Persian Language In Yuan Dynasty

Both China and Iran are countries with ancient civilization and long history.Although having different languages and cultures,the two countries have maintained a good relationship over a long period of time.As earlier as more than 2000 years ago,Persia started friendly relationship with China,and it was one of the earliest countries having established diplomatic relations with China.In ancient times,despite of long way and inconvenient traffic,China and Persia had overcome numerous obstacles and made various exchanges.Interestingly,the histories of the two countries have many resemblances.Especially in the 13th century,both were administratively subordinated as Mongol Empire.Therefore,the Chinese and the Persians had a similar fate.Both countries were invaded by other nationalities.And the Mongol invaders brought many disasters to them.Whereas with the passage of time,the profound cultural connotations of the Persia and China deeply influenced these nomadic peoples and assimilated them to some extent.In the context of the Mongol Empire,Persia and China have further deepened friendly exchanges and consolidated bilateral relations.Among them,the language and cultural exchanges between China and Persia,especially the development of Persian language in that time,have attracted our attention.After the Genghis Khan's Expedition to the West,many Muslims in Central and Western Asia moved to China.Among them,many had Persian cultural background and could speak Persian language.Although some who could speak Persian language went to China in the Tang and Song Dynasties,the number of them were much less than those in the early 13th century.The Muslims who migrated to China from Central and Western Asia in the Mongoloid-Yuan period were the main components of the " Semu people ",who were commonly called as Hui people.Hui people had distributed in different regions across China with different identities(such as merchant,official and scholar),who promoted the development of Persian language and culture in China to a great extent.This paper can be divided into three parts:Part One briefly discusses the various exchanges between China and Persia(including language and cultural exchanges)before the Yuan Dynasty.Afterwards,the development course of Persian in the Yuan Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty is elaborated in detail.In this part,it is pointed out that Persian language is not only an international language,but also an important language in China.Persian language has already become the common language of Muslim people,and an important language for facilitating the development of Islamic culture in China as well.In the meantime,there were more and more economic and cultural exchanges between China and the Western Regions(like Ilkhanate),and more convenient land and sea transportation between them as well.In order to adapt to such new situation,the government of the Yuan Dynasty set up an institution to teach Persian language,"Hui-people Imperial Academy".It was an institution which taught a special kind of characters,named "Istifi".Hui-people Imperial Academy established close relationship with Hui people who took Persian language as common language.Persian language maintained its inherent importance in the Ming Dynasty,especially in its early period.Finally,Part Three briefly discusses the evolvement of Persian language in and after the middle period of Ming dynasty.In this part,it is pointed out that though Persian is not the common language of Hui people,some vocabularies of it have been used by them.Therefore,Persian language is of great significance for Hui people.