One of the Nowruz traditions involves leaping over bonfires to rid oneself of pain and sorrow (Image credit: Borna News)

As people in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan prepare to celebrate Nowruz, there is a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation in the air. Nowruz, which literally means “new day” in Persian, marks the beginning of spring and the start of the new year for many peoples across the Middle East and Central Asia.

Nowruz is celebrated on the vernal equinox, typically falling on March 20 or 21, and lasts for thirteen days.

Rooted in the Zoroastrian tradition, Nowruz is a time of renewal, hope, and cultural celebration that transcends borders and unites people across the Persianate world.

Nowruz Down Under

Although in the Southern hemisphere Nowruz falls in the beginning of autumn rather than spring, still it takes on a special significance for Iranian Australians as we bring the traditions and customs of our homeland to this distant land.

The Haft-Sin table, with its seven symbolic items representing rebirth and renewal, takes centre stage in our celebrations. From sprouts symbolising growth to apples representing beauty and health, each item holds deep cultural significance and is a reminder of the values we cherish.

Spirit of Nowruz

Haftsin Table in the Victorian Parliament (Image Credit: Australian Iranian Society of Victoria)

Poetry and music fill our homes with joy and inspiration during Nowruz. Poets and writers have long captured the essence of this festival in their verses, expressing themes of renewal and spiritual growth. Music, too, plays a vital role, with traditional songs and melodies evoking a sense of nostalgia and connection to our roots.

At the heart of Nowruz is the spirit of unity and solidarity. As Iranians around the world come together to celebrate, we are reminded of the bonds that unite us as a community.

Solidarity with the people in Iran

Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran in 1979, the regime has suppressed the nation’s multifaceted and ancient culture under a theocratic dictatorship. However, for Iranians, both inside Iran and in the diaspora, Nowruz is not just a celebration of a new year. It is a celebration of our rich cultural heritage, resilience in the face of adversity, and hope for a brighter future.

So, this Nowruz, as an Australian-Iranian, deeply concerned about the future of Iran, I unite with my compatriots across the globe who embrace and celebrate Nowruz. For us, at this moment in history, Nowruz is more than just a cultural tradition. It is a unifying force and a symbol of Iranian-ness and unity, with a rich history that predates the current regime.

At the outset of Nowruz, we remember Mahsa Amini, and many other young people whose tragic deaths during the recent protests against the injustices in Iran have ignited a renewed sense of solidarity among Iranians both inside Iran and in the diaspora. Their memories remind us of the importance of standing together in the face of adversity and working towards a brighter future.

My music

This Nowruz, it’s fitting to dedicate to everyone two of my songs, that encapsulate the longing for freedom, love, and peace, “Hamseda” (Sympathizer) and “Eshghe-Bimarz” (Endless Love), which were created by a group of artists inside Iran and performed by myself.

Happy Nowruz! نوروزتان پیروز

Despite being ordinary and unremarkable, a little Persian preposition has caught international attention over the past three months: “baraye” (“برای”), which means “for, because of, for the sake of.”

What makes “baraye” special?

As you might have guessed, the sudden explosion of “baraye” onto the global stage is connected to the ongoing protest movement in Iran, and its brutal repression – similar to the stories of the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” and of pop stick paddle boats.

Baraye – the anthem of a freedom movement

“Baraye” is the title of a song by a young musician, Shervin Hajipour, released on his Instagram channel on September 28, 2022.

The lyrics of the song were compiled from tweets stating reasons why (“baraye”) tweeters are protesting and what they are protesting against (“baraye”) and protesting for (“baraye”): baraye dancing in the streets, baraye fear when kissing, baraye my sister, your sister, our sisters, and so on. The song culminates in “baraye woman, life, freedom, baraye azadi, baraye azadi.”

Shervin was imprisoned and forced to delete the song from his Instagram channel within 48 hours of its release. However, by then, the song had reportedly already been viewed 40 million times, and it had been posted and reposted on countless other platforms.

Initially restricted to Persian-speaking audiences inside and outside Iran, the song soon reached a global audience. How did that happen?

Baraye at protest rallies

First, the song made it from online spaces to the real world through global solidarity rallies. Played on large screens and over loudspeakers, soon protesters started to sing along, as in this example from Berlin.

Baraye covered by artists around the world

Second, more and more artists started to cover the song. One of the versions with the widest reach was sung by British rock band Coldplay during a performance in Buenos Aires, which was broadcast to 81 countries. Another major live performance by German-Iranian singer Sogand was broadcast on German national TV, where thousands of audience members were shown singing along to the final lines “baraye azadi.” Another popular performance is by a collective of some of the most prominent French artists.

It is not only celebrities who are covering the song. In a true testament to the song’s global inspiration, choirs have taken up “Baraye” for their performance projects. Students of a German high school, for instance, sang “Baraye” during their solidarity day with Iran on November 16. In a regional TV segment about their day of action, they were even shown practicing Persian pronunciation with a language teacher in preparation for the performance. Another version that has been widely shared on social media is the rendition by a choir in the small French town of Chalon-Sur-Saône.

The list could go and on. New cover versions are being released all the time, by artists from many parts of the globe. Only last week, a feminist art collective in Rojava released this haunting version.

Baraye in translation

Third, translation played an important role in making the Persian song accessible to global audiences. Many of the music videos floating around the Internet are fitted with subtitles in languages other than Persian. I’ve seen versions with English, French, German, Kurdish, Swedish, and Turkish subtitles. I’m sure there are lots more.

Beyond translated subtitles, the song has also inspired a wave of reinterpretations in other languages. Australian singer Shelley Segal has produced an English version. Other versions receiving a lot of attention include a Swedish version by pop star Carola Häggkvist, a German version by folk singers Lisa Wahlandt & Martin Kälberer, and a version in Iranian Sign Language by Maleehe Taherkhani. Again, the list could go on and on.

Baraye: the global struggle for freedom and justice

Slate Magazine has just declared that ““Baraye” is objectively the most important song of 2022.”

Singing “Baraye” is a way for the world to express its solidarity with the Iranian people and their struggle for freedom. Their struggle is our struggle, in a world where freedom is under threat everywhere. The most recent report on civil society by the German human rights organization “Brot für die Welt” shows that only 3% of the global population live in truly free societies. Another 8% live in societies with narrowed rights (Australia is in this category). The remaining 89% of the world’s population live in obstructed, repressed, and closed societies. Iranians find themselves in a closed society, along with over a quarter of the human population.

“Baraye” strikes a chord because we all need to ask ourselves what we are fighting against and fighting for on this broken planet that we share:

Baraye dancing in the street; Baraye fear while kissing; Baraye my sister, your sister, our sister; Baraye changing rotten minds.
Baraye shame of poverty; Baraye yearning for an ordinary life; Baraye the scavenger kid and his dreams; Baraye the command economy.
Baraye air pollution; Baraye dying trees; Baraye cheetahs going extinct; Baraye innocent, outlawed dogs.
Baraye the endless crying; Baraye the repeat of this moment; Baraye the smiling face; Baraye students; Baraye the future.
Baraye this forced paradise; Baraye the imprisoned intellectuals; Baraye Afghan kids; Baraye all the barayes.
Baraye all these empty slogans; Baraye the collapsing houses; Baraye peace; Baraye the sun after a long night.
Baraye the sleeping pills and insomnia; Baraye man, country, prosperity; Baraye the girl who wished she was a boy; Baraye woman, life, freedom.
Baraye freedom; Baraye azadi.

Memorial for Kian Pirfalak at Isfahan University (Source: Twitter)

In the Name of the God of the Rainbow, let’s today think about bilingual double vision. Double vision is a condition where you see two images of the same thing. The two images can be separate from each other but, more often, one overlaps the other, blurring the boundaries.

“Azadi” and “Freedom”

Learning a new language creates a new way of seeing, overlapping previous ways of seeing. The Persian word for “freedom,” for instance, “آزادی” (“azadi”), begins with the first letter of the Perso-Arabic alphabet (آ) and ends with the last (ی). This feature makes it a very special word. It symbolizes that freedom is essential, in the same way that Christians say that God is the alpha and the omega – the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet – to indicate the comprehensiveness of God. Like the Christian God, آزادی is all-encompassing and includes everything else. In the case of آزادی, that “everything else” is life itself, as the آ and ی frame the word for “born”, “زاد” (“zad”).

Once you’ve learned Persian “آزادی”, English “freedom”, too, takes on a different tinge, and comes to be seen as essential to life itself.

The double vision created by “آزادی” and “freedom” exists on the level of the language system. In fact, you do not need any level of bilingual competence to appreciate that different languages provide different perspectives on the world, as ever-popular trivia lists of supposedly “untranslatable” words demonstrate (see, e.g., “203 most beautiful untranslatable words” or “28 untranslatable words from around the world”).

The more powerful double vision effects lie well beyond the language system. Becoming bilingual is not only, and maybe not even predominantly, about learning another language system but about joining another discourse community. And what discourse communities are concerned with and talk about can be wildly different, even in our globalized world.

Pop stick paddle boats carried at Sydney solidarity rally (Source: Twitter)

“Pop stick paddle boat” is another word for freedom

Let’s go back to “freedom.” Another Persian word for “freedom” is “قایق پارویی چوب بستنی” (“pop stick paddle boat”). I’m not kidding, even if no dictionary will tell you so. “Pop stick paddle boat” also means “life,” “justice,” “peace,” “future for our children,” “end oppression,” “stop killing innocents,” and “we mourn the death of a 10-year-old boy.”

“Pop stick paddle boat” took on all these meanings only a few days ago when 10-year-old Kian Pirfalak was shot dead by anti-riot police. Shortly after his death, a short home video emerged of Kian, proudly showing off a pop stick paddle boat he had built. In the video, he explains how the contraption works, starting his explanation with “in the name of God,” the conventional formula that often begins educational events in the Islamic Republic. In Islam, God has 100 names, and the name that Kian chooses in the video is “the God of the Rainbow.”

Kian’s tragic death and the joyful video of a little inventor have since imbued pop stick paddle boats with grief and hope. The devices and their paper boat variations have become features at protest rallies and have inspired protest songs and videos.

The tears through which I have looked at these images have literally given me double vision. It is an apt metaphor for living a bilingual life. I’ll never look at a little boat nor a rainbow again without also seeing a murdered child and the Iranian struggle for freedom.

Related content:

Piller, Ingrid. (2022). “Women, life, freedom” – the slogan swimming against the global tide. Language on the Move. https://languageonthemove.com/women-life-freedom-the-slogan-swimming-against-the-global-tide/

The translator of the Persian version of Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice, Dr Saeed Rezaei

The Persian translation of Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice (2016, Oxford University Press) has just been published by the Iranian publishing house Neveeseh. Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice has been translated into Persian by Dr Saeed Rezaei. Dr Rezaei is an assistant professor in Applied Linguistics at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran and was a visiting researcher at Macquarie University in 2012/2013. A feature post about his research interests from back then is available here on Language on the Move.

