Editing Persian language (section)

===== Use in the Balkans =====
Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held [[Balkans]] (''[[Rumelia]]''), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern [[Sarajevo]], Bosnia and Herzegovina), [[Mostar]] (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now [[Giannitsa]], in the northern part of Greece).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Inan |first1=Murat Umut |editor1-last=Green |editor1-first=Nile |editor1-link=Nile Green |title=The Persianate World The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca |date=2019 |publisher=University of California Press |pages=85–86 |chapter=Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian learning in the Ottoman World}}</ref>

Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken.<ref name="Green">{{cite book |last1=Inan |first1=Murat Umut |editor1-last=Green |editor1-first=Nile |editor1-link=Nile Green |title=The Persianate World The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca |date=2019 |publisher=University of California Press |page=86 |chapter=Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian learning in the Ottoman World}}</ref> However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary.<ref name="Green"/> The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" (''Rumili Farsisi'').<ref name="Green"/> As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became the site of a flourishing [[Persianate society|Persianate]] linguistic and literary culture.<ref name="Green"/> The 16th-century Ottoman [[Aşık Çelebi]] (died 1572), who hailed from [[Prizren]] in modern-day [[Kosovo]], was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian".<ref name="Green"/>

Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day [[Istanbul]]) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them [[Ahmed Sudi]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Inan |first1=Murat Umut |editor1-last=Green |editor1-first=Nile |editor1-link=Nile Green |title=The Persianate World The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca |date=2019 |publisher=University of California Press |page=85 |chapter=Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian learning in the Ottoman World}}</ref>