Talk:Persian phonology

WikiProject Afghanistan
WikiProject Afghanistan removed, because this article doesn't deal with special phonetics of Dari, but the Iranian Persian, so it is not a part of project Afghanistan. Mubed (talk) 01:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Examples
Hopefully the examples will be minimal pairs, and uncontroversial as well. --jonsafari 19:39, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * All examples should be translated. Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 03:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Consonants
I have two questions about the consonants. Maybe the article makes it clear but I'm not seeing it. I noticed the /t/ and /d/ phonemes are described in the chart as alveolars. Are they apical (as in English) or laminal ("dental") as in Spanish? The second question is regarding the /p/, /t/, and /k/ phonemes. Are they aspirated or totally unaspirated or would this difference be allophonic as in English "tough" vs "stuff"?WilliamThweatt 04:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * According to Mahootian (1997, p. 287-8) the alveolar stops are "either apico-alveolar or apico-dental" and "voiceless plosives /p, t, c (ʧ), k/ are aspirated in syllable-initial position and unaspirated at the end of a syllable" (and presumably unaspirated in non-initial onsets). I suppose I should mention this kind of stuff in the article. Good questions, BTW.  --jonsafari 07:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

In Persian, stops are usually aspirated, thus aspiration is never phonemic, i.e. it never changes the meaning of a word. However, note that in many instances, unaspirated p or t would be realised as b or t. This is because Persian does not aspirate as strongly as e.g. Armenian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.227.212.213 (talk • contribs)

There appears to be an error in the chart--for the curly-tailed n. The example is the Persian for color; but the IPA spelling does not contain the curly tailed n.  I'd change it, but I don't know if it should be curly-tailed-n followed by g--as suggested under Allophonic Variants--or just curly tailed n.Halfb1t (talk) 01:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm a native Persian speaker from Iran and the dialect I speak is mostly close to Therani Persian. There's certainly a [ɡ] after [ŋ] in "رنگ" "color" in correct slow or emphatic speech, or generally when reading a text, especially poetry. The same is true in normal colloquial speech when followed by a vowel. But if followed by a consonant, there's either no /ɡ/ or, I think, there's an unreleased /ɡ/, i.e., a [ɡ̚]. I'm not yet sure I've understood unreleased consonants well, so I might be wrong. AM2693MS (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Instrumental phonetic studies
Any references to instrumental phonetic studies out there? There is only one I know of is Agharasouli et al (date?) Palatographic specification of lingual-palatal consonants in persian language. Audiology, Vol 14, No. 23, Pages 12-22. Available online at [http://diglib.tums.ac.ir/pub/search.asp?kw=palatography (http://diglib.tums.ac.ir/pub/magmng/pdf/2086.pdf). (posted anonymously by 81.86.104.165)


 * I'll check out the ref. I'm not sure off the top of my head.  BTW, you should consider getting a user account; you seem to have a background in this stuff :-) –jonsafari 06:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

vowels - historical shifts
Tajik     i  e    u  ů   a o             ┌↑┐ ↑   ┌↑┐ ↑   ↑ ↑ Early NP i ī ē   u ū ō   a ā ↓ ↓ ↓  ↓ ↓ ↓   ↓ ↓   Afghan    e i ē   o u ō   a ā ↓ └↓┘  ↓ └↓┘   ↓ ↓   Iranian   e  ī    o  ū    a ā

Windfuhr, the source quoted here, appears to be rather more familiar with the Tehrani type of Persian. I suggest a revision as follows, and list the reasons.

Tajik     i  e    u  ů   a o  ai  au           ┌↑┐ ↑   ┌↑┐ ↑   ↑ ↑  ↑   ↑ Early NP i ī ē   u ū ō   a ā  ai  au           ↓ ↓ ↓   ↓ ↓ ↓   ↓ ↓  ↓   ↓ Afghan   i ī ē   u ū ō   a ā  ai  au           ↓ └↓┘   ↓ └↓┘   ↓ ↓ Iranian  e  ī    o  ū    a ā  ei  ou

The symbols in this chart are phonemic, not phonetic. In terms of the actual phonetic details, the Tajik vowel /ů/ is a central mid rounded vowel (close to [ɵ]?), cf. Baizoyev 2004. The Tajik /o/ is really not that different from the so-called /ā/of Afghan and Tehrani Persian: varying between [ɒ] (British RP "Tom") and [ɔ] (Midwestern American "law"). Afghan /i/ is close to [ɪ] and /u/ is close to [ʊ ], while /ī ē ū ō/ are not necessarily longer, just more [+tense]. I leave any explicit details about Tehrani pronunciation to someone more at home with that type of Persian.
 * 1. the descriptive detail of the Afghan Persian vowels is based on:
 * a) my own experience of having lived in Kabul for 14 months (1970-1971) and having   spoken its dialect of Persian as my daily-use language during that time.
 * b) the analysis of that careful phonetician, Georg Morgenstierne, in his paper "Persian Texts from Afgahanistan" (Acta Orientalia 6:309-28 - 1928).
 * 2. The preservation of the early NP system into Kabuli Farsi is suggested by the fact that it is the most conservative of all the dialects.
 * 3. Preservation of the length distinctions as symbols, whatever be the details of their actual pronunciation, is recommended because this preserves a unity in Islamic culture: instead of having an Arab word مداخل transcribed as Arabic mudāxil, "Persian" modāxel, Tajik mudoxil, Urdu mudāxil, they can all be transcribed with the original Arab system as mudāxil, then we see that we are dealing with basically the same system all the way from Arabic in the west to Urdu (and even Bengali) in the east, without having to jump through the hoops of the various local changes, changes which are very slight and need not be reflected in a different transcription ( unless of course Iranians have a very strong need to consider themselves as different from the Arabs as possible, even in such a small thing as how to spell their words in romanisation ).Jakob37 07:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I simply copied this chart from Winfuhr (1987). I had no other reliable sources available to me at the time to offer differing viewpoints.  However, I agree that a phonetic analysis would be much more useful in this article, especially since the current romanizations can be somewhat ambiguous.  A phonemic transcription is appropriate for other articles discussing Persian, for example Persian grammar, but this specific article should be as precise as possible.  Please use whatever means necessary to make the chart reflect actual phonetic realizations, citing reliable sources.  –jonsafari 19:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Need more info on the allophones of ق غ
There needs to be more info on the allophones of these two phonemes. azalea_pomp
 * I added a short comment. Jahangard 04:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think someone definitely needs to check into those consonants. As a native Persian speaker, I can say that I've never heard those two pronounced as a velar fricative, usually its more of a uvular plosive. I might at least add uvular plosive to the IPA pronunciation, because velar fricative is wrong, that's the arabic pronunciation of غ, but that's not how it's pronounced in Persian. This government site seems to back me up on this one

http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/february/farsi.html#stru

ThePrznKonection —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 05:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The National Virtual Translation Center's website isn't exactly the most solid source. On the other hand, the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (1999:124-125) does back up the claim that [ɣ] exists in Persian (by an educated native speaker from Tehran).  I suppose I should get around to citing this in the article.  –jonsafari 21:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As I native speaker from Tehran I am pretty sure that the two are plosive and not fricative. Anyhow I looked up the letter غ on the Persian Wikipedia and accordingly it says


 * .تلفظ آن در فارسی معیار همانند ق است

.در بعضی لهجه‌های فارسی آن را به شیوه‌ای متفاوت از ق ادا می‌کنند. صدای آن در عربی و بعضی لهجه‌های فارسی چیزی میان ق و خ است


 * In English that is "The Pronounciation of that (غ) in Standard Persian is the same as qaf (ق). In some dialects of Persians it's pronounced in a different manner than qaf. It's sound in Arabic and some Persian dialects is something between qaf and khe (خ)" (presumably a fricative). I presume they mean from this that qeyn is pronounced as an uvular plosive [q] (like qaf) in standard Iranian Persian, however in arabic and some dialects of Persian it is pronounced as a fricative [ɣ]. This makes the most sense. Because as a native speaker I have always heard both qeyn and qaf pronounced [q]. However, [ɣ] is the Arabic pronunciation of qeyn, therefore it is plausible that in some dialects, particularly those in Khuzestan and other regions subject to more Arab influence would pronounce qeyn as a [ɣ]. In this light I think both [ɣ] and [q] should be given as allophones on this page. 72.29.211.18 06:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The letter غ is often pronounced as a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in the Persian of Afghanistan (cf.Farhadi et al.) and Tajikistan (cf. Baizoyev & Hayward), also in Persian words in as far as they are pronounced as such in the Indian subcontinent. For certain purposes this vast area is considered as "Eastern Persian"; it is one thing to acknowledge that the Persian of Tehran is typically taught in schools around the world, it is another thing to refer to it as "Standard Persian", a term which speakers of Eastern Persian might well object to. How would people in the US feel if British RP were referred to as "Standard English"?Jakob37 02:33, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Ref?
Quoting the article:
 * However, the classic pronunciation difference (for غ and ق) is preserved in the eastern variants of Persian (i.e. Dari and Tajiki), as well as the southern dialects of the modern Iranian variety (e.g. Yazdi and Kermani dialects).

Does anybody have a reliable source for the above statement? Thanks. –jonsafari 04:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Chart for vowels
Better examples should be given. There is no need to focus on short two-letter words. Also, the example for /ou/ (/kou/ کو weevil) should be replaced by a word which is more frequently used (this word is from local dialects and its standard version is /kæk/). It seems that /ou/ is given as the modern Iranian pronounciation of what was pronounced as /æʊ/ in the classic Persian (for example, "و" in نوروز and خسرو). If that's the case, then I wonder why /ou/ is used (the actual pronounciation is closer to /o:/ or /ow/). Windfuhr shows it as "ou" instead of /o:/ or /ow/, simply because he dousn't use IPA symbols (he shows /ɒː/ as "ā", and as "ei"). We shoud note that Windfuhr doesn't use IPA symbols (for example, he uses "ā" as /ɒː/). Jahangard 04:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The examples are there to demonstrate a minimal pair. Regarding your other point, IPA is the common currency of phonology descriptions in general.  Using non-IPA letters like "ā" can lead to ambiguity (eg. rounded or non-rounded?).  It's too bad Windfuhr didn't use IPA, but that still doesn't bind us to use his transcription.  Both minimal pairs and IPA usage are pretty basic things in a phonological description of a language.  –jonsafari 01:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

ɒː
As a native speaker with profound knowledge about the language in every respect, I do not agree with [ɒː] as the standard variant of long a. This is a new phenomenon and only to be encountered in what is called the modern Tehrani dialect of Persian, i.e. it is DIALECTAL. All other native speakers in Iran use [aː] when speaking standard language, and either [aː] or some sort of [o/o:] when using dialect (e.g. some Yazdi dialects). Hence I suggest changing ɒː to [aː]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.227.212.213 (talk • contribs)
 * If you have some academic bibliographic sources of the variations amongst various Persian dialects, then write an article discussing these. Azalea pomp (talk) 06:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I've not studied linguisitics or something like that, but I was always interested in languages, specially my native language Farsi, so what I write is maybe not very scientifical. I think the Tehrani dialect is the de facto standard for spoken Persian. So everything else is considered as dialectal. The main goal of such articles is to teach a learner of the Persian language to speak properly, so it is important to teach the mainstream language, which is by now the Tehrani dialect. Mubed (talk) 01:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Mubed, you are right. A for the sound, it is open back rounded vowel. If anybody wants a reference, then mine is "Avaşenasi ye zæban e Farsi" by "Yædollah e Sæmære" --Alijsh (talk) 09:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * How can a vowel be "open" and "rounded" at the same time? Jakob37 (talk) 06:06, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Open" is a term that denotes a certain direction in formant frequencies. It was formerly associated with the physical feature of the mouth being more open.  You can still have rounded lips with a more open mouth. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  16:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Colloquial Tehran Persian is far from identical with the national standard of Persian taught in Iran; it has idiosyncratic features of its own. People don't usually talk exemplary "schoolbook language" when in private, and standard languages are not even necessarily, perhaps not even usually, based on the dialect of the capital (in fact, historically, Persian was not native to the Tehran region). Colloquial Beijing Chinese is very different from prescribed Chinese pronunciation and grammar. Estuary English is very different from conservative RP or BBC newscaster English. Linguasphere has a nice term for this: "urban counterstream". People refuse to be assimilated to prescribed standards and stubbornly insist on their idiosyncrasies.
 * For example, I've been taught by Wolfgang Schulze that word-final /ɒːn/ is often realised with such a low (closed) vowel in the Tehran dialect that it effectively merges with /uːn/, one step further than the mentioned dialectal pronunciation /oː/ for /ɒː/. I've never heard Persian long ā rendered as central or even front, it is always back. The IP is probably confused by the symbols [a] (which designates a front or central vowel) and [ɒ], which stands for a back and rounded vowel, but not as high as [ɔ], so it never approaches Persian /o/. The realisation [ɒ] is not unique to Tehran, it is ubiquitous in Persian and possibly universal (perhaps even beyond, as Schulze taught this realisation is generally found in Iranian languages). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)


