Lesson 1: گل سنگم

Hayedeh - Gol-e Sang (Stone Flower)

هایده - گل سنگ

Hayede was one of Iran's most prominent singers during the heyday of modern Persian music in the 1960s and 70s. Because musical production was interrupted and has been severely limited by the post-1979 revolutionary government of the Islamic republic, this period holds a particularly prominent position in Iranian popular culture. Like many singers, Hayedeh emigrated, in this case just before the revolution, and continued her career as an exile in Los Angeles until her death in 1990.

In the song she says گل سنگم (gol-e sangam), meaning that she is a "stone flower," a flower that grows on stones (and not a flower made of stone). Let's try to figure out what this means. Take a look at the vocabulary and phrases, then listen to the song and try to read along:

Vocabulary and Expressions

گل (gol) - flower
سنگ (sang) - stone
دل (del) - heart (often metaphorical)
تنگ (tang) - tight, sore
آفتاب (aaftaab) - sun
باد (baad) - wind
بارون (baaroon) - rain
طوفان (tufaan) - storm, windy storm, whirlwind (related to English word typhoon)
صحرا (sahraa) - desert
گرد (gard) - dust
پر گرد (por-e gard) - full of dust
بی رنگ (birang) - colorless
سرد (sard) - cold
آه (aah) - ah, expression of pain or regret
درد (dard) - pain, suffering
مست (mast) - drunk, intoxicated

مثه (mese) - like, i.e. مثل
اگه (age) - if, i.e. اگر

پیچیدن/ می پیچه (peecheedan) - to turn, to twist
تابیدن/ می تابه (taabeedan) - to shine (like the sun)
بر چیزی/کسی تابیدن - to shine on something or someone
باریدن/ می باره (baareedan) - to rain
پرپر شدن/ پرپر می شه - for a flower: to lose its petals, wilt and die

چی بگم (chee begam) - what can I say?
خبر از چیزی/کسی نداشتن - to not know about sth. (literally, to not have any news about)
دور کسی گشتن - to adore s.o. from afar, to be willing to do anything for someone
دلتنگ کسی بودن - to miss someone
دل کسی برای کسی سوختن - to take pity on someone (literally, for s.o.'s heart to burn for someone)

Here I have embedded a video, which might be more enjoyable, but since the quality is lower, and have also included a higher quality mp3.

گل سنگم , گل سنگم
چی بگم از دل تنگم
مثه آفتاب اگه بر من نتابی
سردم و بی رنگم

همه آهم , همه دردم
مثه طوفان پر گردم
همه آهم , همه دردم
مثه طوفان پر گردم
باد مستم که تو صحرا می پیچم
دور تو می گردم

گل سنگم , گل سنگم
چی بگم از دل تنگم
مثه آفتاب اگه بر من نتابی
سردم و بی رنگم

مثه بارون اگه نباری
خبر از حال من نداری
بی تو پرپر می شم دو روزه
دل سنگت برام می سوزه
گل سنگم , گل سنگم
چی بگم از دل تنگم

Depending on your level of knowledge and experience with colloquial Persian, this song may have been well-understood or seemed entirely cryptic. However, after these few points of explanation, it should appear a simple and clear song. For each lesson, I will focus on one or two tricky grammar points, some pronunciation differences, and finally idiomatic words and expressions.

Grammar Point

The verb to be بودن

Anyone with exposure to elementary Persian probably knows how to conjugate the verb to be بودن in the past and present, however, I must make some comments on its use in the colloquial. In the present tense, students are probably familiar with the هست form of this verb i.e. I am هستم you are هستی it is است/هست etc. These verbs are certainly present and understood in colloquial speech, but it is more common to suffix a verbal ending to noun and adjectives in the way that we do for verbs. For example, look at the first line

گل سنگم

This phrase translates as "I am a stone flower" or "I am a flower of the stone": stone rose if you prefer, but the important thing is to now that she is the type of flower that grows on or in stone. The final م signifies to the verb to be for the first person, i.e. من گل سنگم.

