Persian alphabet

For other scripts that have been used to write the Persian language, see Persian language § Orthography.

Persian alphabet الفبای فارسی Alefbâ-ye Fârsi
A page from a 12th century manuscript of "Kitab al-Abniya 'an Haqa'iq al-Adwiya" by Abu Mansur Muwaffaq with special Persian letters p (پ), ch (چ) and g (گ = ڭـ).
Script type	Abjad
Time period	c. 7th century CE – present
Direction	Right-to-left script
Languages	Persian
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Nabataean Arabic Persian alphabet
Child systems	Kurdo-Arabic alphabet Ottoman Turkish alphabet Shahmukhi Urdu alphabet

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The Persian alphabet (Persian: الفبای فارسی, romanized: Alefbâ-ye Fârsi), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is a variation of the Arabic script with five additional letters: پ چ ژ گ (the sounds 'g', 'zh', 'ch', and 'p', respectively), in addition to the obsolete ڤ that was used for the sound /β/. This letter is no longer used in Persian, as the [β]-sound changed to [b], e.g. archaic زڤان /zaβɑn/ > زبان /zæbɒn/ 'language'.

It was the basis of many Arabic-based scripts used in Central and South Asia. It is used for the Iranian and Dari standard varieties of Persian; and is one of two official writing systems for the Persian language, alongside the Cyrillic-based Tajik alphabet.

The script is mostly but not exclusively right-to-left; mathematical expressions, numeric dates and numbers bearing units are embedded from left to right. The script is cursive, meaning most letters in a word connect to each other; when they are typed, contemporary word processors automatically join adjacent letter forms.

History

The Persian alphabet is directly derived and developed from the Arabic alphabet. The Arabic alphabet was introduced to the Persian-speaking world after the Muslim conquest of Persia and the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the 7th century. Following which, the Arabic language became the principal language of government and religious institutions in Persia, which led to the widespread usage of the Arabic script. Classical Persian literature and poetry were affected by this simultaneous usage of Arabic and Persian. A new influx of Arabic vocabulary soon entered the Persian language. In the 8th century, the Tahirid dynasty and Samanid dynasty officially adopted the Arabic script for writing Persian, followed by the Saffarid dynasty in the 9th century, gradually displacing the various Pahlavi scripts used for the Persian language prior. By the 9th-century, the Perso-Arabic alphabet became the dominant form of writing in Greater Khorasan.

Under the influence of various Persian Empires, many languages in Central and South Asia that adopted the Arabic script use the Persian Alphabet as the basis of their writing systems. Today, extended versions of the Persian alphabet are used to write a wide variety of Indo-Iranian languages, including Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, Urdu (from Classical Hindostani), Saraiki, Panjabi, Sindhi and Kashmiri. In the past the use of the Persian alphabet was common amongst Turkic languages, but today is relegated to those spoken within Iran, such as Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Chaharmahali and Khalaj. The Uyghur language in western China is the most notable exception to this.

During the colonization of Central Asia, many languages in the Soviet Union, including Persian, were reformed by the government. This ultimately resulted in the Cyrillic-based alphabet used in Tajikistan today. See: Tajik alphabet § History.

Letters

Example showing the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic style's proportion rules

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. These include the 22 letters corresponding to a letter in the Phoenician alphabet or the Northwest Semitic abjad, 6 extra letters not in any of the 22 letters of the Phoenician alphabet or the Northwest Semitic abjad and 4 extra letters not in any of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. These combined total letters is 10 last letters not corresponding to a letter in the Phoenician alphabet and also the Northwest Semitic abjad as well as the Arabic alphabet.

The names of the letters are mostly the ones used in Arabic except for the Persian pronunciation. The only ambiguous name is he, which is used for both ح and ه. For clarification, they are often called ḥä-ye jimi (literally "jim-like ḥe" after jim, the name for the letter ج that uses the same base form) and hâ-ye do-češm (literally "two-eyed he", after the contextual middle letterform ـهـ), respectively. There are eight Persian letters that are mainly used in Arabic or foreign loanwords and not in native words: ث, ح, ذ, ص, ض, ط, ظ, ع and غ. These eight letters are also common used in proper names only. Unlike Arabic, the Persian language absolutely does not have pharyngealization at all. Although the letter غ is mainly used in Arabic loanwords, there are some native Persian words with this letter: آغاز, زغال, etc.

