Persian vs Farsi (half-OT) (was RFC 4645bis: making 'pes' and 'prs' extlangs)

[CE Whitehead]

Hi, I did finally check out a few more links:
 
http://thewldc.blogspot.com/2008/08/farsi-is-it-macro-language_13.html(it seems from the above that most of the difference between the Eastern and Western varieties is in the spoken and not the written versions--almost something like Romanian and Moldavian, but I'd hesitate to make an exact comparison here at this point)
 
http://www.learn-persian.com/english/Persian_language.php
 
(this second site confirms my own views of the history of the use of Farsi:
 
"Persian, the more widely used name of the language in English, is an Anglicized form derived from Latin *Persianus < Latin Persia < Greek Persis, a Hellenized form of Old Persian Parsa. Farsi is the Arabicized form of Parsi, due to a lack of the /p/ phoneme in Standard Arabic. Native Persian speakers typically call it "Fārsi" in modern usage. In English, however, the language has historically been known as "Persian". After the 1979 Iranian Revolution many Iranians migrating to the West continued to use 'Farsi' to identify their language in English and the word became commonplace in English-speaking countries.")
 
If the two languages are not merely dialects then I suggest Farsi might be an alternative name for Western Persian--since it is mainly the Iranians who used this term??
 
(I think it used to also be [& may sometimes still be ??] called "Parsi" as one of its native names-- but has never been called this in English).
 
But I do not think it's necessary to use the name Farsi for both varieties maybe?  (though it does help appease all sides)
I've decided to rescind a bit my earlier vote to call these Western Persian/Western Farsi and Eastern Persian/Eastern Farsi (although that is an alternative since I'm unsure).   If these two languages (Eastern --- and Western --- ) are going to need distinct names and it seems that they do, they might have all of the following:
 
1  pes  
Farsi
Western Persian (or Western Farsi)
 
2.  prs
Dari
Eastern Persian (or Western Farsi)
 
Does this seem to be an o.k. solution?
 
Best,
 
C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar at hotmail.com
 
 
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