Persian language in Japan

Translations of Persian works and current state of Persian language education

Abstract

Persian is one of the Indo-Iranian languages of the Indo-European language family and is spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and some other surrounding countries. Termed as 'French in the Middle East' in European countries, it had traditionally been the lingua franca or the literary language in the so-called 'Greater Persia' or 'Persianate World' containing West and Central Asian lands, and it has been renowned for its long history of literature during the Turko-Mongolian dynasties. The purpose of this paper is 1) to provide the overview of the tradition of Persian literature by introducing major translation works into Japanese, and 2) to show the current state of the Persian studies and Persian language education in Japan.