From: farhad@cwi.nl (Farhad Arbab)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
Subject: Re: Why Tashdid?
Date: 25 Jan 93 10:51:49 GMT
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam

In article <1993Jan23.065006.28441@netcom.com>, bavafa@netcom.com (Hooshyar Naraghi) writes:
|> In article <8705@charon.cwi.nl> farhad@cwi.nl (Farhad Arbab) writes:
|> >Hi folks,  I am back after five weeks of business and vacation.
|> 
|> Welcome back Farhad khAn and thanks for your fine points.  They just
|> prompted me to ask two questions from you, if I may.

But of course, my friend!

|> 
|> >The story of "yekom" is rather interesting.  It is in fact a
|> >recent invention that defies the semantics of Persian.  The
|> >credit or the blame for "yekom" goes to the modern military
|> >establishment of the Pahlavis.
|> 
|> Can you tell us more about 'yek' and its origin?  I mean if somebody or
|> an institution coined 'yekom,' where does 'yek' itself come from?

Well, there isn't really much I can say about "yek" -- you see,
it IS actually a Persian word and has been there since I don't
know when.  On the other hand, if you look in the classical
Persian literature you will see no trace of "yekom" and in fact,
this word is one of the inventions of the (in)famous
Farhangestan.

I definitely do not mean to imply that everything that
Farhangestan did, including all of its invented words, are
illegitimate and must be thrown out.  Nevertheless, due to (1)
mistakes in judgment and facts, (2) over-zealot attitudes, (3)
political pressures to produce "results", etc., linguists and
literate people object to some of the work of Farhangestan.
Besides, language belongs to people and is perhaps the last
suitable subject for reform by decree.

One of these controversial words invented by Farhangestan is this
"yekom".  As I mentioned in my previous post, it is considered natural
for the first ordinal number to be an exception to the rule that
produces the rest of ordinal numbers from cardinal numbers in a
language (i.e., adding the suffix "om" to cardinal numbers in
Persian).  I remember reading a more elaborate analysis and reasoning
for this, but I do not remember the details now.  I remember the late
Prof.  Hashtroodi's adamant opposition to this word "because it goes
against the semantics of the language", everytime the subject came up.

Interestingly, "yekom" never became very popular with people.  However,
like many other words, it was used by decree in the armed forces (and
the police) under the Shah.  The rest, continued to ignore "yekom" and
generally used the Arabic "avval" instead of the Persian "nokhost" in
its place.  For example, the Ministry of Education never tried to call
the first grade anything but "kelAs-e avval", etc.  Even in the
parlance of the military indoctrinated people, the use of "yekom"
was often limited to official military contexts.  To many old timers,
the mere mention of the word "yekom" brings the connotation of "military"
and "police" and the oppressive arm of the government.

As long as I am on the subject, allow me to also comment on a
part of a post by another SCIer whose contributions I enjoy a
lot:

In article <1993Jan22.111418.1597@fmg.bt.co.uk>, ghbr@fmg.bt.co.uk
(Hossein Bagherzadeh Rafsanjani) writes:

  |> If avval is used as the first number (followed by dovvom etc) then
  |> yekom is the answer.  Nakhost (or nokhost) is when avval is used in
  |> the sense of "prime" - the one before all.
  |> Like prime-minister = nakhost-vazir.
  |>
  |> -hossein

I'm afraid this is not so.  The word "nokhost" is simply the
Persian word for the first ordinal number, i.e., the exact
equivalent of "first" in English.  The word "nokhost-vazir"
literary means "first-minister" NOT "prime-minister" as you
suggest.  Also, the words "nokhost" and "nokhostin" are NOT
synonyms as some other posters have indicated.  The suffix "in"
in Persian turns nouns into adjectives: "nokhost" is a noun, but
"nokhostin" is an adjective.  From the ordinal numbers "nokhost,
dovvom, sevvom, chAhArom, etc." we get "nokhostin, dovvomin,
sevvomin, chAhAromin, etc."  The word "nokhostin" is the
equivalent of "prime" in English (as an adjective, implying first
ordinality).  By the way, it is also OK to derive "avvalin" from
the Arabic "avval", but it is perhaps in bad taste to use "avval"
in the first place!

