Does anyone have a “correct” translation of Ahmadinejad’s U.N. speech from the other day where he was talking about the attacks on September 11th being fabricated by the government in order to distract citizens from the failing economy? I feel like the translations we always hear from him are incorrect but I don’t know anyone who speaks Persian.
A few months ago Iran started banning the mullet as a ‘western pervert haircut’ in order distract from Iran’s economy.
Pretty funny stuff.
I heard that his speech was the same old same old ‘israel bad, US is evil, blah blah blah’ he pretty much always says. I think he also said that capitalism is evil and that people need ‘divine justice’ or some crap like that. And then the same old same old feigned shocked responses by usual suspects. The UN is basically a circus… but a boring one.
here is the transcript, but it was tl/dr for me.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6107339
John Ess, thanks for the transcript. I can barely believe the haircut thing, haha. If they did that in the United States, everyone would probably start wearing mullets.
Frankly, I think that is the only good use for otherwise illegitimate state power.
Nothing beats the time he said there were no homosexuals in Iran.
I would do it if I had enough time. My Farsi is okay, but Iranian political language can sometimes get me lost.
Maybe some Iranians have already translated them independently? Personally, I would not doubt his translations too much, I’ve heard speeches with English subtitles. While they weren’t perfect, they were good enough. If somethings sounds very suspicious, then it would be worth checking out. But not to worry, most of the words that come out of his mouth are fecal matter anyway.
Reminds me of when the Soviets criticized US intervention in Afghanistan soon after they started their invasion.
Yeah, I’m not too worried about the translations, but I heard he doesn’t actually deny the Holocaust like people were freaking out about after his Columbia University speech, he just wants people to stop putting so much emphasis on the Jewish deaths as opposed to the rest of them. I don’t know if that’s true or not.
Just curious for the future: I know Farsi and Persian are interchangeable, but is it better to say someone speaks Persian or that they speak Farsi?
It depends whom you are. Farsi is the correct word technically. It’s the equivalent of calling the Italian language “Roman”. Actually less so, Persian is just the Greek word for Iranian anyway. Iranians call their language persian or themselves persians to not seem middle eastern. It really pisses me off.