Paul - Ludwig 2010 - Iranian Language Reform in The Twentieth Century

Journal of Persianate Studies 3 (2010) 78-103 brill.
nl/jps
Iranian Language Reform in the Twentieth Century:

Did the First Farhangestān (1935-40) Succeed?*
Ludwig Paul
University of Hamburg
Abstract
In the period 1935-1940, the Iranian Language Academy (Farhangestān) proposed over 1,600
indigenous terms to replace words of Arabic or European origin. Seventy years later, an assess-
ment of the effects or “success” of this activity may be attempted. The Farhangestān’s success
cannot be measured easily, by counting the successful words. A study of it requires a strict defi-
nition of the term “success” and a detailed analysis of the origin, semantics, usage, stylistics, etc.
of each word. The analysis proposed here, using sixty terms, yields a scale of increasing success
along which the coined terms may be arranged. The article aims to show that any exact num-
bers indicating the Farhangestān’s word-replacing success are of limited value; and that it is
more interesting to ask how the new terms have been established and how they have systemati-
cally changed, and often enriched, the vocabulary of Persian.
Keywords
Persian, sociolinguistics, Language Academy, replacing foreign words
All languages are subject to continuous and, normally, unconscious change.

Conscious attempts at language change are mostly modern phenomena, bear-
ing names like “language policy,” “language planning,” or “language reform.”
Language reform is here understood as a deliberate, systematic and purpose-
ful change of a particular language to improve its functioning. Iran provides
an interesting example of one language reform among many others in the
* This study goes back to presentations at various occasions during 2003-05, including one
held at the Iranian Language Academy in Tehran, a summary of which was published in the
Academy’s journal (see Paul). I am very grateful to the scholars working for the Farhangestān
who made it possible for me to attend their meetings, which helped me understand how the
Farhangestān works today and has worked in its earlier phases. I would like to mention person-
ally here Prof. ‘Ali-Ashraf Sādeqi and Nasrin Parvizi and Mahnush Tehrāni who were always
extremely helpful. I would also like to thank Behrooz Mahmoody-Bakhtiari, Hassan Rezai
Baghbidi, Mehdi Riazi and Ramin Shaghaghi for the information they furnished, as native
speakers and scholars, at various stages of this work.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/187471610X505960
L. Paul / Journal of Persianate Studies 3 (2010) 78-103 79
nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries.1 “Language reform,” as under-

stood here, concerns both the (technical) implementation of language change
and the ideology that stands behind it. Characteristically, language reforms
aim at changing the (material) corpus of a given language, usually the lexi-
con, rather than its (immaterial) status, which is more often in the focus of
language policy. Aiming at the lexicon of a given language, language reforms
often try to replace certain elements that are said to be “foreign” by “native”
elements, even if the foreign elements have been part of the language’s vocab-
ulary for centuries and would hardly be considered foreign by any speaker of
the language. Typically, language reforms that show such purist traits, are part
of a nationalist ideology or project. Language reforms are not purely linguis-
tic phenomena, but combine ideological and political processes with effects
that may be assessed in linguistic terms.
Language reforms are not only phenomena of modernity; they typically
also have an explicit connection with projects of modernization, such as the
adjustment of a specific language to the needs of modern science and tech-
nology. To comply with these needs, the language should make use of its own
resources, and avoid foreign words wherever possible. The modernization of
the vocabulary with the help of indigenous linguistic resources, and the puri-
fication from foreign words, are recurrent patterns of many (national) lan-
guage reform projects.
Iranian language reform, whose institutional history starts with the estab-
lishment of the Language Academy (Farhangestān) in 1935, has already
been studied to some extent. Jazayery wrote a comprehensive account of
the Farhangestān’s first phase (1935-42) and surveyed its second (1970-79)
and third (since 1990) phases (Jazayery, 1979; idem 1983; idem 1999).
More recently, Sadeghi has given a useful survey of all three phases of the
Farhangestān. Perry (1985) has compared certain traits of the Turkish and
Iranian language reforms. A comprehensive recent study of the Farhangestān’s
first phase (First Farhangestān, for short) provides all available Iranian sources,
but not the works written in European languages (Rustā’i 2006).
Since language reforms usually understand themselves as a means to another
end, the question about their effect, or success, is certainly relevant. In the
case of the Farhangestān, this question has been addressed in two articles so
far (Kāfi, 1989; idem 1992). The present paper aims to supplement Kāfi’s
approach by identifying conditions and reasons for the success of the
1
For a comprehensive state-of-the-art report on language reforms in about 140 countries,
see Fodor and Hagège.
80 L. Paul / Journal of Persianate Studies 3 (2010) 78-103
Farhangestān words in a broader historical-linguistic context, while laying a

sound methodological basis for the investigation.
Historical Background
In order to understand the lexical peculiarities of modern Persian and the

linguistic background of modern Iranian language reforms, it is necessary to
throw a glance at the earlier history of Persian. After the Arab-Islamic con-
quest of Iran in the seventh century CE, the Persian language vanished for
about two centuries from most official registers, Arabic becoming the only
language of administration, science, theology, and “higher” poetry of the new
Islamic rulers and elites of Iran. During the ninth century, Persian reap-
peared, starting as a language of poetry and epics in some northeastern Ira-
nian courts. Within one or two centuries, Persian gradually regained most of
the genres it had lost to Arabic, without however totally ousting the latter.2
In the course of this process, in which Persian would emerge as the preemi-
nent Islamic language of the “Eastern Caliphate,” Persian borrowed (and
incorporated) many Arabic words. Persian texts written during that period
may in principle contain an unlimited percentage of Arabic words, i.e., each
Arabic word was a potential loanword in literary Persian.3
The language of the “classical” Persian writers and poets of the eleventh-fif-
teenth centuries—strongly influenced by Arabic—set a standard of literary or
“higher” usage of Persian which has remained to this day. Since the nine-
teenth century, some authors have tried to modernize and simplify written
Persian, and to adjust it to the spoken language. This tendency gained momen-
tum with the technical, social and political developments in Iran after 1850.
The introduction of new media (newspapers) and education (the polytechnic
Dār al-fonun), the ensuing access of broader strata of society to education,
the intrusion of “Western” techniques, concepts and ideas into the country
and, finally, the aspiration of a broader public to political participation, even-
tually leading to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-11—all these caused,
and required, a thoroughly modernized language with a modernized vocabu-
lary, naturally attracting more and more loanwords from European languages.4
2
For a detailed overview, see Lazard (1975).
3
Following Lazard (1985), the average percentage of Arabic words in literary texts from the
eleventh century seems to have been around 30-40 percent.
4
As Karimi-Hakkak (88) put it, the “reform of . . . Persian was an integral part of the social
drive toward democracy.”
An impression of which, and how many, words of European origin were

