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'.
41-837: Khowar ( Khowar : کھوار زبان , romanized: khowār , IPA: [kʰɔːwaːr] ), or Chitrali , is a Dardic language of the Indo-Aryan language family primarily spoken in Chitral and surrounding areas in Pakistan . Khowar is the lingua franca of Chitral , and it is also spoken in the Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as well in the Upper Swat district . Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres, with Peshawar , Islamabad , Lahore and Karachi having significant populations. It
82-438: A nearly Sanskritic form". Khowar has a variety of dialects, which may vary phonemically. The following tables lay out the basic phonology of Khowar. Khowar may also have nasalized vowels and a series of long vowels /ɑː/ , /ɛː/ , /iː/ , /ɔː/ , and /uː/ . Sources are inconsistent on whether length is phonemic, with one author stating "vowel-length is observed mainly as a substitute one. The vowel-length of phonological value
123-520: 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 . 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
164-495: A standard Khowar script continued for decades into the 1970s. This process was not without controversy either. Some literaturists were advocating for keeping the number of letters to a minimum, or in other words removing Arabic letters that do not represent distinct sounds in Khowar and are homophone with other letters (for example ث، ذ، ص , being homophone with س، ز، س respectively). In total, 6 new letters were added to
205-446: A standard Khowar script continued for decades into the 1970s. This process was not without controversy either. Some literaturists were advocating for keeping the number of letters to a minimum, or in other words removing Arabic letters that do not represent distinct sounds in Khowar and are homophone with other letters (for example ث، ذ، ص , being homophone with س، ز، س respectively). In total, 6 new letters were added to
246-526: A very early location of proto-Khowar in its original abode in Upper Chitral, although from its links with the Gandhari language , it likely came from further south in the first millennium BC, possibly through Swat and Dir . Georg Morgenstierne noted, "Khowar, in many respects [is] the most archaic of all modern Indian languages , retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in
287-400: 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"). 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
328-636: Is cursive , meaning most letters in a word connect to each other; when they are typed, contemporary word processors automatically join adjacent letter forms. 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,
369-638: 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 ,
410-658: Is also spoken as a second language by the Kalash people . The native name of the language is Khō-wār , meaning "language" ( wār ) of the Kho people . The word Khō-wār is a cognate with the Serbian and Bulgarian говор (pronounced "govor," meaning "speech"), with the unstable "г" subject to palatalization (as in other related languages, such as the Czech cognate hovor ). During the British Raj it
451-581: Is derived from Urdu alphabet , with additional letters created to represent sounds unique to Khowar. Similar to Urdu, Khowar is typically written in the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script . From the end of the 19th century onwards, literaturists and rulers of Chitral princely state have put in much effort to popularize literacy, reading, and writing in Khowar. Initially, Mirza Muhammad Shakur and Prince Tajumal Shah Mohfi adopted Persian alphabet , used in neighbouring Afghanistan . However, Persian alphabet did not have letters for many unique sounds in Khowar. By
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#1732847786904492-581: Is derived from Urdu alphabet , with additional letters created to represent sounds unique to Khowar. Similar to Urdu, Khowar is typically written in the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script . From the end of the 19th century onwards, literaturists and rulers of Chitral princely state have put in much effort to popularize literacy, reading, and writing in Khowar. Initially, Mirza Muhammad Shakur and Prince Tajumal Shah Mohfi adopted Persian alphabet , used in neighbouring Afghanistan . However, Persian alphabet did not have letters for many unique sounds in Khowar. By
533-402: Is noted far more rarely." Unlike the neighboring and related Kalasha language , Khowar does not have retroflex vowels. Allophones of /x ɣ h ʋ ɾ/ are heard as sounds [χ ʁ ɦ w ɹ] . /q x ɣ f/ are restricted to Perso-Arabic loanwords in most IA languages but they occur natively in Khowar. Khowar, like many Dardic languages , has either phonemic tone or stress distinctions. Khowar orthography
574-634: 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 . 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
615-574: 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
656-438: The Gandhari language , it likely came from further south in the first millennium BC, possibly through Swat and Dir . Georg Morgenstierne noted, "Khowar, in many respects [is] the most archaic of all modern Indian languages , retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form". Khowar has a variety of dialects, which may vary phonemically. The following tables lay out
697-412: The Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as well in the Upper Swat district . Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres, with Peshawar , Islamabad , Lahore and Karachi having significant populations. It is also spoken as a second language by the Kalash people . The native name of the language is Khō-wār , meaning "language" ( wār ) of