Now back to Hooshyar:

|> 
|> >NOT "yekom", as I mentioned above.
|> 
|> No, you really didn't cover it.  :-)

I hope I have clarified things a bit now.  I'm sorry for my
previous incomprehensible ramblings.

|> 
|> >Let's be careful here: "tashdid" and its rule are NOT part of the
|> >grammar of Arabic or Persian; they are part of the alphabet and the
|> >writing system presently used to record them on paper!
|> 
|> Good catch!  I was wrong in implying it was a grammer rule.  Thanks for
|> the correction.  So the rule is just a convention to write words in the
|> sentence.  I hope I am right here because I am setting the stage to launch
|> my second question from you.

Yes, tashdid is only a part of the writing system, not the language.

|> 
|> >Now for "dovvom" and "sevvom".  Let's start from the beginning:
|> >"do"+"om" and "se"+"om".  What is special about these, you ask?
|> >It just happens that "do" and "se" are the only two cardinal
|> >numbers that (when pronounced) end in a vowel.  Therefore, when
|> >you add the "om" suffix, the vowels contract.
|> 
|> >The end result is then: "dov"+"vom" and "sev"+"vom", and hence
|> >the tashdid.
|> 
|> I thought tashdid is applied (at least in Arabic words [I didn't say
|> language this time - HFN]) when two of the SAME characters appear in the
|> word whereby one of them is consonant and the other a vowel.  Of course
|> with Arabic words we use / under a chr, / above a chr, and 9 [this is my
|> version of zameh, beware! - HFN] above a chr to show vowels e, a, o
|> respectively, and a small circle above the chr to show a consonant.
|> 
|> Examples: mosal-lAm becomes mosalam with tashdid above 'lAm,' or monas-sef
|> becomes monasef with tashdid above the 'sin.'

Yes, this is correct.

|>                                                Your rule to add tashdid
|> was different as your explanation above.  Are there more than one rule for
|> tashdid?  Or tashdid rule changes once we are dealing with Persian words?

No, my explanation may have been inadequate, but everything else
is just fine.  Perhaps, I did not emphasize the separation
of language and writing enough, and hence the confusion.  Here is
another attempt:

Start with "do"+"om" and "se"+"om".  Forget about how you write
them, just try to say them (i.e., language).  The stop in between
the two adjacent vowels in these words is unnatural (to the ear
of Persian speakers) and arduous (to vocalize); thus, they are
subjected to vowel contraction and conversion.  Vowel
contraction and conversion are well-known mechanisms used in all
languages to smooth out the rough edges of (spoken) languages.
In some dialects of Persian, these "o"+"o" and "e"+"o" vowels get
contracted and converted to "ye" to smooth out the
words.  Hence: "doyyom" and "seyyom" in these dialects.  In the
mainline Persian dialect, with "o"+"o" and "e"+"o" the consonant
"v" is added to the end of the first syllable, and then repeated
at the beginning of the second syllable to smooth out the
transition.  Hence "dovvom" and "sevvom".  All of this is
language (and dialect) dependent and has nothing to do with
writing, let alone tashdid.

Now comes the time to write this stuff.  If you use the adapted
Arabic writing system to transcribe Persian, you have
the tashdid to contract the duplicate "ye" or "v" in these words.
You would do the same if you were to write the English word
"immense" using the Arabic writing system.  (Actually, this
depends on how "immense" is pronounced in the dialect of English
you are concerned with.  In some dialects, it is pronounced
"im.mens" and in others "e.mens".)

|> 
|> >Satisfied?
|> 
|> If you elaborate about 'yek' and the "interesting" story of 'yekom.  :-)

Well, I tried!

|> 
|> Regards,
|> Hooshyar F. Naraghi
|> bavafa@netcom.com
|> (415) 322-8056


Cheers,

Farhad Arbab
Interactive Systems
Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science
Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Email: farhad@cwi.nl                    Fax:   +31 20 592-4199
Phone: +31 20 592-4056                  Telex: 12571 mactr nl