Persian فارسی, Fārsi
Fārsi in Perso-Arabic script (Nasta`liq style):
Pronunciation:	[fɒːɾˈsiː]
Spoken in:	Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and areas of Uzbekistan and western Pakistan. Also in various Iranian/Persian/Afghani diaspora, specifically USA, UAE and Turkey.
Region:	Middle East, Central Asia
Total speakers:	ca. 72 million native,[1] ca. 62 million second language[citation needed], 134 million total
Ranking:	ca. 12th (native speakers)
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Iranian    Western Iranian     Southwestern Iranian      Persian
Official status
Official language in:	Afghanistan[1] Iran Tajikistan[1]
Regulated by:	Academy of Persian Language and Literature Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	fa
ISO 639-2:	per (B)	fas (T)
ISO 639-3:	variously: fas — Persian prs — Eastern Persian pes — Western Persian tgk — Tajik aiq — Aimaq bhh — Bukharic deh — Dehwari drw — Darwazi haz — Hazaragi jpr — Dzhidi phv — Pahlavani
Areas with Persian-speakers as mother tongue language
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Persian (local names: فارسی [fɒːɾˈsiː], Fārsi or پارسی [pɒːɾˈsiː], Pārsi; see Nomenclature) is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is derived from the language of the ancient Persian people. It is part of the Indo-European language family. Farsi may refer to: Native name of the Persian language Farsi Island, an Iranian island in the Persian Gulf The Jafari Shia Tajiks of Central Asia Farsi District of the Herat Province in Afghanistan. ... It has been suggested that Urdu alphabet be merged into this article or section. ... Image File history File links Farsi. ... The term Iranian diaspora or Persian diaspora refers to the Iranian people living outside of Iran. ... UAE redirects here; for other uses of that term, see UAE (disambiguation) The United Arab Emirates is an oil-rich country situated in the south-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia, comprising seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... Map of Central Asia showing three sets of possible boundaries for the region Central Asia located as a region of the world Central Asia is a vast landlocked region of Asia. ... This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. ... task manager disable ---- please help ... The Southwestern Iranian languages include some 16 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about many people in Asia; this language family is a part of the Western Iranian language family. ... Irans Academy of Persian Language and Literature (Persian:فرهنگستان زبان Ùˆ ادب فارسی; IPA2: Farhangestán e Zabán o Adab e Fársi) is a government-controlled International body presiding over the use of the Persian language in Iran and other Persian speaking countries. ... Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan is the official goverment agency of Afghanistan that regulates the Dari (Persian) and Pashtu languages spoken in Afghanistan. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... Dari is a term used to denote one of several closely related Persian dialects spoken in what used to be Greater Khorasan: The official name for the Persian language in Afghanistan; see Dari (Afghanistan) One name used by Zoroastrians (the others being Gabri and Yazdi) to refer to the Northwestern... Persian, (local name: FārsÄ« or PārsÄ«), is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and by minorities in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... Aimaq is a dialect of the Persian language of Afghanistan spoken in West of the Hazara, central northwest Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and Tajikistan. ... Bukhori, also known as Bukharic or Bukharan, is an Indo-Iranian language. ... Dehwari is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken by over 20,000 people in Balochistan, Pakistan. ... Hazaragi is a dialect of the Persian language, with the main deviation from Farsi and Dari being a larger borrowing of Turkic and Mongolian vocabulary. ... Dzhidi, or Judæo-Persian, is the Jewish language spoken by the Jews living in Iran. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... Farsi redirects here. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... This article is about the Persian people, an ethnic group found mainly in Iran. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ...

Persian and its varieties have official-language status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. According to CIA World Factbook, based on old data, there are approximately 62 million native speakers of Persian in Iran,^[2] Afghanistan,^[3] Tajikistan^[4] and Uzbekistan^[5] and about the same number of people in other parts of the world speak Persian. UNESCO was asked to select Persian as one of its languages in 2006.^[6] World Factbook 2004 cover The World Factbook is an annual publication by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with basic almanac-style information about the various countries of the world. ... UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1945. ...

Persian has been a medium for literary and scientific contributions to the Islamic world as well as the Western. It has had an influence on certain neighbouring languages, particularly the Turkic languages of Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia. It has had a lesser influence on Arabic and other languages of Mesopotamia. The Islamic world is the world-wide community of those who identify with Islam, known as Muslims, and who number approximately one-and-a-half billion people. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ... Map of Central Asia showing three sets of possible boundaries for the region Central Asia located as a region of the world Central Asia is a vast landlocked region of Asia. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Caucasus Mountains. ... This article is about two nested areas of Turkey, a plateau region within a peninsula. ... Arabic redirects here. ... Mesopotamia was a cradle of civilization geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq. ...

For five centuries prior to the British colonization, Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent; it took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts in India and became the "official language" under the Mughal emperors. Only in 1843 did the subcontinent begin conducting business in English.^[7] Evidence of Persian's historical influence in the region can be seen in the extent of its influence on the languages of Hindustani (resulting in Urdu), Kashmiri, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, and even Telugu, as well as the popularity that Persian literature still enjoys in the region. Map of South Asia (see note) This article deals with the geophysical region in Asia. ... The Mughal Empire (alternative spelling Mogul, which is the origin of the word Mogul) of India was founded by Babur in 1526, when he defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans at the First Battle of Panipat. ... Hindustani redirects here. ... Urdu ( , , trans. ... Kashmiri (कॉशुर, کٲشُر Koshur) is a northwestern Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in the valley of Kashmir, a region situated mostly in the Jammu and Kashmir state of India. ... “Punjabi” redirects here. ... SindhÄ« (سنڌي, सिन्धी) is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is now a province of Pakistan. ... Gujarati (ગુજરાતી GujÇŽrātÄ«; also known as Gujerati, Gujarathi, Guzratee, and Guujaratee[3]) is an Indo-Aryan language descending from Sanskrit, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. ... “Telugu” redirects here. ... Kelileh va Demneh Persian manuscript copy dated 1429, from Herat, depicts the Jackal trying to lead the Lion astray. ...

Classification

Persian belongs to the Western group of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family, and is of the Subject Object Verb type. Contrary to common belief, it is not a Semitic language. The Western Indo-Iranian group contains other related languages such as Kurdish and Balochi. The language is in the Southwestern Indo-Iranian group, along with the Tat and Luri languages.^[8] The Western Iranian languages include some 69 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about many people in Asia; this language family is a part of the Iranian language family. ... The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV) is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear (usually) in that order. ... The Kurdish language (Kurdish: Kurdî or کوردی) is the language spoken by Kurds. ... Balochi (also Baluchi, Baloci or Baluci) is a Northwestern Iranian language. ... The Southwestern Iranian languages include some 16 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken by about many people in Asia; this language family is a part of the Western Iranian language family. ... The Tat language is an Indo-Iranian language spoken by the Tat ethnic group. ... Luri is a dialect of Persian language. ...

Green denotes official language status; orange denotes minority language.

Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1427x628, 27 KB) green: official language orange: persianspeaking minority Help to create a map of the persian speaking world. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1427x628, 27 KB) green: official language orange: persianspeaking minority Help to create a map of the persian speaking world. ...

Local names

The Persian language is locally known as

• فارسی‎ (transliteration: Fārsi) or پارسی‎ (Pārsi), local name in Iran, Afghanistan (where it is officially known as Darī) and Tajikistan,
• Tajik, local name in Central Asia.
• Dari, name given to classical Persian poetry and court language, as well as to Persian dialects spoken in Afghanistan, Tajikistan.

Lexical confusion in the West between terms like Farsi, Dari and Tajiki often leads to an underestimation of the breadth of the influence of Persian in Southwest Asia, which is quite important and is a legacy of the millennia-long existence of a Persian cultural sphere, perhaps because this cultural sphere functioned differently than modern nationalism in the West. Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... Map of Central Asia showing three sets of possible boundaries for the region Central Asia located as a region of the world Central Asia is a vast landlocked region of Asia. ... Dari (Persian: ) is the official name for the Persian language in Afghanistan, popularly and locally known as Farsi. ...

