Persian language

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Persian پارسی , فارسی‎
Spoken in:	Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and also in parts of neighboring countries (e.g., Uzbekistan, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Georgia)
Region:	Middle East, Central Asia
Total speakers:	ca. 62 million native[1], ca. 40 million second language[citation needed], 100 million total
Ranking:	ca. 20th-24th (native speakers)
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Iranian    Western Iranian     Southwestern Iranian      Persian
Official status
Official language of:	Iran, Tajikistan (as Tajik), Afghanistan (as Dari)
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
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Persian (Local names: فارسی Fârsi or پارسی Pârsi)^* is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan as well as by minorities in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, India, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. It is derived from the language of the ancient Persian people. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian language family.

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]

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.

For five centuries prior to the British colonization of India, Persian was widely used as a second or first language in the Indian subcontinent; it took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts in the subcontinent 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 Urdu, Hindi,Marathi, Bengali, and Sindhi language, as well as the popularity that Persian literature still enjoys in the region.

Contents 1 Classification 2 Local names 2.1 Nomenclature 3 Phonology 3.1 Vowels 3.2 Consonants 4 Grammar 4.1 Morphology 4.2 Syntax 5 Vocabulary 6 Orthography 6.1 Persian alphabet 6.1.1 Additions 6.1.2 Variations 6.2 Latin alphabet 6.3 Tajik alphabet 7 History 7.1 Old Persian 7.2 Parthian and Middle Persian (Pahlavi) 7.3 New Persian 7.3.1 Early New Persian 7.3.2 Classic Persian 7.3.3 Contemporary Persian 8 Examples 8.1 A Comparison Table of the Iranian Languages 9 See also 10 Notes 11 Further reading 12 External links

[edit] 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. 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]

[edit] Local names

Persian language is locally known as

• فارسی‎ (transliteration: Fârsi) or پارسی‎ (Pârsi), local name in Iran, Afghanistan (where it is officially known as Dari) 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, and Pakistan.

[edit] 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 "Persian". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term 'Farsi' 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 'Farsi' to identify their language in English and the word became commonplace in English-speaking countries." ^[10]

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 even preferred by some.^[13]

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].

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][19][20]

• Dari is the local name for the Persian, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan.
• Tajik could also be considered a variety of Persian, but, unlike Iranian and Afghan Persian, it is written in the Cyrillic 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 standrad Persian. Lari (in Iran), Hazaragi (in Afghanistan), and Darwazi (In Afghanistan and Tajikistan) are examples of these dialects.

Ethnologue offers another classification for dialects of Persian language. According to this source, dialects of this language include the following:^[21]

• Western Persian, or Irani (in Iran)
• Eastern Persian (in Afghanistan)
• Tajik (in Tajikistan)
• Hazaragi (in Afghanistan)
• Aimaq (in Afghanistan)
• Bukharic (in Israel, Uzbekistan)
• Dehwari (in Pakistan)
• Darwazi (in Afghanistan)
• Dzhidi (in Israel)
• 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:

• 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 Juder-Tat & christian-Tat.
• Dari or Gabri, spoken originally in Yazd and Kerman regions by some Zoroastrians in Iran. Also called Yazdi by some.

[edit] Phonology

Main article: Persian phonology

Iranian Persian has six vowels and twenty-three consonants, including two affricates /ʧ/ (ch) and /ʤ/ (j).

[edit] Vowels

Historically, Persian distinguished length: the long vowels /iː/, /uː/, /ɒː/ contrasting with the short vowels /e/, /o/, /æ/ respectively. Modern spoken Persian, however, generally does not make this distinction any more^{[citation needed]}. Persian dialects and varieties differ in their vowels, more so than in their consonants.

[edit] Consonants

Consonants

	labial	apico-dentals	post-alveolars	velars	glottals
voiceless plosives	p	t		k	ʔ
voiced plosives	b	d		g
voiceless fricatives	f	s	ʃ	x	h
voiced fricatives	v	z	ʒ	ɣ
nasals	m	n
liquids		l, r
glides			j
voiceless affricates			ʧ
voiced affricates			ʤ

[edit] Grammar

Main article: Persian grammar

[edit] Morphology

Persian morphology is affixal, consisting of a few prefixes and mostly suffixes.^[22] Suffixes predominate Persian morphology, though there are a small number of prefixes. Verbs can express tense and aspect, and they agree with the subject in person and number. There is no grammatical gender for nouns, nor are pronouns marked for natural gender.