Overview table

#	Name (in Persian)	Name (transliterated)	Transliteration	IPA	Unicode	Contextual forms
						Final	Medial	Initial	Isolated
0	همزه	hamze	[ʾ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)	Glottal stop [ʔ]	U+0621	—	—	—	ء
					U+0623	ـأ		أ
					U+0626	ـئ	ـئـ	ئـ	ئ
					U+0624	ـؤ		ؤ
1	الف	alef	â	[ɒ]	U+0627	ـا		ا
2	ب	be	b	[b]	U+0628	ـب	ـبـ	بـ	ب
3	پ	pe	p	[p]	U+067E	ـپ	ـپـ	پـ	پ
4	ت	te	t	[t]	U+062A	ـت	ـتـ	تـ	ت
5	ث	se	s	[s]	U+062B	ـث	ـثـ	ثـ	ث
6	جیم	jim	j	[d͡ʒ]	U+062C	ـج	ـجـ	جـ	ج
7	چ	če	č	[t͡ʃ]	U+0686	ـچ	ـچـ	چـ	چ
8	ح	he (hâ-ye ḥotti, hâ-ye jimi)	h	[h]	U+062D	ـح	ـحـ	حـ	ح
9	خ	xe	x	[x]	U+062E	ـخ	ـخـ	خـ	خ
10	دال	dâl	d	[d]	U+062F	ـد		د
11	ذال	zâl	z	[z]	U+0630	ـذ		ذ
12	ر	re	r	[r]	U+0631	ـر		ر
13	ز	ze	z	[z]	U+0632	ـز		ز
14	ژ	že	ž	[ʒ]	U+0698	ـژ		ژ
15	سین	sin	s	[s]	U+0633	ـس	ـسـ	سـ	س
16	شین	šin	š	[ʃ]	U+0634	ـش	ـشـ	شـ	ش
17	صاد	sâd	s	[s]	U+0635	ـص	ـصـ	صـ	ص
18	ضاد	zâd	ż	[z]	U+0636	ـض	ـضـ	ضـ	ض
19	طا	tâ	t	[t]	U+0637	ـط	ـطـ	طـ	ط
20	ظا	zâ	z	[z]	U+0638	ـظ	ـظـ	ظـ	ظ
21	عین	ʿeyn	[ʿ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) (help)	[ʔ], [æ]/[a]	U+0639	ـع	ـعـ	عـ	ع
22	غین	ġeyn	ġ	[ɢ], [ɣ]	U+063A	ـغ	ـغـ	غـ	غ
23	ف	fe	f	[f]	U+0641	ـف	ـفـ	فـ	ف
24	قاف	qâf	q	[q]	U+0642	ـق	ـقـ	قـ	ق
25	کاف	kâf	k	[k]	U+06A9	ـک	ـکـ	کـ	ک
26	گاف	gâf	g	[ɡ]	U+06AF	ـگ	ـگـ	گـ	گ
27	لام	lâm	l	[l]	U+0644	ـل	ـلـ	لـ	ل
28	میم	mim	m	[m]	U+0645	ـم	ـمـ	مـ	م
29	نون	nun	n	[n]	U+0646	ـن	ـنـ	نـ	ن
30	واو	vâv (in Farsi)	v / ū / ow / o	[uː], [ow], [v], [o] (only word-finally)	U+0648	ـو		و
		wâw (in Dari)	w / ū / aw / ō	[uː], [w], [aw], [oː]
31	ه	he (hā-ye havvaz, hā-ye do-češm)	h	[h], or [e] and [a] (word-finally)	U+0647	ـه	ـهـ	هـ	ه
32	ی	ye	y / ī / á / (Also ay / ē in Dari)	[j], [i], [ɒː] ([aj] / [eː] in Dari)	U+06CC	ـی	ـیـ	یـ	ی

Historically, in Early New Persian, there was a special letter for the sound /β/. This letter is no longer used, as the /β/-sound changed to /b/, e.g. archaic زڤان /zaβān/ > زبان /zæbɒːn/ 'language'.