used in Persian during the late Qajar period—some of which have since fallen
out of use—may be gained from S. Shirazi. During that time, attempts at
coining Persian neologisms were made mainly on an individual basis. Shortly
after Rezā Khan became prime minister in 1923, he had a commission set up
by the Ministry of War to propose indigenous Persian terms for some 100
modern concepts and commodities of European origin, mostly from techni-
cal and military fields, yielding words like havāpeymā “airplane,” artesh “army,”
and keshvar “country.”5 The Language Academy proper, or Farhangestān,
started ten years later. Rezā Shah’s visit to the Republic of Turkey in 1934
deeply impressed him. The Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had initi-
ated ambitious political, social and cultural reforms some years earlier, among
them language reform that abolished the Arabic script in which Turkish had
been written until 1928, and that aimed at purifying the Turkish vocabulary
from many of its elements of Arabic origin.6
After returning to Iran, Rezā Shah ordered a Persian language academy to
be founded to modernize and purify the Persian language, following the Tur-
kic model. In the course of ensuing discussions it became clear, however, that
the majority of appointed Farhangestān members did not favor too strict
measures to be taken against Arabic words in Persian. Farhangestān’s first
president and Iran’s prime minister, Mohammad-‘Ali Forughi, who was also a
renowned literary historian, argued that a distinction should be made between
European words denoting modern techniques and concepts, for which Per-
sian equivalents should be found if possible, and the large number of Arabic
loans that had become firmly established in Persian, whose deletion would be
unwise.7 Due to the influence of personalities like Forughi, words of Arabic
origin were not deleted excessively, and the number of proper “inventions” of
words by the first Farhangestān was rather limited. Farhangestān preferred
words of Iranian origin that had existed in classical literature but fallen into
disuse, partly by means of re-semanticisation, i.e. by assigning to them new
meanings.
Following the abdication of Rezā Shah (1941) and the death of Forughi
(1942), the Farhangestān reduced its activities, and officially ceased to exist
in 1954. In 1970, Mohammad-Rezā Shah initiated a new phase of language
reform, inviting people to contribute to the process of coining new words
5
Replacing tayyāra, qoshun and mamlekat; see also Rustā’i: 88 ff.
6
For details, see Perry; Lewis.
7
A detailed account of the developments and ramifications of the conflict between purists
and conservatives is given in Kia.
and inquiring about specific words to be replaced.8 The Second Farhangestān

was well funded as an ideological support of the Pahlavi state, but like some
other socio-cultural measures undertaken by the shah, it lacked social sup-
port, especially after 1975, and the revolution of 1978-79 quickly brought it
to an end.
It hardly seemed conceivable that after 1979, a regime that called itself
Islamic and advocated Islamic internationalism would resume the activities of
an institution with an explicit nationalist agenda. Nevertheless, the Third
Farhangestān was founded in 1990, focusing on the Persification of Persian
vocabulary among its activities. As it was during its first phase, the approach
has been rather pragmatic and cautious so far, dealing mostly with modern
words from technical and scientific fields and trying to avoid harsh or exces-
sive measures against well-established words of foreign origin. Since shortly
after the Revolution, “strengthening Persian and preserving its authenticity”
has again become accepted as an important national commitment by the
leaders of the Islamic Republic (see Khāmene’i). This, in itself, is already a
remarkable sign of historical continuity from the Pahlavi to the Islamic
Republic’s period.
Farhangestān’s Coinages
What are the effects of the Farhangestān’s reform activities to this date? Can
we call these activities “successful,” and if so, in what sense? This study begins
by investigating the oldest stratum of Farhangestān words—those proposed
by First Farhangestān. In order to determine how well a certain word has per-
formed during the seventy-odd years since then, it is necessary to compare
the word, its meaning and usage, at the point of departure (1935-40) with
that of today (2010).
The basis of the following investigation is the First Farhangestān’s annual
lists of words that were meant to replace the “disliked” words. There are
approximately 1,600 of such words listed in the academy’s last publication
(Farhangestān, Vāzhahā-ye now), from which I selected some sixty for this
study, giving preference to words from everyday registers rather than special-
ized or very technical terms:9 āmuzeshgāh “school,” andisha “thought,” ārāmdeh
“tranquillizer,” arash “elbow,” arz “foreign currency,” ātashneshāni “fire-brigade,”
azhdar “torpedo,” bahā “price,” bānk “bank,” bargardān “(money) transfer,”
8
See, e.g., Farhangestān (1978).
9
The English meanings given here are those suggested by the Farhangestān for each word;
they do not necessarily correspond to their actual meaning today (see below).
barnāma “program,” bāzargāni “trade,” bāzrasi “investigation,” bedehkār “debtor,”

behdāsht “hygiene,” bima “insurance,” bomb “bomb,” bombārān “bombard-
ment,” boresh “coupon,” chāp-khāna “printing-house,” dama “steam,” darāmad
“income,” dāru “medicine,” dāru-khāna “pharmacy,” dirkard “delay,” dorudgar
“carpenter,” garmāba “bath,” jozvadān “carton,” gushtforush “butcher,” hazina
“expense,” hesābdār “accountant,” kālā “merchandise,” kār “employment,”
kārvarz “assistant doctor,” kelid “key,” ku(y) “(town) quarter,” malavān “sea-
man,” māmā “midwife,” mohr “stamp,” nānvā “baker,” nakhost-vazir “prime
minister,” nushāba “alcoholic drink,” parvaresh “education,” pakhsh “distri-
bution,” pāyandān “surety, bail,” pezeshk “doctor,” rangin-kamān “rainbow,”
ravādid “visa,” resid “invoice,” sanduq “box,” sokhanrāni “conference,” shādbāsh
“congratulation,” shomāra “number, No.,” shomār “number, quantity,” tamāshā-
khāna “theater,” timcha “(bazaar) arcade,” vākonesh “reaction,” vāzha “word,”
zahr “poison,” zar(r) “gold,” zendān “jail,” zendāni “prisoner,” zir-daryā’i
“submarine.”
The selection made here is idiosyncratic and not fully representative of the
Farhangestān words; a more comprehensive study, therefore, may yield differ-
ent results in details. The main aim here is to lay a sound methodical basis for
a more comprehensive study.
The Words’ Morphology and Origins10
The terms proposed by the Farhangestān represent a variety of morphological

formations and origins. Morphologically, they include
simple words (as mohr “stamp”),

suffixed words (boresh “coupon,” from boridan “cut”), and
compounds (chāp-khāna “printing house”).
According to their origin or source language, the following classification may

