AboutMojtaba Parsa Expertise As you may know, Persian culture is one of the most ancient cultures in the world. This enormous volume of antiquity has always been affected by different cultures through the passage of history: National beliefs, language, religion, borders, etc. I can answer you about Persian culture before and after Islam - which is known as a milestone in Iranian history, and also about the various languages spoken by Iranians, and give you translations in today's Iran's official language, Farsi (Persian).
Podemos compartir los textos de español y persa y traducirlos para otra cada, también.
Mojtaba
Experience I am an Iranian and have studied general history about Iran. I am absolutely familiar with the culture and language of my own country.
Education/Credentials My education is strengthened about civil engineering.
I was very impressed by the examples you gave, particularly the second – are you a professional geographer by any chance? I'm really, really fascinated by the geography of your amazing country.
This is why I'd like to ask what the exact difference between جلگه and دشت is. I wonder if there might be any pictures on the Internet to help me understand the distinction?
I love maps, and when I look at Iran I see two massive دشت ها, دشت كوير and دشت لوت.
I wonder why Iranian Wikipedia gives کویر لوت instead of دشت لوت.
If you have time, could you please also explain exactly the meanings of كوير and لوت? Are they still used as nouns/adjectives in the modern language or only as names?
I note that you also have a word, بیابان, for desert, but you don't seem to use it for anywhere in Iran but only for foreign places such as the Sahara Desert. Why is this?
All the best, and many thanks again,
Simon
Answer Hi Simon,
Well, I’m not a geographer. That was just a simple sample.
The difference between جلگه and دشت includes the following themes:
1. جلگه is somehow a scientific and professional word, whilst دشت is a very common one. You can see this word in many Iranian poems.
2. جلگه normally is used to call those flat plains limited by the mountain off one side and the sea or lake from the other side. Where دشت is the flat plain which is surrounded by the mountain.
3. Another difference concerns with the plants and herbal coverage.
4. How جلگه and دشت are created is different. جلگه is made usually by drifting the sediments and leaving them right before entering the sea through the rivers. That’s why these places are considered young in geology and usually are wrinkle-free in tectonic studies. While دشت is made by passage of centuries and especially due to any kind of internal / external pressure and rips.
5. One more difference is the climate. جلگه usually is a humid place (whether hot or not), but دشت is dry.
And there might be other differences.
جلگه is not what you can see in a picture. A جلگه contains a lot of regions including “Dasht”s, low hills, urban and rural areas, etc. For example, the province Khuzestan (خوزستان) is thoroughly placed on a جلگه. City of Ahvaz (اهواز), its outskirt, villages around it, the meadows, the rivers, the rocks and… are called جلگه. In the natural maps, these places are indicated green. But I don’t think if city of Ahvaz has a green soil!
کویر by itself means great desert. So calling کویر لوت is better than دشت لوت; however, both names are used.
لوت as well as کویر means by itself plant-free desert. But this word is not used anymore as a noun for calling a desert, while کویر still is. By the way, لوت has some other irrelevant meanings. For example, that’s a musical instrument very similar to عود. It is the same as the lute. لوت also means mentally naked. It is used to express simplicity and camaraderie. لوتی or لوطی is still used in modern Persian for this. There are some other meanings for this word which no longer are used.
بیابان is used to call every wasteland desert, whether inside Iran or outside. There are a lot of biäbäns in Iran, as there are a lot out of it.
With best regards,
Mojtaba Parsa
