Procenjuje se da oko 110 milionna ljudi širom sveta govori persijski, pri čemu jezik ima zvanični status u Iranu, Avganistanu, i Tadžikistanu. Vekovima je persijski bio prestižni kulturni jezik u drugim regionima zapadne, centralne, i južne Azije u raznim carstvima baziranim u tim regionima.[9]
↑Asta Olesen, "Islam and Politics in Afghanistan, Volume 3", Psychology Press. (1995). str. 205.: "There began a general promotion of the Pashto language at the expense of Fārsi – previously dominant at the educational and administrative level – and the term 'Dari' for the Afghan version of Persian came into common use, being officially adopted in 1958"
↑ 3,03,1Lazard, Gilbert 1975, "The Rise of the New Persian Language" in Frye, R. N., The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 4. str. 595–632, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. "The language known as New Persian, which usually is called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of Dari or Farsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, etc., Old Persian, Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars (the true Persian country from the historical point of view) and is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran."
↑Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, Peter Trudgill, "Sociolinguistics Hsk 3/3 Series Volume 3 of Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society", Walter de Gruyter, 2006. 2nd edition. str. 1912. Excerpt: "Middle Persian, also called Pahlavi is a direct continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written official language of the country." "However, after the Moslem conquest and the collapse of the Sassanids, the Pahlavi language was gradually replaced by Dari, a variety of Middle Persian, with considerable loan elements from Arabic and Parthian."
↑Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2006). Encyclopedia Iranica, "Iran, vi. Iranian languages and scripts, "new Persian, is "the descendant of Middle Persian" and has since been "official language of Iranian states for centuries", whereas for other non-Persian Iranian languages "close genetic relationships are difficult to establish" between their different (Middle and Modern) stages. Modern Yaḡnōbi belongs to the same dialect group as Sogdian, but is not a direct descendant; Bactrian may be closely related to modern Yidḡa and Munji (Munjāni); and Wakhi (Wāḵi) belongs with Khotanese."
↑ 11,011,1Lazard, Gilbert, "Pahlavi, Pârsi, dari: Les langues d'Iran d'apès Ibn al-Muqaffa" in R.N. Frye, Iran and Islam. In Memory of the late Vladimir Minorsky, Edinburgh University Press. 1971. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/{{{2}}}|{{{2}}}]] Uneseni ISBN nije važeći.. pp.
↑Ann K. S. Lambton, Persian grammar, Cambridge University Press 1953. "The Arabic words incorporated into the Persian language have become Persianized".