 * As a nativ speaker and somebody, who has studied linguistics in the university I'm sure that we don't have ɒː in the standard persian language, the correct equivalent is ɑ.  Diako  « Talk » 01:18, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Example on the article page
I don't know the reference of this example, but for me as a native speaker of Persian it sounds very artificial or maybe like a dialect such as Dari or even like the way a non-native speaker would use the words, so I suggest to change it. I didn't do it myself, because I'm not very familiar with the IPA-codes and also because it was referenced to a book, which may be a standard literature. But if you want to do the IPA part, here is MY version of this example written romanized:

Ruzi/Yek ruz baade shomal va xorshid sare inke ke kodaam yek qavitar ast daêvaa mikardand. ("aayaa kodaam" and "yek ruzi" are absoloutly wrong! "baaham" is colloquial.)

Actually the verb "daêvaa kardan" is colloquial, so I think, when using it, the whole sentence must be changed into colloquial language:

Ye ruz baade shomaal o xorshid baaham daêvaa mikardan ke kudum qavitare. Mubed (talk) 01:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Diphthongs
"ey" is not a diphthong in Persian. It comprises of phonemes "e" and "y". It is easy to prove it: replace the "y" in "mey" (wine) with "s" and you get "mes" (copper), replace it with "h" and you get "meh" (fog). What I said for "ey", also applies to "ây", "uy", and "oy". They are not diphthong. I'll remove the relevant parts saying that "ey" is a diphthong. Alijsh (talk) 09:36, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * If "ey" "ây", "uy", and "oy" are not diphthongs, then what is your idea of a true diphthong??


 * Also, isn't it in large part dependent on the viewpoint of native speakers? For example, the "aj" ("ay" for you non-IPA guys) sound in English "I" or "final" is considered by many native speakers of English to be just one sound, simply the "long i", and furthermore it is written (most often) with just one letter. But some foreign listener who knew nothing about English writing or grammar would probably consider it a diphthong. Now, in written Persian, these sounds are written with two components, even if the first(fatha, zamma etc.) may not be clearly indicated, they are still there in the pronunciation. Jakob37 (talk) 04:59, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Alijsh, the term diphthong is sort of phonologically ambiguous in that it can refer either to a single vowel phoneme in which the place of articulation moves, or a pair of vowel phonemes run together. I would argue that Persian has a diphthong /ei/ based on the minimal pair /ke/ "that" and /kei/ "when".  Whether /ei/ is a single phoneme or a pair of phonemes doesn't really matter insofar as it's pronounced as a diphthong. ǝɹʎℲxoɯ ( contrib ) 18:07, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

@Jakob37: What I wrote was based on the book "آواشناسی زبان فارسی" (Phonetics of Persian language) by Dr. Yadollâh Samare, which is a reference book. It wasn't a casual claim. They comprise of "vowel" + "y" and are separable. In any case, I don't insist but now that you are considering "ey" as a diphthong, please include all "ây" (čây: tea), "ay" (sayyâd: hunter, qayyem), "oy" (xoy: sweat), and "uy" (ruy: zinc) in the list of diphthongs. They have been all discussed in the book.

