Persian Alphabet:

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.

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 and . For

clarification, these are often called e-ye jimi (literally "jim-like e" after jim, the

name for the letter that uses the same base form) and he-ye do-em (literally "two-

eyed he", after the contextual middle letterform ), respectively

# Name DIN

31635

IPA Contextual forms

Final Medial Initial Isolated

1 Hamza [1] []

2 alef [] /

3 be b [b]

4 pe p [p]

5 te t [t]

6 se s [s]

7 jim j [d]

8 che [t ]

9 e(-ye

jimi)

[h]

10 khe x [x]

11 dl d [d]

12 l [z]

13 re r []

14 ze z [z]

15 e []

]s[ s nis 61

][ ni 71

]s[ d 81

]z[ z dz 91

]t[ 02

]z[ 12

][ nye 22

][ / ][ nye 32

]f[ f ef 42

emos ni( ]q[ / ][ / ][ q fq 52

)stcelaid

]k[ k fk 62

27 gf g []

28 lm l [l]

29 mim m [m]

30 nun n [n]

31 vv v / / ow [v] / [u] / [o] / [ow] / [o] (in

Dari)

32 he(-ye

do-em)

h [h]

33 ye y / / [j] / [i] / [] / [e] (in Dari)

Letters which do not link to a following letter

Seven letters , , , , , , do not connect to a following letter as the rest of the

letters of the alphabet do. These 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 "alef" is at the beginning of a word such as "inj" (here), the same

form is used as in an isolated "alef". In the case of "emruz" (today), the

letter "re" takes the final form and the letter "vv" takes the isolated form, though

they are in the middle of the word, and also has its isolated form, though it occurs

at the end of the word.

Diacritics:

Persian script has adopted a subset of Arabic diacritics which consists of

zabar // (fatah in Arabic), zir /e/ (kasrah in Arabic), and

pesh /ou/ or /o/ (ammah in Arabic, pronounced as zamme in Persian), sukn, tanwn

nasb /n/ and tashdid (gemination). Other Arabic diacritics may be seen in Arabic

loan-words.

Word Order:

While Persian has a subjectobjectverb (SOV) word order, it is not strongly left-

branching. However, because Persian is a pro drop language, the subject of a

sentence is often not apparent until the end of the verb, and thus the end of the

sentence.

.

Ketb-e bi-ro didam. I saw the blue book.

.

Ketb-e bi-ro didid. You saw the blue book.

In this way, Persian in some ways resembles an object-verb-subject language,

especially for second language learners. If thought of in this way, the verb endings

in Persian can be thought of as a form of pronoun.

The main clause precedes a subordinate clause, often using the familiar

IndoEuropean subordinator keh )(.

.

Be man gof-t keh emruz nemiyd. He told me that he isn't coming today.

The interrogative particle y ( ), which asks a yes/no question in written Persian,

appears at the beginning of a sentence. Modifiers, such as adjectives, normally

follow the nouns they modify, using the ezfe, although they can precede nouns in

limited uses. The language uses prepositions, uncommon to many SOV languages.

The one case marker, in the written language r (), (in the spoken language ro or o)

follows a definite direct object noun phrase.

.

Ketb-e bi r az ketbxneh geref-t. She got the blue book from the library.

Normal sentences are ordered subjectprepositionobjectverb. If the object is

specific, then the order is "(S) (O + "r") (PP) V". However, Persian can have

relatively free word order, often called "scrambling." This is because the parts of

speech are generally unambiguous, and prepositions and the accusative marker help

disambiguate the case of a given noun phrase. This scrambling characteristic has

allowed Persian a high degree of flexibility for versification and rhyming.

One Eample:

. . . .

72 .

word mean

teacher name

am

school

teach

Year

old have

Pronoun:

Subject Pronouns:

Persian is a null-subject, or pro-drop, language, so personal pronouns (e.g. I, he, she)

are optional. Pronouns generally are the same for all cases. The first-person singular

accusative form man r "me" can be shortened to mar, or in the Spoken

language, mano. Pronominal genitive enclitics are different from the normal

pronouns, however.

Literary forms

Person Singular Plural

1st man m

2nd to shom

3rd u (human) n (non-human), vey * (human only, literary)

nh (non-human/human), ishn (human only and formal)

* rarely used

Spoken forms

Person Singular Plural

1st man m

2nd to shom

3rd u ishun * (honorary)

unh/un (normal), ishun (honorary)

* uses 3rd person plural verb form

Persian resembles French in that the 2nd person plural pronoun 'shom' is used as a

polite form of address. Persian 'to' is used among intimate friends.