This is simple enough to understand, but it may cause some confusion because of the similarity to the possessive ending for the first person, for example in the next line:

چی بگم از دل تنگم

"What can I say about my aching heart?" You see that دل تنگم (del-e tangam) refers to "my aching heart" and not "I am an aching heart." The preposition از gives us the clue that this phrase is the indirect object of the verb گفتن and not the predicate in and of itself. Note that this ambiguity only occurs to the first person singular. Please consider these examples to see the other endings

من = (-am) م
تو = (-ee) ی
او = (-eh) ه
ما = (-eem) یم
شما = (-eed/een) ید/ین
اونا/آنها = (-and/an) ند/ن

گل سنگم (gol-e sangam)
I am a stone flower

کجایی؟ (kojaawi)
Where are you?

سرده (sardeh)
It's cold

دوستیم (doosteem)
We are friends

چطورین؟ (chetoreen)
How are you?

خسته اند (khastan)
They are tired.

(Notice that when the word ends in ه such as خسته we must separate the verbal ending and sometimes add a helper ا but the ending is not pronounced separately from the word)

These endings are used throughout the song. Listen and read the lyrics, and try to find as many instances as you can.

Possessive suffixes

I've already alluded to the possessive suffixes in the phrase دل تنگم "my aching heart." As many students may be aware, possession can be denoted in one of two ways, either by forming a compound noun by using a pronoun, i.e. دل من (del-e man), or by using these suffixes, i.e. دلم (delam). The latter suffix method is more common though both can be found in this song, for example in the two phrases دل تنگم and حال من. Here is a list of the possessive suffixes:

من = (-am)م
تو = (-at) ت
او = (-ash) ش
ما = (-maan/moon) مان/مون
شما = (-taan/toon) تان/تون
اونا/آنها = (-shaan/shoon) شان/شون

There is another instance of the possessive suffix in the song. Can you find the line where she talks about his "heart of stone?"

Pronunciation

For those who have learned other languages, or English for that matter, it may be obvious that actual pronunciation differs from spelling, and in many cases words take a radically different form. In our native language, many of these differences may be undetectable. To use an example from English, think about the following sentences:

I'm going to die.
I'm gonna die.

The latter is grammatically incorrect in writing but the more common of the two in speech.

In some languages, the colloquial pronunciation of a letter may actually differ from the standard (think about the various ways that English speakers pronounce the "th" in the word "the." In Persian colloquial - at least for the Tehran variety - this is not often a big issue, however, the aforementioned contractions and alterations of pronunciation due to repetition in the language is quite noticeable.

For example, some very common verbs differ in pronunciation in the colloquial, one such verb, کفتن "to say," is found in the chorus of the song in the phrase چی بگم؟ "what can I say?" As you see, the present tense stem of this verb has been shorted from گو to گ. This verb is conjugated in the subjuntive to indicate an optative mood, but let's conjugate it in the simple present.

من می گم (gam)
تو می گی (gee)
او می گه (geh)
ما می گیم (geem)
شما می گین/گید (geen)
اونا می گن (gan)

It will be useful to memorize these pronunciations, as this is one of the most common verbs in daily speech.

The second issue that you might notice is that for the third person او می گه the verbal ending is just ه (-eh) instead of the usual د (-ad) in the standard. This is in fact true for all verbs in colloquial, and you can see another example in the phrase دل سنگت برام می سوزه where the verb سوختن conjugated in the third person present tense appears as می سوزه. This will come up a lot more in later lessons.

The third person present tense verbal ending is not the only place we see the dropping of this final consonant. In many common words that end in د or ل or ر or ک we find a similar transformation. Look at these examples from the song:

اگه = اگر
مثه = مثل

Look for such transformations in later songs.

Also, see what happens to the word باران as it becomes بارون? The switching of an آ (o/aa) for a و (oo) is common and particularly characteristic of the Tehran dialect, and we will see a lot of it going forward.