@ǝɹʎℲxoɯ: From "ke" vs. "key" example, you are saying that "ey" is a phoneme and stands on its own. Then, why is its "y" breakable in می نوشین /me.ye nu.šin/ or پی تو /pe.ye to/ or پیامد /pe.yâ.mad/? It has been disproved this way in the above-mentioned book. By the way, nâ (نا) and nây (نای) have different meanings. So, at least /ây/ must be added to the list. --Alijsh (talk) 20:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Alijsh, good points. All I'm saying is that some definitions of diphthong would include /ey/ and /ây/ despite the fact that they split across syllable boundaries in morphologically determined ways.  So we should clarify.  Given the evidence you cite, I agree that we should distinguish /ey/ and /ây/ from the phonemic /ou/ diphthong.  If so, we should explain the definition of diphthong used in the article, cite the source that distinguishes them, and explain why the commonly found sequences /ey/, /ây/, etc. don't fit the definition of a single-phoneme diphthong.  I don't have access to the book, but if you're willing to write a few sentences to explain this, I'd be all for it!!  ǝɹʎℲxoɯ ( contrib ) 23:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Dear ǝɹʎℲxoɯ: /ou/ has been /æu/ in classical Persian, which is preserved in many dialects including official dialects Afghan(istani) and Tajik(istani) Persian (Persian is a pluricentric language). /ou/ or /æu/ is not a diphthong either. It comprises of "o/a" and "v". Its "v" is realized during inflection or derivation. For example, now (new) + suffix "-in" makes "novin" (modern). Or "raw/row", the present stem of raftan (to go), becomes mi-rav-am (I go; I am going), pey-rav-i (following), pey-rov-ân (followers); xusraw becomes xusravi, xusravân. So, from a phonemic viewpoint, "ây", "ay", "ey", "oy", "uy" and "ou" comprise of a vowel and a consonant and are not diphthong but from a phonetic viewpoint, they are all diphthong. This is the translation of the concluding paragraph in the mentioned book (Do you know Persian? If yes, I can write you the original text). I don't know if such a case exists in other languages. On second thought, I think the mainstream viewpoint is phonetic. So, please list all "ây", "ay", "ey", "oy", "uy" and "ou" as Persian diphthongs. By the way, we have a discussion about it in Unilang's Persian forum: Persian diphthongs - Regards --Alijsh (talk) 16:54, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool, thanks, those are some interesting minimal pairs! I don't understand Persian well enough to understand the original, I think, but that's interesting stuff.  I think we should note in the article that all of these diphthong sounds occur and also that they typically do not constitute single phonemes. ǝɹʎℲxoɯ ( contrib ) 06:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The word "diphthong" is simply descriptive: two (or more) vowel sounds juxtaposed. It does not have any "official" meaning in phonology, and what is or is not a "vowel-sound" also can be a controversial topic sometimes. Of course analysis is also related to transcription. For example, most people would say that English "cute" has 4 phonemes: k + j + u + t, but a minority of phonologists support a view that was traditional until recent decades. We could ask: if there is the very common combination ju, then why are combinations with other vowels (e.g. ja, jo, je, ji, jʌ, jæ etc.) almost completely absent from English? The human mind (subconscious linguistic intelligence) likes to work with patterns, categories, it likes to minimize strange, irregular things. Therefore, we could say that the so-called "ju" is really just one entity, perhaps to be symbolized by /y/, thus = /kyt/. This /y/ COULD be described as a "rising diphthong", but that is not a natural class in English, so it is simpler to see it as a single sound (traditionally the "long u"), often written with a single letter in traditional orthography, just like the "long i" mentioned above.

