Persian alphabet الفبای فارسی Alefbā-ye Fārsi | |
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Script type | Abjad
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Direction | right-to-left script ![]() |
Languages | Persian |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Persian alphabet |
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ا ب پ ت ث ج چ ح خ د ذ ر ز ژ س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک گ ل م ن و ه ی |
Perso Arabic script |
The Persian alphabet (Persian: الفبای فارسی, romanized: Alefbā-ye Fārsi) is a writing system used for the Persian language spoken in Iran (Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th century after the Muslim conquest of Persia.
The Persian language spoken in Tajikistan (Tajiki Persian) is written in the Tajik alphabet, a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet since the Soviet era.
The Persian script is directly derived and developed from the Arabic script. After the Muslim conquest of Persia and the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the 7th century, Arabic became the language of government and especially religion in Persia for two centuries. The replacement of the Pahlavi scripts with the Persian alphabet to write the Persian language was done by the Saffarid dynasty and Samanid dynasty in 9th-century Greater Khorasan.[1][2][3]
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. Extended versions of Perso-Arabic script are used to write many Indo-Iranian languages, including Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, Urdu, Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi and Kashmiri.
Letters
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20220803175124im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Nastaliq-proportions.jpg/220px-Nastaliq-proportions.jpg)
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.[4]
The names of the letter are mostly the ones used in Arabic except for the Persian pronunciation. The only ambiguous name is he, which is used for both ح and ه. For clarification, they are often called ḥä-ye jimi (literally "jim-like ḥe" after jim, the name for the letter ج that uses the same base form) and hâ-ye do-češm (literally "two-eyed he", after the contextual middle letterform ـهـ), respectively.
Overview table
# | Name (in Persian) |
Name (transliterated) |
DIN 31635 | IPA | Unicode | Contextual forms | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Final | Medial | Initial | Isolated | ||||||
0 | همزه | hamze[5] | ʾ | Glottal stop[ʔ] | U+0621 | — | — | — | ء |
U+0623 | ـأ | أ | |||||||
U+0626 | ـئ | ـئـ | ئـ | ئ | |||||
U+0624 | ـؤ | ؤ | |||||||
1 | الف | ʾalef | â | [ɒ] | U+0627 | ـا | ا | ||
2 | ب | be | b | [b] | U+0628 | ـب | ـبـ | بـ | ب |
3 | پ | pe | p | [p] | U+067E | ـپ | ـپـ | پـ | پ |
4 | ت | te | t | [t] | U+062A | ـت | ـتـ | تـ | ت |
5 | ث | s̱e | s̱ | [s] | U+062B | ـث | ـثـ | ثـ | ث |
6 | جیم | jim | j | [d͡ʒ] | U+062C | ـج | ـجـ | جـ | ج |
7 | چ | če | č | [t͡ʃ] | U+0686 | ـچ | ـچـ | چـ | چ |
8 | ح | ḥe (ḥâ-ye ḥotti, ḥâ-ye jimi) | ḥ | [h] | U+062D | ـح | ـحـ | حـ | ح |
9 | خ | xe | x | [x] | U+062E | ـخ | ـخـ | خـ | خ |
10 | دال | dâl | d | [d] | U+062F | ـد | د | ||
11 | ذال | ẕâl | ẕ | [z] | U+0630 | ـذ | ذ | ||
12 | ر | re | r | [r] | U+0631 | ـر | ر | ||
13 | ز | ze | z | [z] | U+0632 | ـز | ز | ||
14 | ژ | že | ž | [ʒ] | U+0698 | ـژ | ژ | ||
15 | سین | sin | s | [s] | U+0633 | ـس | ـسـ | سـ | س |
16 | شین | šin | š | [ʃ] | U+0634 | ـش | ـشـ | شـ | ش |
17 | صاد | ṣâd | ṣ | [s] | U+0635 | ـص | ـصـ | صـ | ص |
18 | ضاد | zâd | ż | [z] | U+0636 | ـض | ـضـ | ضـ | ض |
19 | طا | tâ | t | [t] | U+0637 | ـط | ـطـ | طـ | ط |
20 | ظا | ẓâ | ẓ | [z] | U+0638 | ـظ | ـظـ | ظـ | ظ |
