Persian Alphabet:

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.
The names of the letter are mostly the ones used in Arabic, except for the Persian
pronunciation. The only ambiguous name is he, which is used for both and . For
clarification, these are often called e-ye jimi (literally "jim-like e" after jim, the
name for the letter that uses the same base form) and he-ye do-em (literally "twoeyed he", after the contextual middle letterform ), respectively

Name

DIN

IPA

Contextual forms

31635
Final

Medial

Initial

Isolated

Hamza [1]

[]

alef

[]

be

[b]

pe

[p]

te

[t]

se

[s]

jim

[d]

che

[t]

e(-ye

[h]

jimi)

10

khe

[x]

11

dl

[d]

12

[z]

13

re

[]

14

ze

[z]

15

[]

][s

sin

16

][

in

17

][s

18

][z

zd

19

][t

20

][z

21

][

eyn

22

][] / [

eyn

23

][f

fe

24

[] / [] / [q] (in some

qf

25

)dialects

][k

kf

26

27

gf

[]

28

lm

[l]

29

mim

[m]

30

nun

[n]

31

vv

v / / ow

[v] / [u] / [o] / [ow] / [o] (in

Dari)

32

he(-ye

ye

[h]

y//

[j] / [i] / [] / [e] (in Dari)

do-em)

33

Letters which do not link to a following letter

Seven letters , , , , , , do not connect to a following letter as the rest of the
letters of the alphabet do. These 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 "alef" is at the beginning of a word such as "inj" (here), the same
form is used as in an isolated "alef". In the case of "emruz" (today), the
letter "re" takes the final form and the letter "vv" takes the isolated form, though

they are in the middle of the word, and also has its isolated form, though it occurs
at the end of the word.

Diacritics:
Persian script has adopted a subset of Arabic diacritics which consists of
zabar

//

(fatah

in

Arabic),

zir

/e/

(kasrah

in

Arabic),

and

pesh /ou/ or /o/ (ammah in Arabic, pronounced as zamme in Persian), sukn, tanwn
nasb /n/ and tashdid (gemination). Other Arabic diacritics may be seen in Arabic
loan-words.

Word Order:
While Persian has a subjectobjectverb (SOV) word order, it is not strongly leftbranching. However, because Persian is a pro drop language, the subject of a
sentence is often not apparent until the end of the verb, and thus the end of the
sentence.

.
Ketb-e bi-ro didam. I saw the blue book.

.
Ketb-e bi-ro didid. You saw the blue book.

In this way, Persian in some ways resembles an object-verb-subject language,

especially for second language learners. If thought of in this way, the verb endings
in Persian can be thought of as a form of pronoun.

The main clause precedes a subordinate clause, often using the familiar
IndoEuropean subordinator keh )(.

.
Be man gof-t keh emruz nemiyd. He told me that he isn't coming today.

The interrogative particle y (), which asks a yes/no question in written Persian,
appears at the beginning of a sentence. Modifiers, such as adjectives, normally
follow the nouns they modify, using the ezfe, although they can precede nouns in
limited uses. The language uses prepositions, uncommon to many SOV languages.
The one case marker, in the written language r (), (in the spoken language ro or o)
follows a definite direct object noun phrase.

.
Ketb-e bi r az ketbxneh geref-t. She got the blue book from the library.

Normal sentences are ordered subjectprepositionobjectverb. If the object is

specific, then the order is "(S) (O + "r") (PP) V". However, Persian can have
relatively free word order, often called "scrambling." This is because the parts of
speech are generally unambiguous, and prepositions and the accusative marker help

disambiguate the case of a given noun phrase. This scrambling characteristic has
allowed Persian a high degree of flexibility for versification and rhyming.

One Eample:

. . . .
. 72
word

mean
teacher

name

am

school

teach

Year

old

have

Pronoun:
Subject Pronouns:
Persian is a null-subject, or pro-drop, language, so personal pronouns (e.g. I, he, she)
are optional. Pronouns generally are the same for all cases. The first-person singular
accusative form man r "me" can be shortened to mar, or in the Spoken
language, mano. Pronominal genitive enclitics are different from the normal
pronouns, however.

