On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 06:00:41PM -0400, Joel C. Salomon wrote: > On 06/11/2011 05:32 AM, Vafa Khalighi wrote: > > So Iranians from the first day called their country Eran or Iran and > > Greeks and West world called it Persia. There is no disagreement between > > Iranians for the English version of the language. All Iranians believe > > that the language should be called Persian in English. > > The Biblical books that deal with Persia call it "Paras"; the Talmud > (written in nearby Babylonia c. 500 CE) refers to someone who comes from > there as a "Parsi".
Well, but one should consider that in hebrew (at least in the late dialects of which we know the exact pronunciation) as well as in some aramaic dialects (syriac, for example) "p" and "f" are allophones. :-) > There may have also been a distinction between the name for the region > as opposed to the name of the empire, making the situation somewhat less > clear. > > --Joel -- Petr Tomasek <http://www.etf.cuni.cz/~tomasek> Jabber: but...@jabbim.cz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EA 355:001 DU DU DU DU EA 355:002 TU TU TU TU EA 355:003 NU NU NU NU NU NU NU EA 355:004 NA NA NA NA NA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex