Persian phonology

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

The Persian language has six vowel phonemes and twenty-three consonant phonemes. It features contrastive stress and syllable-final consonant clusters.

Vowels

Diachronically, Persian possessed a distinction of length in its underlying vowel inventory, contrasting the long vowels /iː/, /uː/, /ɒː/ with the short vowels /e/, /o/, /æ/ respectively.

Word-final /o/ is rare except for /to/ "thou, you (singular)", and word-final /æ/ is very rare in Iranian Persian, except for /næ/ "no." The word-final /æ/ in Early New Persian mostly shifted to /e/ in contemporary Iranian Persian (often romanized as "eh"), but is preserved in the Eastern dialects.

The vowel phonemes of Tehrani Persian.

The chart to the right reflects the vowels of many educated Persian speakers from Tehran.

Diphthongs

Several diphthongs occur in Persian, including /ej/, /ow/, /aj/, /ɒj/, /oj/, and /uj/.

Chart

Phoneme (in IPA)	Letter	Romanization	Example(s)
/æ/	َ , ا	a, æ	/næ/   نه   no
/ɒː/	آ , ا	a, á, aa, ā, â, A	/tɒː/   تا   till
/e/	ِ , ا	e	/ke/   که   that
/iː/	ی	i, ee	/kiː/   کی   who (informal)
/o/	ا , ُ , و	o	/to/   تو   thou, you (singular)
/uː/	و	u, oo, ou	/tuː/   تو   in (informal)

Diphthong (in IPA)	Letter	Romanization	Example(s)
/ej/	ی	ey, ei, ay, ai	/kej/   کی   when
/ow/	و	ow, au, ou	/now/ نو   new

Historical shifts

Early New Persian had eight vowels: i, ī, ē, u, ū, ō, a, ā (in IPA: /i iː eː u uː oː æ ɒː/). The following chart describes their shifts into Tajik, Afghan Dari, and contemporary Iranian Persian.

Early NP	i	ī	ē	u	ū	ō	a	ā
Dari	e	i	ē	o	u	ō	a	ā
Iranian	e	ī		o	ū		a	ā
Tajik	i		e	u		ů	a	o

See also: Tajik vowels

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	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 phonetic square brackets.)

Chart

Phoneme	Sound (in IPA)	Letter	Romanization	Example
/p/	[p]	پ	p	/peˈdæɾ/   پدر   (father)
/b/	[b]	ب	b	/bærɒːˈdær/   برادر   (brother)
/t/	[t]	ت , ط	t	/tɒː/   تا   (till)
/d/	[d]	د	d	/duːst/   دوست   (friend)
/k/	[k]	ک	k	/keʃˈvæɾ/   کشور   (country)
/ɡ/	[ɡ]	گ	g	/ɡoˈruːh/   گروه (group)
/ʔ/	[ʔ]	ع , ء	', ʔ	/mæʔˈnɒː/   معنا   (meaning)
/tʃ/	[t͡ʃ]	چ	ch, č	/tʃuːb/   چوب   (stick, wood)
/dʒ/	[d͡ʒ]	ج	j	/dʒæˈvɒːn/   جوان   (young)
/f/	[f]	ف	f	/feˈʃɒːɾ/   فشار   (pressure)
/v/	[v]	و	v	/viːˈʒe/   ویژه   (special)
/s/	[s]	س , ص , ث	s	/sɒːˈje/   سایه   (shadow)
/z/	[z]	ز , ذ , ض , ظ	z	/ɒːˈzɒːd/   آزاد   (free)
/ʃ/	[ʃ]	ش	sh, š	/ʃɒːh/   شاه   (king)
/ʒ/	[ʒ]	ژ	zh, ž	/ʒɒːˈle/   ژاله   (dew)
/x/	[x]	خ	kh, x	/xɒːˈne/   خانه   (house)
/ɣ/	[ɣ]	ق , غ	gh, q	/dæɣiːˈɢe/   دقیقه   (minute)
/ɢ/	[ɢ]	ق , غ	q, gh	/ɢæˈlæm/   قلم   (pen)
/h/	[h]	ه , ح	h	/hæft/   هفت   (seven)
/m/	[m]	م	m	/mɒːˈdær/   مادر   (mother)
/n/	[n]	ن	n	/nɒːn/   نان   (bread)
/ŋ/	[ŋ]	ن	ng, ŋ	/rænɡ/   رنگ   (color)
/l/	[l]	ل	l	/læb/   لب   (lip)
/ɾ/	[ɾ]	ر	r	/iːˈɾɒːn/   ایران   (Iran)
/j/	[j]	ی	y	/jɒː/   یا   (or)

Consonants can be geminated, often in words from Arabic. This is represented in the IPA either by doubling the consonant, [sejjed], or with the length symbol /ː/, [sejːed].

Allophonic variants

Alveolar stops /t/ and /d/ are either apico-alveolar or apico-dental. The voiceless obstruents /p, t, tʃ, k/ are aspirated much like their English counterparts: they become aspirated when they begin a syllable, though aspiration is not contrastive. The Persian language does not have syllable-initial consonant clusters (see below), so unlike in English, /p, t, k/ are aspirated even following /s/, as in /hæstæm/ "I exist". They are also aspirated at the end of syllables, although not as strongly.

