ADVERTISEMENT.

THE greatest part of the following Piece was defigned to be added to a Grammar of the Perfian language, which was printed in 1771. It might easily have been fwelled into a larger treatise, by adding more copious extracts from the Perfian writers, both in profe and verse; but, as the change of ftyle may be feen as well in ten lines as in a thousand, it feemed equally useful and less oftentatious, to exhibit only a few chofen Specimens from the best authors, and chiefly from the Poets, who, in all nations, have taken the greatest pains to harmonize and improve their language.

THE

HISTORY

OF

THE PERSIAN LANGUAGE.

303

MOST of my readers will apprehend, that, in attempting to trace the progrefs of the Perfian language, through a period of two thousand years, I am entering into a fubject, which will afford them neither amusement nor instruction, and can be agreeable only to those few men, who apply themselves to the obscurer branches of literature, and have very little intercourse with the rest of mankind. The title of my piece feems, indeed, to give a reasonable ground for their apprehensions; and the tranfition appears rather abrupt, from the history of Monarchs to the history of mere words, and from the revolutions of the Perfian Empire to the variations of the Perfian idiom: but it fhall be my endeavour to remove, as far as poffible, the dryness of the subject, by interspersing the narrative with a variety of Eastern anecdotes; and, as to the second objection, it may be alledged, that a confiderable change in the language of any nation is usually effected by a change in the government; fo that literary and civil bistory arc very nearly allied, and may often be used with advantage to prove and illuftrate one another.

The History of the Perfian tongue may be divided into four periods, like that of the Empire; not that the language was immediately altered

upon

upon every revolution of the ftate, but it is obfervable, that, under each Dynasty of which we have any monuments remaining, there was an apparent change in the dialect of the kingdom, especially under the two last, namely, the Sassanian and Mohammedan dynasties: and these, indeed, are the only periods, of which we can speak with any degree of certainty.

It is natural to suppose, that, in the infancy of the Persian Empire, under Caiûmaras and his defcendants, no great pains were taken to cultivate and polish the language, which in that rude age must needs be thought fufficiently elegant, if it were fufficiently clear and intelligible; and we are affured by Herodotus, that, even after the reign of CYRUS, the whole education of the Perfian youth, from the age of five years to twenty, confifted in three points only, riding, throwing the javelin, and the practice of moral virtue; which account is also confirmed by Xenophon. The story mentioned by Diodorus of the old volumes of parchment, on which the Perfians were obliged by a certain law to write the annals of their country, was probably invented by Ctefias, that he might give an air of authenticity to his impertinent fables; for fuch literary impoftures were as frequent among the Greeks, as among us, who imitate the Ancients in nothing but their failings. We are far from contending, however, that the ancient Persians, especially thofe of the second period, were entire ftrangers to the art of compofition either in verse or profe; for there never was a nation fo rude and unpolished, who had not a custom of celebrating the noble acts of their ancestors, and inciting one another by fongs and panegyricks to an imitation of their virtue; and Strabo, a very different author from Diodorus, afferts, that the Persians used frequently to fing the praises of their ancient Heroes and Demigods, fometimes with a mufical inftrument, and fometimes with the voice alone: but what their language really was, what were their rules of verfification, or what was the course of their studies, no mortal can pretend to know with any shadow of exactness.

The

The Greek Hiftorians can give us no light on this fubject; for neither Themistocles, who spoke the dialect of Perfia like a native, though he had fpent only one year in learning it*, nor even Xenophon, whose intimacy with the younger Cyrus could not have been contracted without a knowledge of his language, feem to have read the works of the Perfians, or even to have known their characters; but were perhaps contented to express their sentiments in Perfian with ease and fluency. Nor are we much enlightened by the writers after Alexander; not even by thofe, who have described the life of that Hero: for Curtius, who compiled his rhetorical History from the Greek authors, seems to have known as little of Perfian as of Scythian, though he dresses up a number of speeches for the chiefs of those nations, which certainly were never spoken by them. A few words, indeed, are here and there interspersed in these histories, which are still used in the modern idiom of Perfiat; but we can no more form an idea of a whole language from a list of broken phrases or detached epithets, than we can judge of a poem or piece of oratory, from an unconnected line or a fingle member of a period.

Since the Greeks afford us so little information, nothing remains but to confult the Perfians themselves; and the great Traveller Chardin, whom

* Themistocles omne illud-tempus (anni unius spatium) literis fermonique Perfarum dedit, quibus adeò eruditus eft, ut multò commodiùs dicatur apud Regem verba feciffe, quàm hi poterant, qui in Perfide erant nati. Corn. Nep. in Themift.

Sitára Oliw

+ Thus Roxana, Statira, Parifatis, feem to be corrupted from Rohan Parizada o which fignify, Splendid, a Star, Angel-born. Pafargades, or, a Prince of the Blood, appears to be compounded of Pefer a Child, and o Gada, a Houfe: i. c. a child of the Royal Family. To this we may add, 1. that Art or Ard which begins many Perfian names, fignifies Strong; as Ardesbir, Artaxerxes, or, The ftrong Lion, Arde-ván or Ardebandy! The Strong Guard, &c. 2. that the termination dates, as Mithridates, &c. is the Perfian dad SlS and anfwers to the dwg of the Greeks, as "Equódwg, and the like. If it were poffible to recover a whole Catalogue of these old Perfian names, fuch an enquiry would be little more than learned trifling; for to collect a number of folitary words, without any books which they might enable us to read, would be like procuring at random a multitude of keys, without any casket which they might help us to unlock.

VOL. II.

R R

every