C.f. TV_distinction. However, Persian also resembles Hindi/Urdu in that the 3rd

person plural form can also be used in the 3rd person singular when talking about an

honored subject, such as an ayatollah or the king.

Bebakhshin, shom mrikyi hastin? 'Excuse me, are you an American?'

Ishun be man goftan, berim tu. 'He said to me, "Let's go in."

Possessive Pronouns:

Possession is often expressed by adding suffixes to nouns. These same suffixes are

also used as object pronouns.

Possessive Pronouns (Literary Forms)

Person Singular Plural

1st -am -emn

2nd -at -etn

3rd -ash -eshn

Possessive Pronouns (Spoken Forms)

Person Singular Plural

1st -am -emun

2nd -et -etun

3rd -esh -eshun

Examples:

Ketbetun ruye miz e. 'Your book is on the table.'

Ketbam ruye miz ast. 'My book is on the table.'

Note that when the stem to which these are added ends in a vowel, a "y" is inserted

for ease of pronunciation. However, with the plural marker , it is also common to

drop the -a/-e stem from the possessive marker. For example, 'my cars' could be

translated as either (mshin hyam) with the y-stem or (mshin

hm). Or it can be even more simplified to the colloquial spoken form by dropping

"h," for ease of pronunciation to (mshinm). Sometimes is attached to the

word, like .

Expressing Possession with ezafe:

Another way of expressing possession is by using the Subject Pronouns, or a noun

phrase, with ezfe.

Ketb-e shom ruye miz e. 'Your book is on the table.'

Ketb-e man ruye miz e. 'My book is on the table.'

Ketb-e ostd ruye miz ast. 'The professor's book is on the table.'

Object Pronouns:

The object pronouns are the same as the possessive pronouns, but are attached to

verbs instead of nouns. For example: "Yesterday I saw him."

Direct object incorporation

diruz u r didam Yesterday I saw him.

diruz didamesh Yesterday I saw him.

Adjective:

Adjectives typically follow the nouns they modify, using the ezfe construct.

However, adjectives can precede nouns in compounded derivational forms, such

as khosh-bakht (lit.good-luck) 'lucky', and bad-kr (lit. bad-deed)

'wicked'. Comparative forms ("more ...") make use of the suffix tar (), while

the superlative form ("the most ...") uses the suffix tarin().

Comparatives used attributively follow the nouns they modify, while superlatives

precede their nouns.

With respect to comparison, "than" is expressed by the preposition "" (az), for

example:

.

(Sag-e man az gorbe-ye to kuchektar ast; My dog is smaller than your cat.)

Verb:

Normal verbs can be formed using the following morpheme pattern:

( NEG - DUR or SUBJ/IMPER ) - root - PAST - PERSON - ACC-ENCLITIC

Negative prefix: na - changes to ne before the Durative prefix

Imperfective prefix: mi

Subjunctive/Imperative prefix: be

Past suffix: d - changes to t after unvoiced consonants

Optative identifier: an "" is added before the last character of the present tense

of singular third person. There are suggestions that this inflection has been

abandoned, but significant remnants of its usage can still be observed in

contemporary stylish Persian compositions and colloquial proverbs, as in harche

bd bd ( ) "come what may" and dast marizd ( ) lit. "May

that hand not spill [what it is holding]", meaning "well done".

Person Suffixes (Literary Forms)

Person Singular Plural

1st -am -im

2nd -i -id

3rd -ad* -and

* In the past tense, the past stem alone is used without any ending (e.g. raft , not

*raftad)

Person Suffixes (Spoken Forms)

Person Singular Plural

1st -am -im

2nd -i -id/-in

3rd -e* -an

* In the past tense, the past stem alone is used without any ending (e.g. raft , not

*rafte )

Accusative Enclitics (Literary Forms)

Person Singular Plural

1st -am -emn

2nd -at -etn

3rd -ash -eshn

Accusative enclitics (Spoken Forms)

Person Singular Plural

1st -am -emun

2nd -et -etun

3rd -esh -eshun

Tenses:

These are the most common tenses:

Infinitive: The infinitive ending is formed with - (an), e.g. (khordan) 'to eat.'

The basic stem of the verb is formed by deleting this ending.

Past: The past tense is formed by deleting the infinitive ending and adding the

conjugations to the stem. There are virtually no irregular verbs in the past tense,

unlike English. In the third person singular, there is no conjugation, so '' would

become ''(khord),he/she/it ate.

Perfect: The perfect tense is formed by taking the stem of the verb, adding (eh) to

the end, and then adding the conjugations. The endings are pronounced with an 'a,'

separately from the ''. So '' in the perfect first person singular would be '

' (khorde am), I have eaten. As with the past tense, the third person singular ending

is also irregular, i.e. it's -. Thus, '' would become ' ' (khorde ast).

However, in the spoken form, ast is omitted. '' (khorde) s/he has eaten.

Pluperfect: The pluperfect is formed by taking the stem of the perfect, e.g. ','

adding ''(bud),and finally adding the conjugations to the end, thus '

'(khorde budam), I had eaten. In the third person singular, either simply no

conjugation or - is accepted. '' means 'was,'.

Future: The future tense is formed by first, taking the present tense form of ''

(khstan), to want, and conjugating it to the correct person; this verb in third person

singular is '' (mi khhad). Next, it is put in front of the unconjugated stem of

the verb, e.g. , thus ' ,' he/she/it will eat. For compound verbs, such as

' ' (tamiz kardan), 'to clean, refresh,' goes in between both words, and

'' is reduced to its stem, thus (tamiz khhad kard), he/she/it will

clean. In the negative, '' receives -.

Present: The present tense is the most difficult tense in Persian because it is

completely irregular. It is formed by finding the root of the word, adding the prefix

''(mi), and then conjugating it. The third person singular conjugation is -, and this

is probably why the past tense has no conjugation, since many stems already end in

a 'd.' The root of the verb ',' for example, is ''(khor), so the present first

person singular would be ' '(mi khoram), I eat, am eating, do eat. The negative

- is pronounced 'ne' before 'm,' but in all other tenses is pronounced 'na.'The

present tense in Persian should not be confused with the tenses in Semitic languages,

since many roots are etymologically unrelated to their infinitives, and there is no

solid rule that all verbs follow; however, one will notice after acquiring some

knowledge of Persian verbs that there are a few general patterns that a few similar

verbs follow; for example, with a verb containing -, such as ' ' (skhtan),'to

make, build' the - is replaced with , thus the root is '' (sz). Sometimes the

present tense is used together with an adverb (for example: - tomorrow) instead

of the future tense explained by .

- Tomorrow he will go to cinema.

The present tense construction also has more than just one use. It can also be used

in infinitive constructions and imperatives. In the English sentence 'I want to eat,'

the Persian translation would be (mi khham bekhoram).'' is

actually just another form of the present tense, only instead of using the suffix ','

it uses -(be). This - can also be used to form imperatives by attaching it to the

present tense root, thus the imperative form of '' would be ',' but could also

be '' or simply just '.'

Compound verbs:

Light verbs such as (kardan) "to do, to make" are often used with nouns to form

what is called a compound verb, light verb construction, or complex predicate. For

example, the word (goftegu) means "conversation", while (goftegu

kardan) means "to speak". One may add a light verb after a noun, adjective,

preposition, or prepositional phrase to form a compound verb. Only the light verb

(e.g. kardan) is conjugated; the word preceding it is not affected. For example:

dram goftegu mikonam ( ) ("I am speaking")

goftegu karde am ( ) ("I have spoken")

goftegu khham kard ( ) ("I will speak")

As can be seen from the examples, the head word (in this case, goftegu)

remains unchanged throughout the conjugation, and only the light

verb kardan is conjugated. They may be compared to English verb particle

constructions, such as hand down (leave as an inheritance) and set

up (arrange), or German compound verbs, such as radfahren (to ride by

bicycle) and zurckgehen (to go back).

Some other examples of compound verbs with kardan are:

farmush kardan ( ), "to forget"

gerye kardan ( ), "to cry"

telefon kardan ( ), "to call, to telephone"

bzszi kardan ( ), "to fix"

Auxiliary verbs:

byad () - 'must': Not conjugated. Subordinating clause is

subjunctive

shyad () - 'might': Not conjugated. Subordinating clause is

subjunctive

tavnestan () - 'can'(literally 'to be able to'): Conjugated.

Subordinating clause is subjunctive

khstan () - 'want': Conjugated. Subordinating clause is

subjunctive

khstan () - 'will': Conjugated. Main verb is tenseless

Simplified Spoken Verbs:

In the spoken language, certain verbs have been reduced to a one letter

form.

raftan, 'to go' (Literary present form -rav-) Spoken present form -r-.

