Principles

Alefbâ ye 2^om is based on the following competing principles:

• Phonemic being of the orthography (to read / write a word in exactly one way)
• Simplicity and reasonability of the rules
• Readability and aesthetics of writing
• Familiarity of the correspondence between the sounds and the letters
• Global availability of the writing infrastructure

Alphabet

Like all other Latin-based alphabets Alefbâ ye 2^om is written from left to right. It has 26 main letters three of which are modified by the circumflex (^) to show their exact pronunciation. The table below shows the letters with some examples and their corresponding phonetic value with regard to the International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA:

The letters ĵ and ŝ have the same phonetic values in Esperanto.

The alphabetical order is: a (â), b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j (ĵ), k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s (ŝ), t, u, v, w, x, y, z.

Vowels

The short vowels are: a, e and o. The long vowels are: â, i and u. The most important diphthong is ow.

Occurance of “y” after “i”

Letter ”y” comes after “i” only in case of gemination (tashdid) or being at the beginning of a word stem:

abadiyyat

eternity

miyâbam

I find

irâniân

Iranians

Diphthong “ow”

If the sounds of “av” are in one syllable, then “av” gets converted to “ow”:

na-ra-vid

don’t go

na-row

don’t go

pey-ra-vi

follow

pey-row

follower

If w occurs syllable-initially in the course of derivation, usually either “ow” is reconverted to “av” (present stem), or “ow” is converted to “ov” (otherwise):

pey-row

follower

pey-ra-vi

follow

now

new

novin

modern

Mul (’)

Mul (derived from the Old Persian mulidan) means pause and corresponds to the letters Eyn and Hamze in the Persian-Arabic script. It is a weak and unstable glottal stop and is indicated by the apostrophe. Mul is only shown in Arabic loanwords:

mo’allem	teacher	ba’d	then	ŝam’	candle	sari’	quickly
e’temâd	confidence	mi’âd	promise	mas’ul	responsible	fa”âl	active

Mul is not indicated at the beginning of an element:

azemat

splendour

ebâdat

prayer

ajib

strange

-ân

plural suffix

Mul is shown in inflections, derivations and compounds only if an underlying element would be written with mul on its own:

irâni	+	-ân	=	irâniân	Iranians
por	+	azemat	=	porazemat	splendid
ŝam’	+	-dân	=	ŝam’dân	candleholder

Iranian proper nouns

A different spelling of Iranian proper nouns, perhaps due to registered entries in