I was just playing civilization 5, as the Persians of course, and what a wonderful game. Unlike other games where you are generally destroying things, in Civ you build and it such a great feeling.

Ian, I think you would enjoy the soundtrack. Listening to the middle-eastern soundtrack felt like being back in Iran. Also now I want to see a picture of Jesus on a t-rex.

Amoo, I agree, no matter how many times I visit I always learn something new.

And my suspicion is that while (according to this post!) Darius promulgated Aramaic during his reign he probably spoke and understood multiple languages and dialects, which I suspect was likewise a characteristic of most rulers of the time. The linguistic richness of the ancient world is only reflected today in places like New Guinea or Africa, where many people apparently speak several languages with a really mind-boggling ease–I think my favorite musician was able to speak ten. And while it’s unlikely that Darius would have been able to understand you, or vice-versa, your two vocabularies probably contain more than a few words in common.

The question of the languages that ancient people spoke is always a curious one and really a more major issue than people realize. I took a class at Hampshire revolving around a book that used the Syriac language to decode certain portions of the Koran that apparently make no sense to speakers of Arabic. Jesus Christ, for instance, spoke Aramaic as well, I think, and probably had little or no knowledge of the Greek that was used to compose the book about him. Most Americans probably believe he spoke English and rode a pet dinosaur to work, so it can be interesting to compare current perceptions of the past (which are more often than not driven by nationalism, a concept that did not exist a few hundred years ago) with what historians believe to be the reality at the time–a thing that was undoubtedly far more beautiful, fascinating, and complex, than any of us can imagine.

I enjoyed your article very much. Thanks for sharing.

About the language, I also used to think that Achaemenids speak Farsi. Considering the time factor (2500 years ago) it was not a very realistic expectation:)

Some people have called the Achaemenids language “ancient Persian” which does not seem very accurate because the languages are very much different in grammar and structure.

But don’t worry, even if the language was Farsi, we could not be able to understand it because it would be a very ancient Farsi. It is like you try to read an ancient text in English.

It is also very interesting to know that even Sassanids (1400 years ago) were not able to read the Persepolis writings. The language was already gone.

Another thing is that there are lots of different dialects in Iran. Although all of them are driven out of the same root (Farsi), one may have serious problem understanding all of them. Like I can not understand a word of Kurdi.

Because Iran is such an old country, there are a lot of strange and interesting things to know and learn in every aspect of it and it really fascinates me. Every part of it has an interesting story. What that makes the Mideast and part of Europe so interesting to me is that the history begins there and the origins of many things can be find in that relatively small area.

But I do wonder if they will dress up to go to a space station.

http://files.getdropbox.com/u/1324600/IMG_3583.jpg

A relentless editor. I love stuff like this, and even though it’s very superficial I never feel like I’ve created even a passable work of fiction if the drafts aren’t covered with crossouts and notes. Editing on computers without the marks of your labor doesn’t do it for me.

As always I’m sorry I missed this Omid/Vibhu moment and wish I’d been there. One day we’ll all get to dream again together…