Persian language
Persian (فارسی), also known as Farsi, Parsi, or Dari, is a language spoken in Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Georgia, part of India and part of Pakistan. It has over 46 million native speakers. It belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is of the Subject Object Verb type.
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2 > Middle Persian (Pahlavi -- Parthian and Sassanids Persian) 3 Nomenclature 4 Dialects 5 Orthography 6 Phonology 7 Syntax |
History
Persian is a member of the Indo-European family of languages, and within that family, it belongs to the Indo-Iranian (Aryan) branch, within which, the Iranian sub-branch consists of the following chronological linguistic path: Old Persian (Avestan and Achaemenids Persian) > Middle Persian (Pahlavi -- Parthian and Sassanids Persian)
> Modern Persian (Modern Persian starts approximately around 900 CE to present).
The language itself has greatly developed during the centuries. Due to technological developments new words and idioms are created and enter into Persian like any other language. In Iran the Academy of Persian Language and Literature is a center that evaluates the new words in order to initiate and advise its Persian equivalent. In Afghanistan, the Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan does the same for Afghan Persian (among other languages).
Nomenclature
Persian, the more widely recognized name in English, is the Hellenized form of the native term Parsi. Farsi is the Arabicized form and its use in the English language is very recent. Native Iranians and Afghans typically call it "Farsi" in modern usage. ISO, the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, and many other authentic sources call the language "Persian". The government of Afghanistan uses both "Dari" and "Persian" in English communications.
Many people (including many linguists and dictionary writers) argue that "Farsi" is not the appropriate term used for the Persian language in English. "Farsi" is actually the arabized form of "Parsi", mainly because Arabs do not have "P" in their dialect [1]. Incidentally the Persian Wikipedia is sometimes referred to as the Farsi Wikipedia, as the "fa." prefix implies.
Dialects
Most Iranians understand what Tajik and Dari speakers say, and claim that they speak only in a different accent, however by popular definition:
Orthography
Although it uses the same alphabet as the Arabic language, Persian adds four letters, and changes the shape of another two. The Persian language is an entirely different language, with a different phonology and grammar. The additional four letters are:
| sound | shape | Unicode name |
| [p] | پ | Peh |
| [tʃ] (ch) | چ | Tcheh |
| [ʒ] (zh) | ژ | Jeh |
| [g] | گ | Gaf |
The letters different in shape are:
| sound | original Arabic letter | modified Persian letter | name |
| [k] | ك | ک | Kaf |
| [j] and [i:], or rarely [a:] | ي or ى | ی | Yeh |
The diacratical markes used in the Arabic script, a.k.a. harakat, are also used in Persian, although some of them have different pronounciations. For example, an Arabic Damma is pronounced as /u/, while in Persian it's pronounced as /o/.
Persian also adds the notion of a psuedo-space to the Arabic script, called a Zero Width Non-Joiner (ZWNJ) by the Unicode Standard. It acts like an space in disconnecting two otherwise-joining adjacent letters, but doesn't have a visual width.
It should also be noted that many Persian words with an Arabic root are spelled differently than the original Arabic word. Alef with Hamza Below (إ) always changes to Alef (ا), Teh Marbuta (ة) usually, but not always, changes to Teh (ت) or Heh (ه), and words using various Hamzas get spelled with yet another kind of Hamza (like مسؤول becoming مسئول).
Other languages, like Pashto or Urdu have taken those notions and have sometimes extended them with new letters or punctuation.
Phonology
The functional contrast for vowels appears to be between long {/i:/, /u:/, /ɑ:/} and short {/e/, /o/, /ÃÂæ/}. Therefore, it seems possible to represent the vowels as {/i:/, /u:/, /a:/} and {/i/, /u/, /a/}. Also note that /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are affricates, not stops. The following chart is adapted from this Structural Sketch of Persian. Certain fonts may be needed to view phonetic characters.
front |
back |
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| high | i: |
u: |
| mid-high | e |
o |
| low | ÃÂæ |
ɑ: |
labial |
alveolars |
palatals |
velars |
glottals |
|
| voiceless stops | p |
t | tʃ |
k | ʔ |
| voiced stops | b |
d | dʒ |
g | |
| voiceless fricatives | f |
s | ʃ |
x | h |
| voiced fricatives | v |
z | ʒ |
ɣ | |
| nasals | m |
| |||
| liquids | l, r |
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| glides | j |
Syntax
Normal sentences are structured: (S) (PP) (O) V
If the object is definite, then the order is (S) (O + "rɑ:") (PP) V