Persian language

Persian
فارسی, دری, تاجیکی
Written in native script (Nastaʿlīq style), pronounced in the Persian language as Fārsī.
Pronunciation	[fɒːɾˈsiː]
Spoken in	Iran  Afghanistan  Tajikistan  Uzbekistan  Turkey  Iraq  UAE  Qatar  Israel  Kuwait  Bahrain  Oman (see article for full list)
Region	Western Asia, Central Asia
Native speakers	80–100 million  (2011 estimates)[1] 60–110 million[2]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Southwestern Iranian Persian
Dialects	Iranian Persian (pes) Afghan Persian (prs) Tajik Persian (tgk) Bukharic (bhh) Pahlavani (phv) Hazaragi (haz) Aimaq (aiq) Dzhidi (jpr) Dehwari (deh)
Writing system	Persian alphabet (Arabic script) Cyrillic script (Tajikistan, see Tajik alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Iran  Afghanistan  Tajikistan
Regulated by	Academy of Persian Language and Literature (Iran)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	fa
ISO 639-2	per (B) fas (T)
ISO 639-3	fas – Macrolanguage individual codes: pes – Western Persian prs – Eastern Persian tgk – Tajiki aiq – Aimaq bhh – Bukharic haz – Hazaragi jpr – Dzhidi phv – Pahlavani deh – Dehwari
Linguasphere	58-AAC (Wider Persian) > 58-AAC-c (Central Persian)
Countries with significant Persian-speaking populations (Click on image for the legend)
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Persian (فارسی, IPA: [fɒːɾˈsiː]) is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence. The Persian language is classified as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanid Persia, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of Persian Empire in the Achaemenid era.^[3][4][5] Persian is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages.^[6]

Persian has ca. 110 million native speakers, holding official status respectively in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. For centuries Persian has also been a prestigious cultural language in Central Asia, South Asia, and Western Asia.^[7]

Persian has had a considerable influence on neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia, neighboring Iranian languages, as well as Armenian, Arabic and other languages. It has also exerted a strong influence on South Asian languages, especially Urdu, as well as Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki, Sylheti, Bengali, Oriya and Nepali.^{[3][6][8][9][10][11]}

With a long history of literature in the form of Middle Persian before Islam, Persian was the first language in Muslim civilization to break through Arabic’s monopoly on writing, and the writing of poetry in Persian was established as a court tradition in many eastern courts.^[7] Some of the famous works of Persian literature are the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, works of Rumi (Molana), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Divan of Hafiz and poems of Saadi.

Contents 1 Classification 2 Nomenclature 2.1 Contemporary local nomenclature 2.2 English nomenclature 2.3 International nomenclature 3 History 3.1 Old Persian 3.2 Middle Persian 3.3 New Persian 3.3.1 Early New Persian 3.3.2 Classic Persian 3.3.3 Use in South Asia 3.3.4 Contemporary Persian 4 Varieties 5 Phonology 5.1 Vowels 5.2 Consonants 6 Grammar 6.1 Morphology 6.2 Syntax 7 Vocabulary 7.1 Native word formation 7.2 Influences 8 Orthography 8.1 Persian alphabet 8.1.1 Additions 8.1.2 Variations 8.2 Latin alphabet 8.3 Tajik alphabet 9 Examples 10 See also 11 Notes 12 Further reading 13 External links

Classification

Persian belongs to the Western group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family, which also includes Kurdish, Mazandarani, Gilaki, Talyshi and Baluchi. The language is in the Southwestern Iranian group, along with the Larestani and Luri languages,^[12] and the Tat Persian of the Caucasus.^[13][14][15]

Nomenclature

Contemporary local nomenclature

The term “Fārsi” often refers to three groups of dialects:

• Farsi (فارسی‎^[16] — transliteration: fārsi ) is the local name of the language in Iran, and is sometimes used in English instead of the word Persian when referring to the language;
• Dari (دری‎^[17] — translit.: dari ) is a Persian dialect and one of the two official languages of Afghanistan;^[18]
• Tajik (тоҷикӣ / (تاجیکی‎ — translit.: tojiki ^[19]) is a group of dialects spoken in Central Asia.^[20]

