What it means
میراث (mirâs) means “heritage,” “legacy,” or “inheritance.” It comes from Arabic (ميراث), rooted in و-ر-ث, the root for inheriting and passing on. In Persian, میراث covers two related meanings: the legal one, what someone inherits when a family member dies, and the broader cultural one, what a civilization, an era, or a great figure leaves behind. When used in the cultural sense, a close synonym is ارث (ers), though ers leans more toward the legal and familial, while میراث extends naturally into phrases like میراث فرهنگی (cultural heritage).
How to use it
- میراث فرهنگی ایران باید حفظ بشه. (Mirâs-e farhangi-ye Irân bâyad hefz beshe.) “Iran’s cultural heritage must be preserved.”
- این شعرها میراث اجداد ما هستن. (In she’r-hâ mirâs-e ajdâd-e mâ hastan.) “These poems are the legacy of our ancestors.”
- چی از این نسل به نسل بعد به میراث میرسه؟ (Chi az in nasl be nasl-e ba’d be mirâs mirese?) “What from this generation passes as legacy to the next?”
- میراث پدرش رو با احترام نگه داشت. (Mirâs-e pedarash ro bâ ehtirâm negah dâsht.) “He kept his father’s inheritance with respect.”
Cultural note
UNESCO’s designation of Persian sites and practices as World Heritage entries has made میراث فرهنگی (cultural heritage) a phrase Iranians encounter constantly in media and official discourse. Institutions such as the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization carry the word in their name. On a more personal level, میراث also appears in family conversations about property and legal succession, where it sits alongside the Islamic jurisprudence (فقه) rules governing how estates are divided, rules that many Iranians navigate through both civil law and religious custom.