Persian alphabet
Template:Short description Template:For Template:Multiple issues Template:Infobox writing system Template:Contains special characters Template:Arabic-script sidebar Template:Writing systems in India
The Persian alphabet (Template:Langx), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is largely identical to the Arabic script with four additional letters: Template:Lang (the sounds 'g', 'zh', 'ch', and 'p', respectively), in addition to the obsolete Template:Lang that was used for the sound Template:IPAslink. This letter is no longer used in Persian, as the Template:IPAblink-sound changed to Template:IPAblink, e.g. archaic Template:Lang Template:IPA > Template:Lang Template:IPA 'language'.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref> Although the sound Template:IPAslink (Template:Lang) is written as "و" nowadays in Farsi (Dari-Parsi/New Persian), it is different to the Arabic Template:IPAslink (و) sound, which uses the same letter.
It was the basis of many Arabic-based scripts used in Central and South Asia. It is used for both Iranian and Dari: standard varieties of Persian; and is one of two official writing systems for the Persian language, alongside the Cyrillic-based Tajik alphabet.
The script is mostly but not exclusively right-to-left; mathematical expressions, numeric dates and numbers bearing units are embedded from left to right. The script is cursive, meaning most letters in a word connect to each other; when they are typed, contemporary word processors automatically join adjacent letter forms. Persian is unusual among Arabic scripts because a zero-width non-joiner is sometimes entered in a word, causing a letter to become disconnected from others in the same word.
History
The Persian alphabet is directly derived and developed from the Arabic alphabet. The Arabic alphabet was introduced to the Persian-speaking world after the Muslim conquest of Persia and the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the 7th century. Following this, the Arabic language became the principal language of government and religious institutions in Persia, which led to the widespread usage of the Arabic script. Classical Persian literature and poetry were affected by this simultaneous usage of Arabic and Persian. A new influx of Arabic vocabulary soon entered the Persian language.<ref name=":0" /> In the 8th century, the Tahirid dynasty and Samanid dynasty officially adopted the Arabic script for writing Persian, followed by the Saffarid dynasty in the 9th century, gradually displacing the various Pahlavi scripts used for the Persian language earlier. By the 9th-century, the Perso-Arabic alphabet became the dominant form of writing in Greater Khorasan.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Lapidus2002">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Under the influence of various Persian Empires, many languages in Central and South Asia that adopted the Arabic script use the Persian Alphabet as the basis of their writing systems. Today, extended versions of the Persian alphabet are used to write a wide variety of Indo-Iranian languages, including Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, Urdu (from Classical Hindustani), Saraiki, Panjabi, Sindhi and Kashmiri. In the past the use of the Persian alphabet was common amongst Turkic languages, but today is relegated to those spoken within Iran, such as Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Chaharmahali and Khalaj. The Uyghur language in western China is the most notable exception to this.
During the Soviet period many languages in Central Asia, including Persian, were reformed by the government. This ultimately resulted in the Cyrillic-based alphabet used in Tajikistan today. See: Template:Section link.
Letters
Below are the 32 letters of the modern Persian alphabet. Since the script is cursive, the appearance of a letter changes depending on its position: isolated, initial (joined on the left), medial (joined on both sides) and final (joined on the right) of a word.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> These include 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet, in addition to 4 other letters.
The names of the letters are mostly the ones used in Arabic except for the Persian pronunciation. The only ambiguous name is Template:Transliteration, which is used for both Template:Lang and Template:Lang. For clarification, they are often called Template:Transliteration (literally "Template:Transliteration-like Template:Transliteration" after Template:Transliteration, the name for the letter Template:Lang that uses the same base form) and Template:Transliteration (literally "two-eyed Template:Transliteration", after the contextual middle letterform Template:Lang), respectively. There are eight Persian letters that are mainly used in Arabic or foreign loanwords and not in native words: Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang and Template:Lang. These eight letters are also commonly used only in proper names. Unlike Arabic, the Persian language does not have pharyngealization at all. Although the letter Template:Lang is mainly used in Arabic loanwords, there are some native Persian words with this letter: Template:Lang, Template:Lang, etc. The pronunciation of these letters in Persian can differ from their pronunciation in Arabic. For example, the letter ث is pronounced as Template:IPAslink in Persian, while it is pronounced as Template:IPAslink in Arabic.
| Letter | Persian | Arabic |
|---|---|---|
| Template:Nq | /s/ | /θ/ |
| Template:Nq | /h/ | /ħ/ |
| Template:Nq | /z/ | /ð/ |
| ص | /s/ | /sˤ/ |
| ض | /z/ | /dˤ/ |
| ط | /t/ | /tˤ/ |
| ظ | /z/ | /ðˤ/ |
| ع | /ʔ/ | /ʕ/ |
| غ | Template:IPAblink or Template:IPAblink | /ɣ/ |
Overview table
Historically, in Early New Persian, there was a special letter for the sound Template:IPAslink. This letter is no longer used, as the Template:IPA-sound changed to Template:IPAslink, e.g. archaic Template:Lang /zaβān/ > Template:Lang Template:IPA 'language'.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
| Name (in Persian) |
Name (transliterated) |
Transliteration | Sound | Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ڤ | ve | Template:Transliteration / Template:Transliteration / Template:Transliteration | Template:IPAslink | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Lang |
Another obsolete variant of the twenty-sixth letter Template:Lang Template:IPAslink is Template:Lang which used to appear in old manuscripts.<ref name=":1" />
| Sound | Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:IPAslink | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration |
Another obsolete variant of the twenty-fifth letter Template:Lang Template:IPAslink is Template:Lang which used to appear in old manuscripts.
| Sound | Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:IPAslink | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration |
The archaic letter Template:Lang Template:IPAslink was also used as a substitute for the twenty-sixth letter of the Persian alphabet, Template:Lang, which was used to appear in the older manuscripts of Persian in the late 18th century to the early 19th century.
| Sound | Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:IPAslink | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration |
Variants
| Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang Template:Lang | ||
 |
• | Noto Nastaliq Urdu |
| • | Scheherazade | |
| • | Lateef | |
| • | Noto Naskh Arabic | |
| • | Markazi Text | |
| • | Noto Sans Arabic | |
| • | Baloo Bhaijaan | |
| • | El Messiri SemiBold | |
| • | Lemonada Medium | |
| • | Changa Medium | |
| • | Mada | |
| • | Noto Kufi Arabic | |
| • | Reem Kufi | |
| • | Lalezar | |
| • | Jomhuria | |
| • | Rakkas | |
| The alphabet in 16 fonts: Noto Nastaliq Urdu, Scheherazade, Lateef, Noto Naskh Arabic, Markazi Text, Noto Sans Arabic, Baloo Bhaijaan, El Messiri SemiBold, Lemonada Medium, Changa Medium, Mada, Noto Kufi Arabic, Reem Kufi, Lalezar, Jomhuria, and Rakkas. | ||
Letter construction
Template:Note The i'jam diacritic characters are illustrative only; in most typesetting the combined characters in the middle of the table are used.
Template:Note Persian yē has 2 dots below in the initial and middle positions only. The standard Arabic version Template:Lang always has 2 dots below.
Letters that do not link to a following letter
Seven letters (Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang) do not connect to the following letter, unlike the rest of the letters of the alphabet. The seven letters have the same form in isolated and initial position and a second form in medial and final position. For example, when the letter Template:Lang Template:Transliteration is at the beginning of a word such as Template:Lang Template:Transliteration ("here"), the same form is used as in an isolated Template:Transliteration. In the case of Template:Lang Template:Transliteration ("today"), the letter Template:Lang Template:Transliteration takes the final form and the letter Template:Lang Template:Transliteration takes the isolated form, but they are in the middle of the word, and Template:Lang also has its isolated form, but it occurs at the end of the word.
Diacritics
Persian script has adopted a subset of Arabic diacritics: Template:Transliteration Template:IPAslink (Template:Transliteration in Arabic), Template:Transliteration Template:IPAslink (Template:Transliteration in Arabic), and Template:Transliteration Template:IPAslink or Template:IPAslink (Template:Transliteration in Arabic, pronounced Template:Transliteration in Western Persian), Template:Transliteration Template:IPA and Template:Transliteration (gemination). Other Arabic diacritics may be seen in Arabic loanwords in Persian.
Short vowels
Of the four Arabic diacritics, the Persian language has adopted the following three for short vowels. The last one, sukūn, which indicates the lack of a vowel, has not been adopted.
Template:Note There is no standard transliteration for Persian. The letters 'i' and 'u' are only ever used as short vowels when transliterating Dari or Tajik Persian. See Persian Phonology
Template:Note Diacritics differ by dialect, due to Dari having 8 distinct vowels compared to the 6 vowels of Farsi. See Persian Phonology
In Farsi, none of these short vowels may be the initial or final grapheme in an isolated word, although they may appear in the final position as an inflection, when the word is part of a noun group. In a word that starts with a vowel, the first grapheme is a silent Template:Transliteration which carries the short vowel, e.g. Template:Lang (Template:Transliteration, meaning "hope"). In a word that ends with a vowel, letters Template:Lang, Template:Lang and Template:Lang respectively become the proxy letters for Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration, e.g. Template:Lang (Template:Transliteration, meaning "new") or Template:Lang (Template:Transliteration, meaning "package").
Tanvin (nunation)
Template:Main Nunation (Template:Langx, Template:Lang) is the addition of one of three vowel diacritics to a noun or adjective to indicate that the word ends in an alveolar nasal sound without the addition of the letter nun.
| Nunation (fully vocalized text) |
Name (in Persian) |
Name (transliterated) |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 064B Template:Script/Arabic |
Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration | |
| 064D Template:Script/Arabic |
Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration | Never used in the Persian language. |
| 064C Template:Script/Arabic |
Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration |
Tašdid
| Symbol | Name (in Persian) |
Name (transliteration) |
|---|---|---|
| 0651 Template:Script/Arabic |
تشدید | Template:Transliteration |
Other characters
The following are not actual letters but different orthographical shapes for letters, a ligature in the case of the Template:Transliteration. As to Template:Lang (hamza), it has only one graphical form since it is never tied to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes 'seated' on a Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration, and in that case, the seat behaves like an ordinary Template:Transliteration, Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration respectively. Technically, hamza is not a letter but a diacritic.
| Name | Pronunciation | IPA | Unicode | Final | Medial | Initial | Stand-alone | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:Transliteration | Template:Transliteration | Template:IPAblink | U+0622 | Template:Lang | — | Template:Lang | The final form is very rare and is freely replaced with ordinary alef. | |
| Template:Transliteration | Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration | Template:IPA | U+06C0 | Template:Lang | — | Template:Lang | Validity of this form depends on region and dialect. Some may use the two-letter Template:Lang or Template:Lang combinations instead. | |
| Template:Transliteration | Template:Transliteration | Template:IPA | U+0644 (lām) and U+0627 (alef) | Template:Lang | Template:Lang | |||
| Template:Transliteration | U+0640 | — | Template:Lang | — | This is the medial character which connects other characters | |||
Although at first glance, they may seem similar, there are many differences in the way the different languages use the alphabets. For example, similar words are written differently in Persian and Arabic, as they are used differently.
Unicode has accepted Template:Unichar in the Miscellaneous Symbols range.<ref>"Miscellaneous Symbols". p. 4. The Unicode Standard, Version 13.0. Unicode.org</ref> In Unicode 1.0 this symbol was known as Template:Sc2.<ref>"3.8 Block-by-block Charts" § Miscellaneous Dingbats p. 325 (155 electronically). The Unicode Standard Version 1.0. Unicode.org</ref> It is a stylization of Template:Lang (Template:Transliteration) used as the emblem of Iran. It is also a part of the flag of Iran.
