Persian (/ˈpɜːrʒən, -ʃən/), also known by its endonym Farsi[9][10] (فارسی fārsi [fɒːɾˈsiː](listen)), is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan (officially known as Dari since 1958),[11] and Tajikistan (officially known as Tajiki since the Soviet era),[12] Uzbekistan[13][14][15] and some other regions which historically were Persianate societies and considered part of Greater Iran. It is written right to left in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script, which itself evolved from the Aramaic alphabet.[16][17]
The Persian language is classified as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of the Sasanian Empire, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid Empire.[18][19][20] Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages.[21] A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone.[22]
There are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a prestigious cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia by the various empires based in the regions.[23]
Persian has had a considerable (mainly lexical) influence on neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia, neighboring Iranian languages, as well as Armenian, Georgian, and Indo-Aryan languages, especially Urdu (a register of Hindustani). It also exerted some influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic,[24] while borrowing much vocabulary from it after the Arab conquest of Iran.[18][21][25][26][27][28][29]
With a long history of literature in the form of Middle Persian before Islam, Persian was the first language in the Muslim world to break through Arabic's monopoly on writing, and the writing of poetry in Persian was established as a court tradition in many eastern courts.[23] Some of the famous works of Persian literature are the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the works of Rumi, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi, the Divān of Hafez and the two miscellanea of prose and verse by Saadi Shirazi, the Gulistan and the Bustan.
Classification
Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family. Other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, and Luri.[30]
Name of the language
Persian language name in Persian
In Persian, the language is known by several names:
Western Persian, Farsi (فارسی fārsi or زبان فارسی zabān-e fārsi), the Arabic form of Parsi (پارسی pārsi),[31][32][33][34] has been the name used by native speakers until the 20th century. In recent decades some authors writing in English have referred to the variety of Persian spoken in Iran as Farsi;[35][36] although the name Persian is also still widely used.[37][38][39]
Eastern Persian, Dari (دری darī) or Dari Persian (فارسی دری fārsi-ye dari) was originally a synonym for Farsi but since the latter decades of the 20th century has become the name for the variety of Persian spoken in Afghanistan, where it is one of the two official languages; it is sometimes called Afghan Persian in English.[40]
Tajiki (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی tojikī or забони тоҷикӣ / زبان تاجیکی zabon-i tojiki) or форси́и тоҷикӣ́ / forsi-i tojikī, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks.
Persian language name in English
Persian, the historically more widely used name of the language in English, is an anglicized form derived from Latin *Persianus < Latin Persia < Greek Περσίς (Persís) "Persia",[41] a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa.[42] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century.[43]
Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Arab conquest of Iran, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic (i.e., the /p/ was replaced with an /f/).[44][45][46] The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs.[44][45][46] Farsi is encountered in some linguistic literature as a name for the language, used both by Iranian and by foreign authors.[47]
The Academy of Persian Language and Literature, however, has declared that the name Persian is more appropriate, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity.[48] Some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of "Farsi" in their articles.[49][50]
The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its coding system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name "Persian" (code fas) for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari (Afghan Persian) and Iranian Persian.[51]
Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty use "Persian Service" for their broadcasts in the language. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan (Dari) service. The American Association of Teachers of Persian, and the Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature also use the name "Persian".
History

History of the
Persian languageProto-Indo-European (c. 3000 BCE)
 Indo-Iranian languages
Proto-Indo-Iranian (c. 2000 BCE)
 Iranian languages
Proto-Iranian (c. 1500 BCE)
 Western Iranian languages
Old Persian (c. 525 – 300 BCE)
Old Persian cuneiform
Middle Persian (c. 300 BCE – 800 CE)
Pahlavi scripts • Manichaean alphabet • Avestan alphabet
Modern Persian (from 800)
Persian alphabet • Tajiki Cyrillic alphabet
Persian is an Iranian language which belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages. In general, Iranian languages are known from three periods, usually referred to as Old, Middle, and New (Modern) periods. These correspond to three eras in Iranian history; Old era being the period from sometime before Achaemenids, the Achaemenid era and sometime after Achaemenids (that is to 400–300 BC), Middle era being the next period most officially Sassanid era and sometime in post-Sassanid era, and the New era being the period afterwards down to present day.[52]
According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language"[18] for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent[18][53] one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian.[53]
The known history of the Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods:
Old Persian

As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription, dating to the time of king Darius I (reigned 522-486 BC).[54] Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran, Romania (Gherla),[55][56][57] Armenia, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt.[58][59] Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts.[60]
Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan, the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts.
Middle Persian

The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed the ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern ye), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system.
Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with the middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism.
Middle Persian is "essentially, though not in every detail, a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian".[61]
The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik, after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars", Old Persian Parsa, New Persian Fars. This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following the collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script. From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi, which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by the Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date.
Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language[62] but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian.[63][64] Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian."[65]
New Persian

"New Persian" (Modern) is conventionally divided into three stages:
Early New Persian (8th/9th centuries)
Classical Persian (10th–18th centuries)
Contemporary Persian (19th century to present)
Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable.[66]
Early New Persian
"New Persian" is taken to replace Middle Persian in the course of the 8th to 9th centuries, under Abbasid rule.[67]
With the decline of the Abbasids began the re-establishment of Persian national life and Persians laid the foundations for a renaissance in the realm of letters. New Persian as an independent literary language first emerges in Bactria through the adaptation of the spoken form of Sassanian Middle Persian court language called Pārsi-ye Dari. The cradle of the Persian literary renaissance lay in the east of Greater Iran in Greater Khorasan and Transoxiana close to the Amu Darya (modern day Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan).[68] The vocabulary of the New Persian language was thus heavily influenced by other Eastern Iranian languages, particularly Sogdian.[69]
The mastery of the newer speech having now been transformed from Middle into New Persian was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903) and Samanid Empire (874–999), and could develop only in range and power of expression.[68]
Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the newer Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time.[70]
The first poems of the Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in Afghanistan.[71] The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki. He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works is versified fables collected in the Kalila wa Dimna.[23]
The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca, a task for which it was particularly suitable due to its relatively simple morphological structure and this situation persisted until at least 19th century.[67] In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on the Persian model: Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian.[67]
Classical Persian

"Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry.
This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under the "Persianized" Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries.[72]
Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent.
It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids, Tahirids, Ziyarids, the Mughal Empire, Timurids, Ghaznavids, Karakhanids, Seljuqs, Khwarazmians, the Sultanate of Rum, Delhi Sultanate, the Shirvanshahs, Safavids, Afsharids, Zands, Qajars, Khanate of Bukhara, Khanate of Kokand, Emirate of Bukhara, Khanate of Khiva, Ottomans and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad.
Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China.[73]
Use in Asia Minor

Despite Anatolia having been ruled at various times prior to the Middle Ages by various Persian-speaking dynasties originating in Iran, the language lost its traditional foothold there with the demise of the Sasanian Empire. Centuries later however, the practise and usage of Persian in the region would be strongly revived. A branch of the Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum, took Persian language, art and letters to Anatolia.[74] They adopted Persian language as the official language of the empire.[75] The Ottomans, which can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, took this tradition over. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire.[76] The educated and noble class of the Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as sultan Selim I, despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam.[77] It was a major literary language in the empire.[78] Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi's Hasht Bihisht, which begun in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah, a glorification of Selim I.[77] After a period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed towards a fully accepted language of literature, which was even able to satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation.[79] However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%.[79]
Use in South Asia

The Persian language influenced the formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia, Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians.[80] The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties.[74] For five centuries prior to the British colonization, Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent, due to the admiration the Mughals (who were of Turco-Mongol origin) had for the foreign language. It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors.
Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent.[81] Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in the extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Urdu, also historically known as Hindustani. There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak a Dari dialect.
Contemporary Persian

In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty, the dialect spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian".
There is still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, since the 19thcentury numerous Russian, French, and English terms have been borrowed, especially vocabulary related to technology. The Iranian National Academy of Persian Language and Literature is responsible for evaluating neologisms in order to devise their Persian equivalents.
Varieties
There are three modern varieties of standard Persian:
Western Persian (Persian, Iranian Persian, or Farsi) is spoken in Iran, and by minorities in Iraq and the Persian Gulf states.
Dari (Dari Persian, Afghan Persian, or Dari) is spoken in Afghanistan.
Tajiki (Tajik Persian) is spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is written in the Cyrillic script.
All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from the standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility.[82]
The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects:
Luri (or Lori), spoken mainly in the southwestern Iranian provinces of Lorestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, some western parts of Fars Province and some parts of Khuzestan Province.
Lari (in southern Iran)
Tat, spoken in parts of Azerbaijan, Russia, and Transcaucasia. It is classified as a variety of Persian.[83][84][85][86][87] (This dialect is not to be confused with the Tati language of northwestern Iran, which is a member of a different branch of the Iranian languages.)
Judeo-Tat. Part of the Tat-Persian continuum, spoken in Azerbaijan, Russia, as well as by immigrant communities in Israel and New York.
For other more distantly related branches of the Iranian language family, such as Kurdish and Balochi, see Iranian languages.
Phonology

Iranian Persian has six vowels and twenty-three consonants.

Vowels

Historically, Persian distinguished length. Early New Persian had a series of five long vowels (/iː/, /uː/, /ɒː/, /oː/ and /eː/) along with three short vowels /æ/, /i/ and /u/. At some point prior to the 16th century in the general area now modern Iran, /eː/ and /iː/ merged into /iː/, and /oː/ and /uː/ merged into /uː/. Thus, older contrasts such as شیر shēr "lion" vs. شیر shīr "milk", and زود zūd "quick" vs زور zōr "strong" were lost. However, there are exceptions to this rule, and in some words, ē and ō are preserved or merged into the diphthongs [eɪ] and [oʊ] (which are descendants of the diphthongs [æɪ] and [æʊ] in Early New Persian), instead of merging into /iː/ and /uː/. Examples of the exception can be found in words such as روشن [roʊʃæn] (bright).
However, in Dari, the archaic distinction of /eː/ and /iː/ (respectively known as یای مجهول Yā-ye majhūl and یای معروف Yā-ye ma'rūf) is still preserved as well as the distinction of /oː/ and /uː/ (known as واو مجهول Wāw-e majhūl and واو معروف Wāw-e ma'rūf). On the other hand, in standard Tajik, the length distinction has disappeared, and /iː/ merged with /i/ and /uː/ with /u/.[88] Therefore, contemporary Afghan Dari dialects are the closest to the vowel inventory of Early New Persian.
According to most studies on the subject (e.g. Samareh 1977, Pisowicz 1985, Najafi 2001), the three vowels traditionally considered long (/i/, /u/, /ɒ/) are currently distinguished from their short counterparts (/e/, /o/, /æ/) by position of articulation rather than by length. However, there are studies (e.g. Hayes 1979, Windfuhr 1979) that consider vowel length to be the active feature of the system, with /ɒ/, /i/, and /u/ phonologically long or bimoraic and /æ/, /e/, and /o/ phonologically short or monomoraic.
There are also some studies that consider quality and quantity to be both active in the Iranian system (such as Toosarvandani 2004). That offers a synthetic analysis including both quality and quantity, which often suggests that Modern Persian vowels are in a transition state between the quantitative system of Classical Persian and a hypothetical future Iranian language, which will eliminate all traces of quantity and retain quality as the only active feature.
The length distinction is still strictly observed by careful reciters of classic-style poetry for all varieties (including Tajik).
Consonants

Notes:
in Iranian Persian /ɣ/ and /q/ have merged into [ɣ~ɢ], as a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] when positioned intervocalically and unstressed, and as a voiced uvular stop [ɢ] otherwise.[89][90][91]
Grammar