Sound	Isolated form	Final form	Medial form	Initial form	Name
/β/	ڤ	ـڤ	ـڤـ	ڤـ	βe

Another obsolete variant of the twenty-sixth letter گ /g/ is ݣ‎ which used to appear in old manuscripts.

Sound	Isolated form	Final form	Medial form	Initial form	Name
/g/	ݣ‎	ـݣ‎	ـݣـ‎	ڭـ	gâf

Another obsolete variant of the twenty-fifth letter ک /k/ is ك‎ which used to appear in old manuscripts.

Sound	Isolated form	Final form	Medial form	Initial form	Name
/k/	ك‎	‎ـك	ـكـ‎	كـ	kâf

Variants

ی ه و ن م ل گ ک ق ف غ ع ظ ط ض ص ش س ژ ز ر ذ د خ ح چ ج ث ت پ ب ا ء
	•	Noto Nastaliq Urdu
	•	Scheherazade
	•	Lateef
	•	Noto Naskh Arabic
	•	Markazi Text
	•	Noto Sans Arabic
	•	Baloo Bhaijaan
	•	El Messiri SemiBold
	•	Lemonada Medium
	•	Changa Medium
	•	Mada
	•	Noto Kufi Arabic
	•	Reem Kufi
	•	Lalezar
	•	Jomhuria
	•	Rakkas
The alphabet in 16 fonts: Noto Nastaliq Urdu, Scheherazade, Lateef, Noto Naskh Arabic, Markazi Text, Noto Sans Arabic, Baloo Bhaijaan, El Messiri SemiBold, Lemonada Medium, Changa Medium, Mada, Noto Kufi Arabic, Reem Kufi, Lalezar, Jomhuria, and Rakkas.

Letter construction

forms (i)	isolated			ء	ا	ى	ں	ٮ	ح	س	ص	ط	ع	ڡ	ٯ	ک	ل	م	د	ر	و	ه
	start			ء	ا	ٮـ			حـ	سـ	صـ	طـ	عـ	ڡـ		کـ	لـ	مـ	د	ر	و	هـ
	mid			ء	ـا	ـٮـ			ـحـ	ـسـ	ـصـ	ـطـ	ـعـ	ـڡـ		ـکـ	ـلـ	ـمـ	ـد	ـر	ـو	ـهـ
	end			ء	ـا	ـى	ـں	ـٮ	ـح	ـس	ـص	ـط	ـع	ـڡ	ـٯ	ـک	ـل	ـم	ـد	ـر	ـو	ـه
	i'jam (i)
Unicode				0621 ..	0627 ..	0649 ..	06BA ..	066E ..	062D ..	0633 ..	0635 ..	0637 ..	0639 ..	06A1 ..	066F ..	066F ..	0644 ..	0645 ..	062F ..	0631 ..	0648. ..	0647 ..
1 dot below			﮳					ب	ج
Unicode	FBB3.							0628 ..	062C ..
1 dot above			﮲				ن		خ		ض	ظ	غ	ف					ذ	ز
Unicode	FBB2.						0646 ..		062E ..		0636 ..	0638 ..	063A ..	0641 ..					0630 ..	0632 ..
2 dots below (ii)			﮵			ی
Unicode	FBB5.					06CC ..
2 dots above			﮴					ت							ق							ة
Unicode	FBB4.							062A ..							0642 ..							0629 ..
3 dots below			﮹					پ	چ
Unicode	FBB9. FBB7.							067E ..	0686 ..
3 dots above			﮶					ث		ش										ژ
Unicode	FBB6.							062B ..		0634 ..										0698 ..
line above			‾													گ
Unicode	203E.															06AF ..
none				ء	ا	ی	ں		ح	س	ص	ط	ع			ک	ل	م	د	ر	و	ه
Unicode				0621 ..	0627 ..	0649 ..	06BA ..		062D ..	0633 ..	0635 ..	0637 ..	0639 ..			066F ..	0644 ..	0645 ..	062F ..	0631 ..	0648. ..	0647 ..
madda above			ۤ		آ
Unicode	06E4. 0653.				0622 ..
Hamza below			ــٕـ		إ
Unicode	0655.				0625 ..
Hamza above			ــٔـ		أ	ئ															ؤ	ۀ
Unicode	0674. 0654.				0623 ..	0626 ..															0624 ..	06C0 ..