English nomenclature

Persian, the more widely used name of the language in English historically, is an anglicized form derived from Latin *Persianus < Latin Persia < Greek Πέρσις Pérsis, a Hellenized form of Old Persian Parsa. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century.^[21] Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fârsi.^[22] Farsi is the arabicized form of Pârsi, due to a lack of the 'p' phoneme in Standard Arabic (i.e., the 'p' was replaced with an 'f').^[23][24] In English, this language is historically known as "Persian", though some Persian speakers migrating to the West continued to use "Farsi" to identify their language in English and the word gained some currency in English-speaking countries.^[25] "Farsi" is encountered in some linguistic literature as a name for the language, used both by Iranian and by foreign authors.^[26] According to the OED, the term Farsi was first used in English in the mid-20th century.^[22] The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has declared that the name "Persian" is more appropriate, as it has the longer tradition in the western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity.^[27] Most Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater and Kamran Talattof have also rejected the usage of "Farsi" in their articles.^[28][29]

International nomenclature

The international language encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code "fa", as its coding system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name "Persian" (code "fas") for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari (Afghan Persian) and Iranian Persian.^[30][31][32]

A similar terminology, but with even more subdivisions, is also adopted by the LINGUIST List, where "Persian" appears as a sub-grouping under "Southwest Western Iranian".^[33] Currently, VOA, BBC, DW, and RFE/RL use "Persian Service" for their broadcasts in the language. RFE/RL also includes a Tajik service, and an Afghan (Dari) service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, and many of the leading scholars of Persian language.^[34]

History

History of the Persian language

Proto-Iranian (ca. 1500 BC) Southwestern Iranian languages

Old Persian (c. 525 BC - 300 BC) Old Persian cuneiform script

Middle Persian (c.300 BC-800 AD) Pahlavi script • Manichaean script • Avestan script

Modern Persian (from 800 AD) Perso-Arabic script

Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages. In general, Iranian languages are known from three periods, usually referred to as Old, Middle, and New (Modern) periods. These correspond to three eras in Iranian history; Old era being the period from sometime before Achaemenids, the Achaemenid era and sometime after Achaemenids (that is to 400-300 BC), Middle era being the next period most officially Sassanid era and sometime in post-Sassanid era, and the New era being the period afterwards down to present day.^[35]

According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language"^[3][36] for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent^[3][37] one and the same language of Persian, that is New Persian is a direct descendent of Middle and Old Persian.^[37]

The oldest records in Old Persian date back to the Persian Empire of the 6th century BC.^[38]

The known history of the Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods:

Old Persian

Old Persian evolved from Proto-Iranian as it evolved in the Iranian plateau's southwest. The earliest dateable example of the language is the Behistun Inscription of the Achaemenid Darius I (r. 522 BC – ca. 486 BC). Although purportedly older texts also exist (such as the inscription on the tomb of Cyrus II at Pasargadae), these are actually younger examples of the language. Old Persian was written in Old Persian cuneiform, a script unique to that language and is generally assumed to be an invention of Darius I's reign.

After Aramaic, or rather the Achaemenid form of it known as Imperial Aramaic, Old Persian is the most commonly attested language of the Achaemenid age. While examples of Old Persian have been found wherever the Achaemenids held territories, the language is attested primarily in the inscriptions of Western Iran, in particular in Parsa "Persia" in the southwest, the homeland of the tribes that the Achaemenids (and later the Sassanids) came from.

In contrast to later Persian, written Old Persian had an extensively inflected grammar, with eight cases, each declension subject to both gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular, dual, plural).

Middle Persian

In contrast to Old Persian, whose spoken and written forms must have been dramatically different from one another, written Middle Persian reflected oral use. The complex conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian used postpositions to indicate the different roles of words, for example an -i suffix to denote a possessive "from/of" rather than the multiple (subject to gender and number) genitive caseforms of a word.

Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old- to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century. However, Middle Persian is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in Sassanid era (224–651) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, to the 6th or 7th century. And from the 8th century onwards, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with the middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrian tradition.

The native name of Middle Persian was Parsik or Parsig, after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars", Old Persian Parsa, New Persian Fars. This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following the collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in Arabic script. From about the 9th century onwards, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi, which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by the Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Rouzbeh (Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa, 8th century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Farsi (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date.

Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language^[39] but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of the [New] Persian ^[40][41] Professor. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian"^[42]

New Persian

The history of New Persian itself spans more than 1,000–1,200 years. The development of the language in its last period is often divided into three stages dubbed early, classical, and contemporary. Native speakers of the language can in fact understand early texts in Persian with minimal adjustment, because the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable for the most part of a millennium.^[43]

Early New Persian

New Persian developed from the 8th century on as an independent literary language.^[44] Upon the decline of the Caliphate at Baghdad in the ninth century a.d. began the re-establishment of Persian national life and Persians laid the foundations for a renaissance in the realm of letters. New Persian was born in Eastern Iran through the adaptation of the spoken form of Sassanian Middle Persian court language. The cradle of the Persian literary renaissance lay also in Eastern Iran.^[45]

