The Persian Language

Per­sian is one of the world’s ancient lan­guages, once the lin­gua fran­ca of an empire that spread across an enor­mous swathe of the Old World. Per­sian was the lan­guage of ancient cul­tures across West­ern and Cen­tral Asia, and many of the Islam­ic intel­lec­tu­als, such as Avi­cen­na, that lat­er inspired the Renais­sance in Europe did all of their writ­ing in Per­sian. Today, Per­sian con­tin­ues to be spo­ken wide­ly through­out the same region in the form of three main dialects: Far­si in Iran, Dari in Afghanistan (where it is the lan­guage of cross-cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion), and Taji­ki in Tajik­istan and Uzbek­istan. Study­ing Per­sian is the gate­way to this fas­ci­nat­ing part of the world. Through the CLS Pro­gram, you’ll have the unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn both the Far­si and Taji­ki dialects and set your­self apart with a rare immer­sive experience.