Talk:Yaldā Night/Archive 1

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Mithra was not a Sun God, he was a God of Contracts and agreements. MarcusGraly 23:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Some historians believe that the festival spread to Europe through contacts between the Roman and Persian empires and was eventually replaced by Christmas; a theory that accounts for the celebration of Christmas on 25 December, rather than the later date of January 6 that is believed to be the correct date of birth of Christ.

Who says that Jan. 6 was the real date? Jesus was mostly likely born in the spring time, if the shepherds were in the fields at night (assume the gospel account is correct). Jan. 6 is the day the Magi are said to have visited Jesus. --69.251.191.194 18:36, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Right. While it is generally agreed that the celebration of Christmas was fixed to December 25th to coincide with the other winter celebrations of the time, the original date is in question. It was likely celebrated on a number of days ranging accross a number of months, as both the Christmas and Origins articles seem to indicate. In any case, does such specific information about christmas belong in an article about Yalda? --207.145.132.194 15:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Babylonian Origin

The article sounds a bit too nationalistic and "Perso-centric" to me. I am a Persian speaking Iranian, don't get me wrong, but despite the fact that calling it "Persian" excludes Medes and Parthians and those other Iranians, it also takes it away from its real origins.

One has to notice that "agricultural" celebrations such as Yalda are a characteristic of settled, agricultural societies. So, one has to realise that the Indo-European Iranians, who were pastoral nomads, scarecely had a reason to celebrate it, and they certainly didn't do it "6,000" years ago, as the article claims, since they probably arrived on the plateau about 3,500 years ago themselves.

In reality, the roots of this celebration is in the Mesopotamian and Southwestern Iranian cultures of Babylonia and Elam. These were settled, agricultural societies who put a great emphasis on calendar keeping to regulate their farming and prepare for annual floods and monsoons. As such, they figured out the longest night of the year (the Yalda) and since starting the next day (Iranian calendar Dey 1st) the day would become longer, they celebrated it as the "birthday" of their sun god (Shamash in Babylon). It is only after coming into contact with Elamites that the newly settled Iranian tribes adopted the celebration.

So, although this is certainly one of the most prominent Iranian celebrations of today, it should not be exclusively attributed to the "Persians" and its origins should be cleared out. A celebration based on a calendar usually originates in a population who cared about calendars and originated them, and in that sense, Mesopotamians and Elamites stand out!--Khodadad 19:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Mesopotamian.. maybe, but Babylonian Origin...?!?

I agree with you on the perso-centric part (I think they’ve already correct it to ”Iranian”), but I doubt that those radical Babylonians could ever consider such traditions. Babylonians had quite obscure beliefs amongst the Mesopotamian peoples. Yalda might have been practiced by the Sumerians, Hurrians, the Hittites or the “an-iranian” peoples in Iran (Elamites, Arratta etc.) but I highly doubt it had anything to do with Babylonians. And btw if it had anything to do with the Iranian solar calendar and Mithras, then it’s totally impossible it was Mesopotamian in origin, since Iranian culture is not Mesopotamian, but rather Eurasian/central asian, and their costumes (and calendars) were totally different. Iranians actually practiced Nowruz & Yalda traditions long before they settled in Mesopotamia.

Plagiarism note

This article was based upon the a blacklisted URL http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Celebrations/yalda.htm, which itself is (apparently) plagiarized (with WP:FRINGE "embellishments") from Massoume Price's actual article (seen here,here, etc). The point is that much of the text is plagiarized without attribution at the current time. While I have removed the cais-soas based embellishments (did I miss anything?), the article still plagiarized Price's article and hence needs a rewrite. I invite others to help with this, though if nothing happens I will eventually do it myself. Also, I suspect that the topic has been treated in more sources than Price alone, so perhaps the rewrite should use some other sources as well. Thanks. The Behnam 23:39, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted the plagiarised sections. DrKiernan 14:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I've effectively restarted from scratch. For the moment I only had Price's text as a source, but I'll keep an eye out. -- Fullstop 00:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

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Stop rewriting Persian History. This page needs major editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darius25000 (talk • contribs) 04:27, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Darius25000: Which parts of the article need to be rewritten, and why? Jarble (talk) 04:07, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

@Darius250000: Are you the same editor as User:Darius25000?

Plagiarism note

This article was based upon the a blacklisted URL http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Celebrations/yalda.htm, which itself is (apparently) plagiarized (with WP:FRINGE "embellishments") from Massoume Price's actual article (seen here,here, etc). The point is that much of the text is plagiarized without attribution at the current time. While I have removed the cais-soas based embellishments (did I miss anything?), the article still plagiarized Price's article and hence needs a rewrite. I invite others to help with this, though if nothing happens I will eventually do it myself. Also, I suspect that the topic has been treated in more sources than Price alone, so perhaps the rewrite should use some other sources as well. Thanks. The Behnam 23:39, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted the plagiarised sections. DrKiernan 14:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I've effectively restarted from scratch. For the moment I only had Price's text as a source, but I'll keep an eye out. -- Fullstop 00:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Calibration?

The History section contains the world "calibration" in a sentence where the world "celebration" would seem to fit. I'll change this.Birdbrainscan (talk) 17:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

on the section about mitra or mithra it is said that this night is celebrated because it was considered the night in which mitra was born, and in in the ancient iranian feasts. and from the day after the days start to become longer and longer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.167.209.10 (talk) 15:59, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Remove text

آیا میدانید که کلمۀ یلدا از ریشۀ «میلاد» و «وَ لَـــدَ» به معنای بدنیا آمدن از زبان عربی گرفته شده؟ شب یلدا سه روز قبل از کریسمس میباشد و ما در اصل در شب یلدا تولد دوبارۀ عیسی مسیح را در ایران جشن میگیریم. یک دلیل تاریخی و فرهنگی مبنی بر اینکه ایرانیان قبل از یورش اعراب مسیحی بودند

Did you know "Yalda" is in weight of "fa'laa" in Arabic, with root of "Yalda" meaning Birth? "Yalda night" is about 3 days before christmas day and in fact we are celebrating Jesus's upcoming birthday in IRAN. So Iranians were Christian before the attack of Arabs.

I don't really think a Persian paragraph should be in English Wikipedia. Besides, the information given in this text is incorrect: 1) there is not arabic grammar that explains how Yalda can be taken from Valad. 2) The word "Yalda" was used before influence of Arabs on Persian language. 3) The opposite is true, Christians before becoming Christians were Mithraists, hence the similarity.

The word Yalda predate Christianity and it is a nation wide festival celebrated by all Iranians who were not all Christians. Majority of Iranians were Zoroastrians, so assuming this word come from Syriac is wrong. There is an old Indo-European winter festival that can explain the world completely. It is called Yule or Jule (pronounced yule) in Germanic paganism, and Koleda which is the Slavic version of that. A close look shows Yalda is truly the connection between both word. Yule (Germanic)=> Yalda (Iranic) => Koleda (Slavic). (You may observe the shift from Y to K in Slavic and the Y shared sound in both Iranic and Germanic.

I have added sources from Iran Chamber Society, which has provided the most comprehensive and sober view of Yalda festival, which in general, there is limited scholarly knowledge regarding. 2601:882:100:D7B0:6D85:5BE5:AD6E:428D (talk) 14:14, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Please review changes

There were some massive changes last month that included the removal of the infobox and categories. Could someone with knowledge of the subject take a close look at them and decide whether they're helpful or not? I will revert them in a few days, unless someone speaks up for them. Ibadibam (talk) 22:02, 2 November 2015 (UTC)