The Academy of Persian Language and Literature (APLL) (, ''Farhangestân-e Zabân-o Adab-e Fârsi'') is the

regulatory body A regulatory agency (regulatory body, regulator) or independent agency (independent regulatory agency) is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous jurisdiction over some area of human activity in a licensing and regu ...

for the

Persian language Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision ...

, headquartered in

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. Formerly known as the Academy of Iran (, ''Farhangestân-e Iran''), it was founded on 20 May 1935, by the initiative of

Reza Shah Reza Shah Pahlavi born Reza Khan (15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944) was shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941 and founder of the roughly 53 years old Pahlavi dynasty. Originally a military officer, he became a politician, serving as minister of war an ...

, the first

shah Shāh (; ) is a royal title meaning "king" in the Persian language.Yarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII, no. 1 (1989) Though chiefly associated with the monarchs of Iran, it was also used to refer to the leaders of numerous Per ...

of the

Pahlavi dynasty The Pahlavi dynasty () is an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian royal dynasty that was the Pahlavi Iran, last to rule Iran before the country's monarchy was abolished by the Iranian Revolution in 1979. It was founded in 1925 by Reza Shah, Reza S ...

. The academy acts as the official authority on the language, and contributes to linguistic research on Persian and other

languages of Iran 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 ...

History

Early efforts

The first official efforts to protect the Persian language from foreign words and to standardise its spelling of Persian orthography were made in 1871, during the reign of

Naser al-Din Shah Qajar Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (; ; 17 July 1831 – 1 May 1896) was the fourth Shah of Qajar Iran from 5 September 1848 to 1 May 1896 when he was assassinated. During his rule there was internal pressure from the people of Iran, as well as external ...

. After Naser al-Din Shah,

Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar (; 23 March 1853 – 3 January 1907) was the fifth Qajar shah of Iran, reigning from 1896 until his death in 1907. He is often credited with the creation of the Persian Constitution of 1906, which he approved of in ...

ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal was to prevent books from being printed with the wrong usage of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully-printed books. Words coined by this association, such as ''rāh-āhan'' () for "railway", were printed in ''Soltani Newspaper'' (); but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in a dictionary called ''Words of Scientific Association'' (), which was completed in the future and renamed ''Katouzian Dictionary'' ().

Establishment of the academy

The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name ''Academy of Iran''. It was established by the initiative of

, and mainly by Ali-Asghar Hekmat and Mohammad Ali Foroughi, all names in the nationalist movement of the time.

Ferdowsi Abu'l-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (also Firdawsi, ; 940 – 1019/1025) was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a single poet, and the gre ...

was a motivation behind Reza Shah's decision to remove foreign loanwords from Persian and replacing them with Persian equivalents. In 1934, Reza Shah ordered the reconstruction of Ferdowsi's tomb and set up a country-wide ceremony in honour of a thousand years of

Persian literature Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day ...

since the time of Ferdowsi, titled '' Ferdowsi millennial celebration'', inviting notable Iranian and foreign scholars. The members of the academy included a number of notable literary figures and highly celebrated scholars upon its foundation, including Abbas Eqbal Ashtiani, Mohammad-Taqi Bahar, Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, Mohammad Ali Foroughi, Badiozzaman Forouzanfar, Homayun Forouzanfar, Qasem Ghani, Abdolazim Gharib, Allame Mohammad Qazvini, Mohammad Hejazi, Ali-Asghar Hekmat, Mahmoud Hessabi, Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh, Ahmad Matin-Daftari, Saeed Nafisi, Ebrahim Pourdavoud, Isa Sedigh, Zabihollah Safa, Ali Akbar Siassi, and Rashid Yasemi. Some foreign scholars were also involved, such as Arthur Christensen (from

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

), Mohammed Hussein Heikal (from

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

), Abduqodir Maniyozov (from

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

), Henry Masset (from

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

), Raf'at Pasha (from Egypt), Jan Rypka (from

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

), Dodikhudo Saymiddinov (from Tajikistan), and Muhammadjon Shakuri (from Tajikistan) and Syed Waheed Ashraf (from

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

). Rpferdosi.jpg,

officially dedicating the Tomb of Ferdowsi upon conclusion of the

Ferdowsi Millenary Celebration The Ferdowsi millennial celebration () was a series of celebrations and scholarly events in the year 1934 to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of Ferdowsi's birth. The Ferdowsi millennial was held at the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi a ...