Nomenclature

Persian, the more widely used name of the language in English, is an Anglicized form derived from Latin *Persianus < Latin Persia < Greek Πέρσις Pérsis, a Hellenized form of Old Persian Parsa. Farsi is the arabicized form of Parsi, due to a lack of the /p/ phoneme in Standard Arabic. Native Persian speakers typically call it "Fārsi" in modern usage. In English, however, the language continued to be known as "Farsi" during the first half of the 20th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian seems to have been first used in English in the mid-20th century, but has been condemned by some critics as an affectation.^[9] According to Pejman Akbarzadeh, "... many Persians migrating to the West (particularly to the USA) after the 1979 revolution continued to use Persian to identify their language in English and the word became commonplace in English-speaking countries."^[10] The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Arabization is the gradual transformation of an area into one that speaks Arabic and is part of the Arab culture. ... The Oxford English Dictionary print set The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), and is the most successful dictionary of the English language, (not to be confused with the one-volume Oxford Dictionary of English, formerly New Oxford Dictionary of English, of... Look up Persian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Pejman Akbarzadeh (Persian پژمان اكبرزاده, born 1980) is a Persian (Iranian) musician and researcher. ... Look up Persian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has argued in an official pronouncement^[11] 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. On the other hand, "Farsi" is also encountered frequently in the linguistic literature as a name for the language, used both by Iranian and by foreign authors,^[12] and is preferred by some.^[13] Irans Academy of Persian Language and Literature (Persian:فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فارسی; IPA2: Farhangestán e Zabán o Adab e Fársi) is a government-controlled International body presiding over the use of the Persian language in Iran and other Persian speaking countries. ...

The international language encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code "fa", as its coding system is based on the local names. The more detailed draft ISO 639-3 uses the name "Persian" (code "fas") for the larger unit ("macrolanguage") spoken across Iran and Afghanistan, but "Eastern Farsi" and "Western Farsi" for two of its subdivisions (roughly coinciding with the varieties in Afghanistan and those in Iran, respectively).^[14] Ethnologue, in turn, includes "Farsi, Eastern" and "Farsi, Western" as two separate entries and lists "Persian" and "Parsi" as alternative names for each, besides "Irani" for the western and "Dari" for the eastern form.^[15][16] ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language. ...

A similar terminology, but with even more subdivisions, is also adopted by the "Linguist List", where "Persian" appears as a subgrouping under "Southwest Western Iranian".^[17] Currently, VOA, BBC, DW, and RFE/RL use "Persian Service", in lieu of "Farsi Service". RFE/RL also includes a Tajik service, and 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.^[18] task manager disable ---- please help ... Voice of America logo Voice of America (VOA), is the official external radio and television broadcasting service of the United States federal government. ... The BBC World Service is one of the most widely recognised international broadcasters of radio programming, transmitting in 33 languages to many parts of the world. ... This article is about the German international broadcaster. ... Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a radio and communications organization which is funded by the United States Congress. ... Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a radio and communications organization which is funded by the United States Congress. ...

Dialects and close languages

Main article: Persian dialects and varieties

There are three modern varieties for the standard Persian: It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Perso-Arabic script. ... The coat of arms of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic circa 1929. ...

• Modern Iranian Persian is the variety of Persian spoken in Iran.^[19][20]
• Dari is the local name for the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Tajik is the variety of Persian used in Tajikistan, but unlike the Persian used in Iran and Afghanistan, it is written in the Cyrillic script rather than Arabic script.

The three mentioned varieties are based on the classic Persian literature. There are also several local dialects in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from the standard Persian. Lari (in Iran), Hazaragi (in Afghanistan), and Darwazi (In Afghanistan and Tajikistan) are examples of these dialects. Dari (Persian: ) is the official name for the Persian language in Afghanistan, popularly and locally known as Farsi. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language, which is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Hazaragi is a dialect of the Persian language, with a significant deviation from it to be on the borderline of being a separate language. ...

