Talk:Persian studies

Iranian Studies vs. Persian Studies

The following is a copy of my addition to the discussion page of Iranian Studies.

There has been some confusion on the Wikipedia as to the distinction between Persian Studies and Iranian Studies, which I will try to clarify:

• Persian Studies is the study of the Persian language and its literature. Persian, although it is the most widespread, is not the only language spoken in Iran, and is distinct from languages such as Kurdish, Zaza, Lori, Pashto, etc each of which has its own literature. It is also distinct from Middle Persian, which is the ancestor of modern or New Persian spoken in the centuries of the Sasanian and Parthian empires. The modern Persian language is generally agreed to have evolved in the centuries after the Muslim invasion; the earliest texts date to about the 10th century.
• Iranian Studies is a more interdisciplinary field (really a fusion of philology and archeology with a regional focus) which studies all languages of the Iranian family and of all Iranian peoples. Since many of these peoples (Scythians, Parthians, etc) are extinct, Iranian Studies as a field tends to be more focused on the period before Islam when these cultures flourished. Iranian Studies is less interested in the modern usage of Persian than it is in documenting cultural and historical change of these other poorly-understood peoples.

This doesn't mean that there isn't overlap, especially in the early period of Islam. For example, Ferdowsi could be used as a source in a discussion of pre-Islamic Iranian history, and at the same time he is a keystone of the Persian literary tradition. However, you would all agree that the focus is different; one field is focused on recovering the past, the other is focused on the present. One field is broad and regional, the other is very specific and national.

I hope that subsequent editors will keep this distinction in mind. Persian Studies and Iranian Studies are two separate fields of study, and looking at the many academic institutions' pages which are linked at the bottom of the article shows that this distinction is commonly held. I will edit accordingly.

Jasper Zanjani (talk) 01:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

Wikipedia Manual of Style specifies that proper names are capitalized, but otherwise we use lowercase. Area studies are generally not considered proper names; see, e.g., Cultural studies. Persian studies should be the main article, and Persian Studies should redirect to the main article (with lowercase-s). --Lquilter (talk) 17:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

• Posted as uncontroversial move; now completed. --Lquilter (talk) 15:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

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