[edit] Syntax

Normal declarative sentences are structured as “(S) (PP) (O) V”. This means sentences can be comprised of 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]

[edit] Vocabulary

Main article: Persian vocabulary

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

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 ^[24]. Several languages of southwest Asia have also been influenced, including Armenian and Georgian. Many Persian words have also found their way into the English language.

See also: List of English words of Persian origin and Comparison Table of the Iranian Languages

[edit] Orthography

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^[25][26], is written with the Cyrillic alphabet in Tajikistan (see Tajik alphabet).

[edit] 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.

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).

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. Since the short vowels are not inscribed, the word krm, for instance, can be pronounced with various vowel combinations resulting in five possible lexical elements. A reader uses the context to determine the word in the sentence.

kerm "worm", karam "generosity", kerem "cream", krom "chrome" and karm "vine".^[27]

[edit] Additions

The Persian alphabet adds four letters to the Arabic alphabet:

Sound	Isolated form	Unicode name
[p]	پ	Peh
[tʃ] (ch)	چ	Cheh
[ʒ] (zh)	ژ	Jeh
[g]	گ	Gaf

[edit] Variations

The Persian alphabet also modifies some letters from the Arabic alphabet. For example, alef with hamza below ( إ ) changes to alef ( ا ); teh marbuta ( ة ) usually, but not always, changes to heh ( ه ) or teh ( ت ); and words using various hamzas get spelled with yet another kind of hamza (so that مسؤول becomes مسئول).

The letters different in shape are:

Sound	original Arabic letter	modified Persian letter	name
[k]	ك	ک	Kaf
[j] (y) and [iː], or rarely [ɑː]	ي or ى	ی	Yeh

The vocalisation marks used in the Arabic script, or harakat, are also used in Persian, although some of them have different pronunciations. For example, an Arabic damma is pronounced /u/, while in Persian it is pronounced /o/.

[edit] Latin alphabet

UniPers, short for the Universal Persian Alphabet (Pârsiye Jahâni) is a Latin-based alphabet created over 50 years ago in Iran and popularized by Mohamed Keyvan, who used it in a number of Persian textbooks for foreigners and travellers. 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.^[25]

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.

[edit] Tajik alphabet

Main article: Tajik alphabet

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.^[25]

[edit] History

Main article: History of the Persian language

History of the Persian language

Proto-Iranian (ca. 1500 BCE) Southwestern Iranian languages

Old Persian (c. 525 BCE - 300 BCE) Old Persian cuneiform script

Middle Persian (c.300 BCE-800 CE) Pahlavi script • Manichaean script • Avestan script

Modern Persian (from 800) Perso-Arabic script

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 known history of the Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods:

[edit] Old Persian

Old Persian supposedly evolved from Proto-Indo-Iranian on the western wing in the Iranian plateau. The first known written evidence of Persian appears with the rise of the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Old Persian was the main official language of the Persian Empire at the time of the Achaemenids and with their rise, its domain extended to Lybia to the west, present-day Ukraine to the north, the Indus river to the east and Yemen to the south, to be used as a lingua franca for over 200 years. The majority of inscriptions in Old Persian were found in Iran, Egypt and present-day Turkey. During this period, Persian was influenced by Aramaic, Elamite, Babylonian, Akkadian, Greek, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Lydian etc.. Persian also influenced many languages of its era, especially Hebrew and Sanskrit. Under the Achaemenid Empire, Persian was written in cuneiform with its own distinct script. The Old Persian period ends with the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty.

[edit] Parthian and Middle Persian (Pahlavi)

Middle Persian can be divided into several periods within two remarkably different eras; the Persian used at the time of the Parthian Empire (248 BCE–224 CE) and the Persian of the Sassanid Empire (224–651 CE). Middle Persian is often referred to as Pahlavi which was written in the script of the same name. Over this period, the morphology of the language was simplified from the complex conjugation and declension system of Old Persian to the almost completely regularized morphology and rigid syntax of Middle Persian.

