Two Very Different Languages — Or Are They? – Mona Ghadiri, Microsoft MVP

People are always surprised when I say this, but learning Farsi and learning cybersecurity have a lot in common.

One is the language of my heritage. The other, the language of my profession. But both require the same things: pattern recognition, patience, humility, and the ability to sit with complexity.

When I started learning cybersecurity, the connections I made to the world around me felt like entering the Matrix.
When I started learning to read and write in Farsi, I felt the exact same way.

I followed the white rabbit. 🐰

Cybersecurity is a Language and a Culture

In cybersecurity, you don’t just learn tools — you learn tools have tenses that render the past and the present, they both parse and normalize, and require interpretation to determine intent. You learn how painfully systems struggle to communicate and how mimicry can fool anyone into thinking maybe dexterity in a single tool is fluency.

It’s a language of patterns and antipatterns. In fact, you may be familiar with a favorite of mine, “Collection is not detection” by Mark Simos.

The best part is as you start to recognize the signals, and you think MAYBE you are fluent, there are levels upon levels of meaning depending on where you look and listen.

Farsi is a Language and a Culture

Farsi taught me to read between the lines, and to know that one word might carry five meanings. Its a language where understanding that how something is said often matters more than what’s said.

There’s poetry in it, as well as its patterns that come in the form of rhythm and subtlety.

The best part is as you start to recognize the signals, and you think MAYBE you are fluent, there are levels upon levels of meaning depending on where you look and listen.

See what I did there?

Guess what else is true between the two?

You don’t have to be fluent to participate.
Mistakes are inevitable — and necessary.
The point isn’t perfection. It’s attempting to understand.
Every system, whether human or digital, has its own logic — and its own vulnerabilities.

I purposefully seek out new things in both Farsi and cybersecurity every day.

Sometimes I learn a new proverb.
Sometimes I learn a new attack vector.
And sometimes I realize the same principles in one applies to the other.

Build trust with shared vocabulary intentionally.
Pay attention to signals.
And never assume what’s on the surface is the whole story.

So what is Fluency?

I’m not fluent in either yet — not in the way I hope to be, but that isn’t the point.
I am invested. I am here to keep learning. I tell my kid frustration is the feeling of your brain growing and learning. It’s a crucial part of the experience!

Translating complexity is frustrating, in Farsi or cybersecurity. Explaining concepts to those whose native language just…doesn’t have the words adds even more layers. In Farsi, many in the older generations speak in proverbs rather than directly. I used to find it insanely frustrating because a literal translation only rippled the surface. Now, I appreciate the layers and the water that moves underneath the ripples.

I want to share with you a line from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. It just so happens to be a very meaningful text to most Persians as is the the story that saved the Persian language from extinction.

به عمل کار برآید، به سخندانی نیست

be amal kār bar-āyad, be sokhandāni nist

“Work gets done through action, not fancy words.”

It is used when someone overpromises, or in mentorship moments where effort is more respected than eloquence.

Effort is more respected than eloquence.

Wild how that directly translates into cybersecurity just the same…😳😅

Thank you to the MSFarsi team for helping me connect with both sides of my love of language and culture. I will be starting a mentoring community for female identifying Farsi language speakers who are and looking to get into cybersecurity. More to come in a future post.