Morphology
Suffixes predominate Persian morphology, though there are a small number of prefixes.[92] Verbs can express tense and aspect, and they agree with the subject in person and number.[93] There is no grammatical gender in Persian, and pronouns are not marked for natural gender.
Syntax
Normal declarative sentences are structured as (S) (PP) (O) V: sentences have optional subjects, prepositional phrases, and objects followed by a compulsory verb. If the object is specific, the object is followed by the word rā and precedes prepositional phrases: (S) (O + rā) (PP) V.[93]
Vocabulary

Native word formation
Persian makes extensive use of word building and combining affixes, stems, nouns and adjectives. Persian frequently uses derivational agglutination to form new words from nouns, adjectives, and verbal stems. New words are extensively formed by compounding– two existing words combining into a new one, as is common in German.
Influences

While having a lesser influence on Arabic[26] and other languages of Mesopotamia and its core vocabulary being of Middle Persian origin,[21] New Persian contains a considerable amount of Arabic lexical items,[18][25][27] which were Persianized[28] and often took a different meaning and usage than the Arabic original. Persian loanwords of Arabic origin especially include Islamic terms. The Arabic vocabulary in other Iranian, Turkic and Indic languages is generally understood to have been copied from New Persian, not from Arabic itself.[94]
John R. Perry, in his article Lexical Areas and Semantic Fields of Arabic, estimates that about 24 percent of an everyday vocabulary of 20,000 words in current Persian, and more than 25 percent of the vocabulary of classical and modern Persian literature, are of Arabic origin. The text frequency of these loan words is generally lower and varies by style and topic area. It may approach 25 percent of a text in literature.[95] According to another source, about 40% of everyday Persian literary vocabulary is of Arabic origin.[96] Among the Arabic loan words, relatively few (14 percent) are from the semantic domain of material culture, while a larger number are from domains of intellectual and spiritual life.[97] Most of the Arabic words used in Persian are either synonyms of native terms or could be glossed in Persian.[98]
The inclusion of Mongolian and Turkic elements in the Persian language should also be mentioned,[99] not only because of the political role a succession of Turkic dynasties played in Iranian history, but also because of the immense prestige Persian language and literature enjoyed in the wider (non-Arab) Islamic world, which was often ruled by sultans and emirs with a Turkic background. The Turkish and Mongolian vocabulary in Persian is minor in comparison to that of Arabic and these words were mainly confined to military, pastoral terms and political sector (titles, administration, etc.).[100] New military and political titles were coined based partially on Middle Persian (e.g. ارتش arteš for "army", instead of the Uzbek قؤشین qoʻshin; سرلشکر sarlaškar; دریابان daryābān; etc.) in the 20th century.
Persian has likewise influenced the vocabularies of other languages, especially other Indo-European languages such as Armenian,[101] Urdu, Bengali and (to a lesser extent) Hindi; the latter three through conquests of Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan invaders;[102] Turkic languages such as Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Tatar, Turkish,[103] Turkmen, Azeri,[104] Uzbek, and Karachay-Balkar;[105] Caucasian languages such as Georgian,[106] and to a lesser extent, Avar and Lezgin;[107] Afro-Asiatic languages like Assyrian (List of loanwords in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic) and Arabic;[108] and even Dravidian languages indirectly especially Telugu and Brahui; as well as Austronesian languages such as Indonesian and Malay. Persian has also had a significant lexical influence, via Turkish, on Albanian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbo-Croatian, particularly as spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Use of occasional foreign synonyms instead of Persian words can be a common practice in everyday communications as an alternative expression. In some instances in addition to the Persian vocabulary, the equivalent synonyms from multiple foreign languages can be used. For example, in Iranian colloquial Persian (not in Afghanistan or Tajikistan), the phrase "thank you" may be expressed using the French word مرسی merci (stressed, however, on the first syllable), the hybrid Persian-Arabic phrase متشکّر ام motešakker am (متشکّر motešakker being "thankful" in Arabic, commonly pronounced motčakker in Persian, and the verb ام am meaning "I am" in Persian), or by the pure Persian phrase سپاس‌گزار ام sepās-gozār am.
Orthography

The vast majority of modern Iranian Persian and Dari text is written with the Arabic script. Tajiki, which is considered by some linguists to be a Persian dialect influenced by Russian and the Turkic languages of Central Asia,[109][110] is written with the Cyrillic script in Tajikistan (see Tajik alphabet). There also exist several romanization systems for Persian.
Persian alphabet

Modern Iranian Persian and Afghan Persian are written using a modified variant of the Arabic alphabet, which uses different pronunciation and additional letters not found in Arabic. After the Muslim conquest of Persia, it took approximately 150 years before Persians adopted the Arabic script in place of the older alphabet. Previously, two different scripts were used, Pahlavi, used for Middle Persian, and the Avestan alphabet (in Persian, Dīndapirak or Din Dabire—literally: religion script), used for religious purposes, primarily for the Avestan but sometimes for Middle Persian.
In the modern Persian script, historically short vowels are usually not written, only the historically long ones are represented in the text, so words distinguished from each other only by short vowels are ambiguous in writing: Western Persian kerm "worm", karam "generosity", kerem "cream", and krom "chrome" are all spelled krm (کرم) in Persian. The reader must determine the word from context. The Arabic system of vocalization marks known as harakat is also used in Persian, although some of the symbols have different pronunciations. For example, a ḍammah is pronounced [ʊ~u], while in Iranian Persian it is pronounced [o]. This system is not used in mainstream Persian literature; it is primarily used for teaching and in some (but not all) dictionaries.

