The name Iran in the Persian language means the Land of the Aryans and it is not a big surprise when we find common Hindi words in Farsi (or rather common Farsi words in Hindi).
There are a couple of Hindi words that we use here quite often – dosth (friend), yek (one), panj (five) and chai (tea). So whoever can speak Urdu or Hindi, can learn Farsi quite fast. We, the non-speaking Hindi / Urdu Malaysians, on the other hand, are learning Farsi on rather slower pace – probably one word one day. Words like:-
Boro boro – go go (used by cab driver when wanted the car in front to speed up before the light turns red)
Tatil – holiday (our favourite word on Wednesdays – Thursdays and Fridays are off days here in Tehran)
Chetori – how are you? (for which the answer to this would be khubam or good even though one is not feeling well)
And of the favourite of my colleague here – dus say ta ram (I love you) and he is learning new ones too – panjshambe berim cinema (on Thursday, let’s go for cinema).
Photos – Iranian currency of rial
(To be continued)
If Alexender The Great knew then, what we know now about Iran and it’s oil, he wouldn’t have risked going to Asia.
That would have been very interesting!