Persian phonology
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| Persian languages |
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History
Writing systems |
The Persian language has six vowels and twenty-three consonants, including two affricates, /ʧ/ and /ʤ/.
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[edit] Vowels
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. In Modern Persian, this distinction of quantity is neutralized in most environments; short vowels lengthen in closed syllables. Because the neutralization is not complete and other processes, including a number of vowel quality alternations, depend on this distinction of length, it is not possible to analyze the underlying vowel inventory of Modern Persian without length. On the other hand, for reasons of concreteness, it is not desirable to analyze the short and long vowels as identical in quality (with their respective differences being derived by rule.)
Word-final /o/ does not occur frequently (except for to - 'thou'), and word-final /æ/ is very rare in Iranian Persian (except for næ - 'no'). The word-final /æ/ in Early New Persian mostly shifted to /e/ in contemporary Iranian Persian (often romanized as <eh>), but is preserved in the Eastern dialects.
[edit] Diphthongs
Persian has two diphthongs, /ei/ and /ou/.
[edit] Chart
| Phoneme (in IPA) | Letter | Romanization | Example(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| /æ/ | َ , ا | a, æ | /næ/ نه no |
| /ɒ/ | آ , ا | a, aa, ā, â, A | /tɒ/ تا till |
| /e/ | ِ , ا | e | /ke/ که that |
| /i/ | ی | i, ee, y | /ki/ کی who |
| /o/ | ا , ُ , و | o | /to/ تو thou, you (singular) |
| /u/ | و | u, oo, ou | /tu/ تو in |
| /ei/ | ی | ey, ei, ay, ai | /kei/ کی when |
| /ou/ | و | ow, au | /kou/ کو weevil |
[edit] Historical shifts
Early New Persian had eight vowels: /i, ī, ē, u, ū, ō, a, ā/. The following chart describes their shifts into Tajik, Afghan Dari, and contemporary Iranian Persian (Windfuhr 1987, p. 543).
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
See also: Tajik language
[edit] Consonants
Alveolar stops /t/ and /d/ are either apico-alveolar or apico-dental. The unvoiced plosives /p, t, ʧ, k/ are aspirated much like their English counterparts: they become aspirated when they begin a syllable, though aspiration is not contrastive (Mahootian 1997, p. 287-288). When /ɣ/ occurs at the beginning of a word, it is realized as a voiced uvular plosive [ɢ].
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labial
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alveolars |
post-alveolars
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velars |
glottals |
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| voiceless stops |
p
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t
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ʧ
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k
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ʔ
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| voiced stops |
b
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d
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ʤ
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g
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|
| voiceless fricatives |
f
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s
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ʃ
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x
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h
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| voiced fricatives |
v
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z
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ʒ
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ɣ
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| nasals |
m
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n
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|||
| liquids |
l, ɾ
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||||
| glides |
j
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Note that /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ are affricates, not stops.
[edit] Chart
| Phoneme | Sound (in IPA) | Letter | Romanization | Example(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /p/ | [p] | پ | p | پارسی |
| /b/ | [b] | ب | b | بانو |
| /t/ | [t] | ت , ط | t | توران |
| /d/ | [d] | د | d | دنيا |
| /k/ | [k] | ک | k | كشور |
| /g/ | [g] | گ | g | گروه |
| /ʔ/ | [ʔ] | ء , ع | ' , Ø | عمل / مسائل |
| /ʧ/ | [ʧ] | چ | ch, č, c | چوب |
| /ʤ/ | [ʤ] | ج | j, ǰ | جوان |
| /f/ | [f] | ف | f | فارسی |
| /v/ | [v] | و | v | ويژه |
| /s/ | [s] | س , ص, ث | s | سايه |
| /z/ | [z] | ز , ذ , ض , ظ | z | آزاد |
| /ʃ/ | [ʃ] | ش | sh, š | شاه |
| /ʒ/ | [ʒ] | ژ | zh, ž | پژوهش |
| /x/ | [x] | خ | kh, x | خانواده |
| /ɣ/ | [ɣ] | غ , ق | gh, q, ġ | باغ |
| /ɣ/ | [ɢ] | غ , ق | q, gh | غذا |
| /h/ | [h] | ه , ح | h | حال |
| /m/ | [m] | م | m | نام |
| /n/ | [n] | ن | n | نان |
| /l/ | [l] | ل | l | لب |
| /ɾ/ | [ɾ] | ر | r | رستوران |
| /j/ | [j] | ی | y | يا |
[edit] Stress
One syllable in each word (or breath group) is stressed, and knowing the rules is conducive to proper pronunciation. One of the few textbooks to state the rules is Mace's Persian Grammar, from which they are synopsized as follows.
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.
[edit] 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. As synopsized from Mace's Persian Grammar, they include:
- Written -ɒn- is nearly always pronounced /-un-/. The only common exceptions are high prestige words, like the Qur'an /ɢoɾʔɒn/, and Iran /iɾɒn/, 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.
[edit] References
- Windfuhr, Gernot L. (1987), "Persian" in Bernard Comrie, ed., The World's Major Languages, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Mahootian, Shahrzad (1997), Persian, London: Routledge.
- Mace, John (2002), Persian Grammar, London: RoutledgeCurzon, ISBN 0700716955.
