Romanization of Persian

Persian alphabet
ﺍ    ﺏ    پ    ﺕ    ﺙ     ﺝ    چ
ﺡ    ﺥ    ﺩ    ﺫ    ﺭ    ﺯ    ژ
ﺱ    ﺵ     ﺹ    ﺽ    ﻁ    ﻅ
ﻉ    ﻍ    ﻑ    ﻕ    ک    گ
ﻝ    ﻡ    ﻥ    ﻭ    ه    ی
History Transliteration Diacritics Hamza ء Numerals Numeration

Romanization of Persian is the means by which the Persian language is represented using the Latin script. Several different romanization schemes exist, each with its own set of rules driven by its own set of ideological goals.

Romanization paradigms

Because the Perso-Arabic script is an abjad writing system (with a consonant-heavy inventory of letters), many distinct words in standard Persian can have identical spellings, with widely varying pronunciations that differ in their (unwritten) vowel sounds. Thus a romanization paradigm can follow either transliteration (which mirrors spelling and orthography) or transcription (which mirrors pronunciation and phonology).

Transliteration

Transliteration (in the strict sense) attempts to be a complete representation of the original writing, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. Transliterations of Persian are used to represent individual Persian words or short quotations, in scholarly texts in English or other languages that do not use the Arabic alphabet.

A transliteration will still have separate representations for different consonants of the Persian alphabet that are pronounced identically in Persian. Therefore transliterations of Persian are often based on transliterations of Arabic. Persian-alphabet vowel representation is also complex, and transliterations are based on the written form.

Transliterations commonly used in the English-speaking world include BGN/PCGN romanization and ALA-LC Romanization.

Non-academic English-language quotation of Persian words usually uses a simplification of one of the strict transliteration schemes (typically omitting diacritical marks) and/or unsystematic choices of spellings meant to guide English speakers using English spelling rules towards an approximation of the Persian sounds.

An academic and standardized method for official transliteration of Persian also exists which is called Desphilic Persian Standard Romanization (Desphilic PSR). In this transliteration standard, all Persian words are transliterated to standard Latin-1 characters and therefore can be written using an ordinary English keyboard.

Transcription

Transcriptions of Persian attempt to straightforwardly represent Persian phonology in the Latin script, without requiring a close or reversible correspondence with the Perso-Arabic script, and also without requiring a close correspondence to English-language phonetic values of Roman letters; for example, letters such as X, Q, C may be reused for Persian-language phonemes that are not present in English phonology or do not have a consistent or single-letter English spelling.

Proposed Roman-alphabet scripts intended to be a primary representation of Persian, for use by Persian speakers as an alternative to the Perso-Arabic script, fall into this category. Some of these proposed scripts are described at Omniglot.

The Persian language (Tehrani dialect) has six vowels and twenty-three consonants. The Persian sounds have two specifications:

1. every syllable starts with consonants and
2. it is combination of one consonant and one vowel, as in the chart below:

		0	1	2	3	4	5	6
		°	اَ	اِ	اُ	آ	ای	او
			a	e	o	ā	i	u
1	ا ع	'	'a	'e	'o	'ā	'i	'u
2	ب	b	ba	be	bo	bā	bi	bu
3	د	d	da	de	do	dā	di	du
5	ف	f	fa	fe	fo	fā	fi	fu
4	گ	g	ga	ge	go	gā	gi	gu
6	ه ح	h	ha	he	ho	hā	hi	hu
7	ج	j	ja	je	jo	jā	ji	ju
8	ک	k	ka	ke	ko	kā	ki	ku
9	ل	l	la	le	lo	lā	li	lu
10	م	m	ma	me	mo	mā	mi	mu
11	ن	n	na	ne	no	nā	ni	nu
12	پ	p	pa	pe	po	pā	pi	pu
13	ر	r	ra	re	ro	rā	ri	ru
14	س ص ث	s	sa	se	so	sā	si	su
15	ت ط	t	ta	te	to	tā	ti	tu
16	و	v	va	ve	vo	vā	vi	vu
17	ی	y	ya	ye	yo	yā	yi	yu
18	ز ذ ض ظ	z	za	ze	zo	zā	zi	zu
19	چ	ch	cha	che	cho	chā	chi	chu
20	ق غ	gh	gha	ghe	gho	ghā	ghi	ghu
21	خ	kh	kha	khe	kho	khā	khi	khu
22	ش	sh	sha	she	sho	shā	shi	shu
23	ژ	zh	zha	zhe	zho	zhā	zhi	zhu