Literary forms
Person

Singular

Plural

1st

man

2nd

to

shom

3rd

u ( human) n ( non-human), nh ( non-human/human),

vey ( *human only, literary)

ishn ( human only and formal)

* rarely used
Spoken forms
Person

Singular

Plural

1st

man

2nd

to

shom

3rd

unh/un ( normal),

ishun ( *honorary) ishun ( honorary)

* uses 3rd person plural verb form
Persian resembles French in that the 2nd person plural pronoun 'shom' is used as a
polite form of address. Persian 'to' is used among intimate friends.
C.f. TV_distinction. However, Persian also resembles Hindi/Urdu in that the 3rd

person plural form can also be used in the 3rd person singular when talking about an
honored subject, such as an ayatollah or the king.
Bebakhshin, shom mrikyi hastin? 'Excuse me, are you an American?'
Ishun be man goftan, berim tu. 'He said to me, "Let's go in."

Possessive Pronouns:
Possession is often expressed by adding suffixes to nouns. These same suffixes are
also used as object pronouns.
Possessive Pronouns (Literary Forms)
Person

Singular

Plural

1st

-am

-emn

2nd

-at

-etn

3rd

-ash

-eshn

Possessive Pronouns (Spoken Forms)

Person

Singular

Plural

1st

-am

-emun

2nd

-et

-etun

3rd

-esh

-eshun

Examples:
Ketbetun ruye miz e. 'Your book is on the table.'
Ketbam ruye miz ast. 'My book is on the table.'
Note that when the stem to which these are added ends in a vowel, a "y" is inserted
for ease of pronunciation. However, with the plural marker , it is also common to
drop the -a/-e stem from the possessive marker. For example, 'my cars' could be
translated as either ( mshin hyam) with the y-stem or ( mshin
hm). Or it can be even more simplified to the colloquial spoken form by dropping
"h," for ease of pronunciation to ( mshinm). Sometimes is attached to the
word, like .

Expressing Possession with ezafe:

Another way of expressing possession is by using the Subject Pronouns, or a noun
phrase, with ezfe.
Ketb-e shom ruye miz e. 'Your book is on the table.'
Ketb-e man ruye miz e. 'My book is on the table.'
Ketb-e ostd ruye miz ast. 'The professor's book is on the table.'

Object Pronouns:
The object pronouns are the same as the possessive pronouns, but are attached to
verbs instead of nouns. For example: "Yesterday I saw him."

Direct object incorporation

diruz u r didam Yesterday I saw him.

diruz didamesh

Yesterday I saw him.

Adjective:
Adjectives typically follow the nouns they modify, using the ezfe construct.
However, adjectives can precede nouns in compounded derivational forms, such
as

khosh-bakht

(lit.good-luck)

'lucky',

and

bad-kr

(lit.

bad-deed)

'wicked'. Comparative forms ("more ...") make use of the suffix tar (), while
the superlative form ("the most ...") uses the suffix tarin().
Comparatives used attributively follow the nouns they modify, while superlatives
precede their nouns.
With respect to comparison, "than" is expressed by the preposition "( "az), for
example:

(Sag-e man az gorbe-ye to kuchektar ast; My dog is smaller than your cat.)

Verb:

Normal verbs can be formed using the following morpheme pattern:

( NEG - DUR or SUBJ/IMPER ) - root - PAST - PERSON - ACC-ENCLITIC

Negative prefix: na - changes to ne before the Durative prefix

Imperfective prefix: mi

Subjunctive/Imperative prefix: be

Past suffix: d - changes to t after unvoiced consonants

Optative identifier: an "" is added before the last character of the present tense
of singular third person. There are suggestions that this inflection has been
abandoned, but significant remnants of its usage can still be observed in
contemporary stylish Persian compositions and colloquial proverbs, as in harche
bd bd (" ) come what may" and dast marizd ( ) lit. "May
that hand not spill [what it is holding]", meaning "well done".
Person Suffixes (Literary Forms)

Person

Singular

Plural

1st

-am

-im

2nd

-i

-id

3rd

-ad*

-and

* In the past tense, the past stem alone is used without any ending (e.g. raft , not
*raftad)

Person Suffixes (Spoken Forms)

Person

Singular

Plural

1st

-am

-im

2nd

-i

-id/-in

3rd

-e*

-an

* In the past tense, the past stem alone is used without any ending (e.g. raft , not
*rafte )
Accusative Enclitics (Literary Forms)

Person

Singular

Plural

1st

-am

-emn

2nd

-at

-etn

3rd

-ash

-eshn

Accusative enclitics (Spoken Forms)

