The Canon · Volume I

The Language.

zabānزبان

Farsi as inheritance — the words that don't translate, the idioms, the script, the music of the tongue. The medium everything else in the Canon travels in.

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A volume in progress. Entries are gathered by hand, verified with scholars and elders, and published only once they can stand on their own. What is here is real; what is missing is coming.

The chapters

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ChapterProverbs & Sayingsضرب‌المثل
HOA-L-001Term (zarb-ul-masal · proverb)This too shall pass.این نیز بگذردFour words that Afghans reach for at gravesides and at weddings alike — a proverb of patience born in the Persian Sufi poetry of Ghazni and Balkh, carried west until an American president quoted it, and still doing its quiet work in Afghan homes today.Read the entry →
ScopeWhat belongs in this volume.
Terms
Words with no English equivalent — the vocabulary of honor, hospitality, and longing.
Idioms & expressions
The phrases a grandmother reaches for, and what they actually carry.
The script
The letterforms, the calligraphic hands, and how Farsi is written and read.
The other volumes
Vol. IIThe LiteratureVol. IIIThe CustomsVol. IVThe ThoughtVol. VThe ArtsVol. VIThe Food