It is important that use of symbols ' like as one alphabet symbol (it is not necessary only at the beginning of the words or between two vowels of words, but is necessary for Persian transcription in other situation).

Comparison of proposed Persian and neighboring Latin-based scripts

IPA	Desphilic	Ironik	Pk	UP	EF	tm	az	tk	ku	ASCII	English
/æ/	a	A a				Ä ä	Ə ə	E e		a	cat
/ɒː/	A	O o	Á á	Â â	Ã ã	A a				aa	father
/ʃ/	w	C c	Sc sc	Š š		Ş ş				sh	ship
/ʒ/	J j ?	J j	Zc zc	Ž ž			J j			zh	vision
/t͡ʃ/	c C Ç Č	Tc tc	C c			Ç ç				ch	church
/d͡ʒ/	J j ?	Dj dj	J j				C c			j	judge
/ɣ/	Q q						Ğ ğ			gh	none
/χ/	x X Ķ	X x					X x			kh	none
/ʔ/	u U	'		'						'	uh-oh

One common theme is that in transcriptions of Persian, the unmarked letter a is used for the front vowel /æ/, while accented or doubled versions of the letter are used for the back vowel /ɒː/; this is opposite to the conventions in Latin alphabets of Turkic languages, although similar to some romanizations of Arabic.

Romanization schemes

Official Iranian

In 2012, the United Nations approved a romanization system based on the official guidelines adopted by Iran. This system conforms more closely to Persian phonology than the previous system approved in 1967. The new system is also virtually identical to UniPers, the only notable differences being that UniPers â and c become Iranian ā and č, respectively.

Desphilic

Desphilic is one of schemes which targets Persian Standard Romanization (PSR) by transliterating into ordinary English keyboard (Character set of Latin-1). Desphilic Introduced a table for equivalency of letters which corresponds each Perso-Arabic script letter to a Latin-1 charset letter. In addition to Desphilic equivalency of letters, Desphilic standard defines rules and publishes application notes on how to officially transliterate from standard Persian ( Parsi of the book) and all dialects to ordinary Latin-1 keyboard characters(Ordinary English keyboard). For writing Persian using this transliteration, there is no need to use a special kind of keyboard, special version of OS or any special software or hardware. Desphilic standard is a full featured language standard which also defines rules for using and writing Persian pronouns, Persian verb conjugation, Persian tenses and other Persian grammar subjects. Desphilic also defines a Persian Keyboard layout which supports Desphilic extended character set [ ä š ö ü ž ğ ķ ] and contributes to Unipers in defining a Universal Persian standard keyboard.

