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Iran Bans Foreign Words, Iranian College Students Reduced to Eating Elastic Loaves

July 29, 2006

During his latest bout of insanity, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has now decided to ban all foreign words. All governmental agencies, newspapers and publications must stop using foreign words immediately, or else the official language watchdog, the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, is going to call in the police. That means no more pizza for Iranian college students. Instead, they can snack on some tasty "elastic loaves." That's not a helicopter in the sky, it's now some "rotating wings." And that's not a mobile phone you're using in Tehran, it's a "companion phone".

The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deemed more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi, or Persian Academy, the Irna official news agency reported.

The academy has introduced more than 2,000 words as alternatives for some of the foreign words that have become commonly used in Iran, mostly from Western languages. The government is less sensitive about Arabic words, because the Quran is written in Arabic. Among other changes, a "chat" will become a "short talk" and a "cabin" will be renamed a "small room," according to official Web site of the academy.

I'd call President Ahmadinejad an ostrich (because he somehow believes that by pretending that foreign words don't exist that somehow that makes them not exist), but -- alas -- it appears that "ostrich" is yet another non-existent foreign word. All right then. He's a large, feathered, flightless avian creature native to Africa. Now, to celebrate Ahmadinejad's decision, let's all go out for some elastic loaves and some brown-colored, carbonated beverages.

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