Persian phonology

The Persian language has six vowels and twenty-three consonants, including two affricates, IPA|/tʃ/ and IPA|/dʒ/.

Vowels

Diachronically, Persian possessed a distinction of length in its underlying vowel inventory, contrasting the long vowels IPA|/iː/, IPA|/uː/, IPA|/ɒː/ with the short vowels IPA|/e/, IPA|/o/, IPA|/æ/ respectively.

Word-final IPA|/o/ does not occur frequently (except for "to" - 'thou'), and word-final IPA|/æ/ is very rare in Iranian Persian (except for "næ" - 'no'). The word-final IPA|/æ/ in Early New Persian mostly shifted to IPA|/e/ in contemporary Iranian Persian (often romanized as ), but is preserved in the Eastern dialects.

The chart below reflects the vowels of many educated Persian speakers from Tehran.

Diphthongs

Persian has two diphthongs, IPA|/eɪ/ and IPA|/oʊ/.

Chart

Alveolar stops IPA |/t/ and IPA |/d/ are either apico-alveolar or apico-dental. The unvoiced stops IPA |/p, t, tʃ, k/ are aspirated much like their English counterparts: they become aspirated when they begin a syllable, though aspiration is not contrastive.cite book | title=Persian | year=1997 | last=Mahootian | first=Shahrzad | publisher=Routledge | location=London | isbn=0-415-02311-4 | pages=287,292,303,305 ]

When IPA |/ɣ/ occurs at the beginning of a word, it is realized as a voiced uvular plosive IPA | [ɢ] .cite book | title=Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet | year=1999 | author=International Phonetic Association | location=Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press | isbn=978-0521637510 | pages=124–125 ] cite book | title=Linguistic Convergence and Areal Diffusion: Case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic | year=2005 | last=Jahani | first=Carina | chapter=The Glottal Plosive: A Phoneme in Spoken Modern Persian or Not? | publisher=RoutledgeCurzon | editor=Éva Ágnes Csató, Bo Isaksson, and Carina Jahani | location=London | isbn=0-415-30804-6 | pages=79–96 ] In Classical Persian, غ and ق denoted IPA| [ɣ] and IPA| [q] , respectively. In modern Tehrani Persian (which is used in the Iranian mass media), there is no difference in the pronunciation of غ and ق (both of them representing IPA| [ɣ] or IPA| [ɢ] , depending on their position in the word). 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).

Voiced alveolar IPA |/ɾ/ can have a trilled allophonic variant at the beginning of a word.

Phonotactics

yllable Structure

Syllables may be structured as (C) V (C) (C) .

tress

One syllable in each word (or breath group) is stressed, and knowing the rules is conducive to proper pronunciation. cite book | title=Persian Grammar: For reference and revision | year=2003 | last=Mace | first=John | publisher=RoutledgeCurzon | location=London | isbn=0700716955 ]

"General rule:"

I. Stress falls on the last stem syllable of most words.

"Exceptions and clarifications:"

II. Stress falls on the first syllable of interjections, conjunctions and vocatives. E.g. /'bale/ "yes", /'nakheir/ "no indeed", /'vali/ "but", /'cerā/ "why", /'agar/ "if", /'mersi/ "thanks", /'xānom/ "Ma'am", /'āqā/ "Sir"; cf. IV-3 "īnfrā".

III. Never stressed are: 1) personal suffixes on verbs ("-am" "I do..", "-i" "you do..", .., "-and" "they do..") (with one exception, cf. IV-1 "īnfrā"); 2) a small set of very common noun enclitics: the "ezāfe" ("-e"/"-ye") "of", "-rā" " [direct object marker] ", "-i" "a, an", "-o" "and"; 3) the possessive and pronoun-object suffixes, "-am", "-et", "-esh", &c.

IV. Always stressed are: 1) the personal suffixes on the positive future auxiliary verb (the single exception to III-1 "suprā"); 2) the negative verb prefix "na-/ne-", if present; 3) if "na-/ne-" is not present, then the first non-negative verb prefix (e.g. "mi-" "-ing", "bi-" "Do!", and the prefix noun in compound verbs (e.g. "kār" in "kār mi-kardam"); 3) the last syllable of all other words, including the infinitive ending "-an" and the participial ending "-te" in verbal derivatives, noun suffixes like "-i" "-ish" and "-egi", all plural suffixes ("-hā", "-ān"), adjective comparative suffixes ("-tar", "-tarin"), and ordinal-number suffixes ("-om"). Nouns not in the vocative are stressed on the final syllable: /xā'nom/ "lady", /ā'qā/ "gentleman"; cf. II "suprā".

In transcription, enclitics (like the "ezāfe") and personal suffixes should be written separated from their words by a hyphen, to show that they are unstressed. Stressed prefixes should be joined with a hyphen. Interjections &c. should be marked with an acute diacritic on their initial syllable.

Colloquial Iranian Persian

When spoken formally, Iranian Persian is pronounced as written. But colloquial pronunciation as used by all classes makes a number of very common substitutions. They include:

* Written "-ɒn-" is nearly always pronounced /-un-/. The only common exceptions are high prestige words, like the Qur'an [IPA|ɢorʔɒn] , and Iran [IPA|ʔirɒn] , which are pronounced as written. A few words with "-ɒm-" are pronounced /-um-/, especially the verb "to come".

* The unstressed direct object suffix marker "rɒ" is pronounced /ro/, or /o/ after a consonant.

* The stems of many verbs have a short colloquial form, especially "æst" "he/she is" is colloquially pronounced /e/ after a consonant.

* The 2nd and 3rd person plural suffixes "-id" and "-ænd" become /-in/ and /-æn/, respectively.

* Many frequently-occurring verbs become shortened, such as "mixɒhæm" "I want" to "mixɒm", and "mirævæm" "I go" to "miræm".

Example

References

ee also

*Persian alphabet

External links

* [http://www.elda.org/catalogue/en/speech/S0112.html Farsdat – Persian speech database]