Being Persian: The Farce of Farsi

By Tabby Refael

For the last time, we're using “Farsi” wrong when we use it to refer to the language while speaking English. As author Firoozeh Dumas rightly explains at the beginning of her delightful childhood memoir, Funny in Farsi, when one says, “I speak Farsi,” it's akin to declaring, “I speak español.” You speak “Spanish” when you are referring to the language using English. Persians refer to the language they speak as “Farsi” when they are actually speaking it, i.e. "Man beh Farsi sohbat meekonam." Otherwise, if you're speaking in English, it’s simply called “Persian.”

There. Feel indifferently confused?

I'll be tarred and feathered by many, many Iranians in Los Angeles for this clarification, but I don't mind. Perhaps the feathers can cover up some of the bald patches I've acquired on my head from years of having tried to make this distinction to my own skeptical community.