Franrasyan (talk • contribs) 13:57, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Concerning the removal of all traces of Tajiks from this article
I came across this article months ago and thought it was a nice read. Now I have come back to see it has been completely changed. Everything regarding Tajiks has been completely wiped by a user named "LouisAragon" (who thankfully is banned). The reason he gives for his edits is that Tajiks are diaspora(which is wrong) and should have info on a separate page(which they do, but is no reason to completely wipe them from this page). Yet he leaves all the other diaspora populations including the US, Germany and UAE on this page. I feel his edits are not to make this article more accurate or less confusing but are just from a bigoted position. To add insult to injury he leaves some very prominent Tajiks on the famous people part - including Al-Khwarizmi, Biruni, Avicenna and Rumi, all while stating Tajiks have no place on this page.

I have no idea how to edit the article to the old version, that reflected "Persian people" a lot better, in fact I don't even have an account. I'm just hoping that someone who does know how to do it or an admin sees this and fixes this skewed article up.

Kind Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.186.71 (talk) 06:08, 9 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Looks like sheer nationalistic vandlism and I've fixed it. Dougweller (talk) 07:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

the iranians and afghans are two different people. every one knows that. iranians and afghans are not one single people. the article is misleding and wrongful. pls fix the article. this article is completely unencyclopaedic.--Farscheed (talk) 07:17, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
 * "Iranian" and "Afghan" are modern designations for political entities. This article is about a socio-cultural entity which shares a common language, history, culture and - to a large extent - identity. The Persians of what is today known as "Iran" were officially known as "Tajiks" up to the early 20th century.
 * As for some of the historical people listed in this article as "famous Persians", such as Avicenna, al-Khwarizmi, and Biruni: none of them were Persians. Avicenna was most likely of Persianized Sogdian origin, and if German scholar Günter Lüling is correct, he had a distinguished Buddhist background. Khwarizmi and Biruni were - very obviously - Khwarizmians. Their native tongue was not Persian but Khwarizmi, a now distinct Eastern Iranian language, much closer to modern Pashto and Ossetian than to Persian. Biruni was a major opponent of establishing Persian as a second scientific language next to Arabic, and he openly criticized those who wrote in Persian.
 * Wikipedia should stick to scholarly sources and not to nationalistic POV.
 * To sum it up: "Tajik" is just another word for "Persian", and the Tajiks of Afghanistan and Central Asia are as much "Persian" as those in Iran who call themselves "Persian". Persian identity is foremost defined by the use of the Persian language and by a common literary and legendary heritage (i.e. the Mathnawi of Rumi, the Diwan of Hafiz or the Shahnama of Firdowsi) - that means that Tajiks and also Hazaras are part of the Persian community. When it comes to genetics ans blood, the Persians of Iran are as much mixed with foreigners, various invaders, etc. as the rest. --Lysozym (talk) 21:22, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

afghanis are not Persians
afghanis are not persians, austrians speak german but are not germans and they do not consider themselves as germans, they are neither considered germans by the people of germany, the people of switzerland speak french but they are only swiss and it is wrong to call the swiss peoiple as french people. the people of belgium speak dutch, but they are not dutch or netherlanders, the people of brazil speak portuguese but they are not portuguese people. they are brazilians speaking portuguese. the people of ghana speak english but they are not english. and finally the afghans speak a dialect of persian. but they are not persians racially or ethnically or historically. afghans are ethnically and racially a mixed nation. the tajiks, are related to people of central asia, to the people of uzbekistan, turkmenistan and tajikistan. the tajiks of afghanistan look exactly the same as tajik and uzbeks because they are the same. the hazaras are not related to the iranian or persian race, they are of mongol origin, their hazaragi language which is a dialect of dari language, is heavily mixed with the momgolian languiage, their look and appearence attest to the fact that they are only assimilated mongols. even the word hazara is a millitary unit which describe that they were a part of the mongol chengiz khan army who destroyed civilization of iran including nishabur and tus and many other cities of khorasan. (khorasan is in iran and is iranian, not afghani or afghanistan).

