Persian ( or ), also known by its
endonym Farsi (English: ; Persian: ), is the predominant modern descendant of
Old Persian, a
southwestern Iranian language within the
Indo-Iranian branch of the
Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in
Iran,
Afghanistan (officially known as
Dari since 1958 for political reasons), and
Tajikistan (officially known as
Tajiki since the
Soviet era for political reasons), and some other regions which historically came under
Persian influence. The Persian language is classified as a continuation of
Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of
Sassanid Persia, itself a continuation of
Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid
Persian Empire. Persian is a
pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages. Persian is so-called due to its origin from the capital of the Achaemenid empire,
Persis (Fars or Pars), hence the name Persian (Farsi or Parsi). A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as
Persophone.
