#farsi,

Khorshid Palace/ khorasan/ Iran

trinity tells baran she loves her for the first time after they make passionate love to each other and she thinks baran is asleep. she whispers "mahal kita" against baran's neck before snuggling into her and wrapping her arms around her waist.

Art by sensitive.cactus on Instagram. I would highly recommend checking them out, they do beautiful work and were very kind to allow the repost on tumblr. Su arte es genial, por favor, apóyela por insta.

'Taha' primarily masculine name of Arabic and Indian origin. In Arabic, Ṭā-Hā is the name of chapter 20 in the Qur'an and is also the opening phrase of this chapter. Taha's original translation remains unknown, though it's believed to be related to the prophet Mohammed and speculated to mean "the purest". Within it's Indian origin, Taha is linked to the Marathi word for "peace".

"Joonam", is a Persian term of endearment as a form of expressing respect or affection commonly used in pairing with one's name or instead of replying yes to question to catch one's attention. It can be translated to "my dear" or more literally "my soul".

"Ghorbunet Beram" is a common Persian phrase literally translating to "I'll sacrife myself for you" or "may I be a sacrifice for you". It's idiomatic term of endearment expressing a deep gratitude and affection.

In the late 19th century, Persian orthography was not yet standardized, and there was no standard romanization from the Persian alphabet to languages that use roman characters like French or English. When Leroux wrote Phantom, he would have had to make up his own romanization of the word داروغه based on the sounds in the word or use one from an existing dictionary.

This means that when you google the term “daroga” today, it’s often difficult to find more information about it, and often what does come up is about India or Mongolia. The word did come from Mongolian, but it was also very much used in the Persian empire. Today, there are different ways of spelling the word that better reflect the pronunciation in Persian. On top of this, romanizations often differ depending on which language you are using the word in, as different languages pronounce vowels differently.

An example from a Persian-French dictionary from the late 1800s romanizing and translating “daroga” into French. In English, the romanizations “darugha” and “darougheh” are a bit more common today when referencing "daroga" in the context of Persia or Iran. These romanizations help keep the vowel sound for و as “oo” rather than “oh” which is closer to its proper pronunciation.

IPA: [d̪ɒːɾuːˈɣe]

They functioned as more than just the chief of police. Depending on the city and time period, their roles varied. They were in charge of managing the bazaar (central market), catching thieves and punishing them, making sure that the vendors didn’t sell illegal goods, in some cases also levying taxes, and serving as a sort of mayoral figure. They also managed guards who would keep watch over palaces and the bazaar at night.

By the time the Qajar era came around (1789-1925), the role of “daroga” was greatly diminished. They had reputations for being corrupt and collecting money for their own benefits, and a lot of their duties were distributed among other officials. At the end of the 19th century, they were pretty much obsolete, as the shah sought to modernize, and eventually created a more westernized police force to replace the old system.

You can find more information in the following places:

Fiveable - a short list of basic facts

Encyclopaedia Iranica - in depth exploration of the organization of Persian cities throughout history (this site is a high quality resource for finding information on the history of Persia in English)