parsi

A member of the larger and older of the two Zoroastrian communities of the Indian subcontinent (the other community being that of the Iranis).

Of, or pertaining to, the larger and older of the two Zoroastrian communities of the Indian subcontinent.

Persian.

The specimen No. 1 in Plate XVII., is copied from the end of a very beautiful manuscript of the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, containing the celebrated heroic poem of Ferdusi, intitled Shah-Nameh, or the Book of Kings; a composition of 60,000 verses, written in the tenth century in the Parsi dialect, which has become the common language of Persia.

This is a well-known fact, that the language spoken by conquerors who have established themselves, when it has been disseminated amongst people, great and small, has become the common language of the country. Just as in Baghdád, where originally but little Persian was spoken, when the Khalífa's dynasty was overthrown, the Pársís established themselves in it. Thenceforward, every thing that was Arab, became subject to Pársí rules, and the herd acquired respect for the language of the shepherds. The city, which was called Baghdád in Arabic, became converted in its first syllable to Bághchadád. Turkí became just as prevalent, when the Turks conquered the country, and the language of the chiefs bore fruit in a new soil.