The Ethnologue offers another classification for dialects of Persian language. According to this source, dialects of this language include the following:^[21] Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics), a Christian linguistic service organization which studies lesser-known languages primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language. ...

• Western Persian, or Irani (in Iran)
• Eastern Persian (in Afghanistan)
• Tajik (in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan)
• Hazaragi (in Afghanistan)
• Aimaq (in Afghanistan)
• Bukharic (in Israel, Uzbekistan)
• Darwazi (in Afghanistan, Tajikistan)
• Dzhidi (in Israel, Iran)
• Pahlavani (in parts of Sistan and Afghanistan)

The following are some of the related languages of various ethnic groups within the borders of modern-day Iran: Irani is a term used to denote Indian Zoroastrians whose ancestors emigrated from Iran within the last two centuries, as opposed to the longer residing Parsis. ... Dari (Persian: ) is the official name for the Persian language in Afghanistan, popularly and locally known as Farsi. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... Hazaragi is a dialect of the Persian language, with a significant deviation from it to be on the borderline of being a separate language. ... This article is about the Aimaq people. ... Bukhori, also known as Bukharic or Bukharan, is an Indo-Iranian language. ... Judeo-Persian was a language spoken by the Jews living in Persia. ...

• Luri (or Lori), spoken mainly in the southwestern Iranian province of Lorestan and Khuzestan.
• Talysh (or Talishi), spoken in northern Iran but also in southern parts of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
• Tat (also Tati or Eshtehardi), spoken in parts of the Iranian provinces of East Azarbaijan, Zanjan and Qazvin. It's also spoken in parts of Azerbaijan, Russia, etc. It includes Judeo-Tat & Christian-Tat.
• Dari or Gabri, spoken originally in Yazd and Kerman regions by some Zoroastrians in Iran. Also called Yazdi by some.

Luri is a dialect of Persian language. ... Falak-ol-aflak, built by the Sassanids, is almost 1800 years old. ... Map showing Khuzestan in Iran Domes like this are quite common in Khuzestan province. ... Talysh (also Talishi, Taleshi or Talyshi) are an Iranian people who speak one of the Northwestern Iranian languages. ... The Tat language is an Indo-Iranian language spoken by the Tat ethnic group. ... East Azarbaijan province enjoys some of Irans most favorable climatic conditions. ... Zanjan (زنجان in Persian) is one of the 30 provinces of Iran. ... Qazvin province contains fine examples of Iranian architecture from various ages. ... Juhuri, Juwri or Judæo-Tat is the traditional language of the Juhuro or Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan and Dagestan. ... The main Zoroastrian fire temple in Yazd, Iran. ... Dari is the language of the Zoroastrians of Iran. ... Yazd or Yezd (In Persian: یزد), is the capital of Yazd province, one of the most ancient and historic cities in Iran and a centre of Zoroastrian culture. ... For the U.S. city, see Kerman, California. ... Dari is the language of the Zoroastrians of Iran. ...

Phonology

Main article: Persian phonology

Iranian Persian has six vowels and twenty-three consonants, including two affricates /ʧ/ (ch) and /ʤ/ (j). The Persian language has six vowels and twenty-three consonants, including one glide //, and two affricates // and //. Vowels Diachronically, Persian possessed a distinction of length in its underlying vowel inventory, contrasting the long vowels , , with the short vowels , , . In Modern Persian, this distinction of quantity is neutralized in most environments...

Vowels

Historically, Persian distinguished length: the long vowels /iː/, /uː/, /ɒː/ contrasting with the short vowels /e/, /o/, /æ/ respectively. Persian dialects and varieties differ in their vowels, more so than in their consonants. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

Consonants

Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). ... An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue (i. ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ...

Grammar

Main article: Persian grammar

Persian grammar is similar to many other Indo-European languages, especially those in the Indo-Iranian family. ...

Morphology

Suffixes predominate Persian morphology, though there are a small number of prefixes.^[22] Verbs can express tense and aspect, and they agree with the subject in person and number.^[23] There is no grammatical gender for nouns, nor are pronouns marked for natural gender. In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ...