Most of the research featured in Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice and the case studies that examine the relationship between language and social justice are based in Anglophone contexts and/or in societies constituted as liberal democracies. Iran is neither but, even so, the broad questions raised in the book – how language serves to stratify society and how it mediates access to social goods – are pertinent there, as elsewhere, irrespective of which national language predominates and which political system is espoused.

One of the aims of Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice has been to broaden readers’ understanding precisely of the diversity of relationships in which language and justice can find themselves. In the English original, some of the case studies came from contexts likely to be unfamiliar to the Western reader – such as the linguistic landscape study of the Doulab Cemetery in Tehran, which I use to exemplify the territorial principle. For the Iranian reader, I hope that this case study, in particular, will not only have the ring of the familiar but also serve as a reality check on the overall argument.

Cover of the Persian translation. As for the English original, the cover image was drawn by artist Sadami Konchi

It has also been my hope that Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice would contribute to a new sociolinguistic research agenda examining the relationship between language and social justice. In this regard, it is fitting that the first translation of the book should be into Persian because the field has much to learn from the sociolinguistics of multilingual Iran – both past and present.

I have personally learned so much from my visits to the country and my interactions with its people, language, and culture. Some of the most pertinent of these lessons I have tried to share throughout the book, such as the case studies in the final chapter. The final chapter features “real linguistic utopias”, where multilingualism and social cohesion do not conflict. One example comes from 17^th century Isfahan, a highly diverse and multilingual city, which flourished as a transnational center of trade and learning. Another one that did not make it into Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice (but into the second edition of Intercultural Communication, Edinburgh University Press, 2017) is the cross-cultural brokering in the friendship of Persian and Mongol politicians in 13^th century Iran. In an age when our own political leaders seem to be more inclined towards erecting new borders, strengthening old ones and tearing down bridges, the friendship of the Mongol Bolad and the Persian Rashid al-Din, which helped to connect east and west Asia, is particularly instructive to consider.

It is in a similar spirit of conversation and engagement that Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice was written and conceived as part of a broader conversation about linguistic diversity and social justice. In the English original, this is signaled through the many invitations to the reader to join the conversation on Language on the Move. In the Persian version, the spirit of conversation and exchange also materializes through the very fact of the translation.

I am immensely grateful to Dr Saeed Rezaei for initiating the translation and for his persistence and hard work in bringing it to fruition. I hope the Persian translation will be as well-received as the English original was; and I will be looking forward to the conversations it starts and continues and to seeing the directions they take. Even more so, as dark clouds gather once more over Iran, I hope that the book will find a Persian-language readership in a time of peace and prosperity.

The ebook version of the Persian translation of Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice is available here.

***NEW*** [May 20, 2019]: The preface of the Persian translation of Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice can be downloaded here.

***EVEN NEWER*** [July 23, 2019]: Listen to an interview with Dr Rezaei about the book on Radio Farhang here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Language on the Move Content in Persian

• انگلیسی یا فارسی؟
• جادوی انگلیسی
• نام های تجاریِ نویسه گردان
• !دست از سر چینگلیش بردارید
• ظلم زبان
• انگلیسی، آن نا-زبان
• علایمِ هشدار دهنده یِ چند زبانه
• مردها، زبان انگلیسی و رومانسِ بین المللی
• تمسخر لهجه ها
• آموزش سوپرمارکتی زبان های خارجی
• هشدار: انگلیسی جهانی ممکن است به سلامت روانی شما آسیب برساند
• وی نات شیپ تو راشا

Rashid al-Din Monument in Soltaniyeh, Iran (Source: Wikipedia)

Recently, I signed a contract for a revised second edition of my 2011 book Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction to be published in 2017. One way in which I am planning to extend the book is to have a greater focus on cultural mediators. What are the stories, experiences and practices of people who act as brokers between languages and cultures?

In some cases, people are pushed into the role of cultural mediators out of necessity, as is the case with child cultural and linguistic mediators. Others take on the roles of cultural brokers as an act of public service. In an age when most of our own political leaders seem to be more inclined towards erecting new borders, strengthening old ones and tearing down bridges, it is instructive to consider the case of two 13^th century statesmen whose friendship helped to connect east and west Asia: the Mongol Bolad and the Persian Rashid al-Din.

Rashid al-Din

Of the two, Rashid al-Din is today the better-known; as the author of the Jāme’ al-Tawārikh (“Universal History”) he is credited with having been “the first world historian” (Boyle 1971).

Rashid al-Din was born around 1250 CE into a Jewish family in Hamadān in north-west Iran. At the age of twenty-one or thirty (different accounts exist in different sources; see Kamola 2012), he converted to Islam and around the same time he entered the service of the then-ruler of Iran, the Il-Khan Abaqa (1265-81) as court physician. Under Abaqa’s grandson Il-Khan Ghazan (1295-1304) Rashid al-Din became vizier, one of the most influential roles in the state. Rashid al-Din also served Ghazan’s son and successor Öljeitü (1304-16). After Öljeitü’s death he became the victim of a court intrigue and was put to death in 1317, when he was around seventy years old.

During his long career he served his kings in many capacities: as physician, head of the royal household, military and general adviser, the mastermind of far-reaching fiscal and agricultural reforms, and, through his writing, as chief ideologue and propagandist of the Il-Khanids. In short, Rashid al-Din was a powerbroker, who did very well for himself and the realm he served:

He had become the owner of vast estates in every corner of the Il-Khan’s realm: orchards and vineyards in Azerbaijan, date-palm plantations in Southern Iraq, arable land in Western Anatolia. The administration of the state was almost a private monopoly of his family: of his fourteen sons eight were governors of provinces, including the whole of Western Iran, Georgia, Iraq and the greater part of what is now Turkey. Immense sums were at his disposal for expenditure on public and private enterprises. (Boyle 1971, p. 20)

Portrait of Kublai Khan (Source: Wikipedia)

Bolad

Thousands of miles to the east, Bolad’s career was very similar to that of Rashid al-Din: Bolad was about ten years older than Rashid al-Din and born around 1240 somewhere in Mongolia. His father was a man named Jürki, a member of the Dörben, a Mongolian tribe, who had submitted to Genghis Khan in 1204. Jürki quickly rose through the ranks of the imperial guard. In addition to his military distinction as a “Commander of a Hundred in the Personal Thousand” of Genghis Khan, he also became a ba’ruchi (“cook”) in the imperial household. While “cook” may not sound like much of a rank, in the Mongolian system this household position carried great prestige and showed close personal ties with the ruler (Allsen 1996, p. 8).

As a result of his father’s position, little Bolad was assigned to the service of Genghis Khan’s grandson Kublai Khan at age eight or nine. His education included the military arts and Chinese language and civilization. Bolad, too, forged a distinguished administrative career at the Yuan court. As he grew older, his duties and assignments included formulating court ceremonies, educating young Mongolians who entered the imperial service, and organizing the “Censorate,” the investigative arm of government. He became Head of the Bureau of Agriculture, which he helped establish; took on the role of Vice-Commissioner of Military Affairs; and headed a major anti-corruption investigation. His diverse appointments close to the centre of power at Kublai Khan’s court earned him the Chinese title chengxiang, “chancellor.”

In the spring of 1283, Bolad was appointed Kublai Khan’s ambassador to the Il-Khanids. The journey from Kublai Khan’s capital Khanbaliq (Dadu; modern Beijing) to the Il-Khan’s court in Tabriz took more than one year and Bolad and his embassy arrived in late 1284. He was supposed to return to China in 1285 but hostile forces made it impossible for a man of his rank to travel. He therefore stayed in Iran for the final twenty-eight years of his life. In addition to the role of ambassador, Bolad there assumed the role of chief advisor to the Il-Khan. During Öljeitü’s reign he became third minister and was in charge of logistics during a number of military campaigns. Active until well into his seventies, Bolad died in 1313 while he was in command of the northern garrisons.

Like Rashid al-Din, Bolad was a power broker. He distinguished himself not only at one but at two courts. Like Rashid al-Din, Bolad and his family, too, acquired significant wealth in their service to the Mongolian empire.

The context: the Yuan and Il-Khanid courts

Expansion of the Mongolian Empire, 1206-1294 (Source: Wikipedia)

Rashid al-Din and Bolad obviously met and became friends at the Il-Khanid court. But what was the broader context of their encounter?

After the death of Möngke Khan, a brother of Kublai Khan’s, in 1259, the unity of the Mongolian empire Genghis Khan had forged was permanently broken and the descendants of Genghis Khan fell into various succession wars. Kublai Khan held strong in Yuan China. The Il-Khanid line in Iran, founded by his brother Hülegü, formally acknowledged Kublai Khan’s sovereignty. Between these two allies, the Genghizid lines in Central Asia and Russia established various autonomous regional khanates, including the famous Golden Horde. These were at various times allied in various ways, at war with each other in various ways, and, particularly relevant here, often at war with China and Iran.

As nomadic aristocracy ruling two realms with a settled agrarian population and ancient civilizations, the Yuan in China and the Il-Khanids in Iran faced similar sets of issues: how would nomadic warriors be able to rule these complex agrarian societies?

Kublai Khan understood early that he would need Chinese support. His own Chinese language skills were not strong and he relied on interpreters in interactions with Chinese advisors (Fuchs 1946). However, he did seek out Chinese advisors and, more importantly, initiated the bilingual and bicultural education of young Mongolian courtiers such as Bolad. Bolad developed an intercultural disposition and “his frequent and active support for the recommendations of the emperor’s Han advisers indicates that he found much to admire in Chinese civilization” (Allsen 1996, p. 9).

Map of the Il-Khanate, 1256-1353 (Source: Wikipedia)

It is unclear when and how Bolad learned Persian but on his long trip to Iran and for the first few years there, he was accompanied by an interpreter, a Syriac Christian in the employ of the Mongols, who is known in Chinese sources as Aixue (愛薛) and in Persian sources as Isa kelemchi (“Jesus the interpreter”) (Takahashi 2014, p. 43).

The actual linguistic repertoire of Aixue/Isa kelemchi is uncertain; and that is an indicator of the linguistic situation in the Il-Khanate, which was even more complex than that at the Yuan court.

The preferred languages of Il-Khan Ghazan, for instance, were Mongolian and Turkish. Additionally, he happily spoke Persian and Arabic with his courtiers. Furthermore, he reportedly understood Hindi, Kashmiri, Tibetan, Khitai, Frankish “and other languages” (Amitai-Preiss 1996, p. 27).

Rashid Al-Din wrote in Persian, Arabic and Hebrew; from his style, it can be assumed that he also had some knowledge of at least Mongolian, Turkish and Chinese (Findley 2004, p. 92).

