yek jahbeh dar bad va meekhareh tehlehveezion yek torkeh

one box in then and buys television one The Turk

The Turkish man buys a television and in the box

pass foorooshgah beh va meedareh bahr  ahnrah va meebeeneh kohntrole  dastgaheh

back store to and takes out it and sees control remote

he sees the remote control and takes it out and

eshtebahee hesab machineh een aghah keh meegheh foorooshandeh beh va meedeh

wrongly calculator this sir that says store clerk to and gives

gives it to the store clerk and says, “Sir, by accident this calculator

aahmad tehlehveezion een bah

.came television this with

came with my television.”

My dad told me this joke and he said he learned it from one of his friends at work.   At parties or lunch gatherings, there always comes a point where the adults just like to share funny stories and jokes.  Even though these jokes are politically incorrect and make fun of an ethnic group, people still laugh at them.  This sort of joke falls in a group of “Turk” jokes that is very popular amongst Persians.  This makes the people feel more comfortable to laugh at them.

In Iran, there are many different regions and each region has a different identity.  All Persians have many similarities, such as the language Farsi, but they also have differences, such as accents, with the people of different regions.  One region in the northwest of Iran is called Azerbaijan.  The route of the people of this region traces back to the country Turkey.  Many of the people speak a different form of Turkish, but they all speak Farsi, however with an accent.  In Iran, many jokes are centered around the people, called “Turks.”  The term “Turk” is referring to the people of Azerbaijan, not of the country Turkey.  The Turks serve as a blason populaire for the Persians.  The people of that region have a positive relationship with the rest of Iran, but the Turks are always stereotyped as being dumb and ignorant.  For example, the way that Americans have “dumb blonde jokes”, the Persians have Turk jokes.  It is not true that people from Azerbaijan are dumb, but my dad says that they are always the victims of these jokes because their accent makes them sound less educated than other Persians.  However, these jokes are just told to make people laugh; it is not an actual reflection of an ethnic group.