The mastery of the newer speech having now been transformed from Middle- into New Persian was already complete during three princely dynasties of Iranian origin Tahirid (820-872), Saffarid (860-903) and Samanid (874-999), and could develop only in range and power of expression.^[45]

Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the newer Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time.^[46]

The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki. He flourished in the 10th century, when the Sāmānids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works is versified fables collected in Kalilah wa Dimnah.^[7]

The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a transregional lingua franca, a task for which it was particularly suitable due to its relatively simple morphological structure and this situation persisted till at least 19th century.^[44] In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on the Persian model: Ottoman, Chaghatay and Urdu, which are regards as "structural daughter languages" of Persian.^[44]

Classic Persian

The Islamic conquest of Persia marks the beginning of the new history of Persian language and literature. This period produced world class Persian language poets and the language served, for a long span of time, as the lingua franca of the eastern parts of Islamic world and South Asia. It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including Samanids, Buyids, Tahirids, Ziyarids, the Mughal Empire, Timurids, Ghaznavid, Seljuq, Khwarezmids, Safavid, Afsharids, Zand, Qajar, Ottomans and also many Mughal successor states such as the Nizams etc. For example, Persian was the only oriental language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China.^[47] The heavy influence of Persian on other languages can still be witnessed across the Islamic world, especially, and it is still appreciated as a literary and prestigious language among the educated elite, especially in fields of music (for example Qawwali) and art (Persian literature). After the Arab invasion of Persia, Persian began to adopt many words from Arabic and as time went by, a few words were even taken from Turko-Mongol languages under the Mongol Empire and Turco-Persian society.

Use in South Asia

For five centuries prior to the British colonization, Persian was widely used as a second language in South Asia. It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts in South Asia and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors. Coinciding with the Safavid rule over Iran, when (royal) patronage of Persian poets was curtailed, the centre of Persian culture and literature moved to the Mughal Empire, which had huge financial resources to employ a veritable army of Persian courtly poets, lexicographers and other literati. Beginning in 1843, though, English gradually replaced Persian in importance on the South Asia.^[48] Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in the extent of its influence on the languages of the South Asia, as well as the popularity that Persian literature still enjoys in that region.Use of Persian words is common in Pakistan and north India.Almost all languages of these areas have been influenced by Persian not only in literature but also language of common men. Persian exerted a strong influence on Urdu. Punjabi, Sindhi in India and Pakistan. Other languages like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Rajasthani have many loan words from Persian.

Contemporary Persian

Since the nineteenth century, Russian, French and English and many other languages have contributed to the technical vocabulary of Persian. The Iranian National Academy of Persian Language and Literature is responsible for evaluating these new words in order to initiate and advise their Persian equivalents. The language itself has greatly developed during the centuries.

Varieties

Persian language

Regional and social varieties: Modern Persian & Western variant Classical Persian & Eastern variant Central Asian variant (Tajik) Hazara dialects (Hazaragi) Judeo-Persian (Dzhidi) Judeo-Tajik (Bukhori) Grammar: Standard New Persian Central Asian Persian Language features: Vocabulary Nouns Verbs Phonology Writing systems: Perso-Arabic script Cyrillic alphabet Romanized Persian alphabet Geographic distribution: Persian by country

There are three modern varieties of standard Persian:

• Western Persian (Persian, Iranian Persian, or Farsi) is spoken in Iran, and by minorities in Iraq and the Persian Gulf states.
• Eastern Persian (Dari Persian, Afghan Persian, or Dari) is spoken in Afghanistan.
• Tajiki (Tajik Persian) is spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is written in the Cyrillic script.

The three varieties are based on linguistic classification. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from the standard Persian. Hazaragi (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Tehrani (in Iran) and Dehwari (in Pakistan) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility, give or take minor differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar – much in the same relationship as shared between British and American English.

ISO 639-3 lists ten dialects of Persian, the three main literary dialects listed above and seven regional dialects: Hazaragi, Aimaq, Bukharic, Dzhidi, Dehwari, Darwazi, Pahlavani.^[49]

The following are some closely related languages to Persian:

• Luri (or Lori), spoken mainly in the southwestern Iranian provinces of Lorestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, some western parts of Fars Province and some parts of Khuzestan.
• Tat, spoken in parts of Azerbaijan, Russia, etc. It includes Judeo-Tat & Christian-Tat.
• Lari (in southern Iran)

Phonology

Iranian Persian has six vowels and twenty-three consonants.