tajiks are iranized or persianized central asians, like uzbeks are turkified central asian people. tajik is NOT a synonym of persian or iranian, tajik only refered to people of central asia which became iranized, even the tajiks of china which speak and iranic language which is not persian language, they the tajiks of china are called tajiks by the chinese government, this is because they speak an iranic language, whether be persian or what else. the term tajik were invented by the turkic speaking central asian to differentiate themselves from the iranic speaking central asians, even when the northwestern iran was turkified the turkic speaking iranians called the iranian speaking iranians tats, which means non.turk. tajiks was at the beginning only meaning non turk and later was used to call the iranic speaking central asians. the words tats and tajiks are etymolically related but two totally different things, like the words dutch and deutsch is etymologically related but dutch mean netherlander and deutsch mean german, tats are iranians speaking iranians living in turkic areas of iran, tajiks are iranic speaking central asians neighbur with turks of central asia.

so the conclusion is that tajik do not mean iranian, even if it was meaning iranians (which it is not) it would be a linguistic term, like germanic, which do not mean german, and slavic which do not mean slovakian.

the aryans where living in southern russia over 3000 years ago, and 3000 years ago they migrated due to the cold weather, one part of the aryan people migrated to north india, today the people of north india, and pakistan and bangladesh which where later splitted from the northern india, today these countries, bangladesh, pakistan and india are the ancient aryans who migrated to the ganges palin. and one part of the aryan race migrated to iran, they became divided to three tribes, one persian tribe, who migrated to southern iran, one was called median who migrated to central iran, and one who called parthians and migrated to a region in northeastern iran which they later called parthia, parthia was neighbur of central asia, turkmenistan to the north, exactly the todays turkmen.iranian border to the north, parthia was in east limited to hariva, which is todays afghanistans herat province. so the iranian race, people, nation, ethnicity was limited to todays border of iran, and afghanis are not iranian by ethnicity.

khorasan was a term which was invented by the sassanid iranians, in presassanid times it was called parthia, which was called because of the parthians which where iranians and aryans, but in sassanid times they called it khorasan, meaning the place of sunrise, meaning east in old persians, because khorasan was located in eastern iran, at the same time, they called the western part of iran khorbaran, meaning west, they called todays iraq which was then part of iran and western iran as khorbaran. later in islamic times, khorasan was used to refer to parts of turkmenistan and afghanistan, but the real and original khorasan was still iran.

the most important thing is that let alone the fact that afghanis are not iranian or persian, they are even not considered persian by the iranian people. if you tell an iranian that an afghan is persian, he will be surprized and he or she will not like that and will not accept that. so the afghanis (those who call themselves persians) they are not persian, they are only wannabe persians, they shoukd be proud of their afghan and tajik nation and ethnicity, because as long as they are acting like wannabe persians, the iranians and afghans wil not have a good friendship relation, why iranians do not think the same of iraqis or azarbaijanis, or pakistanis, as they are thinking of afghans, because these countries are not wannabe persians despite the fact that iraq was called dele iranshahr, or heart of iran in sassanid times, despite that the most famous persian poet is an azarbaijani called nizami ganjavi, he has statue in many countries, and pakistanis having contributed to persian literature and civilizaiton

every language is beautiful on earth, but some languages are melodic and musical, and persian is one of the most melodic languages, and when some europeans or westerners say that persian is a beautiful language they only mean the language of iran, and not afghanistan, because it is the the farsi language which is meldodic and musical, the afghanis speak and pronounce the dari accent totoally different, and you can not hear the farsi or iranian accent from them when they talk.

the most correct persian dialect is the tehrani persian, and the most original and real persian dialect is luri and bandari, lari, and dezfuli dialects, because these dialects are descended from middle persian, or pahlavi as it was called. and the orginal persian language before the current language was pahlavi, the speakers of the mentioned languages and cities are still in the same area and region where pahlavi or middle persian was spoken, bccause it was spoken in southern iran especially fars and khuzestan province.

so dari is not the original persian language as someone claim, dari is mixed heavily with turkmen and uzbek and pashtun and mongol and hindi words, so you can not say that the farsi language is mixed and unreal, but dari is real and unmixed.

the dari word which is mentioned by some authors has not anything to do with afghanistan, because it was in 1960 the afghan state changed the name of the language from tajiki to dari, so dari is originally an iranian word, not afghan, even hafez have talked about dari and he did not mean anything afghan, and even the farsi dialect of zartoshtians in kerman and yazd todays is called dari by themselves. even many kermanis and yazdid call their sweet persian dialect and accent dari, and they are not afghans. they are iranians.

it is not only the afghan that have adapted the culture of iran, and it is not the only afghans that have history shared with iran, the whole europe share the history of roman empire, even egypt and libya and libanon and iraq and azarbaijan and armenia and georgia share history with iran, afghanistan was never part of iran, it was part of iranian empires, the iranian empire included many nations and countries.

the article about persian people, should be changed to iranian people, and personalities of todays iran, should be mentioned in the artike and have pitcures, not only ancient persons, and the article should be name iranian people, also called persians. because every nation and country have article on wikipedia, but the iranian people do not have. and one other article should be created for the afghans mentioning afghan personalities and subjects related to todays afghanistan.

because afghans and iranians, despite speaking closely related languages, are two different nations and ethnic groups, and are not the same people as the article claims.