Pahlavi coexisted with several other Iranian languages spoken throughout the Iranian plateau, Central Asia and the Indian sub-continent. These languages included Avestan, Sogdian, Bactrian, Khwarezmian, Saka, and Old Ossetic (Scytho-Sarmatian). Middle Persian influenced Arabic, Latin, Hindi, Armenian, Georgian, and other languages. Much of the literature in Middle Persian was lost in the aftermath of the Arab invasion.

[edit] New Persian

[edit] Early New Persian

[edit] Classic Persian

The Islamic conquest of Persia marks the beginning of the modern history of Persian language and literature. It is known as the golden era of Persian. It saw world-famous poets and it came to be known as one of the most romantic languages of all times. Persian was for a long time the lingua franca of the eastern parts of Islamic world and of the Indian subcontinent. It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, inlcuding Samanids, the Mughal Empires, Timurids, Ghaznavid, Seljuq, Safavid, Ottomans, etc. The heavy influence of Persian on other languages can still be witnessed across the Islamic world, especially, and it is still appreciated as a literary and prestigious language among the educated elite, especially in fields of music (for example Qawwali) and art (Persian literature). After the Arab invasion of Persia, Persian began to borrow many words and structures from Arabic and as the time went by, a few words were borrowed from Mongolian under the Mongolian empire and then from Turkish.

[edit] Contemporary Persian

Since the nineteenth century, Russian, French and English and many other languages, contributed to the technical vocabulary of Persian. The Iranian National Academy of Persian Language and Literature is responsible for evaluating these new words in order to initiate and advise their Persian equivalents. The language itself has greatly developed during the centuries. Due to technological developments, new words and idioms are created and enter into Persian as they do into any other language.

[edit] Examples

Persian	Romanisation	Gloss
تمام افراد بشر آزاد به دنیا می‌آیند و از لحاظ حیثیت و حقوق با هم برابرند, همه دارای عقل و وجدان می‌باشند و باید نسبت به یک دیگر با روح برادری رفتار کنند.	Tamāme afrāde bashar āzād be donyā miyāyand va az lehāze heisiyat o hoquq bā ham barābarand. Hame dārāye aql o vejdān mibāshand va bāyad nesbat be yekdigar bā ruhe barābari raftār konand.	All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

