Phonology of Persian language
Syllable
The syllable patterns of Persian are as follows:
| Pattern | Examples |
|---|---|
| CV | na, to, ke, mâ, khu, si, u |
| CVC | kar, pol, del, kâr, mur, sir, az, in, âb |
| CVCC | kard, goft, zesht, kârd, khoshk, rikht, farsh, ârd, abr |
These patterns can be encapsulated in CV(C)(C). According to the patterns:
- A syllable always begins with a consonant sound. Syllables that begin with a vowel sound, have a preceding glottal stop merged with their sound. That's a feature of Persian. In Persian, all vowels occurring at the beginning of a syllable are articulated with a glottal stop. For example, u is actually pronounced øu, ârd is pronounced øârd and so on.
- The second component of a syllable is a vowel (or a diphthong).
- A syllable can only have one vowel sound. Therefore, each vowel sound indicates a syllable.
Syllabification
The basic rule for breaking a word into its syllables is: each vowel sound indicates a syllable. Therefore, two adjacent vowel sounds belong to separate syllables and are pronounced individually.
| Word | Syllables |
|---|---|
| jodânevisi | jo-dâ-ne-vi-si |
| shamødân | shamø-dân |
| maføul | maf-øul |
| jâmee | jâ-me-e |
| soâl | so-âl |
| Nowruz | Now-ruz |
| nowâvari | now-â-va-ri |
| farhangsâzi | far-hang-sâ-zi |
Double consonants
Like Italian, when a consonant is written twice, it means that they must be pronounced individually. For example, in najjâr the two j's fall into separate syllables and therefore, both are pronounced: naj-jâr. The only exception is when double consonants occur at word final; in this case, since they don't fall into separate syllables, they are pronounced as one sound. Example: khatt (line) but khatti (khat-ti, linear).
| Word | Syllables |
|---|---|
| ammâ | am-mâ |
| pelle | pel-le |
| najjâr | naj-jâr |
| jallâd | jal-lâd |
| khayyât | khay-yât |
Stress position
In Persian, word stress is on the last syllable. There are only a few exceptions that like Spanish, an acute accent ( ´ ) can be placed above the vowel of the syllable that takes stress: bále (yes), ágar (if), ámmâ (but), zírâ (because)
Enclitics
Enclitics are unstressed words that are associated with their preceding word. In English, definite and indefinite articles (the, a, an) are examples for an enclitic.
For educational purposes, the following enclitics are separated from their host word with a hyphen. You can write them separately or join them to their host word:
- genitive preposition: dust-e man, khâne-ye man
- indefinite article: mard-i, sedâ-yi
- bound personal pronouns: ketâb-ash, didam-ash
Conjugation Endings are also enclitics.