Person

Singular

Plural

1st

-am

-emun

2nd

-et

-etun

3rd

-esh

-eshun

Tenses:
These are the most common tenses:
Infinitive: The infinitive ending is formed with -( an), e.g. (khordan) 'to eat.'
The basic stem of the verb is formed by deleting this ending.
Past: The past tense is formed by deleting the infinitive ending and adding the
conjugations to the stem. There are virtually no irregular verbs in the past tense,
unlike English. In the third person singular, there is no conjugation, so ' 'would
become '('khord),he/she/it ate.
Perfect: The perfect tense is formed by taking the stem of the verb, adding (eh) to
the end, and then adding the conjugations. The endings are pronounced with an 'a,'
separately from the ''. So ' 'in the perfect first person singular would be '

( 'khorde am), I have eaten. As with the past tense, the third person singular ending

is also irregular, i.e. it's -. Thus, ' 'would become '( ' khorde ast).
However, in the spoken form, ast is omitted. '( 'khorde) s/he has eaten.
Pluperfect: The pluperfect is formed by taking the stem of the perfect, e.g. ','
adding '('bud),and finally adding the conjugations to the end, thus '

('khorde budam), I had eaten. In the third person singular, either simply no
conjugation or - is accepted. ' 'means 'was,'.
Future: The future tense is formed by first, taking the present tense form of ''
(khstan), to want, and conjugating it to the correct person; this verb in third person
singular is '( 'mi khhad). Next, it is put in front of the unconjugated stem of
the verb, e.g. , thus ' ,' he/she/it will eat. For compound verbs, such as
'( ' tamiz kardan), 'to clean, refresh,' goes in between both words, and
' 'is reduced to its stem, thus ( tamiz khhad kard), he/she/it will
clean. In the negative, ' 'receives -.
Present: The present tense is the most difficult tense in Persian because it is
completely irregular. It is formed by finding the root of the word, adding the prefix
'('mi), and then conjugating it. The third person singular conjugation is -, and this
is probably why the past tense has no conjugation, since many stems already end in
a 'd.' The root of the verb ',' for example, is '('khor), so the present first
person singular would be '(' mi khoram), I eat, am eating, do eat. The negative

- is pronounced 'ne' before 'm,' but in all other tenses is pronounced 'na.'The
present tense in Persian should not be confused with the tenses in Semitic languages,
since many roots are etymologically unrelated to their infinitives, and there is no
solid rule that all verbs follow; however, one will notice after acquiring some
knowledge of Persian verbs that there are a few general patterns that a few similar
verbs follow; for example, with a verb containing -, such as '( 'skhtan),'to
make, build' the - is replaced with , thus the root is '( 'sz). Sometimes the
present tense is used together with an adverb (for example: - tomorrow) instead
of the future tense explained by .

- Tomorrow he will go to cinema.

The present tense construction also has more than just one use. It can also be used
in infinitive constructions and imperatives. In the English sentence 'I want to eat,'
the Persian translation would be ( mi khham bekhoram).' 'is
actually just another form of the present tense, only instead of using the suffix ' ,'
it uses -(be). This - can also be used to form imperatives by attaching it to the
present tense root, thus the imperative form of ' 'would be ',' but could also
be ' 'or simply just '.'

Compound verbs:

Light verbs such as ( kardan) "to do, to make" are often used with nouns to form
what is called a compound verb, light verb construction, or complex predicate. For
example, the word ( goftegu) means "conversation", while ( goftegu
kardan) means "to speak". One may add a light verb after a noun, adjective,
preposition, or prepositional phrase to form a compound verb. Only the light verb
(e.g. kardan) is conjugated; the word preceding it is not affected. For example:
dram goftegu mikonam ("( ) I am speaking")
goftegu karde am ("( ) I have spoken")
goftegu khham kard ("( ) I will speak")
As can be seen from the examples, the head word (in this case, goftegu)
remains unchanged throughout the conjugation, and only the light
verb kardan is conjugated. They may be compared to English verb particle
constructions, such as hand down (leave as an inheritance) and set
up (arrange), or German compound verbs, such as radfahren (to ride by
bicycle) and zurckgehen (to go back).
Some other examples of compound verbs with kardan are:

farmush kardan () , "to forget"

gerye kardan () , "to cry"

telefon kardan () , "to call, to telephone"

bzszi kardan () , "to fix"

Auxiliary verbs:

byad ( )- 'must': Not conjugated. Subordinating clause is

subjunctive

shyad ( )- 'might': Not conjugated. Subordinating clause is

subjunctive

tavnestan ( )- 'can'(literally 'to be able to'): Conjugated.