^i. The i'jam diacritic characters are illustrative only; in most typesetting the combined characters in the middle of the table are used.

^ii. Persian yē has 2 dots below in the initial and middle positions only. The standard Arabic version ي يـ ـيـ ـي always has 2 dots below.

Letters that do not link to a following letter

Seven letters (و, ژ, ز, ر, ذ, د, ا) do not connect to the following letter, unlike the rest of the letters of the alphabet. The 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 ا alef is at the beginning of a word such as اینجا injâ ("here"), the same form is used as in an isolated alef. In the case of امروز emruz ("today"), the letter ر re takes the final form and the letter و vâv takes the isolated form, but they are in the middle of the word, and ز also has its isolated form, but it occurs at the end of the word.

Diacritics

Persian script has adopted a subset of Arabic diacritics: zabar /æ/ (fatḥah in Arabic), zēr /e/ (kasrah in Arabic), and pēš /ou̯/ or /o/ (ḍammah in Arabic, pronounced zamme in Western Persian), tanwīne nasb /æn/ and šaddah (gemination). Other Arabic diacritics may be seen in Arabic loanwords in Persian.

Short vowels

Of the four Arabic diacritics, the Persian language has adopted the following three for short vowels. The last one, sukūn, which indicates the lack of a vowel, has not been adopted.

Short vowels (fully vocalized text)	Name (in Persian)	Name (transliterated)	Trans.(a)	Value (b) (Farsi/Dari)
064E ◌َ‎	زبر (فتحه)	zebar/zibar	a	/æ/	/a/
0650 ◌ِ‎	زیر (کسره)	zer/zir	e; i	/e/	/ɪ/; /ɛ/
064F ◌ُ‎	پیش (ضمّه)	peš/piš	o; u	/o/	/ʊ/

^a. There is no standard transliteration for Persian. The letters 'i' and 'u' are only ever used as short vowels when transliterating Dari or Tajik Persian. See Persian Phonology

^b. Diacritics differ by dialect, due to Dari having 8 distinct vowels compared to the 6 vowels of Farsi. See Persian Phonology

In Farsi, none of these short vowels may be the initial or final grapheme in an isolated word, although they may appear in the final position as an inflection, when the word is part of a noun group. In a word that starts with a vowel, the first grapheme is a silent alef which carries the short vowel, e.g. اُمید (omid, meaning "hope"). In a word that ends with a vowel, letters ع, ه and و respectively become the proxy letters for zebar, zir and piš, e.g. نو (now, meaning "new") or بسته (bast-e, meaning "package").

Tanvin (nunation)

Main article: Nunation

Nunation (Persian: تنوین, tanvin) is the addition of one of three vowel diacritics to a noun or adjective to indicate that the word ends in an alveolar nasal sound without the addition of the letter nun.

Nunation (fully vocalized text)	Name (in Persian)	Name (transliterated)	Notes
064B َاً، ـاً، ءً ‎	تنوین نَصْبْ	Tanvine nasb
064D ٍِ ‎	تنوین جَرّ	Tanvine jarr	Never used in the Persian language. Taught in Islamic nations to complement Quran education.
064C ٌ ‎	تنوین رَفْعْ	Tanvine rafʿ

Tašdid

Main article: Shadda

Symbol	Name (in Persian)	Name (transliteration)
0651 ّ ‎	تشدید	tašdid

Other characters

The following are not actual letters but different orthographical shapes for letters, a ligature in the case of the lâm alef. As to ﺀ (hamza), it has only one graphical form since it is never tied to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes 'seated' on a vâv, ye or alef, and in that case, the seat behaves like an ordinary vâv, ye or alef respectively. Technically, hamza is not a letter but a diacritic.