--Iranmehr27 (talk) 04:49, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Welcome Iranmehr27. That's a bit of an unexpected screed.  Is it in response to something in the article?
 * You seem to be relying on some particular definitions. That's OK, but you should be clear about these definitions, and cite their source.
 * "Afghans are not Persians" is a justifiable statement, but it is not that simple. There are Persian people who are also Afghan.  Some Afghans are Persian, unless you choose a very restrictive definition.
 * You are touching upon some subtle issues of balance between overlapping articles, and much you say has merit. Have you carefully compared the current states of Iranian peoples, Iran, and this article, Persian people.  What's one thing to change first?  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:29, 23 July 2014 (UTC). And Greater Iran. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:36, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

as i argued in the text and i prooved that afghans are not persians by the ethnic definitoion, because they are iranized and persianized central asians, like uzbeks who are turkified central asians, they where formerly called sarts because they changed their name to uzbek and tajik.

the people of iran was NOT At All and never called tajiks. the word used for iranians was ajam or ajami, because when the arabs were conquering iran, they called them ajams, meaning non arab at the beginning and later it was restricted specifically to iranians. so the iranians was only called ajams. they where never called tajiks. only the central asians who got iranized were called tajiks by their turkic neighboors.

and yes the most restrictive defintion of the word persian is that persian is a person from iran, espeicially in united states, most iranians self identify as persians, and the iranians in the US are known as persian by most americans, and persia is the former name of iran, and persian is the former adjective of iran, and since the second shah of the last iranian monarchy, in 1960 declared that both persia and iran can be used as synonyms, so the word persian is only the synonym of iranian, and iranians, whithou regard of ethnicity are persians. because persian is only a synonym adjective of iranian. you can not say googoosh and dariush, iranian most famous female and male singers who are ethnically azarbaijani, and shapour bakhtiar, a Lor and nima youshij, founder of modern persoan poetry, you can not say these people are not persians. they are as persian as other originally persian speaking personalities.

so according to the most correct, accepted and famous definition the term persian excludes afghans. because the word persian is a synonym of iranian. it is only some afghans who like to be called persians. no other person consider them as persians. --Iranmehr27 (talk) 06:02, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

my former text was in response of the unsigned comment> beginning with Kind Regards

--Iranmehr27 (talk) 06:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

every nation and people on earth have article on wikipedia, even stateless people like gypsies and assyrians have, but iranians have not their own article on wikipdeia. i request some administrator of wikipedia to change the name of this article to iranian people. and the article be limited to iranian and not afghans. because the germans and austrians, or swiss and the french, and portuguese and brazilians, and even americans and english people are not mixed in their articles of wikipedia. this article is totally misleading.

i know that many afghans would like to be considered persians, but by most correct and accepted definition they are not regarded as persians. even in this article they are not fully acknoledged as persians. If Really afghans are persians, then please add some pictures of afghans, like the persident hameed karsay, or add some pictures of afghans singers, politicans, directors, and actors side by side with the iranians personalities in the image section on the top of the article. please do that, this article should either be for iranian people and if if you mix iranians and afghans here, then please add pictures of afghans also, one of the persons who should have picture on this article is hameed kasay, because he is the most famous afghan person.--Iranmehr27 (talk) 06:14, 23 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Afghans, in general, are not Persian, agreed. Never in dispute.
 * What seems contentious is that there are Persians who are Afghan. Does an Iranian stop being Persian by travelling, by emigrating, or by being born outside Iran?
 * I understand the term "Persian" to refer to ethnicity, a concept that is never clean, and that the counting of Afgan Persians as Persians is an acknowledged grey zone. I understand that "Persian" is proudly distinguished by self-identifying Persians in contrast to "Arab", but that the Iranian/Afghanistan boundary of Persians is not so clear.  Similarly with Turkmenistan, although Persian communities there are in smaller numbers.  To confuse strict synonymy with Iranian, note that proud Persians look back over thousands of years of cultured civilisation.   --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:35, 23 July 2014 (UTC)


