TEHRAN -- At the heart of Iran’s vast cultural mosaic lies a linguistic reality both complex and deeply unifying. This truth was at the forefront of the seventh national conference on “Languages and Dialects of Iran,” held Wednesday at the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia in Tehran. 
There, Seyyed Muhammad Kazem Mousavi Bojnourdi, the center’s president, articulated a vision that is as much about identity as it is about language: Persian, alongside myriad Iranian languages and dialects, serves as a vital thread weaving together the diverse peoples of the region.
Mousavi Bojnourdi’s remarks resonate far beyond academic circles. He emphasized that Iranian languages—Kurdish, Balochi, Luri, and others—are not merely modes of communication but are profound “documents of national, religious, and cultural identity.” 
Importantly, he included the Turkic and Arabic languages spoken by many Iranians as contributors to this rich linguistic ecosystem, underlining how these languages have enriched the cultural and scientific heritage of the Iranian linguistic sphere.
The Persian language itself stands out, as Mousavi Bojnourdi noted, not only as Iran’s official tongue but as a historic “element of unity.” Its vast literary and scholarly treasury, spanning centuries, has bound Iranians together through shared stories, poetry, and cultural memory. It is a language that transcends provincial and ethnic divides, one that no force has managed to sunder.
The conference also welcomed insights from scholars such as Jalaleh Amouzegar, who compared discovering dialects to unearthing archaeological sites—precious relics at risk of being lost. 
She underscored the necessity of respecting and preserving these dialects as living parts of Iran’s heritage. 
Likewise, linguist Ali-Ashraf Sadeghi reminded attendees that languages inevitably borrow and evolve. Arabic loanwords in Persian, he argued, are not a burden but a testament to centuries of cultural symbiosis. Indeed, the intellectual vigor of Persian owes much to such exchanges.
The discussions traced Iranian languages back millennia, touching on the roots of Old Persian, Median, and Parthian, and their spread through the great empires of the Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sasanians. 
Mahmoud Jafari Dehaqi, the scientific secretary of the conference, highlighted that many Iranian languages and dialects thrive beyond Iran’s modern borders—in places ranging from the Caucasus to Central and South Asia. These tongues carry Iranian culture and worldview far beyond Tehran’s political map, cementing a shared cultural heritage across nations.
The conference’s scholarly presentations further illustrated the richness and diversity of Iran’s linguistic landscape, covering topics from dialectology to etymology, and from sociolinguistics to historical linguistics. It was a vivid reminder that Iran’s languages and dialects, rather than dividing, serve as living bridges—connecting peoples, histories, and cultures within Iran and across the wider Persianate world.