A.Z. Foreman | The Tale of Gayomart and the Black Demon from the Shahnama, read in Early New Persian Pronunciation @a.z.foreman74 | Uploaded 1 year ago | Updated 2 hours ago
This is a reading of the tale of of Gayomart and the Black Demon from the Shahnama, Iran's national epic, in a reconstruction of Samanid-era Khorasani Persian, complete with my verse translation. After all, if I'm going to take the time to learn to pronounce a reconstruction of this lect, I might as well get my fair amount of use out of it. I've relied, as with my reading of the prologue, on a combination of Bargnaysī's edition and Khaleghi-Motlagh's.
All proper names in the English translation are provided in their medieval form. Thus Gayōmart and Hōshang rather than Keyumars and Hushang. Although the hero of this story is typically known as "Keyumars" in modern Persian, I went with the /g/ and /t/ consonants that would be etymologically expected and which also occur in medieval attestations of the name.
The music is largely sampled from the Iranian-themed work of the always awesome Farya Faraji. The animation is images from an animated version of the story by Fereshte Torabi and Amin Mehrafarin.
The Persian text given here is heavily vocalized in a way meant to reflect early Persian phonology. I have marked Early Persian /ð/ with ذ in all positions where it occurred historically. (This is also what the earliest MS of the Shahnama does, incidentally.) I distinguish the /ī ū/ from the /ē ō/ vowels of medieval Persian by marking the former with kasrah and ḍammah but not the latter.
For in-depth discussion of the pronunciation choices made here, see my remarks here:
patreon.com/posts/beginning-of-in-83465222
If you liked this video, and want to help me make more things like it, go ahead and make a pledge at my patreon:
http://patreon.com/azforeman
There you'll be able to access cool subscriber-only stuff including my weekly readings of Shakespeare's Sonnets & the KJV in various 17th century accents. Also you'll be able to see my recordings several days (sometimes a month or more) before I make them available to the public. For example, my reading of select passages by Rōdakī AKA Rudaki is already available there to subscribers.
Errors, because hindsight is irritating:
The first half of the penultimate verse should read جهان فريبنده و گرد گرد which is how I read it. The text on the screen is in error.
In the half-verse دد و دام و هر جان ور كش بديد I ought not to have nasalized the /n/.
In the second verse the word ديهيم should probably be /dēhīm/ and not /dayhīm/.
This is a reading of the tale of of Gayomart and the Black Demon from the Shahnama, Iran's national epic, in a reconstruction of Samanid-era Khorasani Persian, complete with my verse translation. After all, if I'm going to take the time to learn to pronounce a reconstruction of this lect, I might as well get my fair amount of use out of it. I've relied, as with my reading of the prologue, on a combination of Bargnaysī's edition and Khaleghi-Motlagh's.
All proper names in the English translation are provided in their medieval form. Thus Gayōmart and Hōshang rather than Keyumars and Hushang. Although the hero of this story is typically known as "Keyumars" in modern Persian, I went with the /g/ and /t/ consonants that would be etymologically expected and which also occur in medieval attestations of the name.
The music is largely sampled from the Iranian-themed work of the always awesome Farya Faraji. The animation is images from an animated version of the story by Fereshte Torabi and Amin Mehrafarin.
The Persian text given here is heavily vocalized in a way meant to reflect early Persian phonology. I have marked Early Persian /ð/ with ذ in all positions where it occurred historically. (This is also what the earliest MS of the Shahnama does, incidentally.) I distinguish the /ī ū/ from the /ē ō/ vowels of medieval Persian by marking the former with kasrah and ḍammah but not the latter.
For in-depth discussion of the pronunciation choices made here, see my remarks here:
patreon.com/posts/beginning-of-in-83465222
If you liked this video, and want to help me make more things like it, go ahead and make a pledge at my patreon:
http://patreon.com/azforeman
There you'll be able to access cool subscriber-only stuff including my weekly readings of Shakespeare's Sonnets & the KJV in various 17th century accents. Also you'll be able to see my recordings several days (sometimes a month or more) before I make them available to the public. For example, my reading of select passages by Rōdakī AKA Rudaki is already available there to subscribers.
Errors, because hindsight is irritating:
The first half of the penultimate verse should read جهان فريبنده و گرد گرد which is how I read it. The text on the screen is in error.
In the half-verse دد و دام و هر جان ور كش بديد I ought not to have nasalized the /n/.
In the second verse the word ديهيم should probably be /dēhīm/ and not /dayhīm/.