21 | عین | ʿayn | ʿ | [ʔ], [æ] | U+0639 | ـع | ـعـ | عـ | ع |
22 | غین | ġayn | ġ | [ɢ], [ɣ] | U+063A | ـغ | ـغـ | غـ | غ |
23 | ف | fe | f | [f] | U+0641 | ـف | ـفـ | فـ | ف |
24 | قاف | qâf | q | [q] | U+0642 | ـق | ـقـ | قـ | ق |
25 | کاف | kâf | k | [k] | U+06A9 | ـک | ـکـ | کـ | ک |
26 | گاف | gâf | g | [ɡ] | U+06AF | ـگ | ـگـ | گـ | گ |
27 | لام | lâm | l | [l] | U+0644 | ـل | ـلـ | لـ | ل |
28 | میم | mim | m | [m] | U+0645 | ـم | ـمـ | مـ | م |
29 | نون | nun | n | [n] | U+0646 | ـن | ـنـ | نـ | ن |
30 | واو | vâv | v / ū / ow / (w / aw / ō in Dari) | [v], [uː], [o] (only word-finally), [ow] ([w], [aw], [oː] in Dari) | U+0648 | ـو | و | ||
31 | ه | he (hā-ye havvaz, hā-ye do-češm) | h | [h], [e] (word-finally) | U+0647 | ـه | ـهـ | هـ | ه |
32 | ی | ye | y / ī / á / (ay / ē in Dari) | [j], [i], [ɒː] ([aj] / [eː] in Dari) | U+06CC | ـی | ـیـ | یـ | ی |
Historically, there was also a special letter for the sound /β/. This letter is no longer used, as the /β/-sound changed to /b/, e.g. archaic زڤان /zaβān/ > زبان /zæbɒn/ 'language'[6]
Sound | Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form | Name |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
/β/ | ڤ | ـڤ | ـڤـ | ڤـ | βe |
Variants
ی ه و ن م ل گ ک ق ف غ ع ظ ط ض ص ش س ژ ز ر ذ د خ ح چ ج ث ت پ ب ا ء | ||
• | 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
forms (i) | isolated | ء | ا | ى | ں | ٮ | ح | س | ص | ط | ع | ڡ | ٯ | ک | ل | م | د | ر | و | ه | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
start | ء | ا | ٮـ | حـ | سـ | صـ | طـ | عـ | ڡـ | کـ | لـ | مـ | د | ر | و | هـ | ||||||
mid | ء | ـا | ـٮـ | ـحـ | ـسـ | ـصـ | ـطـ | ـعـ | ـڡـ | ـکـ | ـلـ | ـمـ | ـد | ـر | ـو | ـهـ | ||||||
end | ء | ـا | ـى | ـں | ـٮ | ـح | ـس | ـص | ـط | ـع | ـڡ | ـٯ | ـک | ـل | ـم | ـد | ـر | ـو | ـه | |||
i'jam (i) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | 0621 .. | 0627 .. | 0649 .. | 06BA .. | 066E .. | 062D .. | 0633 .. | 0635 .. | 0637 .. | 0639 .. | 06A1 .. | 066F .. | 066F .. | 0644 .. | 0645 .. | 062F .. | 0631 .. | 0648. .. | 0647 .. | |||
1 dot below | ﮳ | ب | ج | |||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | FBB3. | 0628 .. | 062C .. | |||||||||||||||||||
1 dot above | ﮲ | ن | خ | ض | ظ | غ | ف | ذ | ز | |||||||||||||
Unicode | FBB2. | 0646 .. | 062E .. | 0636 .. | 0638 .. | 063A .. | 0641 .. | 0630 .. | 0632 .. | |||||||||||||
2 dots below (ii) | ﮵ | ی | ||||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | FBB5. | 06CC .. | ||||||||||||||||||||
2 dots above | ﮴ | ت | ق | ة | ||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | FBB4. | 062A .. | 0642 .. | 0629 .. | ||||||||||||||||||
3 dots below | ﮹ | پ | چ | |||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | FBB9. FBB7. | 067E .. | 0686 .. | |||||||||||||||||||
3 dots above | ﮶ | ث | ش | ژ | ||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | FBB6. | 062B .. | 0634 .. | 0698 .. | ||||||||||||||||||
line above | ‾ | گ | ||||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | 203E. | 06AF .. | ||||||||||||||||||||
none | ء | ا | ی | ں | ح | س | ص | ط | ع | ک | ل | م | د | ر | و | ه | ||||||
Unicode | 0621 .. | 0627 .. | 0649 .. | 06BA .. | 062D .. | 0633 .. | 0635 .. | 0637 .. | 0639 .. | 066F .. | 0644 .. | 0645 .. | 062F .. | 0631 .. | 0648. .. | 0647 .. | ||||||
madda above | ۤ | آ | ||||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | 06E4. 0653. | 0622 .. | ||||||||||||||||||||
Hamza below | ــٕـ | إ | ||||||||||||||||||||
Unicode | 0655. | 0625 .. | ||||||||||||||||||||
Hamza above | ــٔـ | أ | ئ | ؤ | ۀ | |||||||||||||||||
Unicode | 0674. 0654. | 0623 .. | 0626 .. | 0624 .. | 06C0 .. |
^i. The i'jam diacritic characters are illustrative only, in most typesetting the combined characters in the middle of the table are used.