 * There's also some confusion here about how we work. "Proving" on this talk page is what we call WP:Original research, and arguments like the one above needs to be supported by sources meeting our criteria at WP:RS. It looks as though sources may not be unanimous and is there is a dispute we follow WP:NPOV. Dougweller (talk) 10:42, 23 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Dougweller. Actually, Iranmehr is almost completely wrong. Because he does not understand the difference between "culture", "ethnicity", "nationality", and "citizenship", etc. His talking about Aryans etc. ist just as wrong as the rest (just for his information: the ethnonym "Afghan" derives from Sanskrit "Aśvakas" (and contains the Skt. Ashva, "horse"), once designating the so-called Kshatriya warrior class of Hindu-Aryan society. Keeping that aside, he also does not understand that not all Afghans (in der mondern sense) but only Tajiks, Aimaq and - at best - Hazaras are considered "Persians". His comment that Persians in Iran have never been known as "Tajiks" shows his ignorance of historical facts. As late as 1895, it was noted by German encyclopedist Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus that the Persians in Iran are known as "Tajiks": Die Bewohner (s. Tasel: Asiatische Völkertypen, Fig. 13, Bd. 1,S. 984), deren Gesamtzahl jetzt auf etwa 9 Mill. geschätzt wird, teilen sich in zwei Hauptmassen: Ansässige (Tadschik) und Nomaden (Ilat oder Ilyats). Die Tadschik, die mit verschiedenem sremdem Blute vermischten Nachkommen der alten Perser, Meder und Vaktrier, bilden, wie in Ostiran und in Turan, die Hauptmasse der seßhasten, Ackerbau, Gewerbe und Künste treibenden Einwohnerschaft und sind Schiiten. (source). Brockhaus correctly defined the "Tajik" as the Persian-speaking, sedentary, Shia and majority population of Iran - unlike the "Ilat Turks" who were by then still a politically dominant minority, forming the ruling houses and the majority in Persia's military. As for AUstrians and Germans: it's only because of WW2 that Austrians do not want to be called Germans anymore, beucase they do not want to take responsibility for the war crimes (even thout Adolf Hitler himself was an Austrian). The official name of the country is derived from "Deutsch Österreich", meaning "German Eastern Empire", and as late as the 60's the Austrians were still widely known as "Austrian Germans". There is an excellent article about this complex topic in the German Wikipedia: de:Österreichische_Identität. Nations and nationalities change constantly, neither nationality not ethnicity are constant. I encourage everyone to read Benedict Anderson's "Imagined communities". --Lysozym (talk) 09:09, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

afghanis are not Persians
No Lysozym i am not almost completely wrong, actually you know that my knowledge is almost entirely true and correct thats why you did not dare to say it is completely wrong, you say it is Almost completely wrong, but believe me whatever what i said is based on the general historical sources, so you are wrong, not me. i doubt you yourself understand the meaning of the culture, ethnicity, nationality and citizanship, but you can be sure that afghanis (your nationality) is neither persian or iranian in the contexts of citizenship, ethnicity, nationality. only the culture of afghans is iranian, but you can not say afghans are iranian or persian because they have some elements of iranian culture, many nations in west asia have iranian or persian cultural elements but are not iranians,example the azaris or iraqis. by the way culture have many definitions, i once read that culture have as much as 300 definitions. no you are not considered persian by any book, nation, organization or history and last but the best one by iranian people. the afghan tajiks are ethnic relatives of other tajiks and uzbeks of central asia, and hazaras are ethnic relatives of mongols. and neither tajiks or hazaras have the iranian or persian appearence. none of them look iranian or persian, the fact is that, at least in my opinion pakistanis and indians, despite being little more colored than iranians, they, indians and pakistanis look iranian and persian.

no it is you that are ignorant to historical facts, even if one or some author or writer said that iranians are tajiks this does not make iranians tajiks

Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus perhaps he called some people tajiks, but that does not mean he meant the tajiks of central asia or the tajiks of tajikistan or afghanistan.

in the army of safavid empire there where two grouups who made the army of the state, one groups were turkic speakings, they became knows as torks, and one groups were speaking iranic languages, this groups of army consisting of iranic speaking groups of iran, they became known as tajiks, again i say, tajiks here only is a linguistic term to differentiate turkic speaking and iranic speaking groups. it is a difference between germanic and german, and iranian and iranic. so the author Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus only called a group of the iranian safavid army as tajiks, this was not a term which was widely used, it was only used to differentiate turkic and iranic speakers in his book. So the Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, meant only iranic speakings peoples by the terms tajik, and he meant iranic speaking groups like lors, because they did not speak turkic, Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus did not mean anything afghan or tajikistani.