There are several letters generally only used in Arabic loanwords. These letters are pronounced the same as similar Persian letters. For example, there are four functionally identical letters for /z/ (ز ذ ض ظ), three letters for /s/ (س ص ث), two letters for /t/ (ط ت), two letters for /h/ (ح ه).
On the other hand, there are four letters that don't exist in Arabic پ چ ژ گ.
Additions
The Persian alphabet adds four letters to the Arabic alphabet:

Historically, there was also a special letter for the sound /β/. This letter is no longer used, as the /β/-sound changed to /b/, i.e. archaic زڤان /zaβān/ > زبان /zæbɒn/ 'language'

Variations
The Persian alphabet also modifies some letters of the Arabic alphabet. For example, alef with hamza below (إ) changes to alef (ا); words using various hamzas get spelled with yet another kind of hamza (so that مسؤول becomes مسئول) even though the latter is also correct in Arabic; and teh marbuta (ة) changes to heh (ه) or teh (ت).
The letters different in shape are:

Latin alphabet

The International Organization for Standardization has published a standard for simplified transliteration of Persian into Latin, ISO 233-3, titled "Information and documentation– Transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin characters– Part 3: Persian language– Simplified transliteration"[111] but the transliteration scheme is not in widespread use.
Another Latin alphabet, based on the Common Turkic Alphabet, was used in Tajikistan in the 1920s and 1930s. The alphabet was phased out in favor of Cyrillic in the late 1930s.[109]
Fingilish is Persian using ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is most commonly used in chat, emails and SMS applications. The orthography is not standardized, and varies among writers and even media (for example, typing 'aa' for the [ɒ] phoneme is easier on computer keyboards than on cellphone keyboards, resulting in smaller usage of the combination on cellphones).
Tajik alphabet

The Cyrillic script was introduced for writing the Tajik language under the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic in the late 1930s, replacing the Latin alphabet that had been used since the October Revolution and the Persian script that had been used earlier. After 1939, materials published in Persian in the Persian script were banned from the country.[109][112]
Examples
The following text is from Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

See also
The existential "be" and copula in Persian
Academy of Persian Language and Literature
Pahlavi (disambiguation)
List of English words of Persian origin
List of French loanwords in Persian
Persian alphabet
Persian Braille
Persian grammar
Persian name
Persian phonology
Persian metres
Persianate society
Romanization of Persian
Western Iranian languages

Sources

Further reading

CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)

 (in Persian)
 (in Persian)
 (in Persian)
, parstimes.com

Haim, Soleiman. . Teheran: Librairie-imprimerie Beroukhim, 1934–1936. uchicago.edu
Steingass, Francis Joseph. . London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1892. uchicago.edu
 , ucla.edu
, Persian Graffiti
 USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI)


The 2018 FIFA World Cup Final was a football match that took place on 15 July 2018 to determine the winners of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. It was the final of the 21st FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial tournament contested by the men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The match was contested by France and Croatia, and held at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia.
Before 2018, France's only World Cup victory was in 1998 – though they had also reached the final in 2006 – while Croatia were playing in their first World Cup final. Both teams had defeated former World Cup champions on their way to the final: France defeated 1930 and 1950 winners Uruguay, Croatia defeated 1966 winners England and both teams defeated 1978 and 1986 winners Argentina. Croatia became the third Eastern European nation to reach the World Cup final, and the first since Czechoslovakia lost the final in 1962 to Brazil.
France won the match 4–2, having taken a 2–1 lead during the first half on an own goal and penalty awarded by the video assistant referee (VAR), both firsts in a World Cup final. France also became the second team in the 32-team World Cup to win all their knockout matches without any extra time or penalty shoot-out after Brazil in 2002. As winners, France qualified for the 2021 FIFA Confederations Cup. The final was watched by a global audience of 1.12 billion people on television and streaming platforms.
Venue

The final was played at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, located in the Khamovniki District of the Central Administrative Okrug. An expanded version of the stadium was named as the provisional final venue in Russia's World Cup bid, which was selected by FIFA on 2 December 2010.[5] Luzhniki Stadium was confirmed as the final venue on 14 December 2012, following a meeting of the now-erswthile FIFA Executive Committee held in Tokyo, Japan.[6] The stadium also hosted six other matches, including the opening match on 14 June, three group stage matches, a round of 16 match, and the second semi-final match.[7][8]

The Luzhniki Stadium, previously known as the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium until 1992, originally opened in 1956 as part of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex to host the USSR Summer Spartakiade.[9][10] The stadium has served as the national stadium of the country, hosting many matches for the Russia national team and its predecessor, the Soviet Union national team.[7][11] In the past, the stadium has been used as the home ground at various times for CSKA Moscow, Torpedo Moscow, and Spartak Moscow. However, there are currently no clubs based at the stadium.[11][12]
The stadium has hosted numerous international sporting events. The stadium was the main venue for the 1980 Summer Olympics, hosting the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics, football (four matches, including the gold medal match), and the Individual Jumping Grand Prix.[10][13] The stadium hosted the 1999 UEFA Cup Final, as well as the 2008 UEFA Champions League Final.[14] Other events staged include the Spartakiad, the final game of the 1957 Ice Hockey World Championships, the 1973 Summer Universiade, the Friendship Games in 1984, the 1986 Goodwill Games, and the 1998 World Youth Games.[15][16] In 2013, the Rugby World Cup Sevens and World Athletics Championships were held at the ground in front of sparse crowds.[17] The stadium has also served as a venue for many concerts, including Western artists after the fall of the Soviet Union,[13] as well as political rallies.[18]
Rated as a category 4 stadium by UEFA, the Luzhniki Stadium is the largest in Russia and at the 2018 World Cup; it usually has a maximum capacity of 81,006, but was reduced to 78,011 for the World Cup.[11][19] This also makes the stadium the largest in Eastern Europe,[20] and among the largest in Europe.[21][22] To prepare for the World Cup, the stadium was closed for extensive renovations in August 2013.[23] The spectator stands were moved closer to the pitch, which was converted from artificial turf to natural grass, after the removal of the athletic track. The historic facade of the stadium was preserved due to its architectural value, while the roof was upgraded using a new polycarbonate skin with exterior lighting.[24][25] The Luzhniki did not host any matches at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup due to the ongoing project.[26] The renovation project cost €341million,[27] and the stadium officially reopened with an international friendly between Russia and Argentina on 11 November 2017.[28]
Background
After Uruguay and Brazil were eliminated in the quarter-finals, a European side was ensured to win the World Cup for a fourth consecutive tournament.[29] The match was also the ninth all-European World Cup final, which most recently occurred in 2006 and 2010.[30][31]
The match was the third World Cup final for France, first appearing in the 1998 final as hosts, winning 3–0 against reigning champions Brazil. France also contested the 2006 final, where they lost to Italy in a penalty shoot-out following a 1–1 draw.[32][33] Only Germany (eight) and Italy (six) have reached more finals among European nations.[34] Didier Deschamps became the fourth person to reach a World Cup final as both a player and as a manager, after Franz Beckenbauer, Rudi Völler, and Mário Zagallo.[35]
The match was the first World Cup final for Croatia in their fifth World Cup appearance. They are the 10th European country and 13th overall to reach a World Cup final, and the first new finalist since Spain in 2010.[36][37] With a population of 4.17million, Croatia is the second least-populated country to play in a World Cup final, behind Uruguay (victors in 1930 and 1950).[38] Croatia's previous best performance was as World Cup debutants in 1998, when they finished in third place,[39] losing 2–1 to hosts France in the semi-finals before beating the Netherlands 2–1 in the third place play-off.[40][41]
The final was the sixth meeting between France and Croatia, with France undefeated in the previous fixtures with three wins and two draws.[42] The two sides first met in the 1998 World Cup semi-final, with hosts France winning 2–1.[43] Their only other competitive meeting was during the group stage of Euro 2004, which finished as a 2–2 draw. Their next, and most recent, meeting was in a March 2011 friendly match, which finished as a 0–0 draw.[44]
Route to the final