In sum, the nomadic Mongolian conquerors, whose strengths was military, needed to integrate their culture with that of the ancient settled civilizations of China and Iran in order to maintain the empires they had gained. They did so by fostering a new class of cultural brokers. These could either be drawn from the Mongolian population and raised bilingually and biculturally, as in Bolad’s case; or recruited from the local population, as in Rashid al-Din’s case. The latter must have been far more numerous because the nomads obviously did not end up imposing their language and culture on China nor Iran.

Fusion of East and West

The World History of Rashid al-Din, Exhibition of the Edinburgh manuscript

Bolad and Rashid al-Din ended up not “only” mediating between the nomad conquerors and the settled societies they came to rule, but their friendship is an example of the deep connections between east and west Asia that were forged during that time:

Their friendship was, without question, a crucial link in the overall exchange process, for Rashid al-Din, a man of varied intellectual interests and tremendous energy, was one of the very few individuals among the Mongols’ sedentary subjects who fully appreciated and systematically exploited the cultural possibilities created by the empire. (Allsen, 1996, p. 12)

The Jāme’ al-Tawārikh presents the culmination of their interactions. These chronicles were the first-ever attempt to write a world history and include information about the Muslim dynasties, the Indians, Jews, Franks, Chinese, Turks, and Mongols. Much of what is today known about the history of Central Asia up to the 13^th century comes from the Jāme’ al-Tawārikh. This could not have been achieved without extensive collaboration, and Rashid al-Din says about Bolad that he had no rival “in knowledge of the genealogies of the Turkish tribes and the events of their history, especially that of the Mongols” (quoted from Allsen 1996, p. 13).

Inter alia, Bolad translated information from a now-lost Mongolian source, the Altan Debter (“Golden Book”). Access to the Altan Debter was forbidden to non-Mongols, and Rashid al-Din even describes how their collaboration proceeded in this case: Bolad, who, as a high-ranking Mongol, had access to the Altan Debter, would extract the desired information and then, “in the morning before taking up administrative chores,” dictate the Persian translation of the desired passages to Rashid al-Din (Allsen 1996, p. 13).

Il-Khan Hülegü and his queen, Doquz Khatun, a Syriac Christian, as depicted in a Jami’ al-Tawarikh manuscript (Source: Wikipedia)

Given the wide-ranging interests and experiences of the two men, it is not surprising that their collaboration was not restricted to history but took in many other fields, too. Principal among these is agriculture. Rashid al-Din also produced an agricultural text (Āthār va ahyā’; “Monuments and animals”), which shows considerable Chinese influence (see Allsen 1996, pp. 14ff. for details). During this time an agricultural model farm was also established in Tabriz and, on Ghazan’s orders, new strains of seeds were solicited from China and India. While the details of these cross-fertilizations have been lost in the shifting sands of time, it “can be asserted with confidence that a considerable body of information on Chinese agriculture was transmitted to Iran and that Bolad was the principal conduit” (Allsen 1996, p. 15).

The two men also collaborated in the introduction of paper money to Iran (which would have necessitated knowledge of block-printing, only available in China at the time); the translation of medicinal treatises and the implementation of aspects of Chinese medicine in the Tabriz hospital Rashid al-Din had founded; and, of course, food. Rashid al-Din, in fact, developed such a taste for the delights of Chinese cuisine that he had a Chinese chef recruited for his household.

The mountains between India and China, depicted in a Jami’ al-Tawarikh manuscript (Source: Wikipedia)

The intense friendship of Bolad and Rashid al-Din is the story of a meeting of like-minded individuals who came together across what might seem a vast chasm of cultural difference. Their wide-ranging interests and intercultural dispositions allowed them to contribute extensively – and deeply – to the fusion of Asian cultures. The results were new heights of achievement in various spheres of life, as Basil Gray, the keeper of Oriental antiquities at the British Museum between 1946 and 1969, has argued with reference to painting:

The paradox which results from a survey of the history of painting in Persia before the Mongol invasions, is that it had not yet achieved the expressive and imaginative force which was to give it its special and unique quality only after it had come in contact with Chinese drawing. This is the agent which seems to have freed the Persian genius from its subordination to the other arts of the book by a mysterious catalysis. […] The “house style” of Rashidiya [the scriptorium in Tabriz founded by Rashid al-Din] is the most thoroughgoing example of Chinese artistic penetration into Iran. In it there is not simply a question of Chinese motifs, but radical adoption of the Chinese vision. [quoted from Robinson 1980, p. 212]

That the East-West fusion enabled by the Mongolian empire was not a one-way street is best exemplified by Bolad’s name: born into a high-ranking Mongolian family, the child was given a Persian name. “Bolad” is the Mongolian version of Persian pulād (“steel”).

References

Allsen, T. T. (1996). Biography of a Cultural Broker, Bolad Ch’eng-Hsiang in China and Iran. In J. Raby & T. Fitzherbert (Eds.), The Court of the Il-Khans, 1290-1340 (pp. 7-22). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Amitai-Preiss, R. (1996). New Material from the Mamluk Sources for the Biography of Rashid Al-Din. In J. Raby & T. Fitzherbert (Eds.), The Court of the Il-Khans, 1290-1340 (pp. 23-37). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Boyle, J. (1971). Rashīd al-Dīn: The First World Historian Iran, 9, 19-26 DOI: 10.2307/4300435

Findley, C. V. (2004). The Turks in World History. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fuchs, W. (1946). Analecta: Zur mongolischen Uebersetzungsliteratur der Yuan-Zeit. Monumenta Serica, 11, 33-64.

Kamola, S. (2012). The Mongol Īlkhāns and Their Vizier Rashīd Al-Dīn. Iranian Studies, 45(5), 717-721. doi: 10.1080/00210862.2012.702557

Robinson, B. W. (1980). Rashid Al-Din’s World History: The Significance of the Miniatures. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 112(2), 212-222.

Takahashi, H. (2014). Syriac as a Vehicle for Transmission of Knowledge across Borders of Empires Horizons, 5(1), 29-52.

Excerpt from “The Haunted Lotus” by Australian-Hazara artist Khadim Ali (Source: Milani Gallery)

An objection that is commonly raised against Esperanto and other auxiliary languages is that they are “invented.” Somehow, being “invented” is assumed to give Esperanto a shady character: it’s just not natural. The problem with this view is that – in being invented – Esperanto is not unique. And I don’t just mean that there is also Klingon and Volapük. In fact, each and every language with a name is an invention. We may not always be able to identify the inventors – in fact the trick of the inventors of English, Chinese, German, Spanish and all the others – has been not to let themselves be identified as language inventors. Instead, they pose as teachers, priests, bureaucrats, academics, poets or scientists. The invention of major national languages such as these gets obscured by time (although Standard German with its origins in the 19^th century is not much older than Esperanto), and it is a rare opportunity to see a language invented before our own eyes.

Such an opportunity currently unfolds in Australia with the invention of the Hazaragi language. Late last year I was invited to attend the 2013 NSW Fair Trading Think Smart Multicultural Conference. Among the many important things I learnt at that conference was the discovery of a multilingual resource for renters in New South Wales. The video “Renting a home: a tenant’s guide to rights and responsibilities” is an excellent educational resource and it is available not only in English but, additionally, in 17 other community languages. What struck me was that three of these 17 languages were the same, as far as I am concerned: there is “Dari,” “Farsi” and “Hazaragi.” Isn’t it all Persian, I thought? I was aware that “Farsi” is often used for “Iranian Persian” and “Dari” for “Afghan Persian” but I had never encountered “Hazaragi” listed as a separate language before; it is usually treated as the Persian dialect spoken by the Hazara of Afghanistan. The Hazara are Shia Muslims of Mongol ancestry whose traditional homeland are the high mountains of central Afghanistan (Farr 2007).

So, I did some research and discovered that Hazaragi is a language that is currently being invented in Australia and linguists from around the world might wish to pay close attention how this process unfolds.

To begin with, it’s imperative to identify speaker numbers because you can’t have a “natural” language without a community of speakers – and remember I’m talking about concealed invention; not something as straightforward as Ludwik Zamenhof saying “an international auxiliary language is a great idea and I’m going to create one.” In order to achieve speaker numbers, the categories of the Australian national census had to be adapted a bit over the years, as a comparison of the category for “Persian” over five consecutive censuses shows: the 1991 Census had no category for Persian nor related varieties and they were all subsumed under “Asian Languages, not elsewhere included.” Reflecting growing immigration from Iran, by the next census in 1996, “Persian” had its own category, which remained unchanged in 2001. The 2006 Census saw a significant change to the category when the language label was changed to “Iranic languages” with three distinct subcategories: “Persian (excluding Dari),” “Dari” and “Other.” “Other” was defined to comprise “Iranic, not further defined,” “Kurdish,” “Pashto,” “Balochi” and “Iranic, not elsewhere classified.” (There is no need to write in and ask what the difference between “Iranic, not further defined” and “Iranic, not elsewhere classified” might be. I don’t know.) It was not until the 2011 Census that “Hazaragi” made its debut, when it was included in the “Iranic Languages, Other” category for the first time. The table visualizes the changes in category.

Another important aspect of instituting Hazaragi as a language in Australia is through the credentialing of interpreters. NAATI, the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters, credentials Hazaragi paraprofessional interpreters through testing. On inquiry, I have learnt that NAATI decisions about recognizing a variety as a language are based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data (see above) and “voices from the community about the designations that they use for themselves.” In fact, it seems quite impossible to find out how the decision to accord language status to Hazaragi was made. Even so, NAATI has clear guidelines as to what is correct and incorrect Hazaragi in a testing situation:

NAATI acknowledges that there are regional variations/dialects of the Hazaragi language. However, due to strong cultural and identity connections there is a high level of mutual understandability between these regional dialects.

For the purposes of NAATI testing, a candidate will not be penalised for the dialect spoken as long as what is being said would be understood by an average Hazara person living in Hazaristan.

Candidates need to be aware that the Hazaragi language spoken by Hazaras in some locations, including the major cities in Afghanistan, has been heavily influenced by other languages of those cities and areas. Any use of ‘none’ [sic] Hazargai’ [sic] words when interpreting would be penalised. (NAATI Information Booklet)

This statement is a crucial step in the invention of the Hazaragi language. After the language has been given a name, it is being codified. Again, the process of invention is dissimulated: the language spoken in the mythical place of origin, Hazaristan (incidentally, there is also a little identity war going on over whether that region should be called “Hazarajat” or “Hazaristan,” the latter supposedly being “more modern”) is normalised whereas language use that shows traces of the influence by other locations, particularly cities, is penalized, presumably because someone got it into their head that such influence is “incorrect.”

