PESHAWAR, April 13: Persian and Pushto languages and cultures have many common expressions and values.

This was the gist of the speeches delivered at the book- launching ceremony organized by the Iran Cultural Centre at a local hotel here on Saturday. The compare was Manzar Naqvi, the poet.

The book entitled “Common words in Persian and Pustho”, published under the auspices of the Iran Cultural Centre, is a research thesis conducted by educationist and teacher Dr Syed Qayyum Sulemani. The book contains 4,000 words common to Persian and Pushto.

The study is published in a book-form with the backing of the Iran Consul-General in Peshawar Abbasali Abdullahi.

The function, presided over by the NWFP Senior Minister Sirajul Haq, was also addressed by Pushto scholar and writer Prof Pareshan Khattak, Dr Syed Qayyum Sulemani, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan chairman Afrasiab Khattak, MNA Noorul Haq Qadri and Abdullahi.

The speakers spoke at length on the origin and commonality of the two languages and were unanimous that both were complementary to each other, like other languages and cultures of the world.

Prof Pareshan traced the cultural origins of Persian and Pushto, saying that many expressions and values were common to different cultures and regional and national languages in these parts of the world. These commonalities pointed to the fact that one language impressed and affected the other in a way that many values looked to be common in them, he added.

Dr Syed Qayyum Sulemani spoke about his experiences at the Tehran University, saying the affection of his thesis supervisor Dr Mohammad Muqaddam, who was vice-chancellor of Tehran University and chairman of the linguistics department, compelled to do research on common words and other similarities in the two languages.

Mr Afrasiab said that all languages, notwithstanding the fact who spoke them, were soft and sweet, because language is the only tool whereby the people can interact with each other with felicity.

MNA Noorul Haq Qadri said that the author had done a commendable job to bring out the similarities and common words in the two languages.

Senior Minister Sirajul Haq said that language, colour and race were secondary thing, adding the primary thing in relations among human beings was love and brotherhood.

Abbasali Abdullahi spoke on the similarities between the two peoples and cultures.