FranceRoundCroatiaOpponentsResultGroup stageOpponentsResultAustralia2–1Match 1Nigeria2–0Peru1–0Match 2Argentina3–0Denmark0–0Match 3Iceland2–1Group C winners
Final standingsGroup D winners
OpponentsResultKnockout stageOpponentsResultArgentina4–3Round of 16Denmark1–1 (a.e.t.) (3–2 p)Uruguay2–0Quarter-finalsRussia2–2 (a.e.t.) (4–3 p)Belgium1–0Semi-finalsEngland2–1 (a.e.t.)
France

France entered the 2018 World Cup as one of the favourites to win the tournament, particularly for their strong squad featuring several youth talents.[45] The team finished as runners-up to Portugal at Euro 2016, which the country hosted.[45] The team qualified for the World Cup finals after finishing first in their qualification group, ahead of Sweden and the Netherlands.[45]
At the World Cup, France were drawn into Group C alongside Australia, Denmark, and Peru. The team defeated Australia 2–1 in its opening match in Kazan, with a penalty called by the video assistant referee and scored by Antoine Griezmann followed by an own goal deflected by Australian defender Aziz Behich.[46] In its second match, France won 1–0 over Peru on a goal scored by 19-year-old Kylian Mbappé, who became France's youngest goalscorer at a major tournament.[47][48] The victory over Peru qualified France for the knockout stage, allowing manager Didier Deschamps to rest several starting players for the final group stage match against Denmark. The match at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow finished in a scoreless draw marked by misplaced passes and goalkeeping mistakes.[49] The team's group stage performance was characterised as lacking cohesion and failing to use its star players effectively.[50]
Finishing as winners of Group C, France were matched in the round of 16 with Group D runners-up Argentina. France won 4–3 on two goals scored by Mbappé, who also won a penalty in the opening minutes.[51] Defender Benjamin Pavard also scored in the match, with his strike later voted as goal of the tournament.[52] Mbappé's performance drew comparisons to Brazilian stars Ronaldo and Pelé, who in 1958 was the most recent teenager to score twice in a World Cup match.[53][54] In the quarter-finals, France defeated Uruguay 2–0 on a goal and assist by Griezmann.[55] The team advanced to a semi-final match against Belgium in St. Petersburg, which ended in a 1–0 win for the French with a corner kick headed into the goal by defender Samuel Umtiti.[56] The French team, particularly Mbappé, were criticised for timewasting and other unsportsmanlike conduct in the semi-finals after taking the lead in the second half.[57]
Croatia

Croatia entered the 2018 World Cup as dark horses, with their golden generation led by forward Mario Mandžukić and midfielders Marcelo Brozović, Mateo Kovačić, Luka Modrić, Ivan Perišić, and Ivan Rakitić.[58][59] The team had been eliminated in the group stage at the 2014 tournament,[60] but reached the round of 16 at Euro 2016.[61] In their qualification group, Croatia scored 15 goals and finished second to Iceland after appointing manager Zlatko Dalić amid a series of poor away results.[62][63] However, Croatia managed to advance past Greece in the qualifying play-offs, winning the first leg 4–1 and drawing 0–0 in the second.[64]
Croatia were drawn into Group D with Argentina, Iceland, and Nigeria, considered a difficult draw due to Argentina's talent and Nigeria's historic performances.[62][65] In their opening match, the team earned a 2–0 victory over Nigeria, with an own goal by Oghenekaro Etebo caused by Mandžukić and a penalty scored by Modrić.[66] Striker Nikola Kalinić refused to enter the match as a substitute, citing back pain as his reason for not playing, and was expelled from the team by Dalić, leaving Croatia with only 22 players for the remainder of the tournament.[67] Croatia went on to upset Argentina with a 3–0 win, thanks to an effective game plan that used the "height and strength of their players to dominate the game in aerial duels", playing a "pressing game, counter-attacking, and more direct play in possession" to counter Lionel Messi, scoring all their goals in the second half.[68] Croatia finished atop the group with a 2–1 win over Iceland, resting several starting players in the final group match.[69][70][71]