Ironik and Eronik

Vowels
Ironik	Eronik	in Tadjik		as in	Ironik	Eronik	in Tadjik		as in
Latin		Latin	Cyrillic	IPA	Latin		Latin	Cyrillic	IPA
A a		A a	A a	/æ/	O o		O o	O o	/ɒː/
E e	I i	I i	И и	/e/	U u		U u	У у	/o/
I i	E e	E e	E e		W w		Ū ū	Ӯ ӯ	/uː/
Consonant
Ironik	Eronik	in Tadjik		as in	Ironik	Eronik	in Tadjik		as in
Latin		Latin	Cyrillic	IPA	Latin		Latin	Cyrillic	IPA
B b		B b	Б б	/b/	P p		P p	П п	/p/
C c		Ş ş	Ш ш	/ʃ/	Q q		Q q	Қ қ	/ɣ/
D d		D d	Д д	/d/	R r		R r	Р р	/ɾ/
F f		F f	Ф ф	/f/	S s		S s	С с	/s/
G g		G g	Г г	/ɡ/	T t		T t	Т т	/t/
H h		H h	Ҳ ҳ	/h/	V v		V v	В в	/v/
J j		Ƶ ƶ	Ж ж	/ʒ/	X x		X x	X x	/χ/
K k		K k	K k	/k/	Y y		J j	Й й	/j/
L l		L l	Л л	/l/	Z z		Z z	З з	/z/
M m		M m	М м	/m/	'		'	ъ	/ʔ/
N n		N n	Н н	/n/	-				- [hyphen]
Mixed sounds like Digraphs and Diphthongs
Ironik	Eronik	in Tadjik		as in	Ironik	Eronik	in Tadjik		as in
Latin		Latin	Cyrillic	IPA	Latin		Latin	Cyrillic	IPA
Tc tc		C c	Ч ч	/t͡ʃ/	aw		(av)	(aв)	/æʊ/
Dj dj		Ç ç	Ҷ ҷ	/d͡ʒ/	uw		(av)	(aв)	/oʊ/

Eronik and Ironik (pronounced /irɒːnek/ and /irɒːniːk/, both literally, "Iranian") are Latin-based alphabets proposed in early and late 2010 by Omid Ghayour, to write modern Iranian languages (cf. Proto-Iranian language) These systems compared to others, just use basic Latin alphabets.

These systems are designed to write modern Iranian languages, including Modern Persian, only using the Latin script.

Purpose

To provide the modern Iranian languages, including Persian language with a one-to-one correspondence clear phonetic Latin-based script; To make reading and writing of modern Iranian languages, e.g. Persian language, readily accessible to most users, regardless of their national origin and/or education level.

About the reason of the proposal of this writing method, rumors say this came into mind when in the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010, Omid Ghayour, then the inventor of the conlang Sanivesta planned to gather mathematicians from, say, ancient greater Iran, to create a group Mathistan. Since, for example Persians in Iran and Tajiks in Tajikistan, both speak Iranian languages but one use Perso-Arabic script and the other use Cyrillic alphabet which none of the two knows the alphabet used by the other group. But, they are familiar with Latin script, choosing an alphabet not very common in Iran, made the proposal neutral and accepted by non-Iranian members, There he proposed Eronik which sound of E and I, are more compatible with the one proposed by Latin transliteration of Tadjiki, and have been welcomed by Tadjik mathematicians, but after returning to Iran most of his Iranian colleagues blamed him for using an inappropriate equivalintes for /iː/ and /e/ since in Iran they used to use I for /iː/ and E for /e/ this is why they used to write their country Iran not Eran. So in Late 2010 he proposed the other method Ironik.

By having this philosophy in mind which, if your language is a WYHIWTS/WYSIWTH language (What You Hear Is What They Said/What You Say Is What They Hear), then you should have a writing for that language which it should better be a WYRIWTW/WYWIWTR writing method (What You Read Is What They Wrote/What You Write Is What They Read). Ironik Writing method is proposed as this writing for Farsi (Modern Persian) and other modern Iranian Languages.

Usage

Some place to see the usage of Eronik/Ironik could be multi-national societies such as Matheistan.

UniPers

Vowel	as in	Vowel	as in
A a	/æ/	I i	/i/
 â	/ɒː/	O o	/o/
E e	/e/	U u	/u/
Consonant	as in	Consonant	as in
B b	/b/	Q q	/ɣ/
C c	/tʃ/	R r	/ɾ/
D d	/d/	S s	/s/
F f	/f/	Š š	/ʃ/
G g	/ɡ/	T t	/t/
H h	/h/	V v	/v/
J j	/dʒ/	W w	/w/; only used in ow, xw
K k	/k/	X x	/χ/
L l	/l/	Y y	/j/
M m	/m/	Z z	/z/
N n	/n/	Ž ž	/ʒ/
P p	/p/	'	/ʔ/
Digraph	as	Diphthong	as in
xw	x	ow	/oʊ/

UniPers, also called Pârsiye Jahâni (literally, "Universal Persian") by its creators, is a proposed Latin-based alphabet for the Persian language. The system combines the basic Latin alphabet plus a few modified letters (Â/â, Š/š, Ž/ž, and an apostrophe). The UniPers script combines the basic Latin alphabet plus three modified letters (Â/â, Š/š and Ž/ž), and a handful of common-sense rules and recommendations, in order to best represent the sounds of Persian.

