Nowruz.

March 20, 2025 by 38 Comments

I’ll quote Nelson Goering’s Facebook post (adding italics where they seem called for):

Happy Nowruz! It’s the vernal equinox today, and also the traditional new year’s day of the Persianate world. The name of the festival means “new day”, but is etymologically basically the same as “new light” in English.

Actually the elements aren’t quite perfect matches, since there are slightly different suffixes involved — a bit like how German Heiligkeit and English holiness are related in their roots, but have different suffixes. In this case, the now- part goes back to an Old Iranian *nawa-, itself from Indo-European *new-o-. English new is from an extended form of this, *new-jo-. Both variants just meant “new”.

For -ruz, that goes back to Old Persian raucah-, which already meant “day” in the oldest records of Persian, the inscriptions of Darius the Great (around the year -500). But the older meaning was definitely “light”, and this is the sense of Avestan raocah-. Avestan is the liturgical language of the Zoroastrian religion, and the oldest language of the Iranic family attested. The word is found already in the oldest layer of Avestan, the hymns of Zarathushtra, which might be as old as c. -1000. This in turn comes from Indo-European *leuk-os-. English light comes from a slightly different formation, something like *leuk-to-.

And I’ll follow that with Martin Kümmel’s extremely interesting comment and the ensuing back-and-forth:

Martin Kümmel
To be precise, Old Iranian raučah- does not come from *leuk-os but from its oblique stem *leuk-es-; the original nominative-accusative would have been *raukah but the consonantal alternation was normally removed by generalizing the palatal.

Actually, it is not completely clear whether naw(-) directly goes back to *nawa-, although it formally could (cf. ǧaw ‘barley’ < *yawa-). Middle Persian had nōg(=rōz) < *nawa-ka(=rauča), and it would be preferable to explain the NP word as a direct continuant. Most other Middle Iranian languages only have reflexes of *nawaka- (or other derivatives), rather few of *nawa- itself.

MP nōg seems to have been reduced to nō(w) already in late MP. The regular outcome of MP final ōg [oːɣ] is NP ō(y) but there are some other cases of NP aw from ō (though typically in the first syllable of disyllabic words, cf. rōšn > rawšan ~ rōšan ‘light’) – could the form /naw/ have been generalized from compounds? The other option would be to assume that NP, as in other cases, does [not] continue the MP word but rather its Parthian variant. Parthian has but few traces of *nawaka- > nwg, it rather has *nawāka- > nwʾg and traces of simple nw-.

Nelson Goering
Martin Kümmel yes, I was citing stem forms (*leuk-os-, not *leuk-os), and elided a bit over some of the further details.

Interesting about the extended for *nawa-ka. It sounds like a rather hard situation to judge. On the one hand, Nowruz is certainly the sort of term that could presumably cross dialect boundaries fairly easily, so the Parthian explanation doesn’t strike me as outlandish. But on the other, since Nowruz is (I think) always treated as a fused compound rather than an adjective-noun phrase, generalization of a combining stem appropriate to compounds would also seem pretty plausible.

Martin Kümmel
Nelson Goering Yes, the term is a compound since its earliest attestations (although MP does not mark that difference very clearly – I actually looked up the Zoroastrian attestations given by https://www.mpcorpus.org/, and they never have a space between <nwk> and <rwc>).

However, the simple adjective normally has the same exceptional sound shape, and it its less clear if that could be taken over from compounds.

That Middle Persian Digital Corpus and Dictionary is a great resource.

Comments

  1. J.W. Brewer says
    March 20, 2025 at 4:28 pm

    Very guttural calendar, the Solar Hijri.

  2. David L says
    March 20, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    OT: some time ago I was talking with an American journalist who had spent time in Iran, and he mentioned the Zoroastrian religion. He pronounced it ‘zo-roast-rian,’ with the middle syllable as in roast beef. I’ve had few if any occasions to say to the word, but if pressed would say ‘zo-ro-astri-an.’ Probably on the manifestly incorrect assumption that the last part has something to do with stars.

    I suppose I could look up the right answer, but where’s the fun in that?

  3. languagehat says
    March 20, 2025 at 4:47 pm

    You are right and the American journalist was wrong. I’m afraid ignorance of things foreign among American journalists is no surprise.

