The Ninetieth Anniversary of the Academy of Iran
The background to the founding of the Academy in the field of Persian language and literature goes back to May 20, 1935. Before that, during the reign of Moẓaffar od-Dīn Shāh, efforts were made to organize the process of coinage and terminology, resulting in the formation of an association called the Majlis Academy, headed by Nadim ol-Sultan. Later, in 1924, the Ministry of War, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, formed an association composed of seven experienced officers and four literati. Words such as “havapeyma” (airplane), “forudgah” (airport), “gordān” (battalion), and “hang” (regiment), which are now common in Persian, were among the creations of that association.
In 1926 and 1927, some of the literary, artistic, and cultural figures of the time—such as Ali-Naghi Vaziri, Dehkhoda, Hossein Ali Mallah, Malek o’Shoara Bahar, Saeed Nafisi, Hossein Gol-e-Golab, and Abdolazim Gharib—spontaneously and out of a sense of national duty formed an association called the Academy of Literature and Fine Arts. Discussions on Persian orthography, compiling dictionaries, and translating the works of foreign authors were among the topics raised in its meetings.
After that, other groups began working on finding Persian equivalents for the terms needed in scientific and technical fields, and many foreign words were translated into Persian and used in their writings and books. In these selections and equivalents, personal taste was the criterion, and the terms created by one group often differed greatly from those of another. Sometimes, several Persian terms were coined for a single foreign word, which made the work even more difficult. In some offices and organizations—including Dar ol-Moallemin-e Ali, which was a center for teaching modern sciences—teachers and students engaged in terminology development and coined new words. The army also carried out terminology work. In 1934, the School of Medicine invited several doctors and scholars from related fields and established an association called the Medical Academy, whose duties included translating medical books, preparing a medical dictionary, and proposing equivalents for foreign terms.
Following these scattered efforts, the Ministry of Education, Endowments, and Fine Arts submitted a proposed charter for the establishment of the Academy of Iran to the then prime minister, Mohammad Ali Foroughi. It was approved, with amendments, in the Cabinet meeting of May 20, 1935. The charter was communicated to the Ministry of Education on May 27, and the first meeting of the Academy of Iran was held on June 3, 1935 at the School of Higher Law, in the presence of 24 members: 16 professors of Persian language and literature, two officers, two doctors, and four professors from scientific and technical fields.
The most important duties approved by the Academy were:
- Rejecting and approving terms in Persian
- Selecting terms for various fields of life, with the aim of making them as Persian as possible
- Purifying the Persian language of inappropriate foreign words
- Preparing a grammar of Persian
- Studying reforms to Persian orthography
The permanent members of the Academy of Iran at the beginning of its activities were: Hassan Nouri Esfandiari, Hakim Azam, Mohammad-Taghi Bahar, Seyyed Nasrollah Taghavi, Ali-Akbar Siasi, Ali-Asghar Hekmat, Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, Gholamreza Rashid Yasemi, Sadegh Rezazadeh Shafagh, Gholamhossein Rahnama, Hossein Samii, Isa Sedigh, Seyyed Kazem Assar, Seyyed Mohammad Fatemi, Abolhassan Foroughi, Mohammad-Ali Foroughi, Badiozzaman Forouzanfar, Abdolazim Gharib, Hossein Gol-e-Golab, Ahmad Nakhjavan, Valiollah Nasr, Saeed Nafisi, and Hassan Vosugh od-Dowleh. Mohammad Ghazvini and Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh were also elected as associate members of the Academy.
In subsequent years, several other scholars, including Abbas Eghbal Ashtiani, Gholam-Ali Radi Azarakhshi, Ahmad Bahmanyar, Ebrahim Pourdavoud, and Jalaluddin Homaei, became permanent members. Distinguished foreign Iranologists and men of letters—such as Reynold Nicholson, Arthur Christensen, Henri Massé, Jan Rypka, Louis Massignon, Mohammad Hossein Heikal, Mansour Beig Fahmi, Ali Beig o’Jarem, and Mohammad Rif‘at Pasha—were elected as associate members of the Academy. The Academy of Iran continued its activities, more or less, until 1954.
Thereafter, in view of the need to preserve and cultivate the rich Persian language so that it could meet the demands of modern scientific and technological progress, preparations were made to reopen the Academy. On October 31, 1970, with the appointment of eleven members—including Yahya Mahyar Navabi, Mostafa Moghrebi, Sadegh Rezazadeh Shafagh, and Zabih Behrouz—the Academy of the Persian Language was established. Its first council meeting was held on November, 1970 at the Ministry of Culture and Arts.
In 1979, the Academy of the Persian Language was merged with several other institutions, resulting in the establishment of the Institute for Cultural Research and Studies and the Research Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies. Later, in 1989, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution approved the charter of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature and selected seventeen prominent researchers, literary scholars, and experts in Persian language and literature. Their names were submitted to the President for appointment as permanent members of the Academy Council. Finally, the first meeting of the Council of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature was held on September 17, 1990 at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education, in the Presidential Office.
The initial members of the elected Academy Council were: Ahmad Aram, Nasrollah Pourjavadi, Hassan Habibi, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Bahauddin Khorramshahi, Mohammad Khansari, Mohammad-Taghi Daneshpajouh, Simin Daneshvar, Ali Ravaghi, Seyyed Jafar Shahidi, Tahereh Saffarzadeh, Hamid Farzam, Fathollah Mojtabai, Mehdi Mohaghegh, Seyyed Mohammad Mohit Tabatabai, Abolhassan Najafi, and Gholamhossein Yousefi
With the assistance of its professors and researchers, the Academy of Persian Language and Literature serves as a guardian of the Persian language, one of the most important foundations of the identity of the Iranian people.
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