Orientalistics: Podcast on Language, Religion and Culture

This episode explores the notion that morality hinges on personal commitment and ‎responsibility, even when there's disagreement about basic principles like whether ‎pain is bad. It asserts that standing up for one's values is not tyrannical and that ‎recognizing good and bad consequences is a strong foundation for a secular morality, ‎despite issues with consequentialist thinking.‎ The ep...

Atheism, Part IV: Morality Beyond Religion In this episode, I explore the complexities of morality without relying on religious ‎belief. We've seen that morality can arise from our shared humanity and empathy, ‎making it both personal and significant. In upcoming episodes, we'll dive deeper ‎into moral thinking and explore Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics within the ‎framework of atheism...

Atheism, Part III: Reason and the Quest for Meaning The episode III on Atheism explores the differences between atheism and religious ‎belief, focusing on the nature of faith and reason. It argues that atheism is not a faith ‎position but rather a stance based on evidence and reason. Religious beliefs, by ‎contrast, often require faith in the absence of, or even contrary to, evidence. The ‎discuss...

A Case for Atheism: Realism, Evidence, and Common Misconceptions This episode explores atheism from a positive, realistic perspective, challenging the ‎misconception that atheism is inherently negative or solely a reaction to theism. The ‎focus is on the importance of realism in atheism—acknowledging the harsh realities ‎of life without relying on comforting myths or superstition. While atheism do...

Atheism Unveiled: Finding Harmony in Disagreement: Part I. When we talk about the existence of God, we’re diving into some deep questions: Does such an entity exist? If so, what is this deity like, and what impact does it have on us as humans? In the Western world, when we refer to someone who follows the God of Abraham—whether they are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim—we call them a theist. This term...

Ethno-Religious and Linguistic Minorities in Iran, Part I: Introduction Iran’s religious landscape is deeply intertwined with its political identity, heavily influenced by Shi’ite Islam. The Iranian constitution recognizes Islam as the official religion, with Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism being the only other faiths granted legal minority status. However, this narrow definition fails t...

Judeo-Persian and Judeo-Iranian within the Linguistic Mosaic of Iranian Languages In this podcast, I've clarified the distinctions between various Jewish Iranian languages, correcting ‎the common misconception that all such languages can be lumped together as Judeo-Persian. ‎ "Judeo-Persian" specifically refers to Persian varieties written in Hebrew script, while several other ‎unwritten Iranian l...

Persian, Dari, Tajik: Language Evolution and Varieties The transition from the Sasanian Empire to the Islamic period marked a crucial shift in the Persian language. Following the Arab-Islamic conquest (632-651 CE), Persian evolved into Early New Persian (ENP), spanning from the 8th to the 12th centuries. This period, characterized by gradual linguistic transformation rather than abrupt change, saw...

In this episode, I dive into the complex world of classifying modern Iranian languages . Understanding the distinction between languages and dialects isn't as straightforward as it seems. Traditionally, linguists use structural similarities and functional criteria to differentiate them, but real-life distinctions often involve factors like ethnic identity, language prestige, standardization, a...

Iranian Languages and Dialects, Part III: Middle Persian Before you listen to this episode, I encourage you to check my previous episodes on Iranian languages and Dialects , particularly the one on Old Persian , which serve as prerequisites for this part. Middle Iranian refers to various now-extinct Iranian languages spoken from about the 4th century B.C.E. to after the Islamic conquest. These lan...

This conversation features the renowned Iranian-Israeli journalist Menashe Amir from Jerusalem. In this discussion, Amir provides valuable insights into Israeli society, the Israeli-Arab conflicts, and shares personal memories and intriguing anecdotes from the early years of his involvement in Israeli society during the late 1950s. The conversation is conducted in Persian. Fo watching the full vid...

Iranian Languages and Dialects, Part II: Old Persian This episode delves into the rich history of Old Persian and Middle Iranian epigraphy, exploring the evolution and significance of inscriptions and manuscripts from the pre-Islamic period. We begin by defining inscriptions and manuscripts, noting the materials they were crafted on and their various purposes, from public proclamations to administ...

