مرغ

What it means

مرغ (morgh) is a word that split itself across registers. In modern colloquial Persian, it means “chicken,” the bird on your plate. In classical poetry it means “bird” in general, any bird, and that older sense is the one Attar and Hafez use. The pure-Persian root predates the narrowing.

How to use it

• مرغ سرخ‌کرده (morgh-e sorkh-karde) “fried chicken”
• تخم مرغ (tokhm-e morgh) “egg” (literally “bird’s egg”)
• مرغ حق (morgh-e haq) “the truth-bird,” a Sufi mythical creature whose call is interpreted as the divine name
• سینه مرغ (sine-ye morgh) “chicken breast,” everyday recipe vocabulary

Attar’s bird, Tehran’s chicken

Attar’s Conference of the Birds (منطق‌الطیر, mantegh-ot-tayr) sends thirty مرغ on a journey to find the Simurgh (سیمرغ), the legendary bird-king. The pun lands when they arrive: si-morgh in Persian means “thirty birds,” so the seekers and the sought are one. The word مرغ in that poem is bird, not chicken, and any educated Iranian feels both meanings in the same breath. Modern Tehran has shifted: walk into a سوپرمارکت and ask for مرغ and you get whole or cut chicken, frozen or fresh. For the general bird, modern Persian uses پرنده (parande).

Compounds you’ll hear

The compound تخم مرغ (“egg”) preserves the older logic: it works whether you read مرغ as bird or chicken. مرغابی (morghâbi, literally “water-bird”) means “duck.” مرغ دریایی (morgh-e daryâyi, “sea-bird”) is a seagull. مرغ عشق (morgh-e eshgh, “love-bird”) is the parakeet you keep in a cage. مرغ مینا (morgh-e minâ) is the myna bird, famous in Persian poetry for talking. مرغ سحر (morgh-e sahar, “bird of dawn”) is the title of one of the most famous Persian songs of the 20th century, written by Mohammad-Taqi Bahar and sung canonically by Mohammad-Reza Shajarian.

Cultural note

The word’s split is a small mirror of the language itself. Old poetic Persian holds the wider meaning; modern Tehran narrows it to the kitchen. Both layers stay alive at once. A child reading Attar in school encounters مرغ as bird; the same child eats مرغ for dinner that night. No one feels the contradiction. Persian regularly carries multiple registers in a single word and trusts the listener to read context.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab
• Wiktionary