be proposed:11
1. Words from languages other than Persian (very few): (1) Arabic, e.g. san-
duq “box,” (2) European, mostly French: bomb “bomb.”
10
The morphological classification proposed here corresponds to that used in Jazayery (1999:
275); the one according to origin differs, in some respects, from that of Jazayery (1999: 276).
11
Note that the origin, or immediate source, of a word (which is the criterion here) may be
different from its etymology, e.g. French bomb is of Greek etymology.
2. Words from earlier stages of Persian:12 kālā “merchandise” (to replace Ar.
māl al-tejāra, matā‘ ), azhdar “torpedo” (to replace Fr. torpil; re-semanti-
cised from classical Persian azhdar “dragon”).
3. Neologisms: (1) plain: malavān “seaman” (to replace Ar. mallāh), (2) com-
pound: chāp-khāna “printing-house” (to replace Ar. matba‘a), zir-daryā’i
“submarine” (to replace Ar. taht al-bahri).
The first group consists of a very limited number of words of Arabic or Euro-
pean origin that were recommended by the Farhangestān in spite of their for-
eignness. The reason was that these words were considered so well-established
in and assimilated to Persian (e.g., sanduq “box”) or internationally estab-
lished (bomb “bomb”) that any Persian equivalent suggested, it was assumed,
would sound too artificial. The second group—the largest of the three
groups—consists of words of Persian origin that had already existed in earlier
stages of Persian (especially in the classical literature) but had fallen out of use
in the meantime, and were now “revived” by the Farhangestān. An important
subgroup of these includes words that were revived not in their original but
in a new meaning (e.g., azhdar “dragon” > “torpedo”). The third group
includes neologisms in a narrower sense that had not existed in any known
earlier form or source of Persian, as malavān “seaman.” An important sub-
group of it are compound neologisms, e.g. chāp-khāna “printing-house,”
some of them being loan-translations of the word they were meant to replace,
like zir-daryā’i “submarine”; unlike plain neologisms, compounds usually
consist of well-known elements.
Not all neologisms may clearly be assigned to one of the above three cate-
gories: āmuzeshgāh, jozvadān, and ravādid can easily be identified as such;
they share the characteristic of not being used in Persian before 1935. For
some words, however, there remain doubts as to their affiliation; for instance,
the nouns farsudagi, sokhanrāni and zendāni seem to have occurred but very
seldom before 1935, while the adjectives or nouns from which they are
derived (farsuda “worn out,” sokhanrān “lecturer, [old] narrator,” zendān
“jail”) occurred quite often (see the entries in Dehkhodā). Is farsudagi thus a
neologism, or did it always exist as a “potential (if hardly ever realized) deri-
vation” from farsuda?
Moreover, resid “(proposed:) receipt” has been entered in Dehkhodā also in
the meaning of “arrival,” being an apocopate infinitive of rasidan/residan, but
no citation of the word in the meaning of “arrival” is given from before 1935.
Should resid “receipt” then be considered as a re-semanticisation from “*arrival,”
or as a neologism? For malavān “seaman,” there is an earlier word of the same
12
Or, sometimes, from Middle Persian or from modern Persian dialects.
form meaning “day and night” (dual form of Ar. mala’, from the root mly),
which shows no semantic relation with the homonymous Farhangestān term.
Taking the latter as re-semanticised from malavān “day and night” would
obviously make no sense; therefore, malavān “seaman” must be considered a
neologism instead.
Of the re-semanticised words, likewise, some are unproblematic; besides
the well-known azhdar, there are various old terms denoting mostly new con-
cepts or commodities, e.g. arz “foreign currency” (< “*value”), kārvarz “assis-
tant doctor” (< “*working man”),13 and mohr “stamp” (< “*seal”). For certain
terms, again, it is not clear if the meaning proposed by the Farhangestān
was old or new. For example, māmā “(proposed:) midwife” occurs, according
to Dehkhoda, only as “mother, mom” in the classical literature; the only cita-
tion in Dehkhodā for the meaning of “midwife” is a well-known proverb.14 Is
then māmā “midwife” re-semanticised from “mother,” or has the meaning of
“midwife” always been in common use, as reflected in the proverb? Since
proverbs often carry on older lexical usage, one is inclined to accept the latter
alternative. For dāru-khāna “pharmacy,” Dehkhodā gives only one pre-1935
citation (from the famous poet Farid al-Din ‘Attār), meaning “doctor’s sur-
gery.” Is this sufficient to consider dāru-khāna a re-semanticisation, or has
it rather been forged by the Farhangestān as a neologism on the model of
davā-khāna?
There are other individual cases, as well, blurring the boundaries between
the etymological groups. Very few words from the first group are taken over
from foreign languages other than Arabic or French/English, e.g. bima “insur-
ance,” which is taken from the Indian language Sindhi (see Dā‘i al-Eslām,
I: 803 f.), though it has a Persian outward appearance and may even be con-
nected semantically with Pers. bim “fear, fright.” Some neologisms show pho-
netic peculiarities. Bombārān (replacing bombārdmān, Fr. “bombardment”) is
contracted from the compound bomb-bārān “bomb-rain,” but at the same
time it emulates phonetically the French word it is meant to replace. Another
well-known example of such a play on words is afsar “officer,” proposed
already in 1924 by the committee of the Ministry of War. This word is taken
from classical Persian afsar “crown,” but the re-semanticisation to “officer”
is clearly due to the phonetic model of the very same English word.15 The
13
Dehkhodā gives only one quote for kārvarz (from the Shāhnāma), suggesting that this
word occurred very seldom in Classical Persian. Jazayeri even considers kārvarz an “outright
creation,” i.e. neologism, by the Farhangestān; see Jazayery (1999: 276).
14
Māmā ke do-tā shod, sar-e bachcha kaj dar-miāyad (lit. “with two midwives, the child’s
head comes out crooked”) “two captains sink the ship.”
15
See fn. 5. While most terms proposed already in 1924 (such as afsar) are not included in
the Farhangestān’s publications from after 1935, others are; e.g., havāpeymā “airplane.”
compound neologisms, finally, may contain non-Persian elements side by

side with Persian ones, e.g. chāp-khāna “printing-house,” with chāp taken
from Hindi.16
The scholarly or linguistic bases on which neologisms have been created by
the Farhangestān will not be judged here. Some of the words proposed by the
Farhangestān (or by one of its predecessors) have been criticized for being
“wrong” in an etymological or philological sense, e.g., artesh “army” (see
fn. 5), resulting from an etymologically incorrect split of Middle Persian
artēshtār “warrior” as *artesh-dār “army-holding,” while artēshtār actually goes
back to the Avestan raθaē-štar- “warrior.” This, however, is not relevant for
the present investigation; once a word like artesh “army” has been accepted,
and used, by a certain number of native speakers (or writers) of Persian, it
will be considered a word like all others.17
On the Notion of Success
It is necessary here to define more exactly what is meant by the “success” of a

Farhangestān word, and to note certain difficulties inherent to the term and
concept. It is clearly not possible to take a Farhangestān word that is in use
today as a sole proof for its success. Instead, each word has to be investigated
by comparing its semantic point of departure on the eve of the Farhangestān’s
foundation (1935) with its current meaning and usage. A word may then be
called “successful” only if it fulfils two conditions: (1) its usage has been
extended as compared to 1935, and (2) the extension of usage has followed
the semantic lines that were intended by the First Farhangestān. Only with
such a definition of success is it possible to attain methodically sound results.
The main problem connected to the notion of success is that for a lot of
the revitalized words, it is more difficult than it seems at first sight to deter-
mine their exact status or usage of 1935. How familiar were words from clas-
sical literature like kālā “merchandise” or bahā “price” to the speakers of
Persian on the eve of the Farhangestān’s foundation? The Farhangestān’s pub-
lications provide no information about this point, nor do they even specify
the source from which a word was taken. Most modern Persian dictionaries
are of no help either, as they only compile the older and modern meanings of
16
Probably also the compound chāp-khāna, which existed already in late 19th-century Per-
sian, was taken from Hindi.
17
To quote a well-known example of such a criticism, the Iranian author Sādeq Hedāyat
makes fun of angal “parasite” (to replace Ar. tofeyli): Dar Borhān loghat-e angelyōn ba ma‘ni-e
‘enjil’ āmada. Ehtemāl miravad in ketāb-rā tofeyli-e Towrāt farz karda bāshand “In the (diction-
ary) Borhān, the word angelyōn has been entered as ‘Gospel’. They probably took this book as a
parasite of the Old Testament” (Hedāyat: 89).
each word. Nonetheless, the comprehensive Persian-English dictionary by