Iranian Languages and Dialects In this episode (originally based on my lecture series on Indo-European Linguistics at the FSU Jena ), I present a concise study of modern Iranian dialects, examining their historical development, linguistic features, regional differences, and sociolinguistic roles. The aim is to present these topics clearly for students, language enthusiasts, migrants with language...

This episode is an excerpt of my lecture on general linguistics at the University of Bern (Switzerland) in 2009. Here are some Key Information: Colonial Lnguistics examines how colonial powers used language for control and the lasting impacts on indigenous languages. This episode covers historical contexts, theoretical foundations, impacts on indigenous languages, identity, postcolonial and decolo...

Cyrus Cylinder: A Comparative Approach This lecture is part of my series on Iranian history delivered at the Zoroastrian Cultural Center in California during the summer of 2019. Notes to this Episode: The Cyrus Cylinder is a barrel-shaped baked clay tablet, approximately 10 inches long, engraved in Babylonia in 539 BC. Discovered in the ruins of Babylon in present-day Iraq, the cylinder is inscrib...

This is a reading of Oscar Wilde's masterpiece, " The Happy Prince ," which I translated into Persian over 30 years ago while I was an undergraduate student in Shiraz. این خوانشی از شاهکار اسکار وایلد « شاهزاده خوشبخت » است که من بیش از سی سال پیش هنگامی که دانشجوی کارشناسی در شیراز بودم آن را به فارسی ترجمه کردم. امیدوارم از شننیدن آن لذت ببرید، من به شخصه هرگاه که این داستان را می...

From My Lecture Serie at the University of Freiburg (Germany) 2011 You could watch the full presentation via YouTube The Present Perfect tense in German and English share similarities but also have distinct differences in their formation and usage. Here's a detailed explanation: Formation of Present Perfect Tense German: The Present Perfect tense in German, also known as *Perfekt*, is formed u...

Forensic linguistics is a field that examines the use of language in legal contexts, focusing on the ‎production and perception of utterances, particularly in courts. It applies linguistic knowledge to legal ‎questions, serving as an interface between language, crime, and law. This discipline encompasses various ‎applications, such as phonetic analysis of voices and verification of document authen...

This episode explores the biological basis of language, tracing its origins from early hominins to modern Homo sapiens, and examining the role of genetic mutations, brain structures, social interactions, and environmental factors in the evolution of language. The study also considers the comparative analysis of the communication systems of nonhuman primates to highlight the distinctiveness and com...

This excerpt is from a series of interviews on Iranian history. In this episode, I discuss the concept of tradition and modernity in Iranian society with Mr. Shahriar Afshar, the host of Politics365. This conversation, conducted in Persian, is available on YouTube. You could see the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lgc_1ISZkQ&t=159s

*Linguistic Anthropology* The development of linguistics within the context of anthropology can be understood through the successive emergence and complex interplay of Folk Linguistics, National Philologies, and General Philology (or General Linguistics). This framework, while intentional in its evolutionary perspective, recognizes progress through specific criteria rather than implying a linear p...

Etymology, the study of word origins and historical development, explores the roots, transformations, and evolution of language. Derived from the Greek etymologia (combining etimos for "true" and logos for "science"), etymology examines the historical foundations, theoretical frameworks, and methodologies involved in tracing the lineage of words. Historically, etymology can be approached from two...

The Indo-European language family, encompassing languages like Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and Proto-Indo-European, traces its origins to a complex interplay of migrations and cultural exchanges. The Anatolian branch, traditionally thought to have entered the region from Thrace, is supported by recent genetic findings in Bulgaria, revealing steppe ancestry similar to Sredny Stog as early as 4500 BC. T...

Gordon Childe, a notable Australian archaeologist, published "The Aryans," reflecting early interest in Europe's past. Unfortunately, the Nazi regime misused archaeological findings to promote their ideology, leading to atrocities during the Holocaust. This dark chapter caused archaeologists to avoid race and ethnicity topics. Earlier racial theories in archaeology, primarily based on craniometry,...

In the preceding episode, we explored the foundational role of Sir William Jones in identifying the ancient Indo-European language as the ancestor of modern European languages. This episode focuses on Indo-European languages with examples from Sanskrit, Persian, and Hittite. Proto-Indo-European forms the linguistic root of Sanskrit, Persian, and Hittite, showcasing their shared ancestry despite ge...