Vowels

Historically, Persian has distinguished length: Early New Persian possessed a series of five long vowels (/iː/, /uː/, /ɒː/, /oː/ and /eː/) along with three short vowels /æ/, /i/ and /u/. At some point prior to the sixteenth century within the general area that is today encompassed by modern Iran, /eː/ and /iː/ merged into /iː/, and /oː/ and /uː/ merged into /uː/. Thus, the older contrasts between words like shēr "lion" and shīr "milk," were lost. There are exceptions to this rule and in some words, "ē" and "ō" are preserved or merged into the diphthongs [eɪ] and [oʊ] (which are descendents of the diphthongs [æɪ] and [æʊ] in Early New Persian), instead of merging into /iː/ and /uː/. Examples of this exception can be found in words such as [roʊʃæn] (bright).

However, in the eastern varieties, the archaic distinction of /eː/ and /iː/ (respectively known as Yā-ye majhūl and Yā-ye ma'rūf) is still preserved, as well as the distinction of /oː/ and /uː/ (known as Wāw-e majhūl and Wāw-e ma'rūf). On the other hand, in standard Tajik, the length distinction has disappeared and /iː/ merged with /i/, and /uː/ with /u/.^[50] Therefore, contemporary Afghan dialects are the closest one can get to the vowel inventory of Early New Persian.

According to most studies on the subject (e.g. Samareh 1977, Pisowicz 1985, Najafi 2001,) the three vowels which are traditionally considered long (/i/, /u/, /ɒ/) are currently distinguished from their short counterparts (/e/, /o/, /æ/) by position of articulation, rather than by length. However, there are studies (e.g. Hayes 1979, Windfuhr 1979) which consider vowel-length to be the active feature of this system, i.e. /ɒ/, /i/, and /u/ are phonologically long or bimoraic whereas /æ/, /e/, and /o/ are phonologically short or monomoraic.

There are also some studies which consider quality and quantity to be both active in the Iranian system (e.g. Toosarvandani 2004). This view offers a synthetic analysis which includes both quality and quantity, often suggesting that modern Persian vowels are in a transition state between the quantitative system of classical Persian and a hypothetical future Persian which will eliminate all traces of quantity, and retain quality as the only active feature.

Suffice it to say that the length-distinction is strictly observed by careful reciters of classic-style poetry, for all varieties (including the Tajik).

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n			(ŋ)
Plosive	p b	t d			k ɡ	(q ɢ)	ʔ
Affricate			tʃ dʒ
Fricative	f v	s z	ʃ ʒ		x ɣ		h
Tap		ɾ
Trill		(r)
Approximant		l		j

(Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Allophones are in parentheses.)

Grammar

Morphology

Suffixes predominate Persian morphology, though there is a small number of prefixes.^[51] Verbs can express tense and aspect, and they agree with the subject in person and number.^[52] There is no grammatical gender in Persian, nor are pronouns marked for natural gender.

Syntax

Normal declarative sentences are structured as "(S) (PP) (O) V". This means sentences can comprise optional subjects, prepositional phrases, and objects, followed by a required verb. If the object is specific, then the object is followed by the word rā and precedes prepositional phrases: "(S) (O + rā) (PP) V".^[52]

Vocabulary

Native word formation

Persian makes extensive use of word building and combining affixes, stems, nouns and adjectives. Persian frequently uses derivational agglutination to form new words from nouns, adjectives, and verbal stems. New words are extensively formed by compounding – two existing words combining into a new one, as is common in German. Professor Mahmoud Hessaby demonstrated that Persian can derive 226 million words.^[53]

Influences

While having a lesser influence on Arabic^[9] and other languages of Mesopotamia and its core vocabulary being of Middle Persian origin,^[6] New Persian contains a considerable amount of Arabic lexical items,^[3][8][10] which were Persianized^[11] and often took a different meaning and usage than the Arabic original. The Arabic vocabulary in other Iranic, Turkic and Indic languages are generally understood to be have been copied from New Persian.^[54]

John R. Perry in his article "Areas and Semantic Fields of Arabic" indicates his belief that the overall range of Arabic synonyms vocabulary used along or interchangeable with their equivalents Persian words varies from 2% frequency in the Shahnama,^[55] 14% in material culture,^[56] 24% in intellectual life^[56] to 40% of everyday literary activity.^[56] Most of the Arabic words used in Persian are either synonyms of native terms^[56] or could be (and often have been) glossed in Persian.^[56] The Arabic vocabulary in Persian is thus suppletive,^[56] rather than basic and has enriched New Persian.