The velar stops (viz. k, g) are palatalized before the three front vowels or at the end of a syllable.

In Classical Persian, غ and ق denoted the original Arabic phonemes, the voiced velar fricative [ɣ] and the voiceless uvular plosive [q], respectively. In modern Tehrani Persian (which is used in the Iranian mass media), there is no difference in the pronunciation of غ and ق, and they are both normally pronounced as a voiced uvular plosive [ɢ]; however, when they are positioned intervocalically and unstressed, lenition occurs and they tend to be pronounced more like a voiced velar fricative [ɣ]. The classic pronunciations of غ and ق are preserved in the eastern variants of Persian (i.e. Dari and Tajiki), as well as in the southern dialects of the modern Iranian variety (e.g. Yazdi and Kermani dialects).

Alveolar flap /ɾ/ can have a trilled allophonic variant [r] at the beginning of a word, as in Spanish, Catalan, and other Romance languages in Spain.

Phonotactics

Syllable Structure

Syllables may be structured as (C) V (C) (C) .

Stress

One syllable in each word (or breath group) is stressed, and knowing the rules is conducive to proper pronunciation.

1. Stress falls on the last stem syllable of most words.
2. Stress falls on the first syllable of interjections, conjunctions and vocatives. E.g. /ˈbæle/ "yes", /ˈnækheir/ "no indeed", /ˈvæli/ "but", /ˈtʃerɒ/ "why", /ˈæɡær/ "if", /ˈmersi/ "thanks", /ˈxɒnom/ "Ma'am", /ˈɒɢɒ/ "Sir"; cf. 4-4 below.
3. Never stressed are:
   1. personal suffixes on verbs (/-æm/ "I do..", /-i/ "you do..", .., /-ænd/ "they do..") (with one exception, cf. 4-1 below);
   2. a small set of very common noun enclitics: the /ezɒfe/ (/-e/, /-je) "of", /-rɒ/ "[direct object marker]", /-i/ "a, an", /-o/ "and";
   3. the possessive and pronoun-object suffixes, /-æm/, /-et/, /-eʃ/, &c.
4. Always stressed are:
   1. the personal suffixes on the positive future auxiliary verb (the single exception to 3-1 above);
   2. the negative verb prefix /næ-/, /ne-/, if present;
   3. if /næ-/, /ne-/ is not present, then the first non-negative verb prefix (e.g. /mi-/ "-ing", /be-/ "do!") or the prefix noun in compound verbs (e.g. /kɒr/ in /ˈkɒr mi-kærdæm/);
   4. the last syllable of all other words, including the infinitive ending /-æn/ and the participial ending /-te/, /-de/ in verbal derivatives, noun suffixes like /-i/ "-ish" and /-eɡi/, all plural suffixes (/-hɒ/, /-ɒn/), adjective comparative suffixes (/-tær/, /-tærin/), and ordinal-number suffixes (/-om/). Nouns not in the vocative are stressed on the final syllable: /xɒˈnom/ "lady", /ɒˈɢɒ/ "gentleman"; cf. 2 above.
5. In the informal language, the present perfect tense is pronounced like the simple past tense. Only the stress distinguishes between these tenses: the stressed personal suffix indicates the present perfect and the unstressed one the simple past tense:

Formal	Informal	Meaning
/diːˈde.æm/	/diːˈdæm/	I have seen
/ˈdiːdæm/	/ˈdiːdæm/	I saw

Colloquial Iranian Persian

When spoken formally, Iranian Persian is pronounced as written. But colloquial pronunciation as used by all classes makes a number of very common substitutions. They include:

• In the Tehrani accent and also most of the accents in Central and Southern Iran, the sequence /ɒn/ in the formal or written language is nearly always pronounced [un]. The only common exceptions are high prestige words, such as [ɢorʔɒn] "Qur'an", and [ʔirɒn] "Iran", which are pronounced as written. A few words written as /ɒm/ are pronounced [um], especially forms of the verb /ɒmædæn/ "to come".

• In the Tehrani accent, the unstressed direct object suffix marker /rɒ/ is pronounced /ro/, or /o/ after a consonant.

• The stems of many verbs have a short colloquial form, especially /æst/ "he/she is", which is colloquially shortened to /e/ after a consonant or /je/ after a vowel.

• The 2nd and 3rd person plural verb subject suffixes, written /-id/ and /-ænd/ respectively, are pronounced [-in] and [-æn].

• Many frequently-occurring verbs are shortened, such as /mixɒːhæm/ "I want" → [mixɒm], and /mirævæm/ "I go" → [miræm].

Example

Broad IPA Transcription	Native orthography	Gloss
/jek ˈɾuzi ˈbɒde ʃoˈmɒl bɒ xorˈʃid bɒhæm dæʔˈvɒ ˈmikæɾdænd ke ˈɒjɒ koˈdɒm jeki ɢæviˈtæɾ æst/	یک روزی باد شمال با خورشید با هم دعوا می‌کردند که آیا کدام یکی قویتر است	[One day] the North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger.

See also

• Persian alphabet

External links

• Virtual Persian Keyboard