In the round of 16, Croatia played Denmark and earned a 1–1 draw after the two teams exchanged goals in the opening five minutes and a missed penalty from Modrić in extra time. Croatia won the subsequent penalty shootout 3–2, with three saves by goalkeeper Danijel Subašić and two saves by Danish goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.[72][73] The team advanced to a quarter-final fixture with hosts Russia, who had defeated Spain in the round of 16, in Sochi. The Russians scored their first in the 31st minute, but Andrej Kramarić equalised for Croatia eight minutes later and kept the score at 1–1 through the end of regular time. Croatia took a 2–1 lead in extra time with a header by Domagoj Vida, but Russian defender Mário Fernandes equalised in stoppage time to trigger a penalty shootout. The shootout was won 4–3 by Croatia after two misses by Russia and a shot by Modrić that rebounded off the post and into the goal.[74][75] Croatia became the second team in World Cup to win two shootouts in a tournament, after Argentina in 1990.[76] After the match, a video of Vida saying "Glory to Ukraine" prompted controversy among Russians and a warning from FIFA's disciplinary committee, which enforces a ban on political slogans.[77] Croatia's semi-final match against England at the Luzhniki began as they conceded a free kick goal by English defender Kieran Trippier in the fifth minute. Croatia resisted several attempts by England to score a second goal in the first half. Croatia managed an equalising goal of their own through a shot by Perišić in the 68th minute. The match was won 2–1 by Croatia after a 109th-minute goal by Mandžukić. This made Croatia the first team to earn three come-from-behind victories in the FIFA World Cup, all three matches also going into extra time.[78][79]
Pre-match
Match ball
The official match ball for the final was the Telstar Mechta (Russian: Мечта; lit. dream or ambition), a red-coloured variant of the Adidas Telstar 18 introduced for the knockout stage.[80][81] The Telstar family, a homage to the original 1970 Telstar, was designed similarly to 2014's Brazuca, but with longer seams and additional panels.[82]
Officials

Argentine referee Néstor Pitana was selected to lead the officiating team for the final, which was announced on 12 July 2018 by the FIFA Referees Committee. The final is Pitana's fifth match as referee during the tournament, becoming only the second referee to officiate the opening match and the final.[83] Pitana officiated an additional group stage match, along with two knockout stage matches in the round of 16 and quarter-finals. Pitana has been a FIFA referee since 2010, and officiated four matches at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. His compatriots Hernán Maidana and Juan Pablo Belatti were chosen as assistant referees. Björn Kuipers of the Netherlands was chosen as the fourth official, with his fellow countryman Erwin Zeinstra as the reserve assistant.[2] Italian Massimiliano Irrati was named the video assistant referee, presiding over the first use of the technology at a World Cup final. Argentine Mauro Vigliano was chosen as the assistant video assistant referee, while Carlos Astroza of Chile was appointed as the second assistant and Danny Makkelie of the Netherlands as the third assistant.[84]
Closing ceremony
The tournament's closing ceremony was held prior to the start of the match, featuring a performance of "Live It Up", the official song of the tournament, by Will Smith, Nicky Jam, and Era Istrefi. Jam also performed "X (Equis)", wearing a shirt honouring J Balvin.[85] Opera singer Aida Garifullina sang the Russian folk song "Kalinka", accompanied by a children's choir and percussion section that featured a cameo by Brazilian star Ronaldinho.[86]
Match
Summary

Croatia kicked off the final at 18:00 local time (15:00 UTC), with the ground temperature reported at 27°C (81°F). The match was played through a minor thunderstorm, which produced several visible lightning strikes.[87] An audience of 78,011 spectators at the Luzhniki Stadium watched the match, including ten heads of state, among them Russian president Vladimir Putin, French president Emmanuel Macron, and Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović.[88] The starting line-ups for both teams were identical to those fielded in the semi-finals.[89]

Croatia had the majority of possession and chances early in the first half, with the ball staying mostly in France's half.[90][91] An attack by French midfielder Antoine Griezmann was stopped by a challenge from Marcelo Brozović, which was called as a foul despite claims that Griezmann dived.[92][93][94] Griezmann took the ensuing 30-yard (27m) free kick, which was diverted by the head of Mario Mandžukić into the left corner of his own net to give France the lead in the 18th minute.[95] It was the first own goal to be scored in a World Cup final and the 12th of the tournament, the most of any World Cup.[96]
Ten minutes later, Croatia equalised with a left-footed strike by Ivan Perišić to the right corner of the net, assisted by Domagoj Vida after a free kick by Luka Modrić on the right. In the 34th minute, a penalty was awarded against Croatia after Perišić's handball in the box from a corner on the right was reviewed by the video assistant referee.[95] Griezmann scored the penalty in the 38th minute with a low finish to the left, giving France a 2–1 lead at half-time; the first half's three goals were the most of any World Cup final since 1974.[97] France led at half-time despite having only one shot on goal and with only 34% of possession.[96]
A Croatian counter-attack was stopped early in the second half after several pitch invaders were chased onto the field by security officers; Russian feminist rock band and protest group Pussy Riot claimed responsibility for the interruption.[98] In the 59th minute, France extended their lead to 3–1 with a left-foot strike to the left of the net from the edge of the penalty area by Paul Pogba after his initial shot had been blocked. Six minutes later, Kylian Mbappé scored France's fourth goal, with a low right-foot shot from outside the box to the left of the net; Mbappé became the first teenager to score in a World Cup final since Pelé in 1958.[91] Croatia scored their second goal in the 69th minute, as from a back-pass, France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris failed to dribble around Mandžukić, who poked the loose ball into the unguarded net with his right leg. Despite a late push by Croatia, the match finished as a 4–2 victory for France and the highest-scoring World Cup final since 1966.[90][97]
Details

15July2018(2018-07-15)18:00 MSK (UTC+3)

France4–2Croatia
Mandžukić 18'(o.g.)
Griezmann 38'(pen.)
Pogba 59'
Mbappé 65'
Perišić 28'
Mandžukić 69'Luzhniki Stadium, MoscowAttendance: 78,011[3]Referee: Néstor Pitana (Argentina)

France[99]

Croatia[99]

GK1Hugo Lloris (c)RB2Benjamin PavardCB4Raphaël VaraneCB5Samuel UmtitiLB21Lucas Hernandez41'CM6Paul PogbaCM13N'Golo Kanté27'55'RW10Kylian MbappéAM7Antoine GriezmannLW14Blaise Matuidi73'CF9Olivier Giroud81'Substitutions:MF15Steven Nzonzi55'MF12Corentin Tolisso73'FW18Nabil Fekir81'Manager:Didier Deschamps