^ii. Persian Yē has 2 dots below in the initial and middle positions only. The standard Arabic version ي يـ ـيـ ـي always has 2 dots below.
Letters that do not link to a following letter
Seven letters (و, ژ, ز, ر, ذ, د, ا) 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 ا alef is at the beginning of a word such as اینجا injâ ("here"), the same form is used as in an isolated alef. In the case of امروز emruz ("today"), the letter ر re takes the final form and the letter و vâv takes the isolated form, but they are in the middle of the word, and ز also has its isolated form, but it occurs at the end of the word.
Diacritics
Persian script has adopted a subset of Arabic diacritics: zebar /æ/ (fatḥah in Arabic), zir /e/ (kasrah in Arabic), and piš /ou̯/ or /o/ (ḍammah in Arabic, pronounced zamme in Western Persian), tanwīne nasb /æn/ and šaddah (gemination). Other Arabic diacritics may be seen in Arabic loanwords in Persian.
Short vowels
Of the four Arabic short vowels, the Persian language has adopted the following three. The last one, sukūn, has not been adopted.
Short vowels (fully vocalized text) |
Name (in Persian) |
Name (transliterated) |
Trans. | Value |
---|---|---|---|---|
064E ◌َ |
زبر (فتحه) |
zebar/zibar | a | Ir. /æ/; D. /a/ |
0650 ◌ِ |
زیر (کسره) |
zer/zir | e | /e/ |
064F ◌ُ |
پیش (ضمّه) |
peš/piš | o | /o/ |
In Iranian Persian, 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 alef which carries the short vowel, e.g. اُمید (omid, meaning "hope"). In a word that ends with a vowel, letters ع, ه and و respectively become the proxy letters for zebar, zir and piš, e.g. نو (now, meaning "new") or بسته (bast-e, meaning "package").
Tanvin (nunation)
Nunation (Persian: تنوین, tanvin) 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 َاً، ـاً، ءً |
تنوین نَصْبْ | Tanvine nasb | |
064D ٍِ |
تنوین جَرّ | Tanvine jarr | Never used in the Persian language.
Taught in Islamic nations to complement Quran education. |
064C ٌ |
تنوین رَفْعْ | Tanvine rafʿ |
Tašdid
Symbol | Name (in Persian) |
Name (transliteration) |
---|---|---|
0651 ّ |
تشدید | tašdid |
Other characters
The following are not actual letters but different orthographical shapes for letters, a ligature in the case of the lâm alef. As to ﺀ (hamza), it has only one graphic since it is never tied to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes 'seated' on a vâv, ye or alef, and in that case, the seat behaves like an ordinary vâv, ye or alef respectively. Technically, hamza is not a letter but a diacritic.
Name | Pronunciation | IPA | Unicode | Final | Medial | Initial | Stand-alone | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
alef madde | â | [ɒ] | U+0622 | ـآ | — | آ | آ | The final form is very rare and is freely replaced with ordinary alef. |
he ye | -eye or -eyeh | [eje] | U+06C0 | ـۀ | — | — | ۀ | Validity of this form depends on region and dialect. Some may use the three-letter ـهای combination instead. |
lām alef | lā | [lɒ] | U+0644 (lām) and U+0627 (alef) | ـلا | — | — | لا | |
kašida | U+0640 | — | ـ | — | — | 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.
Novel letters
The Persian alphabet has four extra letters that are not in the Arabic alphabet: /p/, /t͡ʃ/ (ch in chair), /ʒ/ (s in measure), /ɡ/.