The inclusion of Mongolian and Turkic elements in the Persian language should also be mentioned,^[57] not only because of the political role a succession of Turkic dynasties played in Iranian history, but also because of the immense prestige Persian language and literature enjoyed in the wider (non-Arab) Islamic world, which was often ruled by sultans and emirs with a Turkic background. The Turkish and Mongolian vocabulary in Persian is way much minor in comparison to That of Arabic and these words were mainly confined to military, pastoral terms and political sector (titles, administration, etc.) until new military and political titles were coined based partially on Middle Persian (e.g. Artesh for army instead of Qoshun) in the 20th century.^[58]

There are also adaptations from French (mainly in the late 19th century and early 20th century) and Russian (mainly in the late 19th century and early 20th century). Like most languages of the world, there is an increasing amount of English vocabulary entering the Persian language. The Persian academy (Farhangestan) has coined Persian equivalents for some of these terms. There are more words adopted from French than from English because Persian speakers more easily pronounce French words.^[59]

Persian has likewise influenced the vocabularies of other languages, especially other Indo-Iranian languages like Urdu and to a lesser extent Hindi, etc., as well as Turkic languages like Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai language, Tatar language, Turkish,^[60] Turkmen, Azeri^[61] and Uzbek, Afro-Asiatic languages like Assyrian and Arabic,^[62] and even Dravidian languages especially Telugu and Brahui. Several languages of southwest Asia have also been influenced, including Armenian and Georgian. Persian has even influenced the Malay spoken in Malaysia and Swahili in Africa. Many Persian words have also found their way into other Indo-European languages including the English language. Persian has also had a significant lexical influence, via Turkish, on Serbian, especially as spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Use of occasional foreign synonyms instead of Persian words can be a common practice in everyday communications as an alternative expression. In some instances in addition to the Persian vocabulary, the equivalent synonyms from multiple foreign languages can be used. For example, the phrase "thank you" can be expressed using the French word merci (stressed however on the first syllable), by the hybrid Persian-Arabic word moteshaker-am (moteshaker being merciful in Arabic and am meaning I am), or by the pure Persian word sepasgozar-am.

Orthography

Calligraphy

Arabic Chinese Georgian Indian Japanese Korean Kufic Nepalese Persian Sini Tibetan Western

The vast majority of modern Iranian Persian and Dari text is written with the Perso-Arabic script. Tajik, which is considered by some linguists to be a Persian dialect influenced by Russian and the Turkic languages of Central Asia,^[63][64] is written with the Cyrillic script in Tajikistan (see Tajik alphabet).

Persian alphabet

Modern Iranian Persian and Afghan Persian are written using Persian alphabet (a modified variant of the Arabic alphabet), which uses different pronunciation and additional letters not found in Arabic. Tajik Persian, as used in Tajikistan, is typically written in a modified version of the Cyrillic script. There are also Persian Romanizations like Desphilic, Unipers and Fingilish/Pinglish for writing Persian using Latin alphabet. After the conversion of Persia to Islam (see Islamic conquest of Iran), it took approximately 150 years before Persians adopted the Arabic script in place of the older alphabet. Previously, two different scripts were used, Pahlavi, used for Middle Persian, and the Avestan alphabet (in Persian, Dîndapirak or Din Dabire—literally: religion script), used for religious purposes, primarily for the Avestan language but sometimes for Middle Persian.

In modern Persian script, vowels that are referred to as short vowels (a, e, o) are usually not written; only the long vowels (â, i, u) are represented in the text, so words distinguished from each other only by short vowels are ambiguous in writing: kerm "worm", karam "generosity", kerem "cream", and krom "chrome" are all spelled "krm" in Persian. The reader must determine the word from context. The Arabic system of vocalization marks known as harakat is also used in Persian, although some of the symbols have different pronunciations. For example, an Arabic damma is pronounced [ʊ~u], while in Iranian Persian it is pronounced [o]. This system is not used in mainstream Persian literature; it is primarily used for teaching and in some (but not all) dictionaries.

It is also worth noting that there are several letters generally only used in Arabic loanwords. These letters are pronounced the same as similar Persian letters. For example, there are four functionally identical 'z' letters (ز ذ ض ظ), three 's' letters (س ص ث), two 't' letters (ط ت), etc.

Additions

The Persian alphabet adds four letters to the Arabic alphabet:

Sound	Isolated form	Name
[p]	پ	pe
[tʃ] (ch)	چ	če
[ʒ] (zh)	ژ	že
[ɡ]	گ	gāf

(The že is pronounced with the same sound as the "s" in "measure" and "fusion", or the "z" in "azure".)