but> here you are not only claiming and wanting to be a persian, your claims are bigger, you even claim and want the iranian nation to call themselves tajiks. so you want afghans to call themselves persians, and you want iranians to call themselves tajiks, all this shows a inferiority complex of the people who have such a funny, wrong and meaningless claims.

i dont care if afghans call themselves aryans or not, i am not trying to convince or force you to dont call yourself aryan, and even if i convince you that afghans are not aryans, i can not stop other afghans to say or think they are aryans.

so you can keep saying or considering yourself aryan, but according to the history, afghans are not aryans, aryans are the people of ancient north india and iran, and two countries splitted from north india, pakistan and bangladesh, so the fact is that, at least in my opinion who have read many books, the fact is that aryans are the people of india, pakistan, bangladesh and iran. the people of these 3 first countries, despite being little darker, are still looking like iranian people, this mean they may have been one people before splitiing and dividig.

at least in my opinion, afghans are not aryans, and what is that so important about aryans, in my opinion the pakistanis are aryans, but they dont care at all about aryan, they are proud of their nation and culture and dont discuss so much about aryan, and even indians and iranians, only the nationalists talk about aryan, the general indian or iranian nations are not so busy about the aryan race despite being the true aryans.

the only people who are not aryans and like to be wannabe aryans are afghans. it is better for afghans to be proud of their current culture, than a thing that existed 3000 years ago. in farsi we say, dashtam dashtam hesab nist, daram daram hesab ast, meaning it is not important what you had, it is important what you have now.

i am residing in a country that a famous magazine for 10 years ago, the magazine wrote that iran is an arab nation, this is totally wrong, everyone knows that, so after 10 years the magazine said iran is an arab nation, iran is still not arab and did not became an arab nation,iran is stlll a persian nation and not arab, what i mean by mentioning this is that you can not change reality and history, in persian language we iranians say, ba kesafate sag darya kasif nemishe, meaning with the dirt of a dog, the sea does not get dirty. meaning you can not change reality.

so you can never change the reality that afghans are not persians, even if you convince the magazine new york times to write that afghans are persians you can not change reality and history. hehehe because afghans and tajiks are not persians, they are persianized (linguistic term) central asians.

be proud of your culture, not claim being another nationality or ethnicity, and do not claim and say iranians are tajiks or were known as tajiks for 100 years ago, this is not a relevant or actual issue. all of these show your inferiority complex

--Iranmehr27 (talk) 01:08, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Request of an Wikipedia Administrator
I request some administrators of wikipedia to change the name of this article to iranian people and limit the article to iranian people. Because iranians and afghans can not be mixed here. this is totally wrong. An administrator did that but was later reverted by some afghan wannabe iranians. even afghans are not fully acknowledged as persians in this article, because although in terms of population statistics, it is mentioned at the top of the article how many percent are afghans, but they dont have any pictures of afghan people. because no afghan dare do that and afghan know that if he add pictures of afghans by side of iranian people, it will make people laugh. so please i request an admin of wikipedia to change the name of the article to iranian people and delete every thing about afghanistan, because every nation in the world have wikipedia article but iranians dont have, like the articles of french, italian, norwegian or swedish peoples.

and create an article for afghans of their own.


 * Sorry, but that is not our role. You can start a WP:RM or an WP:RFC. Dougweller (talk) 16:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Iranmehr27 is not only uneducated, he is also a racist troll with no manners. With this comment on my talkpage, he has just not insulted me personally, but also all Afghans in a racist way. Wikipedia should not tollerate racist and/or ultranationalist trolls. This is an encyclopedia and not a forum for uneducated people to live out their inferiority complexes. --Lysozym (talk) 08:18, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Lysozym, i have a master degree in persian literature, so dont call me uneducated, it is you that are uneducated, like your...fellow....yes this is encyclopaedia not your blog to say that iranians and afghans are brothers.haha.......i feel very proud of my iranian nation and dont say we iranians are brothers to any nation, but you have inferiority comoplex because you create videos on youtube and write articles for iranians in wikipedia and say afghans are the brothers of iranians and the same nation. is not this an iferiority complex that you have, you are a troll who feel inferior.stop sayng that iranians and afghanis are the same, you will never be accepted as persian and never look like persian and never be a part of iranian nation and country. you are so ignorant and uneductaed. some thing you really are is this: Wannabe Persian with inferiority complex.