Expressions

As will become increasingly clear, Persian language can be immensely expressive, sometimes in a way that differs from English. At the center of this expressiveness is the heart, or دل (del). Of course, Persian also has the Arabic word for heart قلب which is more common for biological references. Here, this is the metaphorical heart (for those who know Turkish, this word is used in a way very similar to "can"), and could be understood as the core, center, belly, or bowels of someone, i.e. the location within our body where our emotions, desires, passions and agonies are stored. For understanding idiomatic phrases, or any song the deals with an emotion, understanding how this word is used is essential.

Let's look at the chorus again, where she refers to her دل تنگ "aching heart." The adjective تنگ in the broadest sense means tight, but when referring to the heart it has the connotation of "squeezed" and thus I translate it as "aching heart." This concept is very common, and can be used to make the adjective دلتنگ (deltang) which in English can be translated as "missing" as in the phrase I miss you دلتنگم (deltangam) or دلتنگتم (deltangetam). We also have the concept of دلتنگی (deltangi), which is longing, heartache or the feeling of missing someone.

Look at the way دل is used to form some other adjectives:

دلپذیر
pleasant, nice
دلخور
sullen, sulky
دلخراش
irritating
دلبر
sweetheart, girlfriend, soulmate
دلسوز
sympathetic

That last word دلسوز "sympathetic" leads us to the next point about دل, which is that many feelings or actions can be attributed to our hearts instead of ourselves. Let's consider one of the most difficult lines in the song:

بی تو پرپر می شم دو روزه دل سنگت برام می سوزه
"Without you I will die in no time, and then you'll feel sorry for me/pity me"

Here I won't concentrate on breaking down the structure of the sentence, but I will just refer to the last part دل سنگت برام می سوزه. This phrase literally means "your heart of stone will burn for me." However when we use the verb سوختن for hearts, it has the meaning of "to pity" or "to feel sorry." So we can say دلم برات می سوزه I feel sorry for you, and although we use the word دل, we are not really talking about our hearts but rather ourselves. We will find many examples of this in future lessons.

Another useful expression از کسی/چیزی خبر داشتن "to have news/know about someone/something." This expression is frequently used in the negative. For example in this song she says

مثه بارون اگه نباری خبر از حال من نداری
"Like rain if, if you don't rain, you will not know how I am/understand me."

In the song, she is comparing her love to the sun that does not shine and the rain that does not come, hence she has turned into a stone flower because she lacks the very things that nourish her, i.e. his love and affection. In fact, as we can see in the end of the song she claims that she might die پرپر شدن, which means that as a flower she will lose her petals and wilt. We will encounter other threats of death in future songs.

Now that you are armed with these vocabulary and explanations, try to go back and listen to the song and read along to see how well you understand the meaning. I will place a line by line explanation in the comments section to check, and feel free to ask any questions.

Welcomeخوش آمدید

Welcome to farsifarsifarsi.blogspot.com, a Persian/Farsi language course that focuses on colloquial aspects of the language through the utilization of song lyrics. Through this blog, a student of Persian with a low or intermediate level should be able to quickly become familiar with the major differences between spoken Persian dialects and literary Persian in terms of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure. This course will also highlight common expressions that are essential for expressing oneself naturally in Persian.

The idea for this course derives from my experience as author of arabicmusictranslation.com, the largest single source on the internet for original translation of song lyrics in Arabic, as well as the Egyptian Arabic Dialect Course (egyptianarabiccourse.blogspot.com) created in 2008. Through these activities, I have found that music is one of the easiest and enjoyable ways of accessing foreign languages and culture, because it provides the student with simple, natural sentences in an easily memorized form. These sites have served thousands of students of Arabic of various levels from around the world in and outside of the classroom. I hope that this course will serve a similar purpose.

Just as was the case (with Arabic) when I began arabicmusictranslation.com some years ago, I am not a native speaker of Persian nor am I fluent. This site will serve more than anything as an exercise for me and a way of improving and solidifying my own knowledge. That being said, I promise to publish accurate and precise information, and appreciate any comments, corrections or suggestions.

To use this course, one must have a basic mastery of the Persian alphabet, and should know more or less how to form basic sentences and conjugate verbs. I will not be able to devote time to the most fundamental parts of the language except insofar as they may differ in the colloquial form. However, aside from this basic knowledge the lessons will provide everything you need.