Variations

The Persian alphabet also modifies some letters from the Arabic alphabet. For example, alef with hamza below ( إ ) changes to alef ( ا ); words using various hamzas get spelled with yet another kind of hamza (so that مسؤول becomes مسئول); and teh marbuta ( ة ) changes to heh ( ه ) or teh ( ت ).

The letters different in shape are:

Sound	original Arabic letter	modified Persian letter	name
[k]	ك	ک	kāf
vowel [i] consonant [j]	ي	ى	ye

Writing the letters in their original Arabic form is not typically considered to be incorrect, but is not normally done.

Latin alphabet

The International Organization for Standardization has published a standard for simplified transliteration of Persian into Latin, ISO 233-3, titled "Information and documentation – Transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin characters – Part 3: Persian language – Simplified transliteration"^[65] but the transliteration scheme is not in widespread use.

Another Latin alphabet, based on the Uniform Turkic alphabet, was used in Tajikistan in the 1920s and 1930s. The alphabet was phased out in favour of Cyrillic in the late 1930s.^[63]

Fingilish is the name given to texts written in Persian using ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is most commonly used in chat, emails and SMS applications. The orthography is not standardized, and varies among writers and even media (for example, typing 'aa' for the [ɒ] phoneme is easier on computer keyboards than on cellphone keyboards, resulting in smaller usage of the combination on cellphones).

UniPers, short for the Universal Persian Alphabet (Fârsiye Jahâni) is a Latin-based alphabet popularized by Mohamed Keyvan, who used it in a number of Persian textbooks for foreigners and travellers.^[66]

The International Persian Alphabet (Pársik) is another Latin-based alphabet developed in recent years mainly by A. Moslehi, a comparative linguist.^[67]

Persá is yet another Latin-based alphabet that has been recently developed using new characters to represent sounds unique to the Persian language.

Desphilic is also a romanization which uses ordinary Latin character set for romanization of Persian.

Tajik alphabet

The Cyrillic script was introduced for writing the Tajik language under the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic in the late 1930s, replacing the Latin alphabet that had been used since the Bolshevik revolution and the Persian script that had been used earlier. After 1939, materials published in Persian in the Persian script were banned from the country.^[63][68]

Examples

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Please note that the Tajik text is different from that of the Iranian Persian:

Iranian Persian (Farsi)	UniPers	IPA	Tajik Persian (Tajiki)	English Gloss
هَمهٔ افراد بَشَر آزاد به دُنیا می‌آیَند و حیثیت و حُقوقِشان با هَم بَرابَر است، هَمهٔ‌شان اندیشه و وجدان دارَند و بایَد دَر بَرابَر یِکدیگَر با روح بَرادَری رَفتار کُنَند.	Hameye afrâde bašar âzâd be donyâ miâyando heysiyato hoquqešan bâ ham barâbar ast, hame andiševo vejdân dârando bâyad dar barâbare yekdigar bâ ruhe barâdari raftâr konand.	[hæmeje æfrɒd bæʃær ɒzɒd be donjɒ miɒjænd o hejsijæt o hoɢuɢ ʃɒn bɒ hæm bærɒbær æst hæme ʃɒn ændiʃe o vedʒdɒn dɒrænd o bɒjæd dær bærɒbære jekdiɡær bɒ ruhe bærɒdæri ræftɒr konænd]	Тамоми одамон озод ба дунё меоянд ва аз лиҳози манзилату ҳуқуқ бо ҳам баробаранд. Ҳама соҳиби ақлу виҷдонанд, бояд нисбат ба якдигар бародарвор муносабат намоянд.	All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

See also

• Academy of Persian Language and Literature
• Dari (Persian)
• List of countries by Persian-speaking population
• List of English words of Persian origin
• List of French loanwords in Persian
• List of Persian poets and authors
• Persian alphabet
• Persian grammar
• Persian literature
• Persian mythology
• Persian name
• Persian phonology
• Persianate
• Persian Romanization schemes
• Southwestern Iranian dialects
• Tajik language
• Gender-neutrality in genderless languages

