i Singularity of a noun is expressed by an appended a remnant of sera, one. The flee tion of the verb is equally simple. There is a set of personal terminations for all tenses: am, i, al or asf; 4m, el, al; the infinitive ends in tan or clan, the past participle in tah or dab. The aorist is formed by adding to the root the terminations am, i, ad; em, ell, anl; the preterite by dropping the a of the infinitive, and substituting the usual ter minations. The prefix tel or hami (Parsi and lInzvaresh = always) transforms the pre terite into the imperfect; while the prefix bi or bib (the present of the verb "to will ") alters the aorist into the simple future. The other tenses arc compounds of the past participle and auxiliary verbs, as in the Teutonic and other modern tongues. The pas sive is formed by the various tenses of the verb skadan, "to be, to go, to beware," being placed after the past participle. As to syntax, there is none, or, at all events, none which would not conic almost instinctively to any student acquainted with the general laws of speech and composition. As the time of its greatest brilliancy may be designated that in which Firdusi wrote, when Arabic words had not swamped it to the vast degree in which it is now found. and were still, as far as they bad crept in, amenable to what ever rules the Persian grammar imposed upon the words of its own language.
In the history of the Persian writing, three epochs are to be distinguished. First, we have the cuneiform (q.v.), by the side of which there seems, however, to have been in use a kind of Semitic alphabet for common purposes. This, in the second period. appears to have split into several alphabets, all related to each other, and pointing to a common Syriac origin (such as the different kinds of Pehlevi characters and the Zend alphabet) cleverly adapted to the use of a non-Semitic language. In the third period, we find the Arabic alphabet enlarged for Persian use by an addition of diacritical points and signs for such sounds as are not to be found in Arabic (p, eh, alt, g). The char acters are written in a somewhat more pending manner (Talik) in Persian, and the writ ing is thus slightly different from the usual Arabic _IN' eskhi.
The much-spoken-of close connection between German and Persian both of Lido Germanic kin—is neither more nor less than a popular fallacy, causeil by a misunderstood dictum of Leibnitz: "Integri versus Persice scribi possunt quos Germanus which was enthusiastically taken up and " proved " by Addling. and others, and which has even led to the assumption, that the Germans came direct from Persia, or that the Goths once were mixed with the Persians. We only mention it as 44 philological absurdity of bygone days.
Of the literature of the Persians before the Mohammed conquest, we shall not speak here, but refer to the special articles Znesn, PEITLEVI, PARSERS, etc. The literary period now under consideration is distinguishable by the above-mentioned infusion of Arabic words into the Persian language, imported together with the Koran and its teachings. The writers are, in fact, one and all, Mohammedans. With the fanaticism peculiar to conquering religions, more particularly to Islam, all the representatives of old Persian literature and science, men and matter, were ruthlessly persecuted by Omar's general, Sand Ibn Abi Wakkas. The consequence was, that for the first two or three centuries after the conquest, all was silence. The scholars and priests who would not bow to Allah and his prophet and to the new order of things, and who had found means to emigrate, took with them what had not been destroyed of the written monuments of ancient culture; while those that remained at home were forced to abandon their wonted studies. Yet, by slow degrees, as is invariably the case under such circumstances, the conquered race transformed the culture of the conquerors to such a degree, that native influence soon became paramount in Persia, even in the matter of theology—the supreme science. It is readily granted by later Mohammedan writers, that it was out of the body of the Persians exclusively that sprang the foremost, if not till, the greatest scholars and authors on religious as well as granumuical subjects, historians anu poets, philosophert and men of science; and the only concession they made consisted in their use of the newly imported Arabic tongue. A further step was taken when, after the
Islam sway had ceased, the Persians, under upstart native dynasties, returned 1,1so to the ancient language of their fathers during the first centuries of Mohaminedatii ,I11. The revived national feeling, which must have been stirring for a long time previously among the masses, then suddenly burst forth in prose and in verse, from the lips of a thou sand singers and writers. The literary life of Persia, the commencement of which is thus be placed in the 9th c. A.D., continued to flourish with unabated healthy vigor for live centuries, and produced a host of writers in every branch of science and belles lettres, Of whom we can only here give the most rapid of surveys, referring for the most impor tant names to the special articles throughout this work. Beginning with poetry, we hear, under the rule of the third of the Samanides, Nast. (about 952), of Abut llaseu Rudegi, the blind, who rose by the king's favOr to such an eminence that he had 2C0 slaves to wail upon him. But little has remained of his 1,300,000 distichs, and of his metrical translation of Bidpai's fables. About 1000 A.D., we hear of Kobus, the Dile mite prince, as the author of The Peifection, qf Rhetoric, and poems. In the time of the Gasnevides, chiefly under Maitland, who surrounded himself with no less than 400 court. poets, we find those stars of Persian song, Ansari (1039), the author of l?amilv and Asra, and 30,000 other distichs and Kassidahs in honor and praise of the king; further, Fer ruchi, who, besides his own poems, also wrote the first work on the laws of the Persian metrical art: and above all Firdusi (q.v.), that greatest epic poet. the author of the _Yarnell, or Book of Kings; who led one of the most brilliant and romantic lives that ever fell to the lot of genius, and ended it forgotten and' in misery. With him, hut darkened by his brightness, flourished Esedi, his countryman, from Tus. Among the poets who flourished under the Atabek dynasty, we find that most brilliant Persian panegyrist, Anhad Addin Enweri, who, with his praise, well knew how to handle satire. The is of the older mystic poets of that period is Senayi, author of 30,000.11istichs, who for his poem Hadilvat was nominated official singer of the Sufis. Nizami (about 1200) is founder of the romantic epos; the greater part of his Cliamsbe, or collection of five romantic poems (Chosru and Skirin, ilidnun and Leila, etc.), being almost as well known in Europe as it is in the east; and to whom Kisilarslan the king presented for one of these poems no less than fourteen estates. His grave at Gendsheh is still visited by many a pious pilgrim. And here we must mention that the branch of eastern theosophieal literature pre-eminently cultivated in Persia is the mystic (Sufistic) poetry. which. under Anacreontic allegories, in glowing songs of wine and love, represented the mystery of divine love and of the union of the soul with God (see SUFISM). In this province Ave find chiefly eminent poets like Senaji (about beginning of 13th c.), and Fetid Eddin Attar (born 1216). the renowed author of Pend _Yarnell (Book of.Counsel), a work con. tabling the biographies of saints up to his day. His principal strength, however, lay in his mystic poems; and such is the depth and hidden meaning of his rhymes, that for centuries after him, the whole Moslem world has busied itself with commentaries and conjectures on the meaning of a great part of his sacred poetry. He died about 1330, more than a hundred years old, as a martyr, Greater still, in this peculiar field, is Djalal Edith] Rumi, born at Balkh (died 1266), the founder of a still existing most popu lar order of dervishes (Mewlewi). His poem on Contemplative Life has made him the oracle of oriental mysticism up to this day. He wrote also a great number of lyrical poems, which form, as far as they have been collected for this special purpose, a brevi ary for the faithful Sufi. Anhadi of Meraga (died 1297) also deserves mention.