This particular invention – Hazaragi as the language of rural Hazaristan – is rather baffling: from an Australian perspective, the language spoken by “an average Hazara person living in Hazaristan” is entirely irrelevant because even if such persons were to exist in Afghanistan, they do not in Australia. The past three decades or more have been an unmitigated disaster for Afghanistan and have produced the world’s largest refugee population. Contemporary Hazara society is characterised by constant migration:

Like most Afghan groups, the Hazāras fled in large numbers after the coup of April 1978 and the Soviet intervention in 1979. Most of them went to one of the neighboring countries of Afghanistan. Migrants and refugees have thus come to overlap and can hardly be distinguished from each other. Their movements follow various patterns: thousands of farmers from the Hazārajāt migrate every winter to work in coal mines near Quetta for a few months, while young men migrate for longer periods to Iran to take on menial jobs. During the last two decades, the Hazāras have formed very efficient migratory and economic networks, based on the dispersion of relatives in Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. (Encyclopaedia Iranica)

Hazaragi has always been a contact variety – its main claim to distinction from Persian is the relatively higher number of Mongol loan words – and, in all likelihood, will continue to be a contact variety for a long time to come. It’s hard to see how inventing boundaries and a standard for this variety will do any good to anyone. Peter Mühlhäusler (2000) has an apt term for this kind of linguistics: segregational linguistics.

Farr, Grant. (2007). The Hazaras of Central Afghanistan. In B. Brower & B. R. Johnston (Eds.), Disappearing Peoples?: Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Minorities in South and Central Asia (pp. 153-168). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Mühlhäusler, Peter (2000). Language Planning and Language Ecology Current issues in language planning, 1 (3), 306-362 DOI: 10.1080/14664200008668011

Business card promoting private English tuition

In Iran, as in many other countries around the globe, the craze for learning English has been on the rise. This tendency is attributed to, inter alia, the country’s rather young population who need the language for various purposes such as furthering education abroad, immigration or trade. As a consequence, all kinds of English teaching have become big business. While the majority of learners of English attend private English language institutes, private tutoring, too, has mushroomed in the past few years.

In the past few months, I have been collecting marketing materials for private English language tuition in Isfahan. While well-established language institutes usually rely on local newspapers, magazines or TV channels to promote their English classes, individual language tutors choose less expensive methods of advertising. The main promotional method is the distribution of brochures, fliers and business cards.

Despite the low costs associated with their production, these advertising materials can easily be distributed among target audiences which often include those who need a certain score on standardized tests such as TOEFL or IELTS in a rather short period of time. Business cards are usually personally distributed among tutors’ networks. Additionally, they are also found in the city’s language bookshops. Brochures and fliers are found in all kinds of public spaces frequented by young people.

A close look at such marketing materials enables us to explore social issues embedded in the discourse of the private TESOL industry in Iran today. In my corpus of more than 100 marketing materials for private tutoring, the following ideologies of English language learning can be found:

• Learning English is associated with personal success. One business card, for instance, has the Persian mottoدانش زبان انگلیسی قدرت دنیای امروز است  on the front and the English translation “English knowledge is power” on the back.
• The ideal tutor is a person who has the experience of living in an English-speaking country, usually in Australia, Canada and the UK. Another business card, for example, describes the tutor as a person who has lived in Australia for five years (٥ سال زندگی در استرالیا) and uses the slogan Learn English from one who has lived in an English-speaking country.
• The ideal tutor is linked to an international organisation. Examples of such organizations, which are typically included in brackets after the tutor’s name, include “TEFL Canada”, “British Council” and “ETS”.
• English learners come in distinct groups based on age, gender or occupation. One example promotes semi-private English classes for housewives (انگلیسی برای خانمهای خانه دار), who, as the description on the flier reveals, “are usually free in the morning and are able to attend English classes.” In this context the English language is dividable into different packages which are separately accessible. Other examples includeانگلیسی برای کودکان  (English for children), انگلیسی برای نوجوانان (English for teenagers), انگلیسی برای توریست ها (English for tourists) andانگلیسی برای تجار  (English for businessmen), to name a few. No information is provided about the course content and the name of the course corresponds to the social role of the target group (e.g., ‘housewives’).

Overall, the unprecedented demand for English has caused English tutors in Iran, as in many other countries in the world, to compete for students. In this respect, English language tutors are driven by the competition for profit and English language learning is thus marketed in specific ways. As my corpus shows, private tutors typically use a variety of strategies in order to be deemed legitimate and meritorious. It appears that in this context the quest for a better tutor (as a form of identity) has long replaced the identification of practices designed to address the complexity of language learning.

Polish refugee section of the Catholic cemetery in Tehran

When Kimie Takahashi and myself interviewed participants for Japanese on the Move, our video exhibition of transnational life-stories, one of our interviewees, artist Mayu Kanamori, asked to conduct the interview in Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery, where she wanted to show us the final resting place of the first known Japanese settler in Australia. Mayu raised a number of questions about the spiritual belonging of transnationals and about ‘death on the move.’ I was reminded of that conversation with Mayu during my visit to Tehran’s Christian Doulab Cemetery.

Death far from home

The Polish section occupies about three quarters of the Catholic cemetery and constitutes the final resting place of almost 2,000 men, women and children who died in Tehran between 1942-1945.

The story of the Poles lying in Iranian soil is one of the less well-known tragedies of World War II. As part of the Hitler-Stalin Pact what was then Eastern Poland (and is today part of Belarus and Ukraine) was annexed by the Soviets in 1939. Around 1.5 million Poles were deported from the area to camps in Siberia. The vast majority of these died in the following months under horrific circumstances. Only around 250,000 of the deported Poles are known to have survived in Siberia. The survivors were released in 1941 when Germany attacked the Soviet Union so that they could join in the war effort against the Nazis. However, many of these survivors chose to flee instead and around 115,000 managed to reach Allied-occupied Iran.

Two of the headstones in the Polish refugee section

Making it to Iran was like reaching the Promised Land for the evacuees, as one of them recalls in her memoirs:

Exhausted by hard labor, disease and starvation – barely recognizable as human beings – we disembarked at the port of Pahlavi [present-day Bandar-e Anzali]. There, we knelt down together in our thousands along the sandy shoreline to kiss the soil of Persia. We had escaped Siberia and were free at last. We had reached our longed-for Promised Land. (quoted from Ryszard Antolak, “Iran and the Polish Exodus from Russia 1942.” ParsTimes)

For a few years, the Polish community flourished in Tehran:

Something more than food and clothing are necessary for the human spirit to survive and grow. Art and Culture are antibodies to feelings of despondency and decay, and within a few months of their arrival, the exiles had set up their own theatres, art galleries, study circles, and radio stations all over the city. Artists and craftsmen began to give exhibitions. Polish newspapers began to spring up; and restaurants began to display Polish flags on the streets.

Among the organizations formed to care for the educational and cultural needs of the exiles was the influential Institute of Iranian Studies begun by a small group of Polish academicians. In three years from 1943 to 1945 this group published three scholarly volumes and scores of other articles on Polish-Iranian affairs. (Ryszard Antolak, “Iran and the Polish Exodus from Russia 1942.” ParsTimes)

Memorial stone at the center of the Polish refugee section: French-Persian plaque (the Polish version is on the other side of the monument)

However, death was ever-present in this group of weakened survivors, as the Catholic cemetery in Doulab vividly demonstrates. Each of the small 1,869 refugee graves (see here for a map of the cemetery) has an identical headstone inscribed with a number, the Polish abbreviation ‘S.P.’ (‘swietej pamieci,’ ‘in memory of’), a name, the year of birth and the year of death, and the Latin abbreviation ‘R.I.P.’ (‘requiescat in pace,’ ‘may s/he rest in peace’).

In the center of the Polish refugee section are two memorial stones, one with a trilingual inscription in Polish, French and Persian and the other bilingual in Polish and English. The trilingual one is roughly similar in the three languages and the Polish version reads as follows:

PAMIECI /WYGNANCOW/POLSKICH /KTORZY /W DRODZE DO OJCZYZNY /W BOGU SPOCZELI /NA WIEKI. 1942-1944

To the memory of the Polish exiles who, on their return journey to their homeland, found the peace of God, 1942-1944 (my translation from the French and Persian inscriptions)

The English version of the bilingual memorial stone, which looks more recent than the trilingual one, is similar in content but provides more detail and reads as follows:

IN COMMEMORATION /OF THOUSANDS /OF POLES THE SOLDIERS /OF THE POLISH ARMY /IN THE EAST /OF GENERAL /WLADYSLAW ANDERS /AND CIVILIANS /THE FORMER /PRISONERS OF WAR /AND CAPTIVES /OF THE SOVIET CAMPS /WHO DIED IN 1942 /ON THE WAY /TO THEIR HOMELAND /PEACE TO THEIR MEMORY

As it so happens, the inscriptions on both these monuments are historically incorrect: the Polish refugees were not on their way “to their homeland” because – also in Tehran in 1943 but worlds away from the refugees – Churchill and Roosevelt conceded what had been Eastern Poland to Stalin’s USSR and the remainder of Poland to the Soviet sphere of influence.

Death in a new home

One of the tombstones of the Poles who settled in Tehran. The mixed name shows that Yanina Kaganowska married into a Persian family

For the majority of the survivors, their stay in Iran was temporary and they later resettled in the UK, the Americas, Africa and Australasia. However, some also chose to stay and to rebuild their shattered lives in Iran as is evidenced by the graves in the far corner of the Polish section. There, a number of larger and personalized tombstones have been erected to the memory of people born in Poland who died in Tehran as recently as 2002. Most of these commemorate women who married Iranian men as is evidenced by their Persian surnames.

I looked at these graves with mixed feelings: on the one hand, their personalized details, the fact that they were commemorating much older people than the refugee graves, and the names in which Polish and Persian have become mixed speak of lives lived fully in a new home. On the other hand, they are all single graves and the Iranian husbands and families of these women thus must lie elsewhere (maybe in Tehran’s huge Behest-e Zahra Cemetery, where the city’s Muslims find their final resting place). The fact that none of these graves are family graves – despite the fact that the women obviously had new families in Iran – speaks to the fact that faith and nation continue to divide in death those who were joined in life.

Parceling up the dead

French flag marking a little girl as French national

The divisions of faith are made concrete in the architecture of the Doulab cemetery complex, a feature that is, of course, not unique to Iran’s cemeteries. To begin with, Tehran’s dead Christians are physically separated from the city’s Muslims and Jews, who have their own cemeteries elsewhere. Second, even within the Christian complex the various denominations are divided into their own separate compounds: the Catholic cemetery is separated by large walls from the adjoining Armenian and Russian cemeteries (the so-called ‘Russian’ cemetery seems to house all non-Armenian and/or non-Iranian Orthodox Christians).