Notes

Further reading

English

• John Richardson (1810). Sir Charles Wilkins, David Hopkins. ed. A vocabulary, Persian, Arabic, and English: abridged from the quarto edition of Richardson's dictionary. Printed for F. and C. Rivingson. pp. 643. http://books.google.com/books?id=7hZHFh_nVEMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Muḥammad Ibrâhîm (1841). A grammar of the Persian language. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ru1ncSqiRXkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Edward Henry Palmer (1883). Guy Le Strange. ed. A concise dictionary, English-Persian; together with a simplified grammar of the Persian language. Completed and ed. by G. Le Strange. http://books.google.com/books?id=Nz9bAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Edward Henry Palmer (1883). Guy Le Strange. ed. A concise dictionary, English-Persian: together with a simplified grammar of the Persian language. Trübner. pp. 42. http://books.google.com/books?id=hKUfAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Arthur Naylor Wollaston (1882). An English-Persian dictionary. W.H. Allen. pp. 462. http://books.google.com/books?id=eBgYAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Arthur Naylor Wollaston (sir.) (1882). An English-Persian dictionary. W.H. Allen. http://books.google.com/books?id=F6UCAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• William Thornhill Tucker (1850). A pocket dictionary of English and Persian. J. Madden. pp. 145. http://books.google.com/books?id=F11AAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• William Thornhill Tucker (1801). A pocket dictionary of English and Persian. http://books.google.com/books?id=wT5bAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• William Thornhill Tucker (1850). A pocket dictionary of English and Persian. J. Madden. pp. 145. http://books.google.com/books?id=3ppxqpkEHVoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• John Thompson Platts (1894). A grammar of the Persian language .... Williams and Norgate. http://books.google.com/books?id=pxKkZZgJxcwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Friedrich Rosen, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh (Shah of Iran) (1898). Modern Persian colloquial grammar: containing a short grammar, dialogues and extracts from Nasir-Eddin shah's diaries, tales, etc., and a vocabulary. Luzac & C.̊. pp. 400. http://books.google.com/books?id=Exb_NBfBuZkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Edward Moises (1792). The Persian interpreter: in three parts: A grammar of the Persian language. Persian extracts, in prose and verse. A vocabulary: Persian and English. Printed by L. Hodgson. pp. 143. http://books.google.com/books?id=O3lHAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Arthur Henry Bleeck (1857). A concise grammar of the Persian language. http://books.google.com/books?id=MsAUAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Arthur Henry Bleeck (1857). A concise grammar of the Persian language: containing dialogues, reading lessons, and a vocabulary: together with a new plan for facilitating the study of languages. B. Quaritch. pp. 206. http://books.google.com/books?id=CiBgAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Arthur Henry Bleeck (1857). A concise grammar of the Persian language (Oxford University ed.). http://books.google.com/books?id=vroOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Duncan Forbes (1844). A grammar of the Persian language: To which is added, a selection of easy extracts for reading, together with a copious vocabulary (2 ed.). Printed for the author, sold by Allen & co.. pp. 158. http://books.google.com/books?id=bFcOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Duncan Forbes (1844). A grammar of the Persian language: To which is added, a selection of easy extracts for reading, together with a copious vocabulary (2 ed.). Printed for the author, sold by Allen & co.. pp. 114. http://books.google.com/books?id=DwQtAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Duncan Forbes (1876). A grammar of the Persian language: to which is added, a selection of easy extracts for reading, together with a vocabulary, and translations. W.H. Allen. pp. 238. http://books.google.com/books?id=DoRQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Duncan Forbes (1869). A grammar of the Persian language: to which is added, a selection of easy extracts for reading, together with a vocabulary, and translations (4 ed.). W.H. Allen & co.. pp. 238. http://books.google.com/books?id=BDoMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Matthew Lumsden (1810). A grammar of the Persian language; comprising a portion of the elements of Arabic inflexion etc. Watley. http://books.google.com/books?id=a7dIAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Matthew Lumsden (1810). A grammar of the Persian language: comprising a portion of the elements of Arabic inflexion, Volume 1. Printed by T. Watley. http://books.google.com/books?id=g5ZHAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sorabshaw Byramji Doctor (1880). The student's Persian and English dictionary, pronouncing, etymological, & explanatory. Irish Presbyterian Mission Press. pp. 558. http://books.google.com/books?id=I0MOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sorabshaw Byramji Doctor, Saʻdī (1880). Second book of Persian, to which are added the Pandnámah of Shaikh Saádi and the Gulistán, chapter 1, together with vocabulary and short notes (2 ed.). Irish Presbyterian Mission Press. pp. 120. http://books.google.com/books?id=xUUOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sorabshaw Byramji Doctor (1879). The Persian primer, being an elementary treatise on grammar, with exercises. Irish Presbyterian Mission Press. pp. 94. http://books.google.com/books?id=NEMOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sorabshaw Byramji Doctor (1879). The Persian primer, being an elementary treatise on grammar, with exercises. Irish Presbyterian Mission Press. pp. 94. http://books.google.com/books?id=NEMOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sorabshaw Byramji Doctor (1875). A new grammar of the Persian tongue for the use of schools and colleges. Irish Presbyterian Mission Press. pp. 84. http://books.google.com/books?id=M0MOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• George Speirs Alexander Ranking (1907). A primer of Persian: containing selections for reading and composition with the elements of syntax. The Claredon Press. pp. 72. http://books.google.com/books?id=9I4PAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• George Speirs Alexander Ranking (1907). A primer of Persian: containing selections for reading and composition with the elements of syntax. The Claredon Press. pp. 72. http://books.google.com/books?id=Fz9bAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sir William Jones, Samuel Lee (1823). A grammar of the Persian language (8 ed.). Printed by W. Nicol, for Parbury, Allen, and co.. pp. 230. http://books.google.com/books?id=p4dBAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sir William Jones, Samuel Lee (1823). A grammar of the Persian language (8 ed.). Printed by W. Nicol, for Parbury, Allen, and co.. pp. 230. http://books.google.com/books?id=p1fRAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sir William Jones (1828). Samuel Lee. ed. A grammar of the Persian language (9 ed.). Printed by W. Nicol, for Parbury, Allen, and Co.. pp. 283. http://books.google.com/books?id=gqIIAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sir William Jones (1783). A grammar of the Persian language (3 ed.). http://books.google.com/books?id=YkBbAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sir William Jones (1801). A grammar of the Persian language (5 ed.). Murray and Highley, J. Sewell. pp. 194. http://books.google.com/books?id=IEhFAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Sir William Jones (1797). A grammar of the Persian language (4 ed.). http://books.google.com/books?id=3T9bAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Ramdhun Sen (1841). Madhub Chunder Sen. ed. A dictionary in Persian and English, with pronunciation (ed. by M.C. Sen). (2 ed.). http://books.google.com/books?id=3T1bAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Ramdhun Sen (1829). A dictionary in Persian and English. Printed for the author at the Baptist Mission Press. pp. 226. http://books.google.com/books?id=RJAvAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Ramdhun Sen (1833). A dictionary in English and Persian. Printed at the Baptist Mission Press. pp. 276. http://books.google.com/books?id=sk4OAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 
• Ramdhun Sen (1833). A dictionary in English and Persian. http://books.google.com/books?id=6j1bAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. 