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 rɑ: and precedes prepositional phrases: “(S) (O + “rɑ:”) (PP) V”.^[23] According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the other being its predicate. ... A prepositional phrase (PP) is a linguistic term for a phrase whose head is a preposition. ... An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ...

Vocabulary

Main article: Persian vocabulary

There are many loanwords in the Persian language, mostly coming from Arabic, English, French, and the Turkic languages. ...

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.^[24] For the music festival, see Agglutination Metal Festival. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (a word) that consists of more than one other lexeme. ... Mahmoud Hessaby (in Persian محمود حسابی - other spellings: Mahmood Hesabi) (1903 -- September 3, 1992) was a prominent Persian scientist, researcher and professor of the University of Tehran. ...

External influence

There are many loanwords in the Persian language, mostly coming from Arabic, but also from English, French, German, and the Turkic languages. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Arabic redirects here. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ...

Persian has likewise influenced the vocabularies of other languages, especially Indo-Iranian languages like Hindi and Urdu, Turkic languages like Turkish and Uzbek, and Arabic.^[25] Several languages of southwest Asia have also been influenced, including Armenian and Georgian. Persian has even influenced the Malay spoken in Malaysia. Many Persian words have also found their way into the English language. The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. ... Hindi (DevanāgarÄ«: or , IAST: , IPA:  ), an Indo-European language spoken all over India in varying degrees and extensively in northern and central India, is one of the 22 official languages of India and is also used for central government administrative purposes , along with English. ... Urdu ( , , trans. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ... Arabic redirects here. ... Not to be confused with the Malayalam language, spoken in India. ...

See also: List of English words of Persian origin and Comparison Table of the Iranian Languages As Indo-European languages, English and Persian have many words of common Proto-Indo-European origin, and many of these cognate words often have similar forms. ... The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family. ...

Orthography

It has been suggested that Scripts used for Persian be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Example showing Nastaʿlīq's (Persian) proportion rules.^{[ 1 ]}

Dehkhoda's personal handwriting; a typical cursive Persian script.

The vast majority of modern Iranian Persian and Dari text is written in a form of the Arabic alphabet. In recent years the Latin alphabet has been used by some for technological or internationalisation reasons. Tajik, which is considered by some linguists to be a Persian dialect influenced by Russian and the Turkic languages of Central Asia,^[26][27] is written with the Cyrillic alphabet in Tajikistan (see Tajik alphabet). Image File history File links Mergefrom. ... Old Persian: Old Persian cuneiform script, Middle Persian (or Pahlavi): Pahlavi, Manichean script—by Persian-speaking Manichees, Modern Persian: Persian variant of the Arabic alphabet. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 577 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1701 × 1768 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 577 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1701 × 1768 pixel, file size: 1. ... Look up Persian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Dehkhoda_note. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Dehkhoda_note. ... Ali Akbar Dekhoda (علی‌اکبر دهخدا in Persian; 1879–March 9, 1959) was a prominent Iranian linguist, and author of the most extensive dictionary of the Persian language ever published. ... Cursive is any style of handwriting which is designed for writing down notes and letters by hand. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... Map of Central Asia showing three sets of possible boundaries for the region Central Asia located as a region of the world Central Asia is a vast landlocked region of Asia. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... The coat of arms of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic circa 1929. ...

Persian alphabet

Main article: Persian alphabet

Modern Iranian Persian and Dari are normally written using a modified variant of the Arabic alphabet (see Perso-Arabic script) with different pronunciation and more letters, whereas the Tajik variety is typically written in a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Perso-Arabic script. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language, which is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union...

After the conversion of Persia to Islam (see Islamic conquest of Iran), it took approximately 150 years before Persians adopted the Arabic alphabet as a replacement for the older alphabet. Previously, two different alphabets were used, one for Middle Persian and one for Avestan, used for religious purposes, known as the Avestan alphabet (in Persian, Dîndapirak or Din Dabire—literally: religion script). Persia redirects here. ... For people named Islam, see Islam (name). ... The Islamic conquest of Iran (637-651 CE) destroyed the Sassanid Empire and led to the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Iran. ... The Avestan alphabet was created in the 3rd century AD for writing the hymns of Zarathustra (a. ...