  4. languagehat says
    March 20, 2025 at 4:49 pm

    OED (entry revised 2023):

    British English
    /ˌzɒrəʊˈastriən/
    zorr-oh-ASS-tree-uhn

    U.S. English
    /ˌzɔroʊˈæstriən/
    zor-oh-ASS-tree-uhn

    Earliest and latest citations:

    1597 This is that Zoroastrien & Bactrien science [French ceste science Zoroastrienne, & Bactrienne], that of Balaam, & some others in my opinion, which hath succeeded vnto so many Arabian Astrologians.
    H. M., translation of J. Du Bec-Crispin, Hist. Tamerlan 2
    […]

    2012 This is the time of year when Iranians prepare for the most important holiday of the Persian calendar, Nowruz, the ancient Zoroastrian festival marking the spring equinox.
    Guardian 25 February 27/1

    From the etymology:

    Notes

    The Greek name Ζωροάστρης apparently reflects an interpretation of the Avestan name Zaraθuštra (compare Zarathustrian adj.), substituting ancient Greek ζωρός ‘undiluted’ and ἄστρον star (see astro- comb. form 1) for similar-sounding elements of the Avestan name (which is itself of uncertain and disputed origin). In English use, the name is attested from the Middle English period onwards, initially as Zoroastes.

    Compare post-classical Latin Zoroastreus, adjective (early 5th cent.).

  5. David L says
    March 20, 2025 at 4:53 pm

    Thanks. I’m a little surprised, as this was someone who had evidently spent a fair amount of time there. Although it was not his main gig.

    He did have a funny story about going to a rally in Tehran where some bigwig was professing the greatness of Iran and inevitable destruction of the USA. They were surprised and fascinated to find an American among them, and had all sorts of questions. Periodically, they would break off to shout “Death to America” but then they would go back to talking about Hollywood. Apparently, people get the afternoon off work to go to rallies of this sort.

  6. languagehat says
    March 20, 2025 at 4:55 pm

    Did he speak Farsi? (Not relevant to his pronunciation, just curious.)

  7. J.W. Brewer says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:00 pm

    It’s not like spending time in modern Iran would necessarily expose you to Zoroastrians to any great degree, esp. when compared to spending time in Bombay. The center of gravity of actually-existing Zoroastrianism shifted out of Iran many centuries ago, for reasons discussed in the wikipedia article helpfully titled “Persecution of Zoroastrians.”

  8. languagehat says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:03 pm

    An excellent point.

  9. Trond Engen says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:18 pm

    Did he speak Farsi?

    Is the pope Catholic? Is Zorro Astrian?

  10. Y says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:22 pm

    Did he say “Zo-roaster”, too?

  11. David L says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:26 pm

    Did he speak Farsi?

    I don’t know — it wasn’t a very long conversation, we both had places to go and things to do. I more or less assumed he did, since he was mingling with ordinary people, but I suppose he could have sought out people who spoke English. I have no idea how common any knowledge of English is for Joe Irani.

  12. languagehat says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:36 pm

    A lot of Iranians speak English, but they are (naturally) from the upper/educated classes, and those are (naturally) the ones that journalists tend to seek out. This is prototypically one of the main reasons the 1979 revolution came as such a surprise: the people the journos were talking to had no idea what was going on in the bazaars.

  13. ktschwarz says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:43 pm

    The etymology of Nowruz has shown up here before: RISKY ETYMOLOGY linked to Patrick’s blog tracing the origin of risk down a very circuitous path ending up at Middle Persian rōz ‘day’, as in Nowruz. (This is one of two leading theories on the ultimate source of risk; see the comment thread there for the other one.)

  14. Hans says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:49 pm

    When I was last in Tehran about 8 years ago, many young people spoke English even in eateries only locals seemed to frequent.

  15. languagehat says
    March 20, 2025 at 5:56 pm

    Makes sense; I presume the penetration (via videos, computer games, etc.) of English into mass culture everywhere has proceeded apace, which means there is even less incentive for journos to learn the local lingo.

  16. J.W. Brewer says
    March 20, 2025 at 6:14 pm

    The English word(s) come via Latin from Greek, in which the fellow known in Avestan and among Nietzscheans as Zarathustra was transmogrified into Zoroaster (okay, Ζωροάστρης if you want to be picky). google translate tells me the modern Farsi for “Zoroastrian” is زرتشتی , pronounced “zortashti.” I assume the post-rhotic /t/ is a descendant of the ancient θ the Greeks had managed to lose, but any consonant there would help block the “roast as in roast beef” approach to the word.

  17. Nelson Goering says
    March 21, 2025 at 2:32 am

    pronounced “zortashti.”

    I think the vowels are the other way around: more like /zærtoʃ’tiː/. The Middle Persian form is, I remember from the small amount of Middle Persian I did, Zardušt, though checking the MPCD (if I ever new about that, I’d forgotten — it’s really pretty amazing), I see that it’s also found as Zarduxšt (or, more precisely, that’s our understanding of what’s actually spelled ).

  18. Nelson Goering says
    March 21, 2025 at 2:50 am

    Oops, I forgot that it would eat stuff in angled brackets. The orthographic form in question is “zltwhštˈ”.

  19. Y says
    March 21, 2025 at 3:03 am

    You can make angled brackets (less-than/greater-than) with &lt; and &gt; — like this: <zltwhštˈ>.

  20. Trond Engen says
    March 21, 2025 at 3:12 am

    It looks like an old orthographic transmission error – someone forgot the horizontal stroke of the <θ>, and it was never corrected. That would be weird with the long life of Greek in Bactria.

  21. J.W. Brewer says
    March 21, 2025 at 7:31 am

    Sorry, it was sloppy on my part to naively presume that google translate’s *transliteration* of the current Farsi as “zortashti” would be a reliable representation of the *pronunciation* of the current Farsi.

  22. languagehat says
    March 21, 2025 at 8:45 am

    It’s not even transliteration, just a bad guess as to the short vowels (which are not written).

  23. J.W. Brewer says
    March 21, 2025 at 8:48 am

    Well, things have come to a pretty pass if I can’t uncritically rely on google translate, esp for languages whose primary script is one I can’t read …

  24. January First-of-May says
    March 21, 2025 at 10:47 am

    It looks like an old orthographic transmission error – someone forgot the horizontal stroke of the <θ>, and it was never corrected. That would be weird with the long life of Greek in Bactria.

    …or, rather, in those early days, the central dot of the <Θ>, as the cursive letters hadn’t been invented yet. But yeah, a bit surprising that it was seemingly never fixed.

    (Wikipedia suggests some kind of eggcorn-style reinterpretation.)

    Well, things have come to a pretty pass if I can’t uncritically rely on google translate

    Google Translate’s provided “transliteration” of Hebrew is even more hilarious – it hardly ever gets the vowels even close to correctly, and sometimes misses consonants and/or hallucinates whole syllables.

    I don’t want to imagine what problems it could give to someone who couldn’t read Hebrew…

  25. languagehat says
    March 21, 2025 at 10:54 am

    I thought I’d check on “pretty pass” in the OED, and found these two cites (s.v. pass³):

    1842 A pretty pass things are come to, when hussies like this are to be bepraised and bepitied.
    W. M. Thackeray in Punch vol. 3 192
    […]

    1955 Things, one felt, must have reached a pretty pass if the big banks..had run into the same squalid staffing problems as the National Coal Board.
    Times 5 August 10/4

    I like “squalid staffing problems.”

  26. J.W. Brewer says
    March 21, 2025 at 11:06 am

    I might prefer “hussies like this” to “squalid staffing problems,” but to each his own.

  27. languagehat says
    March 21, 2025 at 11:33 am

    They’re both excellent!

  28. Keith Ivey says
    March 21, 2025 at 11:37 am

    I’m not sure how I feel about “bepraised and bepitied”.

  29. Nelson Goering says
    March 21, 2025 at 12:20 pm

    “(Wikipedia suggests some kind of eggcorn-style reinterpretation.)”

    Something weird is going on, since none of the vowels match either. There’s a rather inconclusive discussion here: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroaster-i-the-name

    This claims that: “Such a double influence of folk etymology is not very likely, however, particularly insofar as the meaning and usage of zōrós are concerned.”

    I’m not sure I see what’s so very unlikely about it. If the folk-etymological link with “star” was made first, then there might well be an attempt to reform the rest into something vaguely resembling a sensible compound, at the cost of fidelity to the source form. It seems more plausible (to me) than the rather elaborate and problematic phonetic explanations summarized there. But it’s definitely all a bit murky.

    It might be worth noting that this entry mentions a couple of other Greek forms at different periods that are closer to the Iranic. Not surprising, since there must of have been plenty of Greeks who learned Persian.

  30. drasvi says
    March 21, 2025 at 1:58 pm

    зартуштӣ and зардуштӣ (zart(d)ushtî) in the Sogdian-substratum land*:)

    *Which is the land where the first examples of literary Muslim Persian come from:-E

  31. Bathrobe says
    March 21, 2025 at 2:00 pm

    A lot of Iranians speak English, but they are (naturally) from the upper/educated classes, and those are (naturally) the ones that journalists tend to seek out. This is prototypically one of the main reasons the 1979 revolution came as such a surprise: the people the journos were talking to had no idea what was going on in the bazaars.

    Not just Iran, I suspect. How many people were blindsided by the rise of Trump?

  32. drasvi says
    March 21, 2025 at 2:56 pm

    The Arab Spring triggered a flood of articles wholly dedicated to “Why!?!??!?!?!?”.

    And both upper and educated “classes” and people who know a foreign language well played a part in it (but not only them, of course).

    Even religion (Islam) is the hope for change not only to fundamentalists but also to people like me. (Which can be explained by the history of forced secularisation).

  33. drasvi says
    March 21, 2025 at 4:24 pm

    I understand that “upper class” and “educated class” are idiomatic, but they strike me as more misleading than helpful. They imply a difference in formal instruction in English between “classes” or that English is (informally) a part of the culture of a “class”. Both are false for many countries. I think for Iran as well (now).

    Besides, where English is associated with upward mobility (those who want to engage in it think English is useful) its knowledge chatacterises not a class, but a very different group of people. A proto-class, maybe. Characteristics of mobile people and upper classes are not same.

    (of course I agree that talking only to those who speak English – and worse, to those who want to share opinions with you or are interesting to you – won’t help much when you need opinions of others:-))

  34. Christopher Culver says
    March 21, 2025 at 5:55 pm

    Periodically, they would break off to shout “Death to America” but then they would go back to talking about Hollywood. Apparently, people get the afternoon off work to go to rallies of this sort.

    Or they are forced on the spot to protest like that? When I was in Damascus in 2008, I personally witnessed a white van stop, and two intimidating plainclothes police got out, unloaded some anti-West and anti-Israel banners, and began handing them out to random passersby who looked none too pleased at having to accept them and hold them up.

    In Russia it is well known that state-budget workers are forced to attend, as the cost of staying employed, certain events that are useful to the authorities.

  35. J.W. Brewer says
    March 21, 2025 at 6:05 pm

    45 years after those perhaps-not-entirely-spontaneous-and-grassroots mobs in Tehran started chanting “Death to Carter” when the tv cameras were on, they achieved their goal. Ancient civilizations like the Persian understand that Westerners are too flighty and impatient and one must be willing to play the long game.

  36. drasvi says
    March 21, 2025 at 6:38 pm

    In 2008 a university student from the city of Tambov compained to me that they (either the whole university or those willing to take part?) were loaded in buses and driven to Moscow to a pop concert organised by Putin’s party on the Red Square, and then, immediately after, loaded in buses again and returned to Tambov.
    Without giving them an opportunity to explore the capital (something everyone hoped for).

  37. drasvi says
    March 21, 2025 at 6:48 pm

    However, state media were telling that all people who attend protest rallies are paid huge money by the West, both here and in friendly countries like Iran*.
    And everyone (but the attendees and a few sympathisers) believes them.

    *I’m quite tired of arguments over the Arab spring with Russians who neither know much about Arab countries nor care, but yet happen to know for sure how everything was organised and who’re the good guys (much unlike ignorant myself…).

  38. David Marjanović says
    March 22, 2025 at 2:26 pm

    Paying people to protest was real, and widespread, in the 1930s and probably 20s. I doubt it’s happened ever since – those who had the money and the motivation to do that have had other means at their disposal, as hinted at above –, but it was enough to make the accusation permanent.

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