Eg. Mi-r-am. 'I go.' Mi-r-i. 'You go.' Be-r-im. 'Let's go.'

ddan, 'to give' (Literary present form -deh-) Spoken present form -d-

. Eg. Mi-d-am. 'I give.' Mi-d-im. 'We give.'

goftan, 'to say' (Literary present form -gu-) Spoken present form -g-.

Eg. Mi-g-am. 'I say.' Mi-g-id. 'You say.'

Spoken Verbs in :

There is another class of spoken verbs whose present tense form ends in

. These verbs take a reduced form of the verb ending as outlined in the

following table.

umadan, 'to come' Spoken present form --.

umadan (to come)

Person Singular Plural

1st mi--m mi--ym

2nd mi--y mi--yd/mi--yn

3rd mi--d mi--n

khstan, 'to want' Spoken present form -kh-

khstan (to want)

Person Singular Plural

1st mi-kh-m mi-kh-ym

2nd mi-kh-y mi-kh-yd/mi-kh-yn

3rd mi-kh-d mi-kh-n

Prepositions:

Prepositions in Persian generally behave similarly to those in English they

precede their object. They include the following:

Prepositions

Persian English

andar () in (literary)

az () from

b () with

bar () on, upon

barye () for

be () to

bi () without

chon () like (formal)

dar () at, in

mnande ( ) like

t ()* till, until

ham-chon () like, as, such (formal)

t() actually has many more meanings; it can be used as a correlative

conjunction,e.g. (az sobh t shab), from morning to night, as a

substitute for a counter, e.g. (do t farsh) instead of (do

takhteh farsh), 'two carpets,' and is used idiomatically in an expression such as

(seh hafteh tul keshid t az kram e jadid

lazat baram), 'it took me three weeks to enjoy my new job.'

The sentence in Persian is made by:

Subject + Object + Verb.

For the verb rules in Persian we have:

In Persian we have below grammar:

I have You have

She/he has

It has

We have you They

Gender:

Persian nouns have no grammatical gender. Imported words with the Arabic

feminine ending reduce to a genderless Persian which is pronounced -e.

Many imported Arabic feminine words retain their Arabic feminine plural

form , but Persian descriptive adjectives modifying them remain genderless.

Arabic adjectives also lose their gender in Persian usage.

Pluralization:

All nouns can be made plural using a separate word, h, which follows a noun and

does not change its form. Plural forms are used much less often than in English, and

are not used after numbers or zid 'many'. The plural word is only used when

the noun has no numbers in front of it and is definite (i.e. 'the _______s').

se t ketb three books

zid ketb many books

ketb h the books

Man ketab-o dust dram. I like books.

Un dneshju hastan. They are students.

Un dneshju h hastan. They are the students (i.e., the ones I was talking about

before)

note: in the spoken language, in cases where nouns end with a consonant, h is

reduced to .

Written: nh they

Spoken: un they

While in the literary language animate nouns generally pluralize using the suffix -

n (or variants -gn and -yn), -h is more common in the spoken

language.[1] Special rules exist for some nouns borrowed from Arabic.

Literary: perandegn birds

Spoken: perande h the birds

Noun Cases[edit]

There are two cases in Persian, nominative case and accusative case, the nominative

is the non-marked form of a noun, when the noun is followed by a r or suffix -o

it is accusative, the other oblique cases are marked by prepositions.

nominative: Ketb njst/ ketbh njyand (the book is there/ the books are

there).

It should be noted that inanimate subjects do not require pluralized verb forms,

especially in the spoken language. Ketbh unjst. (The books is there.)

accusative: Ketab-o (Ketab r) bede be man. (Give me the book).

Possession using ezfe: Ketab-e Arash (Arash's book).

The Definite and Indefinite Articles[edit]

In the literary language, no definite article is used; rather, it is implied by the absence

of the indefinite article. However, in the spoken language, the stressed suffix is

used as a definite article.

Literary: Ketb ruye miz ast. The book is on the table.

Spoken: Ketb-e ruye miz e. The book is on the table.

For plural nouns, the definite plural marker functions as both the plural marker

and the definite article.

The indefinite article in both spoken and literary Persian is the number

one, yek, often shortened to ye.

Ruye miz yek ketb hast. On the table there is a book.