S. Steingass, published in 1892, serves to tell whether the word existed in
Persian at all, before the Farhangestān and its forerunners took up their work.
Similarly, Dehkhodā’s Loghatnāma, which quotes lavishly from classical and
modern literature, gives an impression of the pre-1935 usage of the word.18
A word that serves to highlight some of these difficulties is bimārestān
“hospital.” In the Farhangestān’s Vāzhahā-ye now, only the compound bimā-
restān-e shahr “municipal hospital” is proposed, to replace mariz-khāna-ye
baladi. While this shows that mariz-khāna was in use in 1935, it remains
unclear whether the simple word bimārestān had any currency before that
date. The word does not occur as an entry in Steingass; instead, bimārsān
(sic!) “like a sick person; (for bimārestān) hospital” is an entry, which gives no
clue whether bimārestān was considered a lexeme. Dehkhodā’s quotations
suggest that bimārestān occurred almost exclusively in monolingual Persian
dictionaries of the fifteenth-nineteenth centuries, while bimārsān was more
common in the older literature.19
Browsing through some Qajar newspapers shows that the gloss “hospital”
was then expressed as bimār-khāna (in Ruznāma-ye dowlat-e ‘elliya-ye Irān,
1860) and bimār-khāna or mariz-khāna (in Ruznāma-ye anjoman-e Tabriz,
1906).20 It seems that bimārestān, if it was in use at all before 1935, was less
common than bimār-khāna or mariz-khāna. It then remains unclear why the
Farhangestān preferred bimārestān over bimār-khāna, which is perfectly Per-
sian and was already established, at least partly. An in-depth study of the
word(s) used for “hospital” (or other words) in early twentieth-century Per-
sian would require a comprehensive study of sources, something which is
beyond the scope of the present study.
Scale of Increasing Success
One of the findings of the present study is that there are various kinds, and
grades, of success of Farhangestān words that may be distinguished systematically
18
E.g., in the entry kālā “merchandise,” about twenty citations are made from the 10th-13th
centuries, making it clear that the word was wide-spread in classical Persian.
19
Dehkhodā gives only two quotes from classical literature (one from Ebn al-Balkhi), which
may be due to later (mis-)emendations. Wolff, in his glossary of the Shāhnāma, gives eight
entries for bimārsān, all meaning “hospital,” but no entry for bimārestān. On the other hand,
the classical Arabic word mārestān “hospital,” clearly an apocopate borrowing from Persian,
would be an argument for the existence of bimārestān (with a -t-) in Early New Persian. I would
like to thank Stefan Weninger for providing me with detail information about the usage of
(bi)mārestān in various works, and historical phases, of Arabic.
20
The data is from the indices of the newspaper reprints, published by the Iran National
Library in 1993 and 1995-97, respectively. The first modern Iranian hospital was built in 1869
on a street that came to be called Khiābān-e marizkhāna; see Sajjādi: 259.
in the form of a scale, and that such a scale contributes to the understanding
of the way the Farhangestān words gained currency, thus also corroborating
Kāfi’s approach.21 It is quite natural that in a scalar typology of this kind there
are boundary cases, i.e. words that may be assigned to more than one group.
Based on the definition of success as occurring in twenty-first century Persian
in the meaning intended by the Farhangestān (see above), the following six-
fold distinction ****on a scale of increasing success is proposed for the words
listed above.22
Group 1. Words proposed by the First Farhangestān that have failed, i.e. are
practically obsolete or unknown today:
proposed word word to replace word in use today

ārāmdeh (N; obsolete) mosakken (Ar.) ārāmbakhsh
“tranquillizer”
arash (obsolete) sā‘ed (Ar.) “elbow” sā‘ed
dama (R; < “*snowstorm”; bokhār (Ar.) “steam” bokhār
unknown)
jozvadān (N; very seldom) kārton (Fr.) “carton” kārton
kamina (obsolete) hadd-e aqall (Ar.) “at least” hadd-e aqall, dast-e-kam
pāyandān (obsolete) kafil, zāmen (Ar.) kafil, zāmen
“surety, bail”
tamāshā-khāna 23 te’ātr (Fr.) “theatre” te’ātr
(R; “*pleasure-ground”)
Group 2. Partly successful words, i.e. the proposed words that continue to
exist though in another (if similar) meaning than the one intended by the
Farhangestān:24
āmuzeshgāh (N) “school”25 madrasa (Ar.) “school” madrasa

bargardān (N) “translation” virement (Fr.) “remittance” havāla
21
Kāfi (1992) proposes a similar scale of success using 5 grades. He groups the words
according to their semantic field and makes refined calculations of success for all the proposed
terms, aiming at a precise “success rate” (in percentage terms) for each semantic field. He does
not, however, explain how he arrives at these figures, which is probably by rule of thumb; nor
does he provide a discussion or definition of his understanding of the concept of “success.”
22
The distinction has been developed with the help of the linguistic intuition(s) of the four
Iranian scholars mentioned in the author’s note. Neologisms are indicated by N and re-seman-
ticisations by R; the latter are followed by the word’s “old” meaning.
23
This word had already been in use in Persian in the late-nineteenth century.
24
Unless otherwise indicated, this corresponds to the word’s original meaning.
25
Āmuzeshgāh is mostly used in names of various kinds of institutions with practical or
applied curricula.
boresh (R) “cut” kupon (Fr.) “coupon” kupon26

daftardār “book-keeper” hesābdār (Ar.-Pers.) “accountant” hesābdār
dirkard (N) “delay”27 ta’khir (Ar.) “delay” ta’khir
gushtforush (N) “meat-seller” qassāb (Ar.) “butcher” qassāb
kārvarz (R; “*working man”) antern (Fr.) “assistant doctor” antern
“probationer”
ku(y) (R; “*quarter, street”) mahalla (Ar.) “(town) quarter” mahalla
“new quarter”
nushāba (R; “*water of life”) mashrub (Ar.) “alcoholic drink” mashrub
“(bottled) soft drink”
rasta (R) “bazaar, row of shops” senf (Ar.) “guild” senf
resid (N?) “receipt” qabz (Ar.) “invoice” qabz, fāktor
timcha (R) “caravanserai, pāsāzh (Fr.) “(shopping) passage” pāsāzh28
trad. shopping passage”
vām “credit” qarz (Ar.) “debts” qarz
Group 3. Farhangestān words that have partly become established in contem-

porary Persian in the intended meaning, besides (or after) the word they were
meant to replace:
andām ‘ozv (Ar.) “limb”

andisha fekr (Ar.) “thought”
bahā qeymat (Ar.) “price”
bāzargāni tejārat (Ar.) “trade, commerce”
dāru davā (Ar.) “medicine”
dorudgar najjār (Ar.) “carpenter”
jānevarān heyvānāt (Ar.) “animals”
garmāba hammām (Ar.) “(public) bath”
hazina xarj(hā)/maxārej (Ar.) “expenses”
kāni ma‘dani (Ar.) “mineral”
kār shoghl (Ar.) “occupation”
māhicha (R; “*slices of paste”) ‘azola (Ar.) “muscle”
parvaresh tarbiat (Ar.) “education”
pakhsh towzi‘ (Ar.) “distribution”29
ravādid (N) vizā (Fr.) “visa”
siāha (R; “*inventory [of commodities]”) surat(-e) hesāb (Ar.) “invoice”
shādbāsh (R; “*applause, bravo!”) tabrik (Ar.) “congratulation”
shomār ‘adad (Ar.) “number, quantity”30
vākonesh (N) ‘aks al-‘amal (Ar.) “reaction”
26
The Third Farhangestān has recently proposed kālābarg (lit. “merchandise-leaf”) for this term.
27
Used only in certain expressions like bahra-ye dirkard “interest of delay.”
28
The Third Farhangestān has recently proposed bāzārcha (lit., “small bazaar”) for this term.
29
As a second synonym to explain pakhsh, the Farhangestān’s publication mentions the
adjective parākanda “scattered.”
30
Besides ‘adad, te‘dād is also used for “number, quantity” today, maybe even more often
than ‘adad, which also means “cipher.”
vāzha (N?) loghat (Ar.) “word”31

zahr samm (Ar.) “poison”
zar talā (Ar.) “gold”
Group 4. The words that have largely been successful, and their older equiva-
lents are confined to “high” or literary registers:
bedehkār (N) maqruz (Ar.) “debtor”

