TEHRAN (IBNA) --
Attending the 17th Fajr International Poetry Festival, Tajik poet Asgar Hakimov ‎said that despite the colonization of the former Soviet Union, Persian language has ‎maintained its originality in Tajikistan
Speaking to IBNA, Hakimov, the former head of Tajikistan’s Institute of Authors, a lawmaker and the first deputy of Tajikistan’s Supreme Parliament said that currently the Persian language is becoming much richer compared to the 20th century. Unfortunately at the end of the 20th century Persian language was just used between member of the Tajik families.
“Although the language of law was Persian, the language of science was Russian as was being used by Tajik physicists, chemists and politicians. They were studying in Russian and were using this language. However, later a Persian language center was established in our country to encourage people to speak Persian. This way, the Persian language was being used in various aspects of Tajik people’s lives,” he said.
Hakimov added that despite the colonization practiced in the Soviet Union era, the Persian language has maintained its originality in Tajikistan and for example, many people still understand the words used in the ‘Shahnameh’ (the Persian Book of Kings), the epical masterpiece of Ferdowsi and even utilized them.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Persian language poet said: “At the moment, due to the activities of various newspapers and magazines as well as different TV and radio programs which are all produced in Persian, the situation of this language in Tajikistan has been improved dramatically.”
“The book of eminent Iranian authors and poets are currently published in Cyrillic script, among them are the works of Malek ol-Shoaray-e Bahar, Shahriar, Iraj Mirza, Nader Naderpour and Simon Behbahani. Moreover the state TV and radio programs broadcast Iranian poems and stories,” the first deputy of Tajikistan’s Supreme Parliament stated.