To make reading and writing of the Persian language readily accessible to most users, regardless of their national origin and/or education level. UniPers also defines Persian keyboard layouts to ease user-access to defined characters.

The creators of the system have mentioned that they have the following criteria for their design of the system: serving the Persian language and no other, only using the Latin script, simplicity and ease of use by using a minimal number of diacritical letters and rules, one-to-one correspondence between the sound values of the language and the letters in the system (which may be relaxed in case of š and ž), and conformance with standard pronunciation of the language.

The current official Iranian romanization system is virtually identical to UniPers, the only notable differences being that UniPers â and c are Iranian ā and č, respectively.

There has also been a recent Latin-based alphabet created called Persá that utilizes similar elements with the introduction of new characters with a similar purpose and goal as the UniPers language system.

Introduction

The above alphabetic principle makes reading and writing easy, allowing the reader to pronounce words from their spelling, and the writer to spell them from their sounds. The UniPers alphabet and its rules are founded on this fundamental principle. The statements of purpose of the UniPers script are given below:

Purpose

To provide the Persian language with a standard phonemic Latin-based script that is clear, simple, and consistent. To make reading and writing of the Persian language readily accessible to most users, regardless of their national origin and/or education level.

Axioms

Here are the 5 axioms of the UniPers script:

1. The script must serve the Persian language and not the other way around. No other language should be served.
2. The alphabet and numbers must be exclusively Latin with additional common diacritical letters and symbols if necessary.
3. Simplicity and ease of use. The script must be used for the broadest possible transcription of the Persian sounds with the absolute minimum number of diacritical letters, symbols, and rules.
4. Each letter of the alphabet must have a unique basic Persian sound value. Every basic sound of the Persian language must be exclusively represented by a unique letter of the alphabet. No digraphs, ligatures, or redundant letters are allowed.
5. The spelling rules and conventions must conform, and in no way be in conflict with, the standard pronunciations and flow of the Persian language.

Baha'i Persian romanization

Main article: Bahá'í orthography

Bahá'ís use a system standardized by Shoghi Effendi, which he initiated in a general letter on March 12, 1923. The Bahá'í transliteration scheme was based on a standard adopted by the Tenth International Congress of Orientalists which took place in Geneva in September 1894. Shoghi Effendi changed some details of the Congress's system, most notably in the use of digraphs in certain cases (e.g. sh instead of š), and in incorporating the solar letters when writing the definite article al- (Arabic: ال) according to pronunciation (e.g. ar-Rahim, as-Saddiq, instead of al-Rahim, al-Saddiq).

This transliteration differs significantly from UniPers, especially in vowel presentation. For example, what is in UniPers "Tehran" is presented in many Bahá'í translations as "Tihran". The name of the Bahá'í women's right activist and martyr "Táhirih" would be pronounced in Persian according to the UniPers translation "Tahereh", but never printed as "Tahereh" in Bahá'í books. The use of "i" in the case of "Tahereh", illustrates the Bahá'í system's emphasis on literal correspondence with the Persian script, rather than the pronunciation of the modern national language of Iran. A detailed introduction to the Bahá'í Persian romanization can usually be found at the back of a Bahá'í scripture.