Divisions of nation of origin also continue to persist within the Catholic cemetery. Although widely known as ‘Polish cemetery’ because such a large number of Poles are lying there, the cemetery was started in 1855 with a mausoleum for Dr. Louis André Ernest Cloquet, a Frenchman who died prematurely while serving as personal physician to the Shah. The memorial to this Catholic was placed close to – but outside of – the Armenian cemetery. Since then Catholics from most European countries have also found their final resting place there and the cemetery’s sections are more or less clearly divided into national sections.

The banal nationalism of death is most obvious in the cases of the French and Italian dead who lie in Doulab: their embassies have taken the trouble of placing little metal French or Italian flags at the foot of each French or Italian grave.

This tombstone could be located anywhere in Germany. There is nothing in the inscription that suggests that Franz Sänger actually lies in Tehran

While such flags are absent from the graves of other nationals lying in Doulab, the language of the tombstones is in most cases the language of the country of birth. None of the German graves I visited, for instance, shows any sign that the person lying there must have lived a transnational life and must, to a smaller or larger degree, have been part of the fabric not only of German but also Iranian society during their lives. The inscriptions on the tombstones bear no traces of a life partly lived in Iran: for all that the inscriptions suggest, the graves might have been located in Germany.

How could a tombstone inscription suggest a transnational life? At the Doulab cemetery, I saw two options: a multilingual inscription or a lingua franca inscription.

A multilingual inscription is exemplified by the Polish, French and Persian trilingual memorial discussed above. On individual tombstones in the Catholic section multilingual inscriptions are rare and, unless I overlooked something, absent from the graves of Europeans. The few that I noticed are bilingual in various combinations of Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, French, Persian and Russian. In some cases, it was impossible to identify the languages other than to say that the inscriptions were both in the Latin and Arabic scripts.

A bilingual tombstone in French and Assyrian is suggestive of the complex life that Paul Sarmas must have led

While monolingual tombstones predominate in the Catholic section, over in the Orthodox section the situation is different and tombstones inscribed in multiple languages and scripts – Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, Georgian, Greek, Latin and Russian – are more frequent there.

As regards lingua franca inscriptions, I consider an inscription as lingua franca if the tombstone is inscribed in a language other than a/the language of the country of origin of the deceased or a language of Iran (in practice, in this case, that means Armenian, Assyrian and Persian). The most frequent lingua franca by far is French and one final surprise was the absence of English in this international space: other than in the Polish-English bilingual memorial mentioned above, there was only one single tombstone inscribed in English:

ANNA MARIA VAN /DEN BRINK-LECKE /BORN HOLLAND 19.10.1914 /DIED TEHERAN 13.9.1970 /MAY GOD REJOICE HER SOUL

The nationality of the deceased is listed as German in the cemetery’s registry, a country where she was neither born nor died, further illustrating the complexity of transnational life and death.

Where the spirit rests

Keeping the dead within the boundaries imagined by the living: the gate to the walled-in Catholic section of the Doulab Cemetery Complex

Dying away from ‘home’ is often invested with special sadness. According to an overview of Polish cemeteries in Iran, a number of the commemorative plaques in other Polish burial sites in Iran stress the fact that these people died “on foreign soil.” There is indeed a deep sense of sadness and loss emanating from the refugee graves. However, that is because of the evil that cut short the lives of the people who lie there and that made the circumstances of their final years so horrific.

By contrast, the graves of those Poles who had decided to stay on in Tehran after the war and to rebuild their lives there and those of the other foreign-born lying there did not move me in this way. What is striking about those is the desire of the living to inscribe the boundaries of faith, nation and language even on those who obviously led lives that transcended those very boundaries.

Inside Vank Cathedral, the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Savior in Isfahan. Construction began in 1606 and was completed in the 1660s (Source: Wikipedia)

Armenian version of “A golden age of multiculturalism“; translated by Arineh Minasian (Արինէ Մինասեան)

Անցեալ շաբաթ առիթ ունեցա ներկայանալ CIEN խմբի միջոցով կազմակերպւած ”Լեզւական Շարժունակութեան, Պրակտիկայի եւ Ինքնութեան” սեմինարին, Universitat Autònoma դե Բարսելոնայում: Այստեղ էին հաւաքւել հասարակական լեզւաբանութեան գիտնականներ, ովքեր աշխատում են, արտագաղթի հետեւանքով առաջացած, լեզւական շարժունակութեան բնագաւառում: Նրանք քննարկելու էին մեթոդի, տեսութեան եւ պրակտիկաի շուրջ առաջացած հարցեր:

Իմ հերթին, ես ուրւագծեցի իմ առաջարկը համաշխարհային հասարակական լեզւաբանութեան ազգագրութեան ուղղութեամբ եւ մատնանշեցի մի քանի խոչնդոտներ, որոնք իմ կարծիքով կանգնած են հասարակական լեզւաբանութեան ճանապարհին մեր օրերում: Այս խոչնդոտներից մէկն այն է որ ներկայում պատմական լեզւաբանական բազմազանութիւնը պակաս ուշադրութեան է արժանանում: Այս խոչնդոտը ինչպէս նաեւ, անգլերենի կարեւորութիւնը հիւսիսաին Ամերիկայում եւ Եւրոպաում եւ լեզւական բազմազանութիւնը որպէս դժւարութիւն, մեր գիտելիքների մէջ դատարկութիւն են ստեղծում: Իրօք այսպիսի շեղումներն աղաւաղում են այն պատկերը, որ ունենք լեզւի եւ շարժունակութան փոխյարաբերութիւններից:

Այսպիսի աղաւաղումները հարթելու համար կարող ենք կենտրոնանալ իրական ուտոպիաների վրայ, որտեղ բազմալեզւութիւնը աշխատում է ի շահ  համայնքի տնտեսութեան, մշակույթին եւ ինչու չէ  հաւաքականութեանը: Language on the move կայքէջում արդէն հասցրել ենք զբաղւել այսպիսի օրինակներով (օրինակների համար կարող էք դիմել multiculturalism in the central library of Vienna կամ  French-German bilingual school operating in Berlin since 17^thcentury  փոստերին): Իսֆահանը 17-րդ դարում մէկն է այսպիսի օրինակներից:

1598 թւին, Պարսկաստանի Սեֆեւեան հարստութեան թագաւոր Շահ Աբբասը (նաեւ Մեծն Շահ Աբբաս) երկրի մայրաքաղաքը փոխադրեց Իսֆահան: Շատ կարճ ժամանակւայ ընթացքում Իսֆահանը դարձաւ երկրի տնտեսական, մշակութային եւ քաղաքական կոսմոպոլիտ կենտրոն: Այս փոփոխութիւնների հետեւանքով Իսֆահանը ստացաւ “աշխարհի կէսը” մականունը: Գերմանացի գիտնական Ադամ Օլէարուսը 1637 թւին այցելեց Իսֆահան եւ այն այսպէս նկարագրեց՝

Չկայ ոչ մի ազգ ողջ Ասիայում, ոչ անգամ Եւրոպայում, որի առեւտրականները չեն մեկնում  Իսֆահան: Սովորաբար շուրջ 12000 հնդիկներ կան քաղաքում: Այստեղ, բացի նրանցից կան նաեւ մեծ թւով մոնղոլներ (Խուրասան եւ Բուխարա քաղաքներից), թուրքեր, եբրայեցիներ, հայեր, վրացիներ, անգլիացիներ, իտալացիներ եւ իսպանացիներ: Հայ առեւտրականները Քրիստոնեայ են: Նրանք Իրանում բնակւող մնացած առեւտրականներից  աւելի յաճախ են ուղեւորութիւնների մեկնում, չնայած նրանք բոլորն բացարձակապէս արտօնւած են երթեւեկել ուր կը ցանկանան – ինչպէս դրսեցիներն են թույլատրւում մեկնել Իրան եւ մաքս վճարելով վաճառել իրենց ապրանքները: Այդ իսկ պատճառով էլ հայերը Իրանում բնակւող բոլոր առեւտրականներից ամենա հարուստներն են: (Օլէարուսի ճանապարհորդութիւնը Իսֆահանում)

Իսֆահանում բնակւող բազմալեզու եւ բազմամշակույթ բնակիչներից, հայերն էին որոնք նպաստեցին Իսֆահանի յաջողութեանը իր զարգացման ոսկէ շրջանում, իսկ այս ամենը ղեկավարում էր ինքը Շահ Աբբասը:

1603-04 թւերին, Շահ Աբբասը հայերին Ջուլֆա (Ջուղա) քաղաքից (Իրանի հիւսիս արեւմուտքում) փոխադրեց Իսֆահան: Նրանք բնակութիւն հաստատեցին քաղաքի այն մասում, որը կոչւեց Նոր Ջուղա, իսկ հին Ջուղան կործանւեց:

Երեւի բազմամշակութային զարգացման ոսկէ շրջանի համար, սա այնքանէլ լուսաւոր սկիզբ չէ , բայց չպէտքէ մոռանալ այս ամէնի պատմական ենթահողը: 16-րդ դարում, Օսմանական եւ Սեֆեւեան թագաւորութիւնները անյապաղ պատերազմներ էին մղում երկու երկրների սահմաններում: Այդ սահմանները այսօր Հայաստանի, Ադրբէյջանի, Վրաստանի, Իրանի հիւսիս արեւմտեան, հիւսիսային Իրաքի, Լիբանանի, Սիրիայի եւ Արեւելեան Թուրքիայի  մաս են կազմում: Երկու պատերազմող կողմերը աշխատում էին սպանել այս շրջանների բնակչութեանը կամ էլ տեղահան անելով փոխադրել աւելի կենտրոնական նահանգներ: Իսկ Շահ Աբբասը Ջուլֆայի բնակչութեան տեղահանութեամբ յետին նպատակներ ունէր: Իհարկէ այս տեղահանութիւնը ծառայում էր իր ռազմական շահերին, բայց նա նաեւ այս գործով աւելի հեռուն էր նայում: Նա այսպիսով ցանկանում էր մարդկային ներուժ հաւաքել:

Այս քայլը երկու ասպարէզներում էլ նրան յաջողութիւն բերեց: Պատերազմի դաշտում, օսմանցիները պարտաւորւեցին ետ քաշւել ամայացած դաշտերից (ցրտի պատճառով), սա առիթ ընծայեց պարսիկներին կրկին անգամ ոտքի կանգնել եւ յաջորդ տարի օսմանցիներին պարտութեան մատնել:

Թագաւորի հեռաւոր նպատակը մարդկային ներուժ ձեռք բերելու ուղղութեամբ եւս յաջողեց: Բայց որն էր՞ հայերի նկատմամբ ցուցաբերած թագաւորի հետաքրքրութեան պատճառը.  Հայերը միջազգային կապեր ունէին այլ ազգերի, հատկապէս Եւրոպացիների հետ: Նրանց առեւտրական ցանցը տարածւում էր անգամ Ասիայի հեռաւոր արեւելեան երկրներ:

Նրանց ծանօթութիւնը շրջանի մշակույթների, նաեւ արեւելքի եւ արեւմուտքի ժողովուրդների, լեզուների եւ սովորութիւնների հետ հայերին ընձեռնեց  հնարաւորութիւն հանդիսանալու  յարմար թեկնածուներ Սեֆեւեան եւ շիա Պարսկաստանի ձեռնարկատէրերի: (Գրիգորեան 1974, էջ 662)

 Գրիգորեանի աշխատութիւնը (1974) պարունակում է մի ցուցակ, որտեղ նշւում է ժամանակի հայերի բազմազան զբաղմունքները, սկսած Հնդկաստանից, որտեղ աշխատում էին իբրեւ մոնղոլների դատարանների թարգմանիչներ, մինչեւ Լեհաստան, ուր վաճառականներ էին եւ որտեղ մեծ թւով ներմուծւող ապրանքներ ճանաչւում էին որպէս հայկական ապրանքներ:

Թագաւորը ցանկանում էր շահել միջազգային լայն կապեր ունեցող հաւաքականութեան վստահութիւնը եւ հաւատարմութիւնը իր նկատմամբ: Այս արդիւնաւէտ եւ ազատամիտ ծրագրի յաջողումը շահ ապահովեց թէ հայերին եւ թէ հասարակութեանը, ինչի հետեւանքով Իսֆահանը դարձաւ առեւտրի ծաղկող կենտրոն:

Այս ուղղութեամբ թագաւորը լայնածաւալ արտօնութիւններ տւեց հայերին: Այս շարքում նշելի են կրօնական ազատութիւն, քաղաքացիական ամբողջական իրավունքներ եւ իրաւական սեփականութիւն: Հայերին տրւած հետաքրքիր իրավունքներից մէկն այն էր, որ նրանք կարող էին մասնակցել շուկայական վէճերին եւ հայհոյել ինչպէս մուսուլմանները:

Շահ Աբբասը յաճախ էր այցելում Նոր Ջուղայի բնակիչներին: Անգամ մասնակցում էր Սուրբ Ծնունդի եւ Սուրբ Զատիկի արարողութիւններին եւ հետաքրքրւում այդ նոր քաղաքացիների բարեկեցութեամբ: Երբ նրան քննադատում էին թէ նա հայերին գերադասում է ուրիշներից, նա այսպէս էր բացատրում թէ հայերը թողել են իրենց հայրենի հողը եւ որոշել բնակւել Իսֆահանում, այդ իսկ պատճառով էլ պէտքէ նրանց հետ վարւել իբրեւ պատւաւոր հիւրերի: Նա նաեւ ակնարկում էր թէ իւրաքանչիւր հայի փոխադրման ծախսը 1.000 թուման է եղել, այս ներդրումը նա կատարել է ոչ թէ հայերի այլ Պարսկաստանի համար:

1630-ական թւականներին հայերը հիմնեցին իրենց երկլեզու  համալսարանը, որի ուսուցումը հիմնականում կենտրոնանում էր հումանիտար եւ մեթաֆիզիկաի բնագաւառներում: Այս բարձրագոյն կրթական հաստատութիւնը աւարտեցին անւանի անձնաւորութիւններ, այդ շարքում Յովհաննէս Վարդապետը, ով հետագային մեկնեց Իտալիա տպագրութեան հետ ծանօթանալու: Նա հիմնեց առաջին տպարանը Իրանում: 1638 թւին, Իրանում տպագրւեց առաջին գիրքը հայերէնով, Սաղմոսագրքի թարգմանութիւնը:

Անգամ այսօր, աւելի քան չորս դար անց, հայերն ունեն իրենց դպրոցները եւ եկեղեցիները: Նրանք պահում եւ պահպանում են իրենց մայրենի լեզուն: Թեհրանում բնակւող հայութեան հետ կապւած վերջին ուսումնասիրութիւններից պարզ դարձաւ, որ մասնակիցների հարիւր տոկոսը տիրապետում են հայերէնի, այն օգտւում են իրենց խօսակցութիւններում եւ արժէքաւորում իրենց երկլեզւութիւնը: (Ներսիսեան 2001)

Գաղթի հետեւանքով առաջացած լեզւական փոթոխոխթիւնները ուսումնասիրելու համար ոչ միայն պէտքէ հետազոտել բազմամշակույթ եւ բազմալեզու Իսֆահանի ոսկէ շրջանը այլ նաեւ նրա անկումը: Ոչ բոլոր ղեկավարներն էին Շահ Աբբասի նման լայնախոհ: Նրա ժառանգորդները Նոր Ջուղան համարում էին հարստութեան աղբիւր որտեղից կարելի է հարկեր հաւաքել: Դրանով հանդերձ որ ոչ մի թագաւորական շրջան հայերի հաւատարմութիւնը շահելու համար Շահ Աբբասի պէս ծաւալուն քայլերի չի դիմել, հայերը միշտ էլ ունեցել են ազատութիւն իրենց կրօնի հարցում եւ աւելի քան չորս հարիւր տարի ապահովւած են եղել քաղաքացիական ամբողջական իրավունքներով:

Այսպիսով, պետութեան եւ այս փոքրիկ համայնքի կապերը երբեք չեն սառեցւել, բայց կրել են սպառնող համաշխարային նոր ուժերի ազդեցութիւնը: Բրիտանական կայսրութեան ընդարձակման հետեւանքով Իրանի պետութիւնը պարտաւորւեց ենթարկւել մի շարք ստորացուցիչ կապիտալացիաի դաշնագրերի, եւ երբ բրիտանական կայսրութիւնը սկսեց վերահսկել ծովային կապերը Ասիայի եւ Եւրոպայի միջեւ, հայերը կորցրին իրենց տնտեսական ազդեցութիւնը ցամաքային առեւտրի ասպարէզում:

Gregorian, V. (1974). “Minorities of Isfahan: The Armenian Community of Isfahan 1587-1722.” Iranian Studies 7 (3/4): 652-680.

Nercissians, E. (2001). Bilingualism and diglossia: patterns of language use by ethnic minorities in TehranInternational Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2001 (148) DOI: 10.1515/ijsl.2001.014

Inside the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Savior in Isfahan. Construction began in 1606 and was completed in the 1660s (Source: Wikipedia)

Last week I had the privilege of attending, virtually, a seminar devoted to “Mobilities, Language Practices and Identities” organized by the CIEN Group at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The seminar brought together a small number of international scholars working in the sociolinguistics of mobility to discuss questions of method, theory and practices.

In my contribution I outlined a proposal for a global sociolinguistic ethnography and raised a number of challenges that contemporary sociolinguistics is facing in my view. One of these challenges is a relative lack of attention to historical linguistic diversity. Combined with a strong focus on English, on the North American and European experience, and on linguistic diversity as a problem, this results in significant gaps in our knowledge. Indeed, these biases potentially result in a distorted vision of the intersection between language and mobility.

One way to remedy such distortions, and an urgent research task in my view, is to focus on ‘real utopias’ where societal multilingualism actually works to the social, economic and cultural benefit of a community. We’ve previously showcased such examples here on Language on the Move in posts about multiculturalism in the central library of Vienna or about a French-German bilingual school operating in Berlin since the 17^th century. Another intriguing case is constituted by 17^th century Isfahan.

In 1598, Shah Abbas I, also known as Shah Abbas the Great, a king of the Safavid dynasty, moved the Persian capital to Isfahan and within less than a generation the city became a splendid cosmopolitan economic and political center; so impressive that it earned itself the nickname “half the world.” The German scholar Adam Olearius, who visited Isfahan in 1637, described it as follows:

There is not any nation in all Asia, not indeed almost of Europe, who sends not its merchants to Isfahan […]. There are ordinarily about twelve thousand Indians in the city […]. Besides these Indians, there is at Isfahan a great number of Tartars from the provinces of Khurasan, Chattai, and Bukhar; Turks, Jews, Armenians, Georgians, English, Dutch, French, Italians and Spaniards. […] The Armenian merchants, who are Christians, are the richest of any, by reason of the pains they take in making voyages themselves which is more than the other Persians do; though both have an absolute freedom to traffic where they please themselves, as foreigners have the liberty to come into Persia and put off their commodities there, paying custom; […]. (Travels of Olearius in seventeenth-century Persia)

Of all of Isfahan’s multilingual and multicultural inhabitants, it was the Armenians who stand out as having played a special role in Isfahan’s success during its golden age. And their contribution was carefully orchestrated by Shah Abbas himself.

In 1603-04 Shah Abbas transferred all the Armenian inhabitants of the city of Jolfa, located in what is today Iran’s far north-west, to Isfahan. They were re-settled in a new part of the city called New Jolfa and the original Jolfa was razed.

This may not sound like a particularly auspicious beginning to a multicultural golden age. However, one has to bear in mind the historical context: throughout the 16^th century the Ottoman and Safavid empires had been waging war against each other and the battleground was usually their borderlands, i.e. territory that today comprises Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, north-western Iran, northern Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and eastern Turkey. In these borderlands, both empires repeatedly pursued a scorched earth policy, including mass killings and massive displacement of local populations into the heartlands of both empires.

Re-settling the inhabitants of Jolfa was thus scorched-earth policy with a twist: Shah Abbas pursued a long-term objective in addition to the short-term objective of military advantage. The long-term objective was to gain human capital.

He succeeded on both counts. As for the short-term military objective, Ottoman troops had to withdraw from the devastated lands for the winter giving the Safavid troops time to recuperate and the following year they won a decisive victory.

The long-term objective to gain human capital succeeded, too. What exactly was it that made the Armenians attractive to Shah Abbas? Well, Armenians brought a wealth of transnational connections: as Christians, they brought valuable connections to Europe and their trading networks extended to the far east of Asia.

[T]heir acquaintance with cultures of the region and their familiarity with the languages and traditions of the people of the East and West placed them in a position to perform well as the entrepreneurs of the Safavid dynasty and Shiite Persia. (Gregorian 1974, p. 662)

Gregorian (1974) provides a long list of the transnational connections of Armenians which ranged from serving as interpreters at the Moghul courts in India to being established traders in Poland, where a whole range of foreign goods came to be known as “Armenian goods.”

In short, Shah Abbas wished to secure the national loyalty of a transnational group. The success of his plan benefitted both Armenians and the wider society, with Isfahan turning into a flourishing trade hub.

The implementation of the Shah’s plan involved far-reaching concessions to the Armenians of New Jolfa in a concerted effort to gain their loyalty and even affection: religious freedom, full citizenship rights and their own jurisdiction. One of the more intriguing rights they enjoyed was the right to curse and cuss during bazaar disputes in the same manner as Muslims.

Shah Abbas would often visit New Jolfa, even attend Christmas and Easter Mass, and take a deep interest in the new citizens’ welfare. When challenged that he seemed to favour his new subjects, non-Muslims to boot, over the majority population, he would respond that the Armenians had given up their homeland to live in Isfahan and so should be treated as valued guests. Furthermore, he went on to say, their relocation had cost him 1,000 tomans per head, an investment he had made not for the Armenians but for Iran.

