Persian Alphabet for Arabic speakers

بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following article is a short summary on the Persian alphabet based on the following website: Easy Persian

Persian, otherwise known as Farsi, has the same letters as the Arabic language (plus a few extra) and is read from right to left (an RtL language).

I will list the letters, as well as their pronunciations, as some differ from Arabic in how they are said.

Vowel sounds

The vowel structure is also similar with the presence of the Fat7a, Kasra and Dhamma ( َ , ِ , ُ ) for short vowel sounds and the Alif, Ya and Waw (ا, ي, و) for long vowel sounds. There is no double vowel sound (an or ً).

The Sukun ( ْ ) and Tashdid are also present ( ّ ), as in the case of Arabic.

Letters (with vowel sounds)

The letters with vowels have the following sound structure:

fat7a: aah (like far) - an open mouth sound kasra: eh (like pear - the fruit) dhamma: or/aww (like the expression aww when seeing a cute child)

alif: aah (like when opening the mouth at the dentist/doctor) ⁽¹⁾ yaa: ee (like seen) waw: oo (like cool)

I will now explain how the letters are said (based on the vowel sounds explained above) in comparison to Arabic:

ا: same as Arabic ﺏ: same as Arabic ﭖ: the letter P in English ﺕ, ﻁ, : all pronounced as the letter ﺕ in Arabic ﺙ, ﺫ, ﺱ, ﺹ, : all pronounced as the letter ﺱ in Arabic ﺝ: same as Arabic ﭺ: 'che' sound like check ﺡ, ﻩ : all pronounced as the letter ﻩ in Arabic ﺥ: same as Arabic ﺩ: same as Arabic ﺫ, ﺯ, ﺽ, ﻅ : all pronounced as the letter ﺯ in Arabic ﮊ: 'zhe' sound like bonjour (for those who don't know French, it is similar to a 'sh' sound with an added 'z' in front of the 'sh') ﺵ: same as Arabic ﻉ: same as أ (alif) in Arabic ﻍ : same as Arabic ﻑ : same as Arabic ﻕ : same as ﻍ in Arabic ک : same as ك in Arabic ﮒ : the letter G in English (golf) ﻝ : same as Arabic ﻡ : same as Arabic ﻥ : same as Arabic ﻭ : v in English (van) ى: same as Arabic

(1) it is hard to distinguish between the fat7a and alif sounds, but based on how wide the mouth is opened, there is a subtle difference

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