GK23Danijel SubašićRB2Šime Vrsaljko90+2'CB6Dejan LovrenCB21Domagoj VidaLB3Ivan Strinić81'CM7Ivan RakitićCM11Marcelo BrozovićRW18Ante Rebić71'AM10Luka Modrić (c)LW4Ivan PerišićCF17Mario MandžukićSubstitutions:FW9Andrej Kramarić71'FW20Marko Pjaca81'Manager:Zlatko Dalić

Man of the Match:

Antoine Griezmann (France)[1]
Assistant referees:[99]

Hernán Maidana (Argentina)

Juan Pablo Belatti (Argentina)

Fourth official:

Björn Kuipers (Netherlands)

Reserve assistant referee:

Erwin Zeinstra (Netherlands)

Video assistant referee:

Massimiliano Irrati (Italy)

Assistant video assistant referees:

Mauro Vigliano (Argentina)

Carlos Astroza (Chile)

Danny Makkelie (Netherlands)

Match rules[100]
90 minutes
30 minutes of extra time if necessary
Penalty shoot-out if scores still level
Maximum of twelve named substitutes
Maximum of three substitutions, with a fourth allowed in extra time
Statistics

Post-match

France became the sixth country to win the World Cup more than once and qualified for the 2021 FIFA Confederations Cup with their win.[102] Didier Deschamps became the third person to have won the World Cup as both a player and manager, after Mário Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer.[35] The final was the highest scoring since 1966, and the highest score in regular time since 1958.[88][97] The winner's medals were presented on the pitch to the French team by presidents Putin, Macron, and Grabar-Kitarović amid a heavy rainstorm.[103] FIFA president Gianni Infantino handed the trophy to French captain Hugo Lloris.[104]
Croatian captain Luka Modrić won the Golden Ball as best player of the tournament.[105] France's Antoine Griezmann, the final's man of the match,[106] also won the Bronze Ball and the Silver Boot award with four goals and two assists. Kylian Mbappé won the Best Young Player award for the tournament.[107]
Large crowds, including 90,000 people at the Eiffel Tower fanzone and an estimated million on the Champs-Élysées, celebrated the victory in Paris.[108][109] The celebrations were marred by instances of rioting that were broken up by police, as well as the deaths of at least two people during celebrations elsewhere in the country, one man died after diving into a shallow canal and another died after crashing his car into a tree,[110][111] RATP, the operator of the Paris Métro system, temporarily renamed several stations in honour of the team and its World Cup victory.[112] On 16 July, more than 550,000 fans welcomed the Croatian team home in the capital city of Zagreb, in the single largest public gathering in Croatia's history, where a six-hour-long bus tour brought them from Zagreb Airport to Ban Jelačić Square.[113]
Broadcasting and viewership
FIFA estimated that the global audience for the final peaked at 1.12 billion people, including 884 million watching television broadcasts and 232 million using other platforms, including online streaming, and at public venues.[114] According to a broadcast audit report, 86.7 percent of televisions in France and 88.6 in Croatia were watching the broadcast.[115]
Europe
In France, the final was televised on TF1 and BeIN Sports and drew an average of 26.1million viewers, making it the most watched event ever in French television history.[116] In England, the final had an average viewership of 10.5million and a peak viewership of 13.8million, split between free-to-air broadcasters BBC One and ITV, almost half that of the viewership of England–Croatia semi-final.[117][118][119] In Germany, the match drew a viewership of 21.3million, which was around 76% of the market share, on state-owned ZDF.[118][119][120] In Spain, the match had a 57.3% share, with 8.2million viewers on Mediaset España Comunicación's Telecinco.[118] In Croatia, the match drew around 1.538million viewers – more than 38% of the population – on national broadcaster HTV2 for an 89.3% market share.[119][120][121] In Italy, it drew 11.7million viewers on Canale 5.[118][120] In the Netherlands, the match had a viewership of 3.1million on NPO1.[120] In the host nation of Russia, the final was the third-most watched match of the 2018 World Cup and accounted for around 50% of the nation's population.[122]
In total, the final drew more than 160million viewers in 20 European territories, including Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany.[123][124]
Rest of the world
In the United States of America, the match was broadcast on NBCUniversal-owned Telemundo and 21st Century Fox-owned Fox and Fox Sports, the match averaged 16.6million viewers combined, with Telemundo reaching a total of 57% of the country's Latino population.[125][126][127][128] In India, 70million viewers streamed the match online, through Sony Picture Networks India's (SPN) Sony Liv application, which was a record for a football match;[129][130][131] an additional 22.4million viewers watched the match on Sony Ten 2, Sony Ten 3 and Sony ESPN.[129] In China, the match drew a combined of 56million viewers on state-broadcasters CCTV-1 and CCTV-5, the most-watched sporting event in China since 2008 Beijing Olympics;[125][123][124] an additional 24million viewers streamed the match through Youku, a video-service and an Alibaba Group subsidiary.[132][133] In Australia, the final was watched by an average of 2.2million viewers – with a peak of 3.4million viewers – on national public broadcaster SBS.[134][135] Whereas, in Canada, the final was watched by an average of 3.9million viewers, with a peak of 5.4million viewers on CTV, TSN and RDS.[136]
Advertising
In the United States, Fox received between US$399,000 and $750,000 for a 30-second advertisement spot during the World Cup final;[137][138][139] whereas in France, TF1 got up to $300,000 for a 30-second ad-spot.[125]
See also
2018 FIFA World Cup knockout stage
2021 FIFA Confederations Cup