ASCII Internet romanizations

See also: Fingilish

It is common to write Persian language with only English letters especially when commenting in weblogs or when using cellphones to send SMS. One form of such writing is as the following:

Romanization on Internet

A a	AA aa	B b	CH ch	D d	E e	F f	G g	H h	I i
/æ/	/ɒː/	/b/	/tʃ/	/d/	/e/	/f/	/ɡ/	/h/	/i/
J j	K k	L l	M m	N n	O o	P p	GH gh	R r	S s
/dʒ/	/k/	/l/	/m/	/n/	/o/	/p/	/ɣ/	/ɾ/	/s/
SH sh	T t	U u	V v	W w	KH kh	Y y	Z z	ZH zh	'
/ʃ/	/t/	/u/	/v/	/w/	/χ/	/j/	/z/	/ʒ/	/ʔ/

Tajik Latin alphabet

Main article: Tajik alphabet

The Tajik language or Tajik Persian is a variety of the Persian language. It was written in Tajik SSR in a standardized Latin script from 1926 until late 1930s, when the script was officially changed to Cyrillic. However, Tajik phonology differs slightly from that of Persian in Iran; see Persian phonology#Historical shifts.

The Tajik alphabet in Latin

A a	B ʙ	C c	Ç ç	D d	E e	F f	G g	Ƣ ƣ	H h	I i	Ī ī
/a/	/b/	/tʃ/	/dʒ/	/d/	/e/	/f/	/ɡ/	/ʁ/	/h/	/i/	/ˈi/
J j	K k	L l	M m	N n	O o	P p	Q q	R r	S s	Ş ş	T t
/j/	/k/	/l/	/m/	/n/	/o/	/p/	/q/	/ɾ/	/s/	/ʃ/	/t/
U u	Ū ū	V v	X x	Z z	Ƶ ƶ	'
/u/	/ɵ/	/v/	/χ/	/z/	/ʒ/	/ʔ/

Turco-Persian Romanization

Numerals		Cardinal number			Ordinal number
W	A	Persian	Turkish	Persian	Persian	Turkish	Persian
0	۰	Sefr	Sefr	صفر		Seferom	صفرم
1	۱	Yek	Yek	یک	Avval, Nakhost	Evvel, Yekom	اول‌، نخست
2	۲	Do	Dü	دو	dovvom	Devvom	دوم
3	۳	Se	Se	سه	sevvom	Sevvom	سوم
4	۴	Cāhār	Çehar	چهار	çehārom	Çeharom	چهارم
5	۵	Panj	Penc	پنج	pancom	Pencom	پنجم
6	۶	Şeş	Şeş	شش	şeşom	Şeşom	ششم
7	۷	Haft	Heft	هفت	haftom	Heftom	هفتم
8	۸	Haşt	Heşt	هشت	haştom	Heştom	هشتم
9	۹	Noh	Noh	نه	nohom	Nohom	نهم
10	۱۰	Daḥ	De	ده	dāhom	Dehom	دهم
11	۱۱	Yāzdah	Yazde	يازده	yāzdahom	Yazdehom	يازدهم
12	۱۲	Davāzdaḥ	Devazde	دوازده	davāzdahom	Devazdehom	دوازدهم
13	۱۳	Sizdah	Sizde	سيزده	sīzdahom	Sizdehom	سيزدهم
14	۱۴	Cāḥārdah	Çeharde	چهارده	çahārdahom	Çehardehom	چهاردهم
15	۱۵	Pānzdah Punzda	Panzde	پانزده	pānzdahom punzdahom	Panzdehom	پانزدهم
16	۱۶	Şānzdah	Şanzde	شانزده	şānzdehom şunzdehom	Şanzdehom	شانزدهم
17	۱۷	Hefdah	Hifde	هفده	hefdahom	Hifdehom	هفدهم
18	۱۸	Hijdah	Hicde	هیجده	hijdahom	Hicdehom	هیجدهم
19	۱۹	Nuzdah	Nuzde	نوزده	nūzdahom	Nuzdehom	نوزدهم
20	۲۰	Bist	Bist	بيست	bīstom	Bistom	بيستم
30	۳۰	Si	Si	سی	sīyom	Siyom	سی ام
40	۴۰	Cehel	Çehel	چهل	çehelom	Çehelom	چهلم
50	۵۰	Pānjah	Pencah	پنجاه	pancāhom	Pencahom	پنجا هم
60	۶۰	Şast	Şest	شصت	şastom	Şestom	شصتم
70	۷۰	Haftād	Heftad	هفتاد	haftādom	Heftadom	هفتادم
80	۸۰	Haştād	Heştad	هشتاد	haştādom	Heştadom	هشتادم
90	۹۰	Navad	Neved	نود	navadom	Nevedom	نودم
100	۱۰۰	Sad	Sed	صد	sadom	Sedom	صدم
200	۲۰۰	Devist	Divist	دويست	devīstom	Divistom	دويستم
300	۳۰۰	Sisad	Sised	سيصد	sīsadom	Sisedom	سيصدم
400	۴۰۰	Cāhārsad	Çeharsed	چهارصد	çahār sadom	Çehar sedom	چهار صدم
500	۵۰۰	Pān sad Pun sad	Pan sed	پانصد	pānsadom punsadom	Pansedom	پانصدم
600	۶۰۰	Şeş sad	Şeş sed	شش صد	şeş sadom	Şeş sedom	شش صدم
700	۷۰۰	Haft sad	Heft sed	هفت صد	haft sadom	Heft sedom	هفت صدم
800	۸۰۰	ḥaşt sad	Heşt sed	هشت صد	haşt sadom	Heşt sedom	هشت صدم
900	۹۰۰	Noh sad	Noh sed	نه صد	noh sadom	Noh sedom	نه صدم
1000	۱۰۰۰	Hezār	Hezar	هزار	hazārom	Hezarom	هزارم

