A world historical exercise in examining ‘out of Asia’ forms of cosmopolitanism, The Persianate World traces the reach and limits of Persian’s usage as a Eurasian lingua franca. From the Balkans via the Caucasus to Bengal, and beyond to the imperial capitals of London, Saint Petersburg and Beijing, the chapters ask how Persian gained its status, maintained it, and finally surrendered it to its many linguistic competitors. Capturing the ‘Persianate’ as process, fourteen essays place transregional Persian in relation to such regional languages as Bengali, Chinese, Turkic, and Punjabi, to trace the expansion and retraction of written ‘Persographia’ between 1400 and 1900.
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