738-450: The Kho people . The word Khō-wār is a cognate with the Serbian and Bulgarian говор (pronounced "govor," meaning "speech"), with the unstable "г" subject to palatalization (as in other related languages, such as the Czech cognate hovor ). During the British Raj it was known to the English as Chitrālī (a derived adjective from the name of the Chitral region ) or Qāshqārī . Among
779-509: 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 . The Persian alphabet has four extra letters that are not in
820-536: 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,
861-408: The 37-letter Urdu Alphabet, to create the 43-letter Khowar script. Khowar language Khowar ( Khowar : کھوار زبان , romanized: khowār , IPA: [kʰɔːwaːr] ), or Chitrali , is a Dardic language of the Indo-Aryan language family primarily spoken in Chitral and surrounding areas in Pakistan . Khowar is the lingua franca of Chitral , and it is also spoken in
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#1732847786904902-690: The 37-letter Urdu Alphabet, to create the 43-letter Khowar script. Persian alphabet 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
943-404: 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
984-722: 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. 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 : sefr yek do se čahâr panj šeš haft hašt no Typically, words are separated from each other by
1025-524: 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
1066-671: The Pashtuns and Badakhshanis it is known as Kashkār . Another name, used by Leitner in 1880, is Arnyiá or Arniya , derived from the Shina language name for the part of the Yasin (a valley in Gilgit-Baltistan) where Khowar is spoken. The Khowar language expanded throughout Chitral from the northern part of the region, specifically from the Mulkhow and Torkhow Valley . According to Morgenstierne ,
1107-651: 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
1148-481: The addition of the letter nun. Taught in Islamic nations to complement Quran education. 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,
1189-728: The basic phonology of Khowar. Khowar may also have nasalized vowels and a series of long vowels /ɑː/ , /ɛː/ , /iː/ , /ɔː/ , and /uː/ . Sources are inconsistent on whether length is phonemic, with one author stating "vowel-length is observed mainly as a substitute one. The vowel-length of phonological value is noted far more rarely." Unlike the neighboring and related Kalasha language , Khowar does not have retroflex vowels. Allophones of /x ɣ h ʋ ɾ/ are heard as sounds [χ ʁ ɦ w ɹ] . /q x ɣ f/ are restricted to Perso-Arabic loanwords in most IA languages but they occur natively in Khowar. Khowar, like many Dardic languages , has either phonemic tone or stress distinctions. Khowar orthography
1230-476: The early 20th century, as under British Colonial rule, Urdu education and literacy became ever more popular among Indian Muslims (see Hindi–Urdu controversy ), Chitrali literaturists, namely Sir Nasir ul-Mulk and Mirza Muhammad Ghafran saw Urdu script as a better fit for Khowar. Nonetheless, Urdu also lacked sounds that existed in Chitrali. Thus, new letters were proposed and created. But the process of settling on
1271-424: The early 20th century, as under British Colonial rule, Urdu education and literacy became ever more popular among Indian Muslims (see Hindi–Urdu controversy ), Chitrali literaturists, namely Sir Nasir ul-Mulk and Mirza Muhammad Ghafran saw Urdu script as a better fit for Khowar. Nonetheless, Urdu also lacked sounds that existed in Chitrali. Thus, new letters were proposed and created. But the process of settling on
Khowar - Misplaced Pages Continue
1312-678: 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. 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 / æ n / and šaddah ( gemination ). Other Arabic diacritics may be seen in Arabic loanwords in Persian. Of
1353-425: 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
1394-482: 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. (Farsi/Dari) ^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
1435-459: 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
1476-489: 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. 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'. Another obsolete variant of
1517-435: The northern part of the region, specifically from the Mulkhow and Torkhow Valley . According to Morgenstierne , the original abode of the Khowar language was northern Chitral in the valleys around Mastuj . The Khowar language started expanding into southern Chitral around the early 14th century. Khowar shares a great number of morphological characteristics with neighbouring Iranian languages of Badakhshan , pointing to
1558-427: The original abode of the Khowar language was northern Chitral in the valleys around Mastuj . The Khowar language started expanding into southern Chitral around the early 14th century. Khowar shares a great number of morphological characteristics with neighbouring Iranian languages of Badakhshan , pointing to a very early location of proto-Khowar in its original abode in Upper Chitral, although from its links with
1599-435: The seat behaves like an ordinary vâv , ye or alef respectively. Technically, hamza is not a letter but a diacritic. 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
1640-473: The twenty-sixth letter گ / g / is ݣ which used to appear in old manuscripts. ^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. Seven letters ( و , ژ , ز , ر , ذ , د , ا ) do not connect to
1681-416: Was known to the English as Chitrālī (a derived adjective from the name of the Chitral region ) or Qāshqārī . Among the Pashtuns and Badakhshanis it is known as Kashkār . Another name, used by Leitner in 1880, is Arnyiá or Arniya , derived from the Shina language name for the part of the Yasin (a valley in Gilgit-Baltistan) where Khowar is spoken. The Khowar language expanded throughout Chitral from