So the question for Persian is: how do these vowel-combinations fit into patterns in the phonological system, how do native speakers conceive them, etc. Also, I would recommend an analysis for Persian which is more generalized and inclusive, not just applicable for a certain kind of Persian spoken in Tehran. For example, "Go!" - raw ! and "I go" - mi-ravam may be true in Tehran, but in Kabul it is the same sound: raw ! and me:rawam (of course these are both literary pronunciations, not the colloquial bu-ro: and me:rum ). So, it all depends on what kind of scheme and patterns you are trying to show, there is no single "correct" phonemic system.Jakob37 (talk) 06:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Jakob, you've precisely highlighted the ambiguity we're talking about. I think that for now I'm just going to (a) list the possible phonetic diphthongs in Persian, (b) note that they do not constitute phonemes via the evidence given by Alijsh above, and (c) refer readers to the book he cited.  ǝɹʎℲxoɯ ( contrib ) 06:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Vowel length
This article is somewhat inconsistent in its discussion of vowel length. It states, somewhat confusing: Diachronically, Persian possessed a distinction of length in its underlying vowel inventory, contrasting the long vowels /iː/, /uː/, /ɒː/ with the short vowels /e/, /o/, /æ/ respectively.

The /iː/, /uː/, /ɒː/ vowels are marked for length in the vowel chart, but not in the vowel diagram (which is from the IPA Handbook and describes the educated Tehran dialect). Elsewhere, /-i-/, /-u-/, /-ɒ-/ are unmarked for length in the phonemic transcriptions of example Persian words.

As I understand it, vowel length per se is NOT contrastive in Tehran Persian. It may be true that, historically, length was actually contrastive, but today there is no minimal pair contrasted solely by vowel length, at least in dialects where /æ/ and /ɒ/ contrast qualitatively. So I think that the distinction of "long" and "short" vowels is an anachronism, much like in some English dialects. We should probably stop labeling /iː/, /uː/, /ɒː/ with the length marker in this article. Does anyone have any reference that suggests that these vowels are actually lengthened in any context? If so, perhaps this could be noted under allophonic variants. ǝɹʎℲxoɯ ( contrib ) 17:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * See Persian language, which treats the quantity contrast problem much better than this article: several analyses are possible (much like in German, I might note). However, unfortunately, it doesn't say anything about phonetic quantity. There is an argument for treating quantity as an active contrast, though: historically short vowels are unstable and are affected by assimilation or (with the exception of /æ/) syncope, while the historically long vowels do not show any such variation. This is pointed out here on p. 13, where it is also observed that there is no discernible phonetic vowel length distinction in contemporary Western Persian (apparently even in Afghan Persian and Tajik, although the Iranica is unclear on this point; it indicates that some Tajik varieties have retained the length distinction in the high vowels, though this may be either by quantity or quality). Their behaviour is the main reason for still treating length as an active feature of the vocalic system. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:44, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Romanization
Persian has an, so to speak, academic-standard Latin script used in various books and dictionaries (including educational ones). Only the characters of this script should be mentioned in a formal (reference) article like "Persian phonology". Here is not a place to mention the characters found in so-called Fingilish that has no rule and everybody writes it as he wants (randomly). I modified the Romanization column of the consonant section and if everybody agrees, I'll do the same for the vowel section.--Alijsh (talk) 07:02, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. See Romanization of Persian. — ★ Parsa ☞ talk 18:30, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Persian stress - or pitch
A sentence should be added such as 'In most dialects of Persian (Isfahani is an exception) a stressed syllable is also always pronounced with raised pitch.' I don't think this is mentioned in Windfuhr or any of the other books, but nonetheless it seems very characteristic of Persian, and it is one of the main differences between between Persian and English pronunciation. (I am not sure if it applies to Afghani Persian.) Does anyone know of any instrumental studies that might confirm this? Andrew Goodson (talk) 08:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a recent experimental study in Lingua which shows that word prominence is realized by F0 movements alone. So, technically, Persian has 'accent', not 'stress'. I will add this to the article. Divaane (talk) 07:53, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Can someone please confirm where the stress falls in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's name? Is it, or something else? Lfh (talk) 16:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is correct. But note that any noun when used as a vocative receives stress on the first syllable. Divaane (talk) 07:56, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

24st consonant in Persian
In the name of god

Also is said that Persian has 23 consonant, but it's false. When yuo see Moin lexicon (one of the greatest dictionaris in Persian), yuo will see two pronunciation for "ن". 2nd pronunciation is same as english, "ŋ". when "ن" come before "گ" or "ک" and there isn't any vowel between them, Persian allow us to use "ŋ" or "n" for "ن" pronunciation. for example, for "جَنگ", we can say "jæŋg" and "jæng", and both of them are quite common. Of course many people do not pey their attention to their pronounciation of "ن".

