Translation Discourse in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh

Abstract

Iranian poets and scholars’ propensity towards Persian-writing snowballed after the arrival of Islam. Islam entered non-Arab countries along with the Arabic language and strongly influenced languages of those nations. The Iranians were the only people that despite accepting the new religion maintained their national language and culture, yet made uninterrupted endeavor to retain the purview and Sharia of the Qur'an and the prophetic ma’surat, and translated many of those works into Persian. Ferdowsi (330-411 AH) is one of the fourth century literati, who insists on using his own national language and has shown this endeavor in the Shahnameh. Using content analysis approach, this paper intends to review the Shahnameh’s prologue lexicon as a sample in the field of translation discourse; it is anticipated that Ferdowsi has chosen around 90 percent of his words from Persian equivalents and knowledgeably avoids using Arabic lexicon.