Name	Pronunciation	IPA	Unicode	Final	Medial	Initial	Stand-alone	Notes
alef madde	â	[ɒ]	U+0622	ـآ	—	آ	آ	The final form is very rare and is freely replaced with ordinary alef.
he ye	-eye or -eyeh	[eje]	U+06C0	ـۀ	—	—	ۀ	Validity of this form depends on region and dialect. Some may use the two-letter ـه‌ی or ه‌ی combinations instead.
lām alef	lā	[lɒ]	U+0644 (lām) and U+0627 (alef)	ـلا	—	—	لا
kašida			U+0640	—	ـ	—	—	This is the medial character which connects other characters

Although at first glance, they may seem similar, there are many differences in the way the different languages use the alphabets. For example, similar words are written differently in Persian and Arabic, as they are used differently.

Unicode has accepted U+262B ☫ FARSI SYMBOL in the Miscellaneous Symbols range. In Unicode 1.0 this symbol was known as SYMBOL OF IRAN. It is a stylization of الله (Allah) used as the emblem of Iran. It is also a part of the flag of Iran.

The Unicode Standard has a compatibility character defined U+FDFC ﷼ RIAL SIGN that can represent ریال, the Persian name of the currency of Iran.

Novel letters

The Persian alphabet has four extra letters that are not in the Arabic alphabet: /p/, /t͡ʃ/ (ch in chair), /ʒ/ (s in measure), /ɡ/. An additional fifth letter ڤ was used for /β/ (v in Spanish huevo) but it is no longer used.

Sound	Shape	Name	Unicode code point
/p/	پ	pe	U+067E
/t͡ʃ/ (ch)	چ	če	U+0686
/ʒ/ (zh)	ژ	že	U+0698
/ɡ/	گ	gâf	U+06AF

Deviations from the Arabic script

Persian uses the Eastern Arabic numerals, but the shapes of the digits 'four' (۴), 'five' (۵), and 'six' (۶) are different from the shapes used in Arabic. All the digits also have different codepoints in Unicode:

Hindu-Arabic	Persian	Name	Unicode	Arabic	Unicode
0	۰	صفر sefr	U+06F0	٠	U+0660
1	۱	يک yek	U+06F1	١	U+0661
2	۲	دو do	U+06F2	٢	U+0662
3	۳	سه se	U+06F3	٣	U+0663
4	۴	چهار čahâr	U+06F4	٤	U+0664
5	۵	پنج panj	U+06F5	٥	U+0665
6	۶	شش šeš	U+06F6	٦	U+0666
7	۷	هفت haft	U+06F7	٧	U+0667
8	۸	هشت hašt	U+06F8	٨	U+0668
9	۹	نه no	U+06F9	٩	U+0669
-	ی	ye	U+06CC	ي	U+064A
-	ک	kâf	U+06A9	ك	U+0643

Comparison of different numerals

See also: Eastern Arabic numerals § Numerals

Western Arabic	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Eastern Arabic	٠	١	٢	٣	٤	٥	٦	٧	٨	٩	١٠
Persian	۰	۱	۲	۳	۴	۵	۶	۷	۸	۹	۱۰
Urdu	۰	۱	۲	۳	۴	۵	۶	۷	۸	۹	۱۰
Abjad numerals		ا	ب	ج	د	ه	و	ز	ح	ط	ي

Word boundaries

Typically, words are separated from each other by a space. Certain morphemes (such as the plural ending '-hâ'), however, are written without a space. On a computer, they are separated from the word using the zero-width non-joiner.

Cyrillic Persian alphabet in Tajikistan

As part of the russification of Central Asia, the Cyrillic script was introduced in the late 1930s. The alphabet has remained Cyrillic since then. In 1989, with the growth in Tajik nationalism, a law was enacted declaring Tajik the state language. In addition, the law officially equated Tajik with Persian, placing the word Farsi (the endonym for the Persian language) after Tajik. The law also called for a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic alphabet.

The Persian alphabet was introduced into education and public life, although the banning of the Islamic Renaissance Party in 1993 slowed adoption. In 1999, the word Farsi was removed from the state-language law, reverting the name to simply Tajik.^[1] As of 2004 the de facto standard in use is the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet,^[2] and as of 1996 only a very small part of the population can read the Persian alphabet.^[3]

See also

• Scripts used for Persian
• Romanization of Persian
• Persian braille
• Persian phonology
• Abjad numerals
• Nastaʿlīq, the calligraphy used to write Persian before the 20th century

External links

• Dastoore khat – The Official document in Persian by Academy of Persian Language and Literature