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Iranian nationality


Iranian nationality

Iranians are not Arab people and their primary language is Farsi (فارسی) (Persian). Referring to them as "Arabs" in general conversation may irritate them. Iranians are very proud of their history, nationality and country and are highly sensitive to it. Iran has over 4,000 years of written history and organised civilisation. It was conquered 3 times; by the Greeks, Arabs and Mongols. "Persia" is a name of Greek origin attributed to Iran. "Persian" cannot be equated with "Iranian," as Iran has several different ethnic groups, including Persian, Azeri, Kurd, Arab, Baluchi and Mazandarani. After the Arab conquest, public and official use of Farsi was banned for about two centuries, and its alphabet was changed to an Arabic-based one. Indeed the word "Farsi" itself is of Arabic origin. The ban was intended to eliminate the Persian language and culture, however it was unsuccessful. Today, the Persian language has many loan words taken from the Arabic language. The Arabic language has also adopted many words from Farsi. There are several widely-spoken Iranian languages, Kurdish, Persian, and Balochi are all Western Iranian languages, while Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language. Farsi is the official language of 3 nations Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and is spoken within 13 nations of the region and in general by the Iranian diaspora elsewhere. Over the 19th and 20th centuries Iran was frequently subjected to unfavorable political interference by the Russian Empire and it's successor the USSR. The British, and then the USA also sought to influence and control the politics, resources and destiny of Iran. In 1980, Iraq under Saddam Hussain, supported by most of the global community, invaded Iran and caused the country to suffer a bloody 8 year war that drastically undermined its infrastructure and consumed its resources. Given the above, the Iranian people feel that history has frequently not been on their side and that the global community owes them respect and sensibility.

The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Iran


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Iran Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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