Ferdowsi millenary congress.jpg, Participants of the Ferdowsi Millenary Congress in Tehran ferdowsi tomb4.jpg, The Tomb of Ferdowsi in Tus, Iran Statue of Ferdowsi in Tus, Iran.jpg, The statue of Ferdowsi in Tus, Iran The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the end of the

Qajar era The Guarded Domains of Iran, alternatively the Sublime State of Iran and commonly called Qajar Iran, Qajar Persia or the Qajar Empire, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic peoples, Turkic origin,Cyrus G ...

. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace many

, French, and

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

loanwords whose immense usage during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created a literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time.

Functions

The academy strives to protect the integrity of the Persian language. It heads the academic efforts for linguistic research on the Persian language and its sister Iranian languages. It has also created an official orthography of Persian. The attention of the academy has also been towards the persistent infiltration of Persian, like many other languages, with foreign words, as a result of the globalisation process. The academy constantly campaigns for the use of Persian equivalents of new loanwords. If no equivalents exist, it has the task of linguistically deriving such words from existing Persian roots, and promoting the adoption of these new coinages in the daily lives. The Iranian law requires those equivalents to be used in the official media, governmental affairs, and product management of all companies.

The Encyclopedia of Persian Language and Literature in South Asia

The Encyclopedia of Persian Language and Literature in South Asia (

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

and

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

) was established in 1993 in order to compile the Encyclopedia of Persian Language and Literature in South Asia.

Membership

The academy members are selected from masters of

and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

. After the 1979

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...

Hassan Habibi Hassan Ebrahim Habibi (; 29 January 1937 – 31 January 2013) was an Iranian politician, lawyer, scholar and the first vice president from 1989 until 2001 under Presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. He was also a member of ...

was appointed as the academy's president, and he remained in that position until his death in 2013. The current president is

Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel (; born 9 May 1945) is an Iranian conservative and principlist politician and former chairman of the Parliament. He is currently member of the Expediency Discernment Council. He was the first non-cleric in the post sinc ...

. The following is a list of both living and deceased permanent members of the academy since the 1979 Revolution.

Permanent members

Current

(president) * Houshang Moradi Kermani * Mohammad Dabir Moghaddam * Mehdi Mohaghegh * Nasrollah Pourjavady * Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi

Deceased

* Abdolmohammad Ayati * Abolhassan Najafi * Qeysar Aminpour * Mohammad Taqi Danesh Pajouh *

(former president) * Muhammadjon Shakuri (from Tajikistan) * Ahmad Tafazzoli

Announcement of the Academy about the name of the Persian language in foreign languages

On 19 November 2005, the Academy of the Persian Language and Literature delivered a pronouncement on the name of the Persian language, rejecting any use of the word ''Farsi'' (instead of English ''Persian'', German ''Persisch'', Spanish ''persa'', French ''persan'', etc.) in foreign languages. The announcement reads: # ''Persian'' has been used in a variety of publications including cultural, scientific, and diplomatic documents for centuries and, therefore, it carries a very significant historical and cultural meaning. Hence, changing ''Persian'' to ''Farsi'' would negate this established important precedent. # Changing the usage from ''Persian'' to ''Farsi'' may give the impression that "Farsi" is a new language, although this may well be the intention of some users of ''Farsi''. # Changing the usage may also give the impression that "Farsi" is a dialect used in some parts of Iran rather than the predominant (and official) language of the country. Supporting this announcement, gradually other institutions and literary figures separately took similar actions throughout the world.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Academy of Persian Language and Literature 1935 establishments in Iran Organizations established in 1935 Cultural organisations based in Iran Language regulators Persian language Persian literature Education in Iran

Organisations based in Tehran