As a result of the Shah’s practical and liberal approach both the minority and the wider society of which they were a part flourished.

In the 1630s, Armenians established their own bilingual university focusing on the liberal arts and metaphysics. This institute of higher learning produced many notable graduates including Hovhannes Vardapet, who later went to study printing in Italy and consequently introduced the printing press to Persia. The first book ever printed in Iran was an Armenian translation of the Book of Psalms in 1638.

Even today, more than four centuries on, Iranian Armenians maintain their own schools and churches and the levels of language maintenance of Armenians are very high. A recent study of Armenians in Tehran found that 100% of respondents claimed to know and use Armenian, i.e. the minority language, regularly and to value their bilingualism (Nercissians 2001).

For the study of language and mobility, it is not only instructive to study the golden age of cosmopolitan, multilingual and multicultural Isfahan, but also its decline. Not all rulers were as enlightened as Shah Abbas the Great. Some of his successors mostly saw the wealth of New Jolfa as a cash-cow from where they could extract taxes. However, even if no regime ever again went to such lengths to secure the loyalty of Armenians as Shah Abbas had done, their religious freedom and their full citizenship rights have been continuously upheld over more than four centuries.

The alliance between state and transnational minority for the benefit of both has thus never ceased. However, it ceased to be effective in the face of a new set of global forces that came from outside: with the expansion of the British Empire, the Iranian state was forced into a set of humiliating and debilitating capitulation treaties and Armenians lost much of their economic base in the overland trade between Asia and Europe as Britain opened up and controlled the sea route.

Gregorian, V. (1974). “Minorities of Isfahan: The Armenian Community of Isfahan 1587-1722.” Iranian Studies 7 (3/4): 652-680.

Nercissians, E. (2001). Bilingualism and diglossia: patterns of language use by ethnic minorities in Tehran International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2001 (148) DOI: 10.1515/ijsl.2001.014

Constructing language learning as global choice on melale.ir

Persian version of Vahid Parvaresh, “Supermarket Language Learning”; translated by Behnam Keimasi (بهنام کیماسی)

در ایران، همانند بسیار دیگری از کشورها، دولت به صورت مرسوم نقش پررنگی در عرصه یادگیری زبان دوم ایفا نموده است و امتیاز انحصاری سیاست گذاری های رسمی را در دست دارد. در این زمینه، یک سیاست رسمی کلی که وزارت آموزش و پرورش آن را تدوین و تنظیم نموده است، معرفی زبان انگلیسی (و عربی) به دانش آموزان پس از رسیدن به سن 11 سالگی می باشد. هر چند این سیاست، آن گونه که از این مصاحبه کوتاه اما آشکار کننده با معاون وزیر آموزش و پرورش بر می آید، هم اکنون در حال بازنگری می باشد. طبق گفته های معاون وزیر، سیاست جدید به مدارس دولتی اجازه می دهد تا زبان های خارجی (نه تنها انگلیسی و عربی، بلکه فرانسوی و آلمانی) را در قالب “بسته های سوپرمارکتی” گوناگون به دانش آموزان پیشنهاد دهند تا آنها بتوانند هر زبانی را که بیشتر دوست دارند انتخاب نمایند. علاوه بر این، سیاست جدید به دانش آموزان این اجازه را می دهد تا بسیار زودتر از 11 یا 12 سالگی به “انتخاب زبانی که دوست دارند” بپردازند. این حقیقت که وزارت آموزش و پرورش ایران تصمیم گرفته است تا از سیاست زبان خارجی سفت وسخت خود در راستای اجرای یک سیاست انعطاف پذیر تر دست بکشد، قابل توجه است.

اما چه چیزی می تواند موجب این تغییر باشد؟ یا به عبارتی دیگر، چه اتفاقی افتاده است که وزارت آموزش و پرورش را بر آن داشته است تا سیاستِ زبانِ خارجی خود که همواره تنها شامل زبان های انگلیسی و عربی بوده است را بازنگری کند؟ مصاحبه پاسخی قطعی ارائه نمی کند اما نگاهی موشکافانه تر به سیاست های اجرا شده در مدارس غیر دولتی در فهم موضوع به ما کمک می کند.

در ایران نابردباریِ مرسوم در خصوص تنوع زبانی – همین حقیقت که آموزش زبان های خارجی محدود به زبان های انگلیسی و عربی شده است – با سیاست های زبانی که بخش خصوصی اعمال می کند، همخوانی ندارد. مدارسی که به بخش خصوصی تعلق دارند، خیلی وقت است که به آموزش زبان های فرانسوی، آلمانی و انگلیسی به کودکان، اغلب از سن 5 سالگی، پرداخته اند. نتیجه این آموزش، بازاری رقابتی نه تنها برای زبان انگلیسی که برای زبان های فرانسوی و آلمانی بوده که با نابردباریِ مرتبط با تنوع زبانی در تضاد است. بدین گونه بخش آموزش خصوصی شکل های جدیدی از کالای زبانی را پدید می آورد؛ حقیقتی که مسائل پیچیده ای را در رابطه با تغییر تعادلِ میانِ سیاست های زبانی دولتی و خصوصی به وجود می آورد.

علاوه بر این، اینترنت فضای بزرگ و تقریبا غیرقابل کنترلی را برای مدارس خصوصی جهت استفاده از بسته های آموزشی زبان فراهم می آورد.  ملل یکی از چنین وب سایت هایی است که متعلق به یک مدرسه خصوصی با نام ملل می باشد. هدف ادعایی مدرسه تشویق دوزبانگی از طریق روش موضوع محور می باشد. مجموعه آموزشی ملل آموزش زبان های انگلیسی و فرانسوی را فراهم آورده است. در این محیط، شکل های کاملا انعطاف پذیرِ آموزش زبان ارائه می شود تا پاسخگوی نیازهای گوناگون مشتریان باشد. به عنوان مثال، در این مجموعه یادگیری زبان فرانسوی (در ایران!) طبق سیاست های وضع شده توسط اتحادیه اروپا ممکن است. بنابراین بسته های آموزشی زبان در شکل ها و اندازه های گوناگون ارائه می شوند آن چنان که گویی وارد یک سوپرمارکت بسیار بزرگ زبانی شده اید.

به طور کلی، این که دولت تصمیم گرفته تا سیاست های مرتبط با زبان خارجی سابق خود را اصلاح کند به نظر پاسخی به تغییرات ایجاد شده در روش هایی است که از طریق آن هم دانش آموزان و هم والدین در جریانِ گفتمانِ آموزشِ زبانِ بخشِ خصوصی قرار گرفته اند؛ جایی که آنها به مصرف کننده تبدیل شده اند. بسته های سوپرمارکتی نه تنها در بخش خصوصی که هم اکنون در بخش آموزش عمومی نیز به این مصرف کنندگان پیشنهاد می شود. در این روند، سیاست گذاری مربوط به زبان های خارجیِ مرسوم و ریشه دار نیز همسویِ “انتظاراتِ جهانی” می شود.

برچسب ها: زبان عربی، مصرف، زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان جهانی، زبان فرانسوی، جهانی شدن، ایران، آموزش زبان، سیاست زبانی.

Constructing language learning as global choice on melale.ir

In Iran, as in many other countries, the state has traditionally been a very powerful actor in the field of second language learning and has the monopoly of formal policy making. In this context, a general official policy formulated by the Ministry of Education has been to introduce English (and Arabic) to students no sooner than when they are 11 years old. However, this policy is currently under review as revealed in this short but illuminating interview with Iran’s Vice Minister for Education. According to the vice minister, the new policy allows state-run schools to offer foreign languages (not only English and Arabic but also French and German) in various “supermarket packages” so that students can “choose” whatever language they like more. Further to this, the new policy allows students to “choose the language they like” much earlier than when they are 11 or 12 years old. The fact that the Iranian Ministry of Education has finally decided to abandon its sacrosanct foreign language policy in favour of a more flexible policy is significant.

What could be the cause of this radical shift? Or to put it differently, what has happened that has finally convinced the Ministry of Education to modify its foreign language policies which had always been aimed at English and Arabic only? The interview does not reveal a definitive answer but a close look at language policies implemented by private, non-state-run schools provides a clue.

In Iran the traditional intolerance of the state of linguistic variation – the very fact that the teaching of foreign languages is geared toward English and Arabic – is not matched by the politics of language that operate in the globalized, private sector. Schools that belong to the private sector have long taught French, German and English as foreign languages, often aimed at children as young as 5. The outcome of this has been a competitive market not just of English but also of French and German which defies the state’s traditional intolerance of linguistic diversity. The private education sector thus creates new forms of linguistic commodification; a fact that raises quite complex issues related to the shifting balance between state and private language policies.

What is more, the Internet provides these private schools with a wide and virtually uncontrolled space for language learning packages. Melale.ir is one such website that belongs to a private school named melal (“nations”). The purported aim of the school is to encourage bilingualism through content learning and the target audiences are elementary and secondary students. Melal provides instruction in English and French, among others.

In this environment, highly flexible forms of language learning are offered to cater to diverse customer needs. For example, it is possible to learn French (in Iran!) according to the policies set by the European Union. Language learning packages thus come in all shapes and sizes as if you have entered a giant linguistic supermarket.

Overall, that the state has decided to modify its former foreign language policies seems to be a response to the changes in the ways that both students and parents are positioned in private sector discourses of language learning. There, they have been turned into language-learners-as-consumers. These consumers are offered supermarket packages of foreign languages, now not only in the private sector but also in public education. In the process, a traditional, deep-rooted foreign language policy becomes transformed in line with “globalized expectations.”

Saeed Rezaei at Macquarie University’s idyllic North Ryde campus

Saeed Rezaei is currently a visiting scholar in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University. He will deliver a seminar about the sociolinguistics of identity in Iran next week and so Language on the Move caught up with him to learn more about the person behind the research.

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

Born in the southern city of Bushehr in Iran, I received my early education in my hometown and my higher education in Isfahan and Tehran. I studied for a B.A. in English Literature at Isfahan University and then for an M.A. in Applied Linguistics at Allameh Tabataba’i University (ATU) in Tehran. I am now a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics at ATU and also a lecturer at the Languages and Linguistics Center at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.

I was recently awarded a scholarship from the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology to further my research in Australia and specifically to work at Macquarie University with Professor Ingrid Piller.

In addition to my linguistics research, I also have literary interests and have contributed an encyclopedic entry to The Encyclopædia Iranica at Columbia University. My contribution (in press) is about Manouchehr Atashi, the modern Persian Poet who initiated a new movement in Persian Poetry, jaryan-e sher-e nab (‘pure poetry movement’).