dandān zers (Ar.) “tooth”
darāmad ‘āyedāt (Ar.) “income”
dāru-khāna (R? See above) davā-khāna (Ar.-Pers.) “pharmacy”
farsudagi (N) esqāt (Ar.) “waiving”
māmā (R? See above) qābela (Ar.) “midwife”
nānvā xabbāz (Ar.) “baker”
pezeshk tabib (Ar.) “doctor”
pāyān-nāma (N) tez (Fr. thèse) “dissertation”
sokhanrāni (N? See above) konferāns (Fr.) “presentation”32
zendān mahbas (Ar.) “jail”
zendāni (N? See above) mahbus (Ar.) “prisoner”
Group 5. The proposed words that have been quite successful, and their older
equivalents have become semantically reduced or specialized:
bāja (R; “*small opening, window”) gisha (Fr. guichet), today “ticket counter”
“counter”
bāzrasi (N) “inspection” taftish (Ar.), now used pejoratively33
gerow “pledge” vasiqa (Ar.), today “bail”
mohr (R; “*seal”) “stamp” estāmp (Fr.), today “ink-pad”
Group 6. The proposed words that have been very successful and that have
ousted their equivalents from the spoken language:
arz (R; “*value”) as‘ār (Ar.) “foreign currency”

arzyābi (N) taqvim (Ar.) “estimate”
ātashneshāni (N) etfā’iya (Ar.) “fire-brigade”
azhdar (R; “*dragon”) torpil (Fr.) “torpedo”
bānk bānk (Fr. banque) “bank”
barnāma (R; “*exordium of a book”) progrām (Fr.) “program”
basta (R; “*bound”) koli (Fr. colis) “package”
behdāsht (N) hefz al-sehha (Ar.) “hygiene”
31
Following Dehkhodā, vāzha occurs only in dictionaries like the Borhān-e qāte‘ and in
dialects, and is not attested in literary works, but there are Middle Persian wāz and Parthian
wāž, both meaning “word.” Besides loghat, Ar. kalema continues to be used for “word.”
32
But today still: Ar. khatāba. Konferāns may also be used for a student’s class presentation.
33
E.g. in taftish-e ‘aqāyed “inquisition” or taftish-e badani “bodily search.”
bima āsurāns (Fr. assurance) “insurance”

bomb34 bomb (Fr.) “bomb”
bombārān (N) bombārdemān (Fr.) “bombardment”
chāp-khāna (N) matba‘a (Ar.) “printing-house”
kālā māl al-tejāra, matā‘ (Ar.) “merchandise”
kelid meftāh (Ar.) “key”
malavān (N?) mallāh (Ar.) “seaman”
nakhost-vazir (N) ra’is al-vozarā’ (Ar.) “prime minister”
rangin-kamān qows-o-qazah (Ar.) “rainbow”
sanduq sanduq (Ar.) “box”
shomāra (N) nomra (Fr.) “number, No.”
zir-daryā’i (N) taht al-bahri (Ar.) “submarine”
Analysis of the Material
A detailed analysis of most of the Farhangestān words listed above, as divided

into the six groups of increasing success, yields the following results.
Group 1
The two Farhangestān suggestions dama “steam” and arash “elbow” were
equally unsuccessful, irrespective of their different origins; dama is resemanti-
cised from “snowstorm,” and arash is a word “revived” from Classical Persian.
An interesting case is provided by the neologism ārāmdeh, to replace mosak-
ken “tranquilizer.” It proved so unsuccessful that it was not even mentioned
in Dehkhodā’s Loghatnāma, where as a rule all Farhangestān’s suggestions
are quoted. Instead of ārāmdeh, however, another neologism, ārāmbakhsh, of
unknown origin but current up until today, must have soon replaced mosak-
ken. The term ārāmbakhsh (from bakhshidan “give, grant”) probably expressed
more clearly the (abstract) act of giving rest to a person. If this is so, the pro-
posed ārāmdeh may be called successful in a specific sense: it gave rise to a
similar word built of Persian elements.35
Kārton “carton” and te’ātr “theatre,” both international words of French
provenance (and Greek origin), defied their suggested equivalents jozvadān
and tamāshā-khāna. The latter are morphologically transparent invented com-
pounds: jozvadān is built after the model of words like goldān “flowerpot”;
34
Bomb had already been proposed by the commission set up by the Ministry of War in
1924; see Rustā‘i: 90.
35
Possibly ārām-deh sounded like a village name; hence ārāmbakhsh was coined to avoid
misunderstandings (personal communication with Hassan Rezai Baghbidi).
tamāshā-khāna is self-explanatory, and already existed in the late nineteenth-

century Persian (it occurs in Steingass). It may be noted that from the six
“unsuccessful” suggestions of Group 1, three (dama, ārāmdeh and jozvadān)
were neologisms or resemanticisations of the Farhangestān, while tamāshā-
khāna was a recent neologism probably from the nineteenth century, and the
other two, arash and pāyandān, were revitalized words.
Group 2
The second group is particularly interesting because it shows how semantic

