Farsi and Arabic are two important and widely spoken languages of the world. These are mainly used in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asian regions. The languages have stayed with each other in the same region for centuries and hence, have each other’s influence. People who don’t know about these languages often perceive them to be the same languages. These languages share the vocabulary however, these are also different in multiple ways.
Historical background
Arabic language
Each language has its particular regions in which it is spoken, used, and belongs. Arabic is a Semitic language that has its connections with the languages such as Hebrew, Syriac, Amharic, and Aramaic. These languages belong to the same group of a language family which is the Afro Asiatic language family which implies how these relate to Somali, Oromo, Tamazight, and Ancient Egyptian. Though Arabic has one standardized variety which is Fusha and modern standard Arabic, every country which has Arabic as an official or unofficial language has its own specialized dialect. Therefore, the offering of the Arabic translation services also depends on the region and country so that relevant dialects can be used for translation.
Farsi language
Farsi language comes from the Indo-Iranian language family, unlike the Arabic language. It has close ties with the languages such as Kurdish, Balochi, and Pashto. Farsi has its distant relatives in the form of Urdu, Punjabi Hindi, and Bengali languages among many others. Indo-Iranian language is a big happy family which also includes the languages like Armenian, Russian, Greek, and all European languages including French, Spanish, and English. The Farsi language has three main standard variants which are
- Farsi in Iran
- Dari or Afghan Persian in Afghanistan
- Tajiki in Tajikistan (it has Tajiki written in the Cyrillic instead of the Arabic alphabet)
Every region of Farsi has a particular dialect that translation agencies need to understand and apprehend before working on the best Farsi translation services.
Vocabulary
When it comes to the vocabulary of the loan bank of words, both languages have adapted and borrowed the words from each other. Farsi language, however, is at more borrowing end. It has borrowed the words from Arabic more than Arabic has taken from Farsi. This is due to the centuries that Persian people spent under Arab rule and their language, vocabulary and dialects got influenced.
For instance, “How are you” in English is
Kayf Halukum? كيف حالكم؟ in Arabic
Hal-e shoma chetowr ast? حالِ شما چطور است؟ and in Farsi.
Every sentence comes in parallel with others and they both have HAL in it to specify about the condition.
Many other loan words in Persian from Arabic are
- aHsas (feeling
- soHbat conversation
- vaght (time)
- sabur (patience)
And the list goes on.
On the other hand, Persian loanwords include
- Barnaamaj (schedule)
- Banafsaji (purple)
- shaTarannj (chess)
- and bis (only, just)
Phonetical differences
When it comes to the sounds, Arabic and Persian have similarities too but with more differences. They share the same alphabet in general, but many Arabic sounds are not there in Persian so they have different pronunciations. It includes the letters one of which
- English P (پ),
- CH(چ),
- G (گ )(always g as in “goat), and a sound like the
- S (ژ) in leisure.
Grammar
It is important that a professional translation and companies who are offering professional Arabic translation consider a number of factors. The grammar of the language should also be checked. There are more differences in the grammar of Persian and Arabic languages. The Arabic language follows the word order of Verb-Subject-Object in the Fusha variant, however, it is Subject-Verb-Object in most of the other dialects.
Sentence structure
As for the Farsi language, it is Subject-Object-Verb. It tells about the sentence structure in previous sentences. In Persian, all the nouns in a sentence have to be before the verb ( ast or is) however, in Arabic the verb is either between the nouns or before a noun.
Use of prefixes and suffixes
Both of these languages are different in many other ways too. Different languages represent the different cultures of the world. There is the usage of prefixes, suffixes, and root changes to change the meaning. Arabic, however, has two genders and that are masculine and feminine. There is no grammatical gender in Persian at all.
Dialects
Farsi has three cases in almost all dialects and Persian has prepositions and postpositions. This is important information for translators and professional Farsi translation services have to include it. Arabic has dual numbers unlike Persian and Farsi has the tenses like English and Spanish.
Similarities in grammar include adjectives following nouns. Moreover, they also have a similar structure called as iDaafa. This structure in Arabic links two nouns in the structure ___al-____ with the final noun in the genitive case.
In the Farsi language, it involves an -e (which can be written with a kisra) and bridges the gap between a noun, adjective, and pronoun.
Final words
Arabic and Farsi languages since have shared the same region for centuries so these are influenced by each other. They also share the loan words from each other’s vocabulary. These languages are different and share many similarities too. The similarities can make it easier to learn one language after another for avid language learners.