Can you tell us a bit more about your PhD research?

My research is about language, culture and identity in the Iranian EFL context and how modernity and globalization through English language education have shaped Iranian language learners’ linguistic and cultural identity. My approach is mixed-methods and I investigate Iranian English language learners’ linguistic and cultural identities through both a validated questionnaire and post-survey interviewing. The main objective is to research how factors such as L1 background, age, ethnicity, or language proficiency influence perceptions and performances of their linguistic and cultural identities.

What was the inspiration for your PhD research?

I am interested in the social aspects of language and this interest stems from my readings in the sociology of language but also Persian and world literature and cinema. A fascination with linguistics was bestowed upon me through literature. Additionally, I should acknowledge my mentors and inspiring teachers such as Dr. Mohammad Khatib, Dr. Fahimeh Marefat and Dr. Sasan Baleghizadeh.

How and why did you choose to come to Macquarie University?

My first inspiration came from Professor Ingrid Piller’s lecture tour in the Middle East, especially her talks on the social dimensions of language learning and intercultural communication. Since then, I’ve discovered the immense breadth and diversity of Linguistics at Macquarie University, which is ranked in the top 50 linguistics programs globally.

You also teach at Sharif University of Technology. Can you tell us a bit more about your program and your students?

I joined Sharif University of Technology in 2009 and since then I have enjoyed teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Sharif University of Technology is undeniably the best university in Iran and highly regarded internationally. I am truly honored to be academically based there. Our newly established Languages and Linguistics Center commenced two graduate divisions of TEFL and Computational Linguistics in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Since then, we have had several graduates who are either teaching English in Iran or are studying for a PhD elsewhere.

Can you tell us a bit more about Applied Linguistics in Iran?

Applied Linguistics, and particularly TEFL, in Iran has experienced a drastic change in the past 10 years with a wave of early career researchers joining universities across the country. There are many national and international conferences in the field held in Iran every year. However, there are also many problems with existing language education programs at both school and university levels.

What are your post-PhD plans?

Research is my passion and so my dream is to continue doing research as a post-doctoral fellow on an interdisciplinary project that allows me to make use of my expertise in sociolinguistics, cultural studies, and Iranian studies.

Languages of the Middle East (Source: The Gulf/2000 Project)

The next seminar of the 2012 series of Applied Linguistics seminars at Macquarie University will be held on Tuesday, September 04:

The Sociolinguistics of Identity in Iran

When: Tue 04/09, 1:00-2:00pm; Where: W5C 221

Presenter: Saeed Rezaie, Sharif University of Technology

Abstract: This presentation provides an introduction to the diverse languages, dialects, ethnicities, and cultures of Iran and discusses their place in Iranian language education programs. Then, different definitions of identity are outlined in order to explicate how identity research gradually found its way into applied linguistics research. Afterwards an ethnographic case study in Tehran on an Iranian learning English is reported to observe how his identity was influenced by the Anglo-American language and culture. Finally, a nation-wide in-progress sociolinguistic study is reported to show how Iranian English language learners’ demographic information is related to their linguistic and cultural identity (re)construction. Using Structural Equation Modeling, a model of linguistic-cultural identity in Iran is presented and its components are elaborated. Theoretical and practical significance and implications of the research are put forth and subsequently some under-researched topics are suggested for further research.

WSB TV report: Apple discriminates against Persian-speaking customers

I’ve just found an e-mail from Apple in my spam folder with a ‘personal’ invitation to attend one of their new store openings in Sydney. I’m not going for two reasons: first, Apple has not yet done anything to improve working conditions in their Chinese supplier factories. I keep checking up on Apple’s progress towards improving working conditions at ethicaliphone.org and might consider their invitation once I see some progress there. The second reason I’m not going is that one of my family languages is Persian and I have no desire of entering potentially discriminatory situations if I can avoid it.

I’m referring to the case of Sahar Sabet, a bilingual (English-Persian) US-American woman who was recently refused the purchase of an ipad in an Apple store in Atlanta, Georgia. According to media reports (e.g., BBC, International Business Times, MSBC), Sahar, a 2^nd-generation American with an Iranian background, was shopping in an Apple store together with an uncle visiting from Iran. She had an extensive service interaction about two different versions of ipad with a salesperson there in English, finally made up her mind and was just about to make her purchase, when her uncle asked her in Persian about the price of another product he was looking at. She responded in Persian and, at the sound of another language, the salesperson immediately asked what language they were speaking.

Sahar told him and added helpfully that Persian was a language spoken in Iran. At that the salesperson declared that she could not purchase her ipad “because Iran and the US don’t have good relations with each other.” The store manager backed the salesperson’s decision – made on no other grounds than speaking Persian to another potential customer – and Sahar left the store without her ipad and in tears.

However, she did not just leave it at that but called up Apple’s customer relations office, who apologized and recommended ordering an ipad over the internet (if you are not an embodied customer, you can’t be discriminated against …). Sahar also called Atlanta’s TV news station WSB-TV, who picked up the story and brought it to international attention (in addition to English-language media, I’ve also seen the story in the German (e.g., Spiegel) and Persian (e.g., BBC Farsi) language media). The statement Sahar made about the incident through her attorney can be found here.

While Sahar chose to speak out about the discrimination she experienced, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) says that her experience is not unusual. It is not unusual because companies are walking a fine line between either falling foul of civil liberty legislation (discrimination is illegal) or falling foul of strict US export regulations relative to countries subject to broad economic sanctions, such as Iran. So, while it’s of course perfectly legal for Apple to sell their products to anyone in the USA (as the State Department was quick to point out after the incident hit the headlines), they are required not to if they have grounds to suspect that the customer might intend to import the product to Iran – an offence carrying heavy penalties, as in this recent case. Given such drastic penalties, it seems that some companies or individual employees reckon that breeching civil liberties legislation is not as bad as breeching export restriction legislation.

Persian-speakers are not the only ones in the USA to experience discrimination in service encounters on the basis of language, as is well documented – the 2^nd edition of Rosina Lippi-Green’s English with an accent has just come out for anyone who needs a refresher. A recent study (Yoo et al. 2008) reports that 12% of the Asian-Americans they surveyed reported having experienced discrimination on the basis of language in a service encounter (in a health care context) in the past two years. This was more than those who reported that they had experienced discrimination on the basis of race. Even more intriguingly, the researchers found that there was a statistically significant correlation between having experienced language discrimination (above and beyond the effects resulting from having experienced racial discrimination) and health: those who reported having experienced language discrimination in service encounters in the past two years were more likely to suffer from chronic conditions, and this effect increased the longer they had been in the country.

Good on Sahar for kicking up a fuss! Hopefully, her attitude will keep her from getting sick from shopping!

Hyung Chol Yoo, Gilbert C. Gee, & David Takeuchi (2008). Discrimination and health among Asian American immigrants: Disentangling racial from language discrimination Social Science & Medicine, 68 (4), 726-732 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.11.013

This was a conversation I had in the reception area of a storage company on one of my first days in Australia back in 2008. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary ‘cap’ can refer to (a) ‘a head covering,’ (b) ‘a natural cover or top,’ (c) ‘something that serves as a cover or protection,’ (d) ‘an overlaying or covering structure,’ (e) ‘a paper or metal container holding an explosive charge,’ (f) ‘an upper limit,’ (g) ‘the symbol ∩ indicating the intersection of two sets’ or (h) ‘a cluster of molecules or chemical groups bound to one end or a region of a cell, virus, or molecule.’ While I may not have had all these definitions at the top of my head, as someone who had studied English as a foreign language in Iran for many years, the general thrust of all these meanings of ‘cap’ was clear to me. The problem was that none of these meanings of ‘cap’ seemed to make sense in the context in which I found myself.

While I was frantically trying to figure out in my mind what I was supposed to help myself to, the receptionist noticed my incomprehension and beckoned me to follow him into a corner where there was a coffee machine. He pointed at the coffee machine and slowly started to explain that this was a coffee machine, that coffee was a beverage, that it was nice, and that Australians liked to drink coffee, and that there were different types, and that a cappuccino was particularly nice because it had a frothy top.

As it dawned on me that in the receptionist’s variety of English ‘cap’ had nothing to do with ‘coverings’ of any kind but was short for ‘cappuccino,’ I was mortified. The receptionist had thought my lack of comprehension was a sign not of a linguistic problem but of my ignorance and backwardness. I was so offended that anyone would think a sophisticated Tehrani like myself didn’t know about coffee! How dare he be so ignorant, insular and condescending?! Even so, I could not confront him. Fuming inside, I meekly accepted my bitterest-ever cappuccino. I took all the blame to myself for not having adequate English to have a smooth communication with ‘a native speaker’.

Intercultural communication over coffee (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

 
This humiliating encounter made me question the many years of English language learning I had been engaged in since my early childhood. Despite all my best efforts of many years and the investment of my parents, here I was in Australia incapable of effortlessly and gracefully accepting a cup of coffee without being taken for a barbarian. It all seemed extremely unfair and in the past four years I’ve often experienced a nagging feeling of jealousy that my English was still deficient despite all my striving while ‘native speakers’ could have it all – and without the least bit of effort!

I have also come to realise that ‘English,’ like all languages, is dynamic and subject to change and that even ‘native English speakers’ encounter new words every now and then and miscommunicate in unfamiliar contexts. This realisation has been one step towards healing my tarnished linguistic confidence.

Trying to extend myself and to understand my in-between position better, I undertook a postgraduate course in Cross-Cultural Communication, where most of the teaching and reading I was exposed to stressed cultural differences as the source of miscommunication in intercultural communication. This has been an ongoing source of puzzlement for me: in theory, it made perfect sense that Australian and Persians, for instance, had different cultural values and orientations and so, of course, there would be problems when they meet. In practice, however, none of the miscommunication I have experienced in Australia seems to have anything to do with culture. My humiliation at the hands of the receptionist had nothing to do with the fact that Persians prefer indirectness and elaborate politeness routines where Australians are direct and to the point. On the contrary, as far as culture was concerned, this was a misunderstanding between two coffee lovers, i.e. culturally similar people.

Despite the fact that I now hold an MA in Cross-Cultural Communication, my feelings of English deficiency together with a lack of real cultural differences has remained a brainteaser until a short while ago when I read Ingrid Piller’s new book Intercultural Communication and there the explanation leapt out at me from Chapter 10: when misunderstandings in intercultural communication are derived from linguistic problems, they are often unfairly attributed to cultural issues as soon as it comes to “English-language learners, particularly if their proficiency is more than just basic” (Piller, 2011, p. 147).

So, my English is the proud result of my efforts, and Australians and Persians are pretty similar. It’s just that newcomers and old-timers in this country find themselves in positions of unequal power (or legitimacy) which they like to dress up as cultural differences.

Iranian coffee culture, by the way, dates back to the 9^th century!