constraints may determine the way a Farhangestān word gains currency. The
compounds gushtforush “meat-seller” and āmuzeshgāh “(professional) teaching
institution” seem to be partly successful at first sight, establishing meanings
similar to those of the words they meant to replace: qassāb “butcher” and
madrasa “school.” Gushtforush, however, has neither replaced qassāb in its
meaning of “butcher,” nor even really established itself in the meaning of
“meat-seller.” Even those who sell meat only, e.g. in Tehran’s supermarkets,
are more often called qassāb than gushtforush. Āmuzeshgāh has taken over the
specialized meaning of “(professional) teaching institute,” instead of replacing
madrasa in its general meaning of “school.” Boresh, derived from the verbal stem
bor- “cut,” has taken over the meaning of “cut(ting),” instead of “coupon.”
Here one should recall the definition of success as introduced above: only
if there has been a measurable extension of usage of a certain word in the
meaning intended by the Farhangestān, is it possible to speak of a real success
of the Farhangestān with respect to establishing this word (or its meaning).
This, however, is not the case with gushtforush, āmuzeshgāh and boresh. What
makes their performance look even worse is the fact that all three words are
morphologically transparent and, so to say, not “in need” of the Farhangestān
to forge them. Even without the Farhangestān’s measures, every Iranian would
understand perfectly what a gushtforush is or should be. The same is true for
boresh, which means “cutting,” according to the rules of Persian nominal der-
ivation from verbal stems. Āmuzeshgāh, though not successful in the intended
meaning, at least took on the meaning of a new kind of educational institu-
tion, viz. a teaching institute focusing on practical instruction; obviously a
need was felt to use a word other than madrasa for this. But none of these
three words was looked upon suitable to replace the well-established techni-
cal terms qassāb, madrasa, or kupon.
The proposed kuy and timcha, to replace mahalla “(town) quarter” and
pāsāzh “shopping passage,” show how different origins of the latter influence
the way the new terms are established. Kuy assumes the new meaning of
“new, modern-style quarter” of a town, complementary to the traditional,
old-fashion quarters that kept the name mahalla. Timcha, in contrast, facing
the word pāsāzh, which was used for “modern shopping arcade,” kept its old
meaning of “(traditional) arcade” in the bazaar.36
As for resid and vām, the proposed terms for “invoice” and “debt,” which
in reality took on the meanings of “receipt” and “credit” instead, these seem
to show that legal-economic terminology is a complex semantic field which
tends towards further differentiation with the help of new terms, rather than
to plain replacement. The difference between “invoice” and “receipt,” like
that between “debt” and “credit,” is one of perspective: the receipt is the con-
firmation of the invoice after payment; in fact, any invoice may also serve as a
receipt. A credit is debts made in the framework of business relations.
To discuss one more word from Group 2, bargardān (to replace virement
“remittance”) points to a kind of negligence that the Farhangestān showed
with some words. The Persian term used for “remittance” up to today is havāla
(Ar.), which has been in continuous use in Islamic Iran for a long time, but was
not mentioned in the Farhangestān’s publications as a word to be replaced. The
word virement (Fr.) was never in common use, and it is not mentioned in
Dehkhodā. The academy seems to have focused on the French term, which
may have been common among the Westernized banking employees during
the 1930s, and to have been “blind on the Arabic eye” (against havāla) in this
case. The question must remain unanswered here whether the Farhangestān
members really considered virement a more serious problem than havāla, or
whether they failed to mention the Arabic word out of mere negligence.
Group 3
The proposed words of this group were established in Persian beside their
older equivalents. The main criterion determining which of the two words—
the older or the proposed one—came to be used in which context(s) is stylis-
tic, or one of register of the language. Proposals such as garmāba “bath,”
ravādid “visa,” parvaresh “education,” vāzha “word,” kāni “mineral” and
dorudgar “carpenter” are familiar to all Iranians in the early twenty-first cen-
tury but are used more in “high” registers of Persian, i.e. in various kinds
of written or official usage, than in everyday speech. For instance, garmāba
would be written on a board above the entrance of a public bathhouse, but
someone going there to take a bath would certainly say mira(va)m hammām
“I am going to the bath,” instead of *miravam garmāba. Ravādid is the official
36
The word tim from which timcha is derived is of Chinese origin (which probably escaped
the Farhangestān’s attention) and was introduced to Persian through Sogdian; see, e.g., Hen-
ning: 94.
term for “visa” found on application forms for visa, but no one would say at
an Iranian embassy, *ravādid mikhwāham “I want a visa.” Parvaresh is part of
the official name of the Ministry of Education (Vezārat-e āmuzesh o parvaresh)
but is not used in everyday Persian, except for specialized meanings like in
parvaresh-e andām “body-building.” The use of vāzha is confined to scholarly
discourses, or linguistic publications.37 Similarly, kāni “mineral” is used only
in scientific publications. Finally, dorudgar is well-known from classical litera-
ture (e.g., Kalila va Demna),38 but the older najjār certainly dominates the
spoken registers today.
These typical usages of Group 3 words—in “high,” i.e. official, written or
scholarly registers of the language—apparently result from the way the Acad-
emy works. Academia proposes words from learned sources (classical litera-
ture, linguistically-based inventions), addresses its lists of suggestions in
learned circles (ministries, universities, media), and the primary aim of the
Farhangestān—to adjust Persian to the needs of modernity, with the help of
indigenous lexical resources—is in itself part of an ideology of academic
appeal. It is clear that if a proposed word is successful at all, the success starts
within academic/learned circles, i.e. in higher registers of the language, from
where it moves on to other registers.
Emanating from the stylistic distinction in the use of Group 3 words, fur-
ther interesting stylistic-semantic tendencies have evolved for a few words of
this group. The proposed zahr “poison” is used rather metaphorically, as com-
pared to samm which continues to be more often used in the (main) material
sense.39 The revived bāzargāni “trade” is used more typically in the context of
“big business” trade companies, while tejārat continues to be used for all
kinds of commerce, perhaps with a preference for small-level trade. This cor-
responds to the fact that “big business” is more often mentioned, and reported
about, in official contexts (newspapers, etc.), while small bazaar-like trade
issues are more often talked about by people in everyday speech. Similarly,
parvaresh “education” is used as a generic or cover term to denote state, legal
or societal measures of education, while tarbiat would be more often used on
the family or individual level.40
37
For vāzha to replace loghat, the first Farhangestān has failed to mention in its publications
the other old synonym kalema which may be used up to this day (similarly: bargardān/
havāla, v.s.).
38
See the famous story about the carpenter and the monkey, ending with the saying:
dorudgari kār-e buzina nist “carpentry is not the monkey’s business.”
39
See, e.g., the famous quotation from Ayatollah Khomeini, when accepting the UN resolu-
tion that ended the Iran-Iraq war in August 1988, that he was ready to “drink the cup of poi-
son” ( jām-e zahr sar-kashidan).
40
E.g., tarbiat-e bachchahā “(concrete) education of children (at family level),” as against
parvaresh-e kudakān “(governmental measures for the) education of children.”
Group 4
The listed words in this group have replaced their equivalents quite success-
fully in most registers. If the old terms are used, it is in a literary context or
“old-fashioned” style. This literary register of the language resembles, but is
different from, the “high” registers of Group 3. There, it is official and new
contexts that dominate the usage; here, it is a style looking backward, not
only in words of Arabic origin like qābela “midwife” or tabib “doctor,” but
also in words of French origin, e.g. konferāns “presentation.”41 For only a few
words out of the two groups does this distinction not hold, e.g. dorudgar
“carpenter,” from Group 3, which has literary connotations, just as most of
the old words from Group 4 do.
If there exists an invisible line separating the more successful from the the
less successful Farhangestān words, it runs either within Group 3, or between
Groups 3 and 4. The last-mentioned Group 3 word, dorudgar, contrasting
with nānvā “baker” in Group 4, may serve to show this. They are comparable
because both were aimed to replace terms of occupation (najjār and khabbāz).
While najjār has remained the more familiar word for “carpenter” in every-
day Persian, khabbāz has largely been replaced by nānvā. A palpable reason
for this cannot be given at this point. Maybe it could be sought from a differ-
ent starting point? According to the various dictionaries, nānvā was not more
widely used than dorudgar before 1935, but this is not conclusive evidence
for the actual usage of the term around 1935.
In Group 4, zendān “jail” and zendāni “prisoner” were equally successful
in replacing mahbas and mahbus. It is not a general rule, however, that
Farhangestān’s suggestions that are morphologically derived from or related
to each other perform with the same degree of success. The compound dāru-
khāna (Group 4) “pharmacy” was more successful replacing davā-khāna than
the simple dāru (Group 3) “medicine” was in replacing davā. It may be
hypothesized that dāru-khāna was more often written ostensibly (above a
pharmacy store) than was dāru, and thus could become familiar to people
sooner than the latter. Shomāra “number” (Group 6) was more successful
than shomār “number, quantity” (Group 3), perhaps because the French term
nomra that it was intended to replace was less commonly used in the lan-
guage than the Ar. ‘adad (which was planned to be replaced by shomār). Nor
do two “old” terms derived from the same Arabic root necessarily show the
41
An expression like konferāns dādam in the sense of “I gave a presentation (at a conference)”
is obsolete today, but it is still used, by pupils and undergraduate students, in the sense of
“I gave a (short) presentation (at school).”
same degree of inertia: e.g., qarz “debt” (which resisted vām; Group 2) as
against maqruz “debtor” (successfully replaced by bedehkār; Group 4).
The proposed dandān (to replace zers “tooth”) seems to be odd: dandān was
not an out-of-use word to be revived; it seems to have been the normal word
for “tooth” in the 1930s, while zers was a learned term used only in medical
literature and contexts. It was probably the aim of the academy to drive away
zers even from this limited register and to establish dandān in all registers of
the language. If dandān was indeed in common use before 1935, its usage
after 1935 is less a matter of success of the Farhangestān than for the other
words of Group 4. This explanation—a better “starting position” of the
word—could even be applied to explain the greater success of nānvā as
against dorudgar (see above).
Group 5
For certain Farhangestān words that have largely replaced their old equiva-
lents, the latter have survived with a narrower sense of meaning. In a way,
this group is a mirror image of Group 2, where the proposed terms took over
meanings not intended initially.
In Group 5, gerow (to replace vasiqa) points to an interesting issue. The
establishment of gerow for “pledge” has not led to a replacement of vasiqa,
but to a new distinction within legal terminology, with vasiqa retaining the
meaning of “bail.” This reminds us of vām, in Group 2, that has not replaced
the term qarz in its meaning “debt,” but rather added the term and concept
of “credit” to the evolving modern legal-economic terminology of Persian, as
need was obviously felt for further distinctions. In such complex and socially
important terminological areas, establishing Farhangestān terms—if they
were successful at all—may have worked less straightforwardly than for con-
crete terms like hammām “bath” or dorudgar “carpenter.”
Group 6
The three terms of non-Iranian origin bānk “bank,” bomb “bomb” and sanduq
“box” were actually not proposed by the Farhangestān to replace any other
word, but only confirmed in their current usage. One can speak of a success
here only in a limited and specific sense, or, instead of success, one should
rather call this a kind of capitulation of the Farhangestān before these words.
These terms are accordingly listed here only for completeness’ sake; they do
not raise any interesting question.
Group 6 contains, typically, a couple of military and administrative terms:
azhdar “torpedo,” nakhost-vazir “prime minister,” zir-daryā’i “submarine,” etc.
The chance for success has been much greater in these semantic fields than in
others: the usage of such a term could simply be enforced by the military or
administration leaders. The success of these words is therefore also of a spe-
cific and “conditioned” kind.
The two French terms āsurāns “insurance” and koli “package,” successfully
replaced by bima and basta, had probably not been used in Persian for any
considerable period, suggested by their absence in the Loghatnāma. The pro-
posed bima and basta are likely to have been prophylactic: in limited admin-
istrative circles, the terms āsurāns and koli may have been en vogue during the
1930s, and the Farhangestān wanted to make sure that the usage of the two
foreign words would not be further extended. Since āsurāns and koli were not
really in common use, it was relatively easy to replace them with other words,
and the Farhangestān’s success in having them replaced accordingly has a
smaller weight than one against well-established words like hammām. Simi-
larly, kelid “key” seems to have been more in use before 1935 than meftāh. If
this is so, the Farhangestān did not attempt to establish kelid (for which there
was no need), but rather to banish meftāh.
The other Group 6 words are of varied origins: three are from classical lit-
erature (arz “foreign currency,” barnāma “program,” kālā “merchandise), arz
and barnāma being re-semanticised from “value” and “account-book/exor-
dium of a book,” respectively. One word is a neologism (malavān “seaman,”
formally following the target word mallāh) and the other two are semantically
transparent compound neologisms (chāp-khāna “printing-house” and arzyābi
“estimate” [lit. “value-finding”], operating upon the classical meaning of arz
“value”; see above).
Complex Verbal Constructions
One factor not yet discussed concerns the formation of “complex verbal con-
structions” (or “light verb constructions”) with Farhangestān words. It may
be asked if nouns combining with certain “light” verbs like kardan “do” or
dādan “give” to form complex verbal constructions are perhaps less liable to
replacement because they are syntagmatically “protected” by these construc-
tions. A glance at such nouns from Groups 3 and 4 shows the following42
(proposed word ~ old word): Group 3: andisha ~ fekr kardan “think,” garmāba
*kardan ~ hammām kardan “take a bath,” hazina ~ kharj kardan “spend,” parva-
resh dādan ~ tarbiat kardan “educate,” pakhsh ~ towzi‘ kardan “distribute,”
42
Only words from these two groups are considered here. The other groups are less interest-
ing since, being either quite successful or quite unsuccessful, they are not likely to perform
much differently in a light-verb construction.
shādbāsh ~ tabrik goftan “congratulate,” vākonesh ~ ‘aks al-‘amal neshān