Sound | Shape | Unicode name | Unicode code point |
---|---|---|---|
/p/ | پ | pe | U+067E |
/t͡ʃ/ (ch) | چ | če | U+0686 |
/ʒ/ (zh) | ژ | že | U+0698 |
/ɡ/ | گ | gâf | U+06AF |
Deviations from the Arabic script
Persian uses the Eastern Arabic numerals, but the shapes of the digits 'four' (۴), 'five' (۵), and 'six' (۶) are different from the shapes used in Arabic. All the digits also have different codepoints in Unicode:[7]
Name | Persian | Unicode | Arabic | Unicode |
---|---|---|---|---|
0 | ۰ | U+06F0 | ٠ | U+0660 |
1 | ۱ | U+06F1 | ١ | U+0661 |
2 | ۲ | U+06F2 | ٢ | U+0662 |
3 | ۳ | U+06F3 | ٣ | U+0663 |
4 | ۴ | U+06F4 | ٤ | U+0664 |
5 | ۵ | U+06F5 | ٥ | U+0665 |
6 | ۶ | U+06F6 | ٦ | U+0666 |
7 | ۷ | U+06F7 | ٧ | U+0667 |
8 | ۸ | U+06F8 | ٨ | U+0668 |
9 | ۹ | U+06F9 | ٩ | U+0669 |
ye | ی | U+06CC | ي * | U+064A |
kāf | ک | U+06A9 | ك | U+0643 |
* However, the Arabic variant continues to be used in its traditional style in the Nile Valley, similarly as it is used in Persian and Ottoman Turkish.
Comparison of different numerals
Western Arabic | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Eastern Arabic[a] | ٠ | ١ | ٢ | ٣ | ٤ | ٥ | ٦ | ٧ | ٨ | ٩ | ١٠ |
Persian[b] | ۰ | ۱ | ۲ | ۳ | ۴ | ۵ | ۶ | ۷ | ۸ | ۹ | ۱۰ |
Urdu[c] | ۰ | ۱ | ۲ | ۳ | ۴ | ۵ | ۶ | ۷ | ۸ | ۹ | ۱۰ |
Abjad numerals | ا | ب | ج | د | ه | و | ز | ح | ط | ي |
- ^ U+0660 through U+0669
- ^ U+06F0 through U+06F9. The numbers 4, 5, and 6 are different from Eastern Arabic.
- ^ Same Unicode characters as the Persian, but language is set to Urdu. The numerals 4, 6 and 7 are different from Persian. On some devices, this row may appear identical to Persian.
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.[8][9][10][11][12] The alphabet remained Cyrillic until the end of the 1980s with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. 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.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][excessive citations]
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.[1] As of 2004 the de facto standard in use is the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet,[2] and as of 1996 only a very small part of the population can read the Persian alphabet.[3]
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
- ^ Ira M. Lapidus (2012). Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 256–. ISBN 978-0-521-51441-5.
- ^ Ira M. Lapidus (2002). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press. pp. 127–. ISBN 978-0-521-77933-3.
- ^ Persian (Fārsī / فارسی), omniglot
- ^ "ویژگىهاى خطّ فارسى". Academy of Persian Language and Literature. Archived from the original on 2017-09-07. Retrieved 2017-08-05.
- ^ "??" (PDF). Persianacademy.ir. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
- ^ "PERSIAN LANGUAGE i. Early New Persian". Iranica Online. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
- ^ "Unicode Characters in the 'Number, Decimal Digit' Category".
- ^ ed. Hämmerle 2008, p. 76.
- ^ Cavendish 2006, p. 656.
- ^ Landau & Kellner-Heinkele 2001, p. 125.
- ^ ed. Buyers 2003, p. 132.
- ^ Borjian 2005.
- ^ ed. Ehteshami 2002, p. 219.
- ^ ed. Malik 1996, p. 274.
- ^ Banuazizi & Weiner 1994, p. 33.
- ^ Westerlund & Svanberg 1999, p. 186.
- ^ ed. Gillespie & Henry 1995, p. 172.
- ^ Badan 2001, p. 137.
- ^ Winrow 1995, p. 47.
- ^ Parsons 1993, p. 8.
- ^ RFE/RL, inc, RFE/RL Research Institute 1990, p. 22.
- ^ Middle East Institute (Washington, D.C.) 1990, p. 10.
- ^ Ochsenwald & Fisher 2010, p. 416.
- ^ Gall 2009, p. 785.
External links
- Dastoore khat - The Official document in Persian by Academy of Persian Language and Literature