Reynolds Group Holdings is an American packaging company with roots in the former Reynolds Metals Company, which was the second-largest aluminum company in the United States, and the third-largest in the world.  Reynolds Metals was acquired by Alcoa in June 2000.
Reynolds Metals became known for the consumer product Reynolds Wrap, as well as for developing and promoting new uses for aluminum. Its RV Aluminaut submarine was operated by Reynolds Submarine Services Corporation.[1]
It was headquartered for most of its existence in Richmond, Virginia, and after 1958 in the Modernist style Reynolds Metals Company International Headquarters built there.
History
The Reynolds Metals Company was founded in 1919 as the U.S. Foil Company in Louisville, Kentucky by Richard S. Reynolds, Sr., nephew of tobacco king R. J. Reynolds. Initially, the new company supplied lead and tin foil wrappers to cigarette and candy companies. In 1924, U.S. Foil purchased the manufacturer of Eskimo Pies, which were wrapped in foil. In 1928, Reynolds purchased Robertshaw Thermostat, Fulton Sylphon, and part of Beechnut Foil, adding them to U.S. Foil to create Reynolds Metals. In 1931 the company headquarters was moved to New York City and in 1938 the headquarters was moved again to Richmond, Virginia.
The company began producing aluminum foil for packaging in 1926. Reynolds Metals created the first high-speed, gravure-printed foil, aluminum bottle labels, heat-sealed foil bags for foods and foil-laminated building insulation paper. In 1940 Reynolds Metals began mining bauxite (aluminum ore) in Bauxite, Arkansas and opened its first aluminum plant near Sheffield, Alabama, the following year. In 1947, the company released Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil. Reynolds Metals pioneered the development of aluminum siding in 1945, and Richard S. Reynolds began predicting a growing demand for additional aluminum during peacetime. He believed new aluminum-producing facilities would need to be built to meet demand. Reynolds Metals Company leased, and later bought, six government defense plants that were up for disposal. Reynolds later expanded into non aluminum products such as plastics and precious metals, introducing Reynolds Plastic Wrap in 1982.
After the Second World War, the sense of aluminum's utility expanded to include its ornamental characteristics. By repurposing military by-products into consumer goods, aluminum was now being marketed for its decorative appeal as well, creating a product of both functional and eye-catching qualities.[2] Reynolds advertised aluminum for its multi-faceted property, now reaching areas of fashion, home improvement, and architecture.[2] Reynolds marketed aluminum foil as gift wrap, aluminum yarn for Vogue dress patterns, and even extended their advertising strategy to include wrapping their office headquarters in aluminum.[2]
Four sons of founder Richard S. Reynolds, William G. Reynolds, Richard S. Reynolds, Jr., David P. Reynolds, and J. Louis Reynolds, were all part of the running of the business. Richard S. Reynolds, Jr. succeeded his father as president in 1948 and under his leadership, the company underwent a major expansion with operations extended to countries around the world such as Venezuela and the Philippines. In 1976 David P. Reynolds, also known for his involvement in Thoroughbred horse racing, took over as president. He was the last member of his family to head the company and would retire as chairman.
Reynolds Metals developed other, less well-known products. Not all became commercially viable, such as an aluminum bus developed with Rohr Industries, and other aluminum motor vehicles. The aluminum vehicles were surpassed in weight and cost by steel, plastics and fiberglass. However, when Reynolds Metals developed the world's first aluminum submarine,  the Aluminaut, the experimental product participated in a key rescue.[3] In 1969, Aluminaut rescued Alvin (DSV-2). Aluminaut's assistance enabled Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to continue operating its submersible. Alvin's work continues 45 years later.[4]
By 1991, Reynolds Metals employed 30,800 workers at more than 100 operations in 20 countries, including 64 plants in the United States, and had a total production capacity of more than 1 million tons of aluminum and aluminum products. The company was acquired by Alcoa on May 3, 2000 to become the largest aluminum company in the United States.
On January 21, 2008 Alcoa sold its consumer unit to Rank Group Ltd. Rank's owner, New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart, renamed Alcoa's former unit the Reynolds Packaging Group. Hart merged his other packaging companies into Reynolds to create Reynolds Group Holdings.[5]
In an initiative led by Paul D. Thomas, Reynolds Packaging Group chief executive officer and a former Alcoa executive, on September 21, 2008, Reynolds announced that one of the foil plants that produced Reynolds Wrap, in downtown Richmond, Virginia, would be closed and foil operations moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where Reynolds Wrap first was produced. A small portion of the spooling operation from the Richmond Foil plant was moved to the Reynolds plant in Grove City, Pennsylvania, in early 2010. Hart later closed five other plants within Reynolds. As a reflection of the recessionary times, salaries were frozen and salaried employees were not given pay raises. Union employees with fixed compensation contracts did receive incentive compensation. In early 2010 all pay was unfrozen. Salaried employees have since received pay adjustments.
Headquarters
The former Reynolds Metals Company International Headquarters building is  in Henrico County near Richmond, Virginia. Built in 1958, is a Modernist building designed by the architect Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. During its use by Reynolds, the Executive Office Building was known as Reynolds EXO. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places, one of the rare mid−20th century buildings on the list.[6][7] Making extensive use of aluminum, down to threads in the carpeting, it is now owned by the University of Richmond and serves as the worldwide headquarters of Altria Group.
Consumer products
Reynolds Wrap was first made by a Reynolds Metals Company division, Reynolds Packaging, a business created to supply aluminum foil for packaging tobacco.[8] When Alcoa purchased Reynolds Metals, it shed some non-metals packaging and printing businesses but preserved the Reynolds consumer brand, as well as the Reynolds Kitchens, which are still across the street from the former Reynolds headquarters building. Alcoa's Reynolds division was a leader in household baking and cooking products, which included Cut-Rite Wax Paper.
Reynolds published cookbooks such as Outdoor Cooking with Reynolds Wrap (1950) and Casual Cooking (1954) in an attempt to promote the sales of Reynolds Wrap.[2]
In 1958, the company launched the "Designs for Giving" campaign, in which professional artists and designers were hired to create special patterns for gift wrapping. Designs included "Birds and Bees" for baby showers, "Born Lucky, Born Rich" for birthdays, and "Flight of Fancy" for weddings or Christmas.[2]

Further reading
 (1956)

When was aluminum foil introduced by Reynolds?