dādan “show a reaction”; (Group 4:) farsuda ~ esqāt kardan “wear out,”
sokhanrāni kardan ~ konferāns dādan “give a lecture,” zendāni ~ mahbus kardan
“imprison.”
The usage of these pairs of verbal constructions often corresponds to the
usage of the respective simple nouns. For example, in Group 3, hazina kar-
dan would be used less often than kharj kardan, and it would be used rather
for “big” or official expenses, administered by an accounting procedure (see
above, Analysis of the material). Other words show slight semantic distinc-
tions, e.g. andisha kardan may be used not only in the sense of “think,” but
also in that of “be worried.”
Garmāba, on the other hand, may not be combined with a light verb to
form a verbal construction. If one wants to express the action of taking a bath
with this Farhangestān word, one has to paraphrase it with ba garmāba raftan
“to go to the bath,” garmāba retaining its character of a purely local noun.
Another construction, parvaresh dādan, uses a different light verb than its
equivalent tarbiat kardan, and differs from it also semantically, meaning “to
train, groom.” Although this is still slim evidence, these two words seem
to show that in certain cases, a well-established verbal construction (like
hammām kardan) may indeed “protect” a non-Farhangestān word (hammām),
and serve as an obstacle for the establishment of a proposed word (garmāba).
The verbal constructions built with Group 4 proposed words are more
often used than those with their “old” equivalents. There are, however, inter-
esting deviations and details to be noted. In esqāt kardan, esqāt is not replaced
by its proposed equivalent noun farsudagi “wear, tear” but by the correspond-
ing adjective farsuda “worn out.” The latter serves to remove the ambiguity of
esqāt, which can be used as both noun and adjective. For “give a presenta-
tion,” the Farhangestān noun sokhanrāni is used with a different light verb
than that of its equivalent konferāns.
Results
The Success Factors in Overview
The factors that determine the success of a given Farhangestān word can be
summarized as follows. From the data investigated so far, it would seem that
the morphological structure of the proposed word was, and continues to be,
of no importance for its success. The only possible morphological (or rather
morpho-syntactical) factor of any relevance would be that a small number of
old nouns, combining with light verbs to form complex verbal constructions,
are “protected” against rapid replacement.
As for the words’ origins, the evidence from the “scale of success” lists of
the proposed words needs further explanation. In Groups 1 and 2, there is
a relatively high percentage of neologisms and re-semanticised words, which
decreases in Groups 3 and 4 (especially in Group 3, containing many words
from the classical literature, unchanged in meaning). In Groups 5 and 6, the
percentage of neologisms and re-semanticised words rises again. This non-
linear distribution of the words’ success with respect to their etymologies is
remarkable since one would assume that words taken from classical literature—
known to many Iranians—would be easier to reestablish than neologisms,
and, among the former, those carrying the original meaning would be easier
to (re)establish than the re-semanticised ones.
One explanation lies in the semantic field(s) of the successful neologisms
and re-semanticised words of Groups 5 and 6. Some of the words belong to
military and administration (malavān “seaman,” nakhost-vazir “prime minis-
ter,” zir-daryā’i “submarine”); perhaps, in a wider sense, other words like
āteshneshāni “fire brigade” or bāzrasi “investigation” do as well. Comparing
these words to neologisms of the less successful Groups 1-3, such as dama
“steam,” bargardān “translation” and vākonesh “reaction,” makes evident the
influence of the semantic fields, even if there are some (actually, very few) less
successful administrative terms such as ravādid “visa” (Group 3).43
Semantic factors thus seem to be more important than morphological and
etymological ones for the success of a Farhangestān word. Terms from the
semantic fields of military and administration have obviously been quite suc-
cessful because their currency appears to be enforced effectively; the reason
for their success is thus due to extra-linguistic, socio-political, factors, and
therefore the expectedness of their success diminishes its value. But still, with
the possible exception of the military ranks, there is nothing absolute about
military/administrative terms becoming successful, and so the success of these
terms is certainly an achievement of the Farhangestān. It should be remem-
bered that it is different for the few words of non-Iranian origin like bomb
“bomb” or sanduq “box” that seem to be very successful at first sight, but
actually have only been confirmed by the Farhangestān; the usage of these
words does not fall under the definition of success used here.
43
The factor of “semantic field” has been given due weight by Kāfi (1989; 1992) who
assigned, e.g., military terms a success rate of 90 percent, and mathematical terms of 33 percent
and sports terms of only 19 percent (Kāfi 1992: 39 f.).
There remains one more question: in what sense one can speak of success
in the case of a couple of words seemingly revitalized by the Farhangestān,
but that actually were not, because they had been in common use already
before 1935? This seems to be true for the Persian words dandān, nānvā
(Group 4), kelid (Group 6), and maybe also for the foreign term bima and
for the re-semanticized basta (Group 6). The objective of the Academy in
proposing these words, and maybe some others, as well, was not to establish
them, for which there was no need, but rather to expel their Arabic (or
French) counterparts, although these were used only in limited registers. If
this is a correct interpretation, the success of these terms would be of a “con-
ditioned” or limited kind. But since it is not possible here to establish the
exact status or usage of these terms before 1935, this factor must remain
unaccounted for in the scale of success.
There are other extra-linguistic factors that are probably at work in the suc-
cess of Farhangestān terms but are not easy to take into account—the inter-
national acceptance of a word, for example. The terms bima “insurance” and
basta “package” (Group 6) were able to replace the French loans āsurāns
and koli, probably in part because the latter were not well-accepted inter-
nationally. In contrast, ravādid “visa” (Group 3) and tamāshā-khāna “theatre”
(Group 1) did not prevail over vizā “visa” and te’ātr “theatre,” probably because
these are understood worldwide.
Another factor, more difficult to assess, would be the “measure of novelty”
of a concept or commodity that a term denotes. One should assume that a
term like āsurāns “insurance,” describing a newly-introduced institution that
was familiar probably only to a small urban elite in early twentieth-century
Iran, could be replaced relatively easily by bima, before the foreign āsurāns
was established in the wider society. Likewise, that it would be more difficult
to replace a term like hammām “bath,” denoting an old and well-established
institution used by all strata of society for centuries, by the revived garmāba.
While this is probably true for these two isolated terms, it is, however, not
yet clear if this factor is really at work independently from other, more deci-
sive, factors. Consider, for instance, shomār “number, quantity” and shomāra
“number, No.”; the latter is a neologism derived from the former, which is
very common in the classical literature; nevertheless, the neologism shomāra
(Group 6) has been much more successful than shomār (Group 3). The rea-
son for the success of shomāra, as compared to shomār, may be either that the
concept of “number, No.” (e.g., indicating numbers of serial publications like
newspapers) was still quite novel a century ago; or, that the French term
nomra was not yet common in Persian at the time; or a combination of
both factors.
Conclusion
It has been shown that the notion of “success” of the Farhangestān’s word
replacing activities is not a straightforward or simple one, and that the suc-
cess of many words cannot be measured easily or by statistical methods. Kāfi
(1989; 1992) measures the success of the First Farhangestān by numbers
only; his results are from 19 up to 90 percent according to semantic group,
averaging at 63 percent. This seems to be in general accordance with the
results of the present study, of which certainly well over 50 percent can be
called successful in one way or another. But even if we accept these num-
bers—what do they really tell us?
A closer look at the issue has shown that asking for a success of Farhangestān
words in black-and-white terms (“has a word been successful or not?”) is mis-
leading, because success of the words is of a scalar nature, and depends on the
complex interplay of various factors. Trying to define the Farhangestān’s suc-
cess in exact numbers distracts one from the actually interesting questions.
These lie in asking about how Farhangestān words replace older ones, start
doing so, fail, or get stuck half-way; in the way they are partly or fully suc-
cessful; and how this success is determined by a set of linguistic, semantic,
social and other factors and constraints. To account for these factors, accurate
philological and linguistic studies are required. The status of each word today
has to be set in relation to its status—often difficult to determine—from the
“eve of First Farhangestān.”
The aim of the present study has actually not been to give definite answers,
but rather to establish the relevant questions to be asked and the aspects to
study about the Farhangestān’s success, and how this can be done in a meth-
odologically sound way. One important aspect of the word-replacing pro-
cesses is the semantic shifts that have taken place with Group 2 words. Each
shift represents a specific semantic constellation into which a new term was
integrated; the way in which this was done depends also on etymological fac-
tors (see kuy and timcha, above).
Another important aspect, pervading the whole replacement process, is
that of stylistic stratification, to be seen most clearly in Groups 3 and 4. The
gradual expansion of Farhangestān words starting from high registers, often
stuck somewhere in between, characterizes about one half of the proposed
words. Stylistic stratification is possibly accompanied by secondary semantic
distinction (as in parvaresh/tarbiat).
The semantic shifts undergone by some Farhangestān words and the stylis-
tic stratification both point to another main result of this article. The whole
process described here is actually not so much one of replacement; it is rather
an enrichment process. The Persian language has always been receptive to lexi-
cal influences from various languages—Arabic in the early and Mongolian
and Turkic in the late medieval periods and French and English in modern
times. Foreign words were integrated if they could fill in semantic gaps or,
at times, the foreign words themselves created the gaps that they would fill.
Seen in this light, the Farhangestān would be only one out of many actors, in
the thousand-odd years of the history of the Persian language, that effectively
enriched the vocabulary of Persian. This time it was not done with words
from outside, but with a selection of words which seem to be indigenous,
although the resemanticised words and neologisms could be called “Persian
foreign words” on equal right.
Language, as a social phenomenon developing in time, does not usually
allow any lexical item to be replaced very quickly. Each replacement process
takes place, instead, as a gradual and regular shift within complex grammati-
cal and lexical structures, attesting to the systematic nature of lexical change.
It was the aim of this study to give an adequate picture of the linguistic and
extra-linguistic constraints, of some fascinating details, and of important con-
cepts, methodological implications and problems of the word-replacing pro-
cess initiated by First Farhangestān. If this has been attained, it may help to
assess the possible function or value that this process had and continues to
have, in the history and life of the Persian language.
References
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Journal of Persianate Studies 3 (2010) 78-103 brill.

