Strictly speaking, Persia, or Persis, is the name not of a country nor of a nation, but of a province - the southwestern province of Pars or Fars, on the eastern shore of the gulf which takes its name from it. The Persians have never applied that name to the whole country. They have, however, used it of their language, since the regional dialect of Pars became the dominant cultural and political language of the country in the same way that Tuscan became Italian, Castilian became Spanish, and the dialect of the Home Counties became English. The name always used by the Persians, and imposed by them on the rest of the world in 1935, was Iran. This was derived from the ancient Persian aryânam, a genitive plural form meaning '[the land] of the Aryans', and dating back to the early migrations of the Indo-Aryan peoples.
Middle East: Early Political Camps and Divisions