The Unicode Standard has a compatibility character defined Template:Unichar that can represent Template:Lang, the Persian name of the currency of Iran.<ref>For the proposal, see Template:Cite web It proposes the character under the name of Template:Sc2, which was changed by the standard committees to Template:Sc2.</ref>
Novel letters
The Persian alphabet has four extra letters that are not in the Arabic alphabet: Template:IPAslink, Template:IPAslink (ch in chair), Template:IPAslink (s in measure), Template:IPAslink. An additional fifth letter Template:Lang was used for Template:IPA (v in Spanish Template:Lang) but it is no longer used.
| Sound | Shape | Name | Unicode code point |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template:IPAslink | Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration | U+067E |
| Template:IPAslink (ch) | Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration | U+0686 |
| Template:IPAslink (zh) | Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration | U+0698 |
| Template:IPAslink | Template:Lang | Template:Transliteration | U+06AF |
Deviations from the Arabic script
Template:Anchor Persian uses the Eastern Arabic numerals, but the shapes of the digits 'four' (Template:Lang), 'five' (Template:Lang), and 'six' (Template:Lang) are different from the shapes used in Arabic. All the digits also have different codepoints in Unicode:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
| Hindu-Arabic | Persian | Name | Unicode | Arabic | Unicode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | ۰ | صفر
sefr |
U+06F0 | ٠ | U+0660 |
| 1 | ۱ | يک
yek |
U+06F1 | ١ | U+0661 |
| 2 | ۲ | دو
do |
U+06F2 | ٢ | U+0662 |
| 3 | ۳ | سه
se |
U+06F3 | ٣ | U+0663 |
| 4 | ۴ | چهار
čahâr |
U+06F4 | ٤ | U+0664 |
| 5 | ۵ | پنج
panj |
U+06F5 | ٥ | U+0665 |
| 6 | ۶ | شش
šeš |
U+06F6 | ٦ | U+0666 |
| 7 | ۷ | هفت
haft |
U+06F7 | ٧ | U+0667 |
| 8 | ۸ | هشت
hašt |
U+06F8 | ٨ | U+0668 |
| 9 | ۹ | نه
no |
U+06F9 | ٩ | U+0669 |
| - | ی | ye | U+06CC | يTemplate:Efn | U+064A |
| ک | kâf | U+06A9 | ك | U+0643 |
Comparison of different numerals
Word boundaries
Typically, words are separated from each other by a space. Certain morphemes (such as the plural ending '-hâ'), however, are written without a space. On a computer, they are separated from the word using the zero-width non-joiner.
Cyrillic Persian alphabet in Tajikistan
As part of the russification of Central Asia, the Cyrillic script was introduced in the late 1930s.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The alphabet has remained Cyrillic since then. In 1989, with the growth in Tajik nationalism, a law was enacted declaring Tajik the state language. In addition, the law officially equated Tajik with Persian, placing the word Farsi (the endonym for the Persian language) after Tajik. The law also called for a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic alphabet.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Excessive citations inline
The Persian alphabet was introduced into education and public life, although the banning of the Islamic Renaissance Party in 1993 slowed adoption. In 1999, the word Farsi was removed from the state-language law, reverting the name to simply Tajik.Template:Ref Template:As of the de facto standard in use is the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet,Template:Ref and Template:As of only a very small part of the population can read the Persian alphabet.Template:Ref
See also
- Scripts used for Persian
- Romanization of Persian
- Persian braille
- Persian phonology
- Abjad numerals
- Nastaʿlīq, the calligraphy used to write Persian before the 20th century
References
External links
- Dastoore khat – The Official document in Persian by Academy of Persian Language and Literature
Template:Persian language Template:Arabic alphabets Template:Authority control