Subordinating clause is subjunctive

khstan ( )- 'want': Conjugated. Subordinating clause is

subjunctive

khstan ( )- 'will': Conjugated. Main verb is tenseless

Simplified Spoken Verbs:

In the spoken language, certain verbs have been reduced to a one letter
form.

raftan, 'to go' (Literary present form -rav-) Spoken present form -r-.
Eg. Mi-r-am. 'I go.' Mi-r-i. 'You go.' Be-r-im. 'Let's go.'

ddan, 'to give' (Literary present form -deh-) Spoken present form -d. Eg. Mi-d-am. 'I give.' Mi-d-im. 'We give.'

goftan, 'to say' (Literary present form -gu-) Spoken present form -g-.
Eg. Mi-g-am. 'I say.' Mi-g-id. 'You say.'

Spoken Verbs in :
There is another class of spoken verbs whose present tense form ends in
. These verbs take a reduced form of the verb ending as outlined in the
following table.

umadan, 'to come' Spoken present form --.

umadan (to come)

Person Singular Plural

1st

mi--m

mi--ym

2nd

mi--y

mi--yd/mi--yn

3rd

mi--d

mi--n

khstan, 'to want' Spoken present form -khkhstan (to want)

Person Singular

Plural

1st

mi-kh-m mi-kh-ym

2nd

mi-kh-y

mi-kh-yd/mi-kh-yn

mi-kh-d

3rd

mi-kh-n

Prepositions:
Prepositions in Persian generally behave similarly to those in English they
precede their object. They include the following:

Prepositions

Persian

English

andar ()

in (literary)

az ()

from

b ()

with

bar ()

on, upon

barye ()

for

be ()

to

bi ()

without

chon ()

like (formal)

dar ()

at, in

mnande ()

like

t (*)

till, until

ham-chon ()

like, as, such (formal)

t( )actually has many more meanings; it can be used as a correlative

conjunction,e.g. ( az sobh t shab), from morning to night, as a
substitute for a counter, e.g. ( do t farsh) instead of ( do
takhteh farsh), 'two carpets,' and is used idiomatically in an expression such as

( seh hafteh tul keshid t az kram e jadid

lazat baram), 'it took me three weeks to enjoy my new job.'

The sentence in Persian is made by:

Subject + Object + Verb.
For the verb rules in Persian we have:
In Persian we have below grammar:

I have

You have

She/he has

It has

We have

you

They

Gender:
Persian nouns have no grammatical gender. Imported words with the Arabic
feminine ending<-> reduce to a genderless Persian <-> which is pronounced -e.
Many imported Arabic feminine words retain their Arabic feminine plural
form <t>, but Persian descriptive adjectives modifying them remain genderless.
Arabic adjectives also lose their gender in Persian usage.

Pluralization:
All nouns can be made plural using a separate word, h, which follows a noun and
does not change its form. Plural forms are used much less often than in English, and
are not used after numbers or zid 'many'. The plural word <h> is only used when
the noun has no numbers in front of it and is definite (i.e. 'the _______s').
se t ketb three books
zid ketb many books
ketb h the books
Man ketab-o dust dram. I like books.
Un dneshju hastan. They are students.
Un dneshju h hastan. They are the students (i.e., the ones I was talking about
before)

note: in the spoken language, in cases where nouns end with a consonant, h is
reduced to .
Written: nh they
Spoken: un they
While in the literary language animate nouns generally pluralize using the suffix n (or variants -gn and -yn), -h is more common in the spoken
language.[1] Special rules exist for some nouns borrowed from Arabic.
Literary: perandegn birds
Spoken: perande h the birds
Noun Cases[edit]
There are two cases in Persian, nominative case and accusative case, the nominative
is the non-marked form of a noun, when the noun is followed by a r or suffix -o
it is accusative, the other oblique cases are marked by prepositions.

nominative: Ketb njst/ ketbh njyand (the book is there/ the books are
there).

It should be noted that inanimate subjects do not require pluralized verb forms,
especially in the spoken language. Ketbh unjst. (The books is there.)

accusative: Ketab-o (Ketab r) bede be man. (Give me the book).

Possession using ezfe: Ketab-e Arash (Arash's book).

The Definite and Indefinite Articles[edit]

In the literary language, no definite article is used; rather, it is implied by the absence
of the indefinite article. However, in the spoken language, the stressed suffix <-e> is
used as a definite article.
Literary: Ketb ruye miz ast. The book is on the table.

Spoken: Ketb-e ruye miz e. The book is on the table.

For plural nouns, the definite plural marker <h> functions as both the plural marker
and the definite article.
The indefinite article in both spoken and literary Persian is the number
one, yek, often shortened to ye.
Ruye miz yek ketb hast. On the table there is a book.