Iranian Language Reform in the Twentieth Century:

All languages are subject to continuous and, normally, unconscious change.

nineteenth through the twenty-ﬁrst centuries.1 “Language reform,” as under-

Farhangestān words in a broader historical-linguistic context, while laying a

In order to understand the lexical peculiarities of modern Persian and the

An impression of which, and how many, words of European origin were

and inquiring about speciﬁc words to be replaced.8 The Second Farhangestān

barnāma “program,” bāzargāni “trade,” bāzrasi “investigation,” bedehkār “debtor,”

The Words’ Morphology and Origins10

The terms proposed by the Farhangestān represent a variety of morphological

simple words (as mohr “stamp”),

According to their origin or source language, the following classiﬁcation may

compound neologisms, ﬁnally, may contain non-Persian elements side by

On the Notion of Success

It is necessary here to deﬁne more exactly what is meant by the “success” of a

each word. Nonetheless, the comprehensive Persian-English dictionary by

Scale of Increasing Success

proposed word word to replace word in use today

āmuzeshgāh (N) “school”25 madrasa (Ar.) “school” madrasa

boresh (R) “cut” kupon (Fr.) “coupon” kupon26

Group 3. Farhangestān words that have partly become established in contem-

andām ‘ozv (Ar.) “limb”

vāzha (N?) loghat (Ar.) “word”31

bedehkār (N) maqruz (Ar.) “debtor”

arz (R; “*value”) as‘ār (Ar.) “foreign currency”

bima āsurāns (Fr. assurance) “insurance”

Analysis of the Material

A detailed analysis of most of the Farhangestān words listed above, as divided

tamāshā-khāna is self-explanatory, and already existed in the late nineteenth-

The second group is particularly interesting because it shows how semantic

Complex Verbal Constructions

shādbāsh ~ tabrik goftan “congratulate,” vākonesh ~ ‘aks al-‘amal neshān

The Success Factors in Overview

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