[edit] A Comparison Table of the Iranian Languages

English	Zazaki	Kurdish	Pashto	Balochi	Mazandarani	Tajik	Persian	Middle Persian	Parthian	Old Persian	Avestan
beautiful	rind	rind/delal/cûwan	shkulay, xkulay	sharr, soherâ		zebo	zibâ/ xubchehreh	hučihr, hužihr	hužihr	naiba	vahu-, srîra
blood	gûn	xwîn	wina	hon	xin	xun	xūn	xōn	xōn		vohuni
bread	nûn	nan	ḍoḍəy/roṭəy (from Indic)	nân, nagan	nân	non	nân	nân	nân
bring	ârdena	anîn/hênan	rāwṛəl	âvardan	biyârden	ovardan	âvardan	âwurdan, āwāy-, āwar-, bar-	āwāy-, āwar-, bar-	bara-	bara, bar-
brother	birâ	bira	wror	barādar	birâr	barodar	barādar	brād, brâdar	brād, brādar	brâtar	brâtar-
come	amaena	hatin	rātləl	áhag, âmadan	enen	omadan	âmadan	âmadan, awar	awar, čām	ây-, âgam	âgam-
cry	bermayish	girîn	žāṛəl	taukh	bərmə/ qâ	giristan	geristan	griy-, bram-
dark	târî	tarî	tiārə	thár	siyo	torîk	târîk	târīg/k	târīg, târēn		sâmahe, sâma
daughter	kena	keç/kîj/kenîşk/dot	lūr	mind	kijâ/ dether	duxtar	doxtar	duxtar	duxt, duxtar		duxδar
day	roc	roj	wradz	roshe	rez/ reoj	rûz	rûz	rōz		raucah-
do	kerdena	kirin/kirdin	kawəl	khandagh	hâkerden	kardan	kardan	kardan	kartan	kạrta-	kәrәta-
door	ber	derge/derî	war	gelo	bəli	dar	dar	dar	dar, bar	duvara-	dvara-
die	merdena	mirin	mṛəl/məṛedəl	mireg	bamirden	murdan	murdan	murdan		mạriya-	mar-
donkey	her	ker	xar	her	xar	xar	xar	xar
egg	hak	hêk	hagəy	heyg	merqâna	tuxm	toxm	toxmag, xâyag	taoxmag, xâyag		taoxma-
earth	êrd (Arabic)	herd/erd (Arabic)	zməka/mzəka	zemin	zemi	zamin	zamin	zamīg	zamīg	zam-	zãm, zam, zem
evening	shund	êvar/êware	māshām, māxām	nəmâshun	begáh	begoh, shom	sarshab	êbêrag
eye	chım	çav	stərga	ch.hem, chem		chashm	chashm	chašm	chašm	čaša-	čašman-
father	pi	bav/bawk	plār	pyt, abbâ	piyer	padar	pedar	pidar	pid	pitar	pitar
fear	ters	tirs	wera	terseg	təshəpash	tars	tars	tars	tars	tạrsa-	tares-
fiancé	washte	dezgîran, destgirtî		nām zād		nomzad	nâm-zad	-	-
fine	wesh	xweş/baş	sha, xa	hosh		naghz, xub	xub	dârmag			srîra
finger	gisht	til/qamik	gūta/gwəta	lenkwk, mordâneg	angoos	angusht	angosht	angust			dišti-
fire	âdır	agir	or	âch, âs	tesh	otash	âtash, âzar	âdur, âtaxsh	ādur	âç-	âtre-/aêsma-
fish	mâse	masî	kab/māhī	mâhi		mohi	mâhi	mâhig	mâsyâg		masyô, masya
food / eat	werdena	xwarin	xwāṛa/xoṛəl	warag, vereg		xurok / xurdan	xorâk / xordan	parwarz / xwâr, xwardīg	parwarz / xwâr		hareθra / ad-, at-
go	shiyaena	çûn	tləl	jwzzegh	shunen / burden	raftan	raftan	raftan, shudan	ay-	ai-	ay-, fra-vaz
god	homâ	xwedê	xwdāy	hwdâ		xudo	xodâ	bay, abragar		baga-	baya-
good	hol	baş, çak	sha, xa	jawáin, šarr	xâr	naghz, xub, neku	xub / neku	xūb, nêkog		vahu-	vohu, vaŋhu-
grass	vash	giya, riwek, şênkatî	wāshə, wāxə	rem		sabza, giyoh	sabzeh, giyâh	giyâ	dâlūg		urvarâ
great	gırd / pil	gir, mezin, gewre	stər	mastar	belang, pila	buzurg	bozorg	wuzurg, pīl		vazạrka-	uta-, avañt
hand	dest	dest/lep	lās	dast	dess	dast	dast	dast	dast	dasta-	zasta-
head	ser	ser	sar	saghar	kalə	sar, kalla	sar, kalleh	sar
heart	zerri	dil	zṛə	dil, hatyr	dil	dil	del	dil	dil		aηhuš
horse	estoar	hesp	ās (masc.), aspa (fem.)	asp	istar	asp	asb, astar	asp, stōr	asp, stōr	aspa	aspa-
house	ke(ye)	mal	kor	log	səre	xona	xâneh	xânag			demâna-, nmâna-
hunger	vêyshan	birçîtî/birsiyetî	lwaža	shudhagh	veyshna	gurusnagi	gorosnegi	gursag, shuy
language	ziwan / zun	ziman	žəba	zevân	ziwân	zabon	zabân	zuwân	izβân	hazâna-	hizvâ-
laugh	huyaena	kenîn	xandəl	khendegh, hendeg		xandidan	xandidan	xandīdan		karta	Syaoθnâvareza-
life	jewiyaena	jiyan/jîn	žwand	zendegih		zindagi	zendegi	zīndagīh, zīwišnīh	žīwahr, žīw-		gaêm, gaya-
man	merd	mêr/piyaw	saṛay	merd	merd	mard	mard	mard	mard	martiya-	mašîm, mašya
moon	ashmê	heyv/mang	spožməy/spogməy	máh	mithra	moh	māh	māh	māh	mâh-	måŋha-
mother	mae	dayik	mor	mât, mâs	mâr	modar	mādar	mādar	mādar	mâtar	mâtar-
mouth	fek	dev/dem	xwla	daf		dahon	dahân	dahân, rumb			åŋhânô, âh, åñh
name	nâme	nav	num	num	num	nom	nâm	nâm		nâman	nãman
night	shewe	şev	shpa	shaw, šap	sheow	shab	shab	shab		xšap-	xšap-
open	rakerdena	vekirin	prānistəl/prānatəl	božagh	vâ-hekârden	kushodan, boz kardan	bâz-kardan	abâz-kardan		būxtaka-	būxta-
peace	kotpy	aştî	rogha	ârâm		oshti, oromish	âshti, ârâmeš	âštih, râmīšn	râm, râmīšn	šiyâti-	râma-
pig	xoz	beraz	xug	xug	xi	xuk	xūk	xūk			varâza (wild pig)
place	ja	cih/şûn	dzāy	hend		joy, jo	jâ	gâh	gâh	gâθu-	gâtu-, gâtav-
read	wendena	xwendin	lwastəl	wánagh	baxinden	xondan	xândan	xwândan
say	vatena	gotin/wutin	wayəl	gushagh	baotena	guftan	goftan	guftan, gōw-, wâxtan	gōw-	gaub-	mrû-
sister	wae	xweşk	xor	gwhâr	xâxer	xohar	xâhar	xwahar
small	qıch	piçûk	ləž, ləg/woṛ/kuchnay	lekem	pətik, bechuk, perushk	xurd	kuchak, kam	kam, rangas	kam	kamna-	kamna-
son	qıj	kur	zway, zuy	pisar, phusagh	pisser	pisar	pesar	pur, pusar	puhr	puça	pūθra-
soul		giyan	rūh (Arabic), sā	rūh (Arabic)		ravon	ravân	rūwân, gyân	rūwân, gyân		urvan-
spring	wusar	bihar	psarlay		wehâr	bahor	bahâr	wahâr		vâhara-	θūravâhara-
tall	berz	bilind/berz	lwaṛ	bwrz		baland	boland / bârez	buland, borz	bârež		barez-
three	hire	sê	dre	se	se	se	se	sê	hrē	çi-	θri-
village	dew	gund, dê	kəlay	helk	deh	deh, rusto	deh	wiž	dahyu-	vîs-, dahyu-
want	wastena	xwestin/wîstin	ghwāṛəl	lotagh	bexanen	xostan	xâstan	xwâstan
water	awe	av	obə	âf	ab	ob	âb	âb	âb	âpi	avô-
when	key	kengê	kəla, či	ked		kay	kay	kay	ka		čim-
wind	va	ba	bād	gwáth	wâ	bod	bâd	wâd			vâta-
wolf	verg	gur	līwə	gurkh	varg, gəorge	gurg	gorg	gurg		varka-	vehrka
woman	jeniye	jin/afret	shədza, xəza	jan	zəna	zan	zan	zan	žan		hâīrīšī-, nâirikâ-
year	serre	sal	kāl	sâl		sol	sâl	sâl		θard	ýâre, sarәd
yes / no	ya / ne	erê / na	ho, wo / na	ere / na		ha / ne	âri / na	hâ / ney	hâ / ney	yâ / nay, mâ	yâ / noit, mâ
yesterday	vizêr	duh/dwênê	pərun	zí	direz	dina, diruz	diruz	dêrûž

[edit] See also

• Academy of Persian Language and Literature
• Dzhidi language
• Common phrases in Persian
• List of Persian poets and authors
• Persianate
• Persian literature
• Persian mythology

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further reading

1. Mace, John (2003), Persian Grammar: For reference and revision, London: Routledge-Curzon.
2. Schmitt, Rüdiger (1989), Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag.
3. Windfuhr, Gernot L. (1987), "Persian", in Bernard Comrie, The World's Major Languages, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[edit] External links

• AriaDic Persian / English Dictionary with pronunciation
• UCLA Language Materials Project: Persian
• CAIS Iranian Languages & Literatures
• Academic Grammar of New Persian in Persian, English and German
• New Persian

Iranian Languages
Eastern Iranian
Old Iranian	Avestan † | Scythian (including Saka)† | Sogdian†
Middle Iranian	Bactrian† | Khwarezmian† | Khotanese† (possibly a Saka dialect) | Ossetic | Sacian†
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Old Iranian	Median† | Old Persian (Aryan)†
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Extinct †

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