The phonology of the Persian language varies between regional dialects and standard varieties. Persian is a pluricentric language and countries that have Persian as an official language have separate standard varieties, namely: Standard Dari (Afghanistan), Standard Iranian Persian (Iran) and Standard Tajik (Tajikistan). The most significant differences between standard varieties of Persian are their vowel systems. Standard varieties of Persian have anywhere from 6 to 8 vowel distinctions, and similar vowels may be pronounced differently between standards. However, there are not many notable differences when comparing consonants, as all standard varieties have a similar number of consonant sounds. Though, colloquial varieties generally have more differences than their standard counterparts. Most dialects feature a contrastive pitch-accent and syllable-final consonant clusters. Linguists tend to focus on Iranian Persian, so this article may contain less adequate information regarding other varieties.
Vowels
+ Tehrani Persian vowel chart Front Back Close Mid Open
+ Dari vowel chart Front Back long short short long Close ~ () ~ () Mid Open ~
+ Tajik vowel chart Front Central Back Close ~ Mid Open ~
In Iranian Persian there are three short vowels: , and , and three long vowels: , and . The three short vowels are only short when in an open syllable (i.e., without a coda) that is non-final (regardless of stress); e.g., "sound", "God". In an unstressed closed syllable, they are around 60 percent as long as a long vowel. Otherwise all vowels are long; e.g., "firmer". When the short vowels are in open syllables, they are also sometimes unstable and may tend to assimilate in quality to the following long vowel (both in informal and formal speech). Thus, "two hundred" ranges between and ; "crowded" ranges between and ; "to arrive" ranges between and ; and so on.
In Dari the short vowels are , and in Kabul, however is pronounced as in other regions such as Herat (and other places of western Afghanistan closer to eastern Iran) In Dari and Tajik is the most common vowel and at the end (and perhaps even in the middle as well) of a word may be pronounced as . Unlike Iranian Persian, Dari has 5 long vowels , , , , and . The Dari vowel and the Iranian vowel are, respectively, the unrounded and rounded versions of the same vowel. ('roundedness' refers to the shape of the lips during pronunciation)
In Iranian Persian word-final is rare except for "you" and nouns of foreign origin. Word-final is very rare in Iranian Persian, with the exception being "no". The word-final in Early New Persian mostly shifted to in contemporary Iranian Persian, and is also an allophone of in word-final position. is the most common short vowel that is pronounced in final open syllables.
Diphthongs Falling Palatal Labialـُوی//-ـوی//- ـای//ـاو//ـَی//ـَو//
The status of diphthongs in Persian is disputed. Some authors list , others list only and , but some do not recognize diphthongs in Persian at all. A major factor that complicates the matter is the change of two classical and pre-classical Persian diphthongs: and . This shift occurred in Iran but not in some modern varieties (particularly in Afghanistan). Morphological analysis also supports the view that the alleged Persian diphthongs are combinations of the vowels with and , respectively written as and .
Spelling and example words IPA Letter Romanization Example(s) ـَ ,ـَه a "no" ـا, آ ,ـٰى ā "until" ـِ ,ـِه i "that" ـِیـ ,ـِی ī "milk" ـیـ ,ـی ē "lion" ـَیـ ،ـَی ay "cane, flute" ـُ ,ـُه ,ـُو u "you" (singular) ـُو ū "early" ـو ō "strength" ـَو aw "new"
In the modern Perso-Arabic alphabet, the short vowels , and are usually left unwritten, as is normally done in the Arabic alphabet. (See .)
Historical shifts Early New Persian inherited from Middle Persian eight vowels: three short i, a, u and five long ī, ē, ā, ō, ū (in IPA: and ). This system likely passed into the common Persian era from a purely quantitative system into one where the short vowels differed from their long counterparts also in quality: i > ; u > ; ā > . These quality contrasts have, in modern Persian varieties, become the main distinction between the two sets of vowels.
The inherited eight-vowel inventory is retained without major upheaval in Dari, which also preserves quantitative distinctions.
In Iranian Persian, two of the vowel contrasts have been lost: those between the tense mid and close vowels. Thus ē, ī have merged as , while ō, ū have merged as . In addition, the lax close vowels have been lowered: i > , u > ; this vowel change has also happened in many (though not all, and still not in the standardised) dialects of Dari. The lax open vowel has become fronted: a > , and in word-final (and sometimes, even in both word-initial as well as word-medial) positions further raised to . Modern Iranian Persian does not feature distinctive vowel length.
In both varieties, ā is more or less labialized and raised in Dari. Dari ō is also somewhat fronted.
Tajiki has also lost two of the vowel contrasts, but differently from Western Persian. Here, the tense/lax contrast among the close vowels has been eliminated. That is, i and ī have merged as , and u and ū as . The back vowels have chain shifted as well. Open ā has been rounded and raised to an open-mid vowel (compare with Canaanite shift). In northern dialects, mid ō (transcribed phonologically as in the Cyrillic script and "ū" in the Latin script) has shifted to , while in southern dialects, mid ō has shifted upward and merged with ū (and u) as .
