TEHRAN – A national conference focusing on Iran’s cross-border languages and dialects is scheduled to be held at the University of Birjand, South Khorasan province on March 1, ILNA reported on Monday.

Organized by the Research Institute for Cultural Heritage and Tourism, the one-day event is planned to discuss the interaction of the languages and dialects of the border areas of Iran, structural and syntactic studies of the languages and dialects of these areas, as well as the taxonomy of the languages.

The event will also explore the role of linguistic and dialectal commonalities in the tourism prosperity of Iran’s border regions.

Persian language, also called Farsi, is a member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian language family. Old Persian, spoken until approximately the 3rd century BC, is attested by numerous inscriptions written in cuneiform, the most notable of which is the great monument of Darius I at Bisotun, western Iran.

Middle Persian, spoken from the 3rd century BC to the 9th century CE, is represented by numerous epigraphic texts of Sasanian kings, written in Aramaic script; there is also varied literature in Middle Persian embracing both the Zoroastrian and the Manichaean religious traditions. Pahlavi was the name of the official Middle Persian language of the Sassanian empire, according to Britannica.

ABU/AM