Persian alphabet

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The Persian or Perso-Arabic alphabet (Persian: الفبای فارسی‎) is a writing system based on the Arabic script. Originally used exclusively for the Arabic language, the Arabic alphabet was adapted to the Persian language, adding four letters: پ [p], چ [t͡ʃ], ژ [ʒ], and گ [ɡ]. Many languages that use the Perso-Arabic script add other letters. Besides the Persian alphabet itself, the Perso-Arabic script has been applied to the Urdu alphabet, Sindhi alphabet, Saraiki alphabet, Kurdish Sorani alphabet, Lurish (Luri), Ottoman Turkish alphabet, Balochi alphabet, Punjabi Shahmukhi script, Tatar, Azeri, and several others.

In order to represent non-Arabic sounds, new letters were created by adding dots, lines, and other shapes to existing letters. For example, the retroflex sounds of Urdu are represented orthographically by adding a small ط above their non-retroflex counterparts: د [d̪] and ڈ [ɖ]. The voiceless retroflex fricative [ʂ] of Pashto is represented in writing by adding a dot above and below the س [s] letter, resulting in ښ. The Close back rounded vowel [u] of Kurdish is written by writing two [u], resulting in ﻭﻭ.


A characteristic feature of this script, possibly tracing back to Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, is that vowels are underrepresented. For example, in Classical Arabic, of the six vowels, the three short ones are normally entirely omitted (although certain diacritics are added to indicate them in special circumstances, notably in the Qur'an), while the three long ones are represented ambiguously by certain consonants. Only Kashmiri, Uyghur, Kyrgyz (in China), Kazakh (in China), Kurdish and (formerly) Bosnian, of the many languages using adaptations of this script, regularly indicate all vowels.


Example showing the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic style's proportion rules.



Name DIN 31635 IPA Contextual forms
Final Medial Initial Isolated
ʾalef ā / ʾ [ɒ], [ʔ] ـا آ / ا
be b [b] ـب ـبـ ب
pe p [p] ـپ ـپـ پ
te t [t] ـت ـتـ
s̱e [s] ـث ـثـ
jim j [d͡ʒ] ـجـ
che č [t͡ʃ] ـچـ
ḥe(-ye jimi) [h] ـحـ
khe x [x] ـخـ
dāl d [d] ـد
ẕāl [z] ـذ
re r [ɾ] ـر
ze z [z] ـز
že ž [ʒ] ـژ ژ
sin s [s] ـس ـسـ
šin š [ʃ] ـش ـشـ
ṣād [s] ـص ـصـ
z̤ād [z] ـض ـضـ ﺿ
ṭā [t] ـط ـطـ
ẓā [z] ـظ ـظـ
ʿeyn ʿ [ʔ] ـع ـعـ
ġeyn ġ [ɣ] / [ɢ] ـغ ـغـ
fe f [f] ـف ـفـ
kāf k [k] ـک ـکـ ک
gāf g [ɡ] ـگ ـگـ گ
lām l [l] ـل ـلـ
mim m [m] ـم ـمـ
nun n [n] ـن ـنـ
Letters which do not link to a following letter



For more details on this topic, see Arabic diacritics.

Persian scripts has adopted a subset of Arabic diacritics which consists of zabar (fathah in Arabic)([æ]), zir (kasrah in Arabic) ([e]), and pesh (ḍammah in Arabic, pronounced as zamme in Persian) ([ou] or [o]), sukūn, tanwīn nasb ([æn]) and tashdid. Other Arabic diacritics may be seen in Arabic words in a Persian text by the virtue of being of Arabic origin.

Other characters[edit]


Name Transliteration IPA Final Medial Initial Stand-alone
alef madde ā [ɒ]
he ye -eye or -eyeh [eje] ۀ
lām alef [lɒ]


Novel letters[edit]


Sound Shape Unicode name
[p] پ pe
[t͡ʃ] (ch) چ che
[ʒ] (zh) ژ zhe
[ɡ] گ gaf

Changes from the Arabic writing system[edit]


  2. The final kâf is typically written without a flourish, while in Arabic it would be .
  3. The Arabic letter tāʾ marbūṭa (ة), unless used in a direct Arabic quotation, is usually changed to a te (ت) or he ه,in accordance with its actual pronunciation. (Tāʾ marbūṭa, used only in feminine nouns, is basically a combined form of "he" and the dots of "te", standing for "t" that, in certain regular contexts, lenites to "h". Since Persian does not maintain the distinction---and has not even got any gender differences---tāʾ marbūṭa is not necessary and is only kept to maintain fidelity to the original Arabic spelling).

Word boundaries[edit]


Languages using the Perso-Arabic script[edit]

Current Use

Former Use
A number of languages have used the Perso-Arabic script before, but have since changed.

Arguments and discussions on use of Perso-Arabic[edit]

In almost all countries which use Perso-Arabic script, there have been discussions between parties about replacing it, often raising the concept of romanization. For example:

Relation to Islamic culture[edit]

Perso-Arabic script in some Islamic countries is being promoted and defended as a sign of Islamic culture. People and governments in some Islamic countries have an interest in this script because of its relation to Islam and because it has been utilized to write the Koran. Therefore the concept of Perso-Arabic script and Romanization in these countries is not a politically or socially neutral subject.[citation needed]

Other Arabic alphabets[edit]

There are many Arabic-derived alphabets which were not influenced by the Perso-Arabic script, including Jawi (used for Malay), Sorabe (Malagasy), and many alphabets used in Northern Africa. These alphabets used other innovations for writing such common sounds as [p] and [ɡ], instead of the Perso-Arabic letters پ and گ, although the Jawi script does use the same symbol for [t͡ʃ] (چ‎).

See also[edit]

External links[edit]