Iran's ethnic diversity means that the languages of Iran come from a number of linguistic origins, although the primary language spoken and used is
Persian. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran asserts that the Persian language alone must be used for schooling and for all official government communications. The constitution also recognizes Arabic as the language of Islam, and assigns it formal status as the language of religion. Although multilingualism is not encouraged, the use of minority languages is permitted in the course of teaching minority-language literature. Different publications have reported different statistics for the languages of Iran; however, the top three languages spoken are consistently reported as Persian,
Azeri
Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most nume ...
and
Kurdish.
Language policy and planning of Iran
The current language policy of Iran is addressed in Chapter Two of the
Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Articles 15 & 16). It asserts that the Persian language is the
lingua franca of the Iranian nation and as such, required for the school system and for all official government communications. In addition, the constitution recognizes the Arabic language as the language of Islam, giving it formal status as the language of religion and regulating its spread within the Iranian national curriculum.
Due to the nation's social and ethnic diversity, the constitution also acknowledges and permits the use of minority languages in the mass media as well as within the schools, in order to teach minority-language literature. The minority languages of Iran do not receive formal status and are not officially regulated by the authorities.
[Riazi, Abdolmehdi. ']
The Four Language Stages in the History of Iran.
'' In: Martin, Peter W; Lin, Angel (Eds.). ''Decolonisation, Globalisation: Language-in-education Policy and Practice''. (Buffalo: Multilingual Matters, Ltd. 2005). pp. 98-114.
The first legislation which granted the Persian language its status was initiated by
Qajar dynasty in 1906, as part of an electoral law that positioned it as the official language of the state of Iran, its government, its political institutions and its legal system. Over time, this enactment was followed by others, which eventually led to a monolingual policy by the Iranian regime.
Perceiving multilingualism as a threat to the nation's unity and territorial integrity, and seeing the need to restrict minority languages’ use and to advance the Persian language's hegemony, Iran's language policy consists of a non-translation outline as well: all government, administration and educational settings are obliged to use only Persian for any written communication. This applies to political institutions (i.e. the Iranian Parliament), official bureaucratic communication (forms, signage etc.) and schooling (all children from the age of six are exposed only to Persian as the language of teaching and learning and of textbooks within the public school system). In other words, the Iranian authorities hold that minorities need to learn the Iranian vernacular to an extent that will allow them to communicate with state institutions.
Among the institutions accountable for advancing Iranian Language Planning (e.g. Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science, Research and Technology) is the
Academy of Persian Language and Literature, which was established on 1935, under
Reza Shah Pahlavi. Constantly seeking to revise and elaborate the nation's official language, this institute focuses on the linguistics of the Persian language and on the internal aspects of Language Planning, rather than on the use of minority languages within Iranian society. Other Language Planning aspects (e.g. sociolinguistic or functional literacy) have not been assigned to a formal institute and are currently handled free of any official master plan by the educational ministries.
Languages of Iran
Different publications have reported different statistics for the languages of
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. There have been some limited censuses taken in Iran in 2001, 1991, 1986 and 1949–1954.
The following are the languages with the greatest number of speakers (data from the
CIA World Factbook):
Classification categories of the spoken languages:
*
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
(
Iranic mainly, smaller amounts of other branches represented mainly by
Armenian, amongst others)
*
Turkic (mainly
Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani may refer to:
* Something of, or related to Azerbaijan
* Azerbaijanis
* Azerbaijani language
See also
* Azerbaijan (disambiguation)
* Azeri (disambiguation)
* Azerbaijani cuisine
* Culture of Azerbaijan
The culture of Azerbaijan ...
, with smaller amounts of
Turkmen,
Qashqai, and
Afshar)
*
Semitic (mainly
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
, but also
Neo-Aramaic,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, and
Mandean)
*
Caucasian languages (such as
Kartvelian and
Circassian)
Census in the 1990s
A census was taken in the Iranian month of Mordad (July 21 – August 21) in 1991. In this census, all 49,588 mothers who gave birth in the country were issued birth certificates and asked about their mother-tongue.
[
"در مرداد 1370، هنگام صدور شناسنامه براي نوزادان، درباره زبان ٤٩ هزار و ٥٥٨ مادر در سطح كشور سوال مطرح شد كه نتيجه حاكي از سهم حضور ٥٣٬٨ درصدي زبان هاى غيرفارسي در ايران بود. بر اساس نمونه گيري مذكور، توزيع سهم هر يك از زبان ها (به درصد) به اين شرح بود: ٤٦٬٢ فارسي؛ ٢٠٬٦ تركي آذربايجاني؛ ١٠ كردي؛ ٨٬٩ لري؛ ٧٬٢ درصد گيلكي و شمالي؛ ٣٬٥ عربي ؛ ٢٬٧ بلوچي؛ ٠٬٦ تركمني؛ ٠٬١ ارمني؛ و ٠٬٢ ساير زبان ها ".
Source:
زنجاني، حبيب الله، محمد ميرزايي، كامل شاپور و امير هوشنگ مهريار، جمعيت،توسعه، بهداشت باروري، چاپ دوم، تهران، نشر و تبليغ بشري، 1379.
Zanjani, H., Mirzai,M., Shapur, K., Mehriyar, A.H.; “Population, Growth, Mortality Rate”, Second Edition, Tehran, Tabligh-e-Bashari Publishers, 2000] They reported: 46.2% (
Persian), 20.6% (
Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani may refer to:
* Something of, or related to Azerbaijan
* Azerbaijanis
* Azerbaijani language
See also
* Azerbaijan (disambiguation)
* Azeri (disambiguation)
* Azerbaijani cuisine
* Culture of Azerbaijan
The culture of Azerbaijan ...
), 10% Kurdish, 8.9% Luri, 7.2% Gilaki and Mazandarani, 3.5% Arabic, 2.7% Baluchi, 0.6% Turkmen, 0.1% Armenian, and 0.2% Others (e.g.
Circassian,
Georgian, etc.). The local
dialect of Arabic
The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variat ...
spoken in Iran is
Khuzestani Arabic
Khuzestani Arabic is a dialect of Gelet (Southern) Mesopotamian Arabic spoken by the Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan Province of Iran. Whilst being a southern Mesopotamian Arabic dialect, it has many similarities with Gulf Arabic in neighbourin ...
, but the varieties of Arabic taught across Iran to students in secondary schools, regardless of their ethnic or linguistic background, are
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also re ...
and
Classical Arabic, the latter a
liturgical language of Islam.
Other estimations
In 1986, a nationwide census was undertaken to determine the percentage of Iranians that know Persian, those who do not know, and those who know it fluently.
[Farhad Nu’mani, Sohrab Behdad, ''Class and Labor in Iran: Did the Revolution Matter?'' Syracuse University Press, 2006.]
See also
*
Demographics of Iran
*
Ethnicities in Iran
*
Iranian languages
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
The Iranian languages are groupe ...
*
Peoples of the Caucasus in Iran
References
External links
Ethnologue report for languages of IranCIA FactBook
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