A feature of Eastern Persian dialects is the systematic lowering of i and ī (both in Tajiki) to e and ē (both in Tajiki), and u and ū (both in Tajiki) to o and ō (both in Tajiki), directly before a glottal consonant ( or ) that is in the same syllable; loanwords from Arabic generally undergo these changes as well. However, since (o, ō) has merged into (u, ū) in most dialects of southern and central Tajikistan, () is realized before the glottal consonants in those dialects instead. (This phenomenon also occurs in neighbouring Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) Punjabi, Saraiki and Sindhi, but it is only the short vowels i and u that are lowered to e and o before and ; and that too only observed in the Turko-Perso-Arabic lexicon, not at all in Sanskrit- and Prakrit-derived lexicon.)
The following chart summarizes the later shifts into modern Dari, Tajik, and Iranian Persian.
Early New Persian (ENP) and Classical PersianNew PersianExamplesWestern (i.e., Iranian) PersianEastern PersianIndo-PersianDariTajikPerso-Arabic script Tajik Cyrillic script RomanizationEnglish translation ~~~~ šab night wēža special bād wind dil heart šīr milk šēr lion gul flower nūr light rōz day ~ ~ kay when ~ ~ ~ naw new ~ pāy foot ~ gāw cow~ dēw demon, devil, goblin, daeva, div rēw fraud, deceit~ bōy smell, scent xōy custom, humour, nature
Consonants Labial Dento-alveolar Post-alv./Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal Nasal Plosive/Affricatevoiceless ()1voiced Fricative voiceless ~ voiced2 ~ Approximant Tap/Trill ~ Notes:
In central and northwestern Iranian Persian (especially in and around Tehran; see Tehrani accent for more) and have merged into [~~]; as a voiced velar or a uvular fricative when positioned intervocalically and unstressed, and as a voiced uvular stop otherwise. Many other dialects within Iran have well preserved the distinction. While a single diaphoneme, it may be interpreted as phonemic /w/ in Dari (also in Early New Persian and Classical Persian as well), and phonemic /v/ in Iranian Persian. In Dari (as well as in Early New Persian and Classical Persian), this phoneme is fairly stable; it is exclusively realized as [w] without any notable allophonic variations. In Iranian Persian, this phoneme is a stable [v] in the onset, but less stable in the coda, where [w] may occur after certain vowels. In Tajik (largely as a result of the adoption of the Cyrillic alphabet), it varies freely between [w~v] most of the time, but [v] is more common in the syllable onset.
Allophonic variation Alveolar stops and are either apical alveolar or laminal denti-alveolar. The voiceless obstruents are aspirated much (though certainly not in the Early New Persian, as well as in the early Classical Persian; as evidenced by Indo-Persian) like their English counterparts: they become aspirated when they begin a syllable, though aspiration is not contrastive. The Persian language does not have syllable-initial consonant clusters (see below), so unlike in English, are aspirated even following , as in ('I exist'). They are also aspirated at the end of syllables, although not as strongly (with the possible exception of the western/Iranian Persian).
The velar stops are palatalized before front vowels or at the end of a syllable.
In both Early New Persian (ENP) and Classical Persian, the uvular consonants and denoted the original Arabic phonemes, the voiced velar fricative and the voiceless uvular plosive , respectively. In modern Tehrani Persian (which is used in the Iranian mass media, both colloquial and standard), there is little to no difference in the pronunciation of and . The usual realisation is that of a voiced uvular plosive , but a voiced fricative (both velar and uvular; ~ respectively) is common intervocalically. The classical pronunciations of and are well preserved in the eastern varieties, Dari and Tajiki, as well as in the southern varieties (e.g. Zoroastrian Dari language and other Central / Central Plateau or Kermanic languages).
Some Iranian speakers show a similar merger of and , such that alternates with , with the latter being restricted to intervocalic position.
Some speakers front to a voiceless palatal fricative in the vicinity of , especially in syllable-final position. The velar/uvular fricatives are never fronted in such a way.
The flap has a trilled allophone [] at the beginning of a word; otherwise, they contrast between vowels, wherein a trill occurs as a result of gemination (doubling) of [], especially in loanwords of Arabic origin. Only [] occurs before and after consonants; in word-final position, it is usually a free variation between a flap and a trill when followed by a consonant or a pause, but flap is more common; only flap before vowel-initial words. An approximant also occurs as an allophone of before ; is sometimes (especially in western Iranian Persian, and may not even be in Dari) in free variation with in these and other positions, such that ('Persian') is pronounced or and ('scarlet') or . is sometimes realized as a long approximant .
As in many other languages, is realized as bilabial before bilabial stops (i.e., ), as velar before velar stops (i.e., ), and uvlar before uvular stops (i.e., ).
may be voiced to, respectively, before voiced consonants; may be bilabial before bilabial consonants. Also may in some cases change into , or even ; for example ('open') may be pronounced as well as or and/or , colloquially.
Dialectal variation The pronunciation of in Classical Persian shifted to in Iranian Persian and Tajik (though not fully), but is retained in Dari. In modern Persian may be (but not always, especially in many Afghan Persian dialects) lost if preceded by a consonant and followed by a vowel in one whole syllable, e.g. 'sleep', as Persian has no syllable-initial consonant clusters (see below, as well as the silent vāv).
Spellings and example words Phoneme Perso-Arabic alphabet Tajik alphabet Example 'father' 'brother' 'until' 'friend' 'country' 'group' 'meaning' 'wood' 'young' 'pressure' 'special' 'shadow' 'free' 'king' 'dew' 'house' 'west' 'pen' 'seven' 'mother' 'bread' 'lip' 'Iran' 'or'
Before every initial vowel onset, a glottal stop is pronounced (e.g., ).