In the transition of Persian from Old to Middle Persian and finally to New Persian, there is a significant phonemic change: the reduction of vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV) sequence to either of the vowels. During this process, the consonant and the other vowel are omitted.
Avestan / Old Persian |
Middle Persian | New Persian |
---|---|---|
šîyâtî | šâtî | šâdî |
čavant | čant | čand |
duvar | dar | dar |
xšâyaθîya | šâha → šâh | šâh |
Dialects of New Persian
VCV phoneme reduction has occurred within New Persian as well. There are many reductions both in standard dialect and regional dialects. Interestingly, in some dialects, a different vowel has left the sequence, resulting in having, for example, both “mînam” and “monam” as the reduced forms of “mîkonam”.
Full Form | Reduced Form |
---|---|
pîrâhan | pîran |
nevardebâm | nardebâm |
xwâhar | xwâr |
barâdar | barâr |
xodemûn | xomûn |
Reduction in Conjugation
VCV reduction is extensively found in the conjugation of verbs in spoken Persian:
Full Form | Reduced Form |
---|---|
mîšavam | mîšam |
mîravam | mîram |
mîxwâham | mîxwâm |
mîdaham | mîdam |
mîtavânam | mîtânam → mîtûnam |
mîgûyam | mîgam, mîgûm |
mîyâvaram | mîyâram |
mîyâyam mîgâyad mîzâyad |
mîyâm mîgâd mîzâd |
mîgozâram | mîzâram |
mîkonam | mînam, monam |
mîbînam | mînam |
mîdânam | mînam |
rafte bûdam | raftûdam |