In modern Persian script, vowels generally known as short vowels (a, e, o) are usually not written; only the long vowels (y, u, â) are represented in the text. This, of course, creates certain ambiguities. Consider the following: kerm "worm", karam "generosity", kerem "cream", and krom "chrome" are all spelled "krm" in Persian. The reader must determine the word from context. It is worth noting that 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 /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 considered by native Persian speakers to be 'Arabic' despite the fact that these letters are present in the Persian alphabet. While the letters exist, the Arabic pronunciation of these letters is not generally used. Instead, they are pronounced the same as a similar Persian letter. As such, there are three functionally identical 'z' letters, three 's' letters, two 't' letters, etc. Fatha redirects here. ... In Arabic orthography, harakat are the diacritic marks used to represent vowel sounds. ...

Additions

The Persian alphabet adds four letters to the Arabic alphabet: It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Perso-Arabic script. ...

(The Jeh sound is pronounced as in "John", "Jazz", or "Joke".)

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 ) usually, but not always, changes to heh ( ه ) or teh ( ت ). Teh'marbuta is often used in Arabic to denote female gender. Persian nouns do not have gender, which may explain why the teh'marbuta never crossed over to the Persian alphabet. is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician , Syriac , Hebrew Aleph , and Arabic . Aleph originally represented the glottal stop (IPA ), usually transliterated as , a symbol based on the Greek spiritus lenis , for example in the transliteration of the... Hamza () is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop . ... The (Arabic: Ø©) is a variant of the letter ta used at the end of words to denote that the word is grammatically feminine. ... He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician , Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic . Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative (). The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Epsilon, Etruscan , Latin E and Cyrillic Ye. ... Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its original value is an voiceless alveolar plosive, IPA , The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Tau (Τ), Latin T, and the equivalent in the Cyrillic alphabet. ...

The letters different in shape are:

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

Latin alphabet

Main article: Romanization of Persian

UniPers, short for the Universal Persian Alphabet (Pârsiye Jahâni) is a Latin-based alphabet created and popularized by Mohamed Keyvan, who used it in a number of Persian textbooks for foreigners and travellers.^{[citation needed]} Due to the fact that the Persian language has a number of phonemes that have no equivalent in English or other European languages, a number of different transliteration methods have been invented to represent certain Arabic characters used in writing Persian, due to various conflicting goals. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Romanization of Persian. ...

The International Persian Alphabet (Pársik) is another Latin-based alphabet developed in recent years mainly by A. Moslehi, a comparative linguist.^[28]

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.^[26] Uniform Turkic Alphabet was a Latin based alphabet used by the most of non-Slavic peoples of USSR in 1930s, common for all peoples. ... The coat of arms of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic circa 1929. ...

Fingilish, or Penglish, is the name given to texts written in Persian using the 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). Fingilish (Farsi + English) (also Penglish or Pinglish, Finglish, Pingilish) is a term used to describe the way Persian words are written in Latin alphabet. ... Variants of the Latin alphabet are used by the writing systems of many languages throughout the world. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Chat room. ... E-mail, or email, is short for electronic mail and is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ... “SMS” redirects here. ...

Tajik alphabet

Main article: Tajik alphabet

Tajik advertisement for an academy.

The Cyrillic alphabet 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 Perso-Arabic script that had been used earlier. After 1939, materials published in Persian in the Perso-Arabic script were banned from the country.^[26] The coat of arms of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic circa 1929. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... State motto: Tajik: Пролетарҳои ҳамаи мамлакатҳо, як шавед! Translation: Workers of the world, unite! Capital Dushanbe Official language None. ... The coat of arms of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic circa 1929. ... The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution, the first having been instigated by the events around the February Revolution. ...

History

Main article: History of the Persian language

Persian is an Iranian tongue belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The oldest records in Old Persian date back to the great Persian Empire of the 6th century BC.^[29] The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. ... For other uses, see Indo-European. ... See Aryan Language or Old Persi