"Turco-Persian", among its many definitions, can refer to the code-switching to Persian expressions, Persian literary mannerisms, and heavy use of Persian vocabulary in Anatolian Turkish or Azerbaijani Turkish, especially Ottoman Turkish, which has a long history of subscribing to the Persian language classical literature. Even though Modern Standard Turkish is ostensibly more pure, it nonetheless retains many Persian mannerisms, Persian vocabulary from Ottoman Turkish, and has maintained its peculiar way of transcribing Persian words that is "Turkified" in pronunciation and is quite removed from modern standard pronunciation of Persian.

Following are some examples taken from the Turkish Wikipedia tr:Farsça Sözcükler in explaining differences in spelling between standard Persian transliterated with Turkish Latin Alphabet, and Turco-Persian orthography in the same alphabet:

Following are some lines of Persian poems from the Azeri Wikipedia, with the Azeri Turco-Persian transliteration in bold az:Cahanşah Həqiqi az:Səid Səlmasi az:Məhəmməd Hadi az:Əbül-üla Gəncəvi:

1.

Vüsalını diləram kam ilən ze fəzli-ilah

Məni-şikəstəyə kami-vüsal beylə gərək.

Ey xətin səb'ül-məsani, vey ləbin mai-təhur,

Vey cəmalın pərtövindən sərbəsər aləmdə nur.

2.

Mən on zəmini guhərbari-paki İranəm,

Bə hər bəlayi-cəhalət nişəgəh əst təni mən...

3.

Məkatib cilvəgahi -tələəti-fəyyazi-qüdrətdir,

Məkatib pərtövü-ənvari-şəmsi-sübhi-vəhdətdir

...

Ey dəsti-sitəmkar, ayə pənceyi-mənhus!..

4.

Mara şәst salәst kәz xake-İran

Bovәd şanzdәh ta be Şirvan fetadәm.

See also

• Fingilish (Persian chat alphabet )
• Persian alphabet
• Persian phonology
• Romanization
• Transliteration
• Romanization of Arabic
• Desphilic

External links

• Comparison of DMG, UN, ALA-LC, BGN/PCGN, EI, ISO 233-3 transliterations
• UN Romanization of Persian for Geographical Names
• Library of Congress/American Library Association Romanization of Persian
• Cataloguing Issues and Problems
• UniPers homepage
• Eurofarsi
• eiktub: web-based Arabic transliteration pad, with support for Persian characters
• Desphilic Persian Standard Romanization home
• Omir Ghaydoun's personal weblog, an example of Eronik/Ironik