1. Thackston, W. M. (1993-05-01). An Introduction to Persian (3rd Rev ed.). Ibex Publishers. ISBN 0936347295. 
2. Mace, John (1993-03). Modern Persian (Teach Yourself). Teach Yourself. ISBN 0844238155. 
3. Mace, John (2002-10-18). Persian Grammar: For Reference and Revision (illustrated ed.). RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0700716955. 
4. Schmitt, Rüdiger (1989). Compendium linguarum Iranicarum. L. Reichert. ISBN 3882264136. 
5. Windfuhr, Gernot L. (2009-01-15). "Persian". In Bernard Comrie (ed.). The World's Major Languages (2 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 0415353394. 
6. Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2006). "Iran, vi. Iranian languages and scripts". Encyclopaedia Iranica. 13. 
7. Asatrian, Garnik (Expected November 2010). Etymological Dictionary of Persian. Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series, 12. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-15496-4. http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=23589. 

Other Languages

1. Lazard, Gilbert (January 2006). Grammaire du persan contemporain. Institut Français de Recherche en Iran. ISBN 978-2909961378. http://www.peeters-leuven.be/boekoverz.asp?nr=8392. 
2. Dahlén, Ashk (October 2010). Modern persisk grammatik. Ferdosi International Publication. ISBN 9789197724180. http://www.ashkdahlen.com/index.php?id=152. 

External links

• Academy of Persian Language and Literature official website (Persian)
• Assembly for the Expansion of the Persian Language official website (Persian)
• Persian language Resources (Persian)
• Farsi Phrasebook at Wikitravel
• Persian audio lessons at WikiBabel
• Hayyim, Sulayman. New Persian–English dictionary. Teheran: Librairie-imprimerie Beroukhim, 1934–1936. uchicago.edu
• Steingass, Francis Joseph. A Comprehensive Persian–English dictionary. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1892. uchicago.edu
• Persian language department at University of Texas at Austin, utexas.edu
• Virtual Persian Keyboard, choone.com
• UCLA Language Materials Project: Persian, ucla.edu
• Persian Language Resources, parstimes.com
• Persian-Farsi – site for studying persian, Persian-farsi.ucoz.ru (Russian)
• Iran language Institute, ili.ir
• GlobalDic.Com the only dynamic Persian to English and German Dictionary
• German Persian Dictionary with 120,000 entries, Persian.free-dict.de
• A Persian Verb calculator, jahanshiri.ir
• Persian Verb Conjugator, sartre2.byu.edu

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