--Arfarshchi (talk) 18:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The central vowel of Tajik
The character ů is clearly not IPA. Shouldn't we use /ɵ/ or something, like in Tajik language? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:23, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Focus
There seem to be at least four different topics that this article attempts to cover: This is in principle not impossible, as e.g. English phonology demonstrates. But since we have separate articles for Dari language and Tajik language, perhaps it would be productive to treat Dari phonology and Tajik phonology separately, and leave this article for Farsi. On the other hand, there exist other varieties yet, e.g. the "Dari-like" Aimaq, and it is not clear what their fate should be under this type of a treatment. -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 20:25, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) The phonology of Persian in general, to the extent that generalizations about this can be made
 * 2) The phonology of standard Iranian Persian in particular
 * 3) The phonologies of other Persian varieties, such as Dari and Tajik
 * 4) The historical relationship of the Persian varieties
 * I'm afraid we have a couple of obstacles here. First, I doubt there are enough sources that treat Iranian Farsi and Afghanistani Dari independently. Tajik is better in that respect being much different from the both, though a lot of sources must have been written in Russian not in English. Second, I doubt that there are enough users here with a proper competence in the subject (it can be see by the generally poor state of Persian-related articles). Anyway, I'd be glad if somebody with the competence write three independent articles, but for now it is better to have everything in one place, than to have three (or four) poor written stubs.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:58, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Long â as a diphthong
What accent is it that pronounces long â as a diphthong, pretty much like ou in English "house", maybe more precisely [ɑo̯] or so? I'm not a native speaker of Persian, and I'd never heard it before I heard this song:. It's not as distinct in hâl and mâl probably due to the following L. But when he says bâd, fanâ, dârid, etc., it's definitely a diphthong. Is this just the singer's personal idiosyncrasy or is it an accent? Thanks a lot in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.206.129.98 (talk) 14:09, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm a native speaker from Iran, and I'd love to help if I can, but the video is no longer available through the link you included. Could you add another link or give the name of the song at least? Right now I can't think of an accent like you described, but my parents know more about different accents and they're not available now, so wait till I can ask them. AM2693MS (talk) 22:05, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Tajik transliterations
Personally I think the addition of Tajik transliterations in addition to IPA makes the article too messy. Tajik is a slightly different language, with a different script and slightly different grammar and phonology to Persian. Shouldn't this article just concentrate on Persian? A separate article could discuss Tajik phonology, inasmuch as it differs from standard Persian as spoken in Iran. Kanjuzi (talk) 11:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree. The transliteration should be a romanized one such as DMG. See Romanization of Persian. Tajik phonology should be separate. — ★ Parsa ☞ talk 18:25, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * That's the reason for the Cyrillic letters? Yeah, it confused me, and it seems unnecessary. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:48, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I have now removed most of the Cyrillic transcriptions. They are particularly unwanted when the Tajik pronunciation differs from the Iranian, e.g. in mixām 'I want', where Tajik has mē-. Kanjuzi (talk) 04:06, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Spelling and examples
In the "Spelling and examples" table for consonants, for some reason the transcriptions given are in the Eastern dialect, not standard Persian, e.g. /eːˈɾɒːn/ for /iːˈɾɒːn/. Surely either both should be given or just the standard Persian. Kanjuzi (talk) 04:39, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

aspiration
The voiceless obstruents /p, t, t͡ʃ, k/ are aspirated much like their English counterpart - in fact, /t͡ʃ/ is never aspirated in English (see GIMSON p. 160) https://baselbern.swissbib.ch/Record/284768715) . Ternes/Majidi also don't mention aspiration of Persian /t͡ʃ/ (IPA HANDBOOK, p. 125; https://baselbern.swissbib.ch/Record/258838426) Wathiik (talk) 17:36, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not a reliable source, but I think that English shows the different shades of allophony that stops do, which includes aspiration initially or at the beginning of a stressed syllable and less aspiration in most other positions.  initially sounds more like the aspirated  in the Armenian examples in the article on Aspirated consonant than the unaspirated . But of course, in articles one has to follow the reliable sources if they insist that our fortis affricate isn't ever aspirated. — Eru·tuon 18:07, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I guess you're right, since Roach (English Phonetics and Phonology; CUP 1983) writes: /t͡ʃ/ ... is slightly aspirated in the positions where / p t k / are aspirated, but not strongly enough for it to be necessary for foreign learners to give much attention to it. (p. 52) So I guess that settles it... why doesn't GIMSON mention this though? Will definitely look into it nevertheless... be that as it may, of course /t͡ʃ/ is often glottalized in English, just like /p t k/... Wathiik (talk) 09:47, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Lack of consistency
The beginning of the Consonants section talks about /ɣ/ and /q/ phonemes, but then in the spelling table they're replaced by /ʁ/ and /ɢ/. So what are they? It's explained how they're pronounced in Iranian Persian, but for Dari and Tajik it's mentioned that "the classic pronunciations of غ‬ and ق‬ are preserved". But what are the classic pronunciations? The text talks about [ɣ] and [q], the table gives examples of [ʁ] and [ɢ]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.146.41.16 (talk) 16:08, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

PCVC Speech Dataset
It would be great if interested editors could comment on the AfD discussion for this article at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PCVC Speech Dataset. Thank you. ~Kvng (talk) 14:37, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Some of the Vowels Seem Wrong
I asked a native Farsi speaker friend to pronounce some of the words, and I compared with Wikipedia's IPA_vowel_chart_with_audio. It seems that /to/  تو   "you" (singular) has the vowel [o̞], and /tɒː/   تا  "until" has the vowel [ʌ].

~calc_rulz (talk) 3:46, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm a native Farsi speaker (from Iran). I've not yet totally mastered the IPA chart, but as far as I can tell, I think you're right about [o̞] in "تو", or maybe it's rather something between [o] and [o̞]. But about the vowel in "تا", I think it does sound like [ʌː] in slow and emphatic speech, or if you ask a native to say it in isolation. But it's more like [ɒ] in normal speech, though perhaps not as low as that. If you check the vowel chart for Tehrani Persian in this article, you'll see these seem to be reflected in the chart (/o/ is shown rather close to [o̞], and /ɒ/ is not as low as cardinal [ɒ]. A similar thing to /o/ can be said to be true about /e/). Note that there are a limited number of symbols in the IPA chart, and more precise descriptions should be given for each language/dialect. AM2693MS (talk) 20:56, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

What I said about [ʌː] in emphatic and slow speech is also often true when reading a text or, for example, poetry. Also there is a reason I used the "ː" sign after "ʌ" but not "ɒ". In emphatic speech or when reading a text, there may well be some distinction between the length of conventional "long" and "short" vowels, but not much in normal speech. This is especially true about poetry, where in fact the rhythm of the Persian "metres" depends greatly on vowel length, which in turn determines the length of syllables. AM2693MS (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Which sounds in loanwords only?
Are the sounds represented by the letters ع غ ق present in loanwords (from Arabic, Turkish, etc.) only? Or are there any native Persian words that include these sounds? 207.172.134.7 (talk) 23:31, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Only the غ is inherited (plus from later borrowings). ع comes from Arabic loanwords, while ق is from Arabic and Turkic. See p. 427 of Windfuhr, G. & Perry, J. R (2009). "Persian and Tajik". In G. Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages. Routledge, pp. 416–544. –Austronesier (talk) 17:27, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Tajik vowel reduction
I think it should be mentioned that in Tajik persian, the vowels /i/ /u/ and /a/ can be reduced to a schwa sound [ə] in unstressed syllables. 92.184.124.74 (talk) 06:38, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

26 consonants??
Someone else put in the intro that Persian has 26 consonants, but the consonant chart in the article lists less than that. Can someone confirm that number with a chart before I change it? Sameerhameedy (talk) 22:37, 13 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Good idea. The number of consonants was changed from 23 to 26 in this edit, and there were 24 in the chart at that time. and  were split into two phonemes in the table since then, which might be wrong. But regardless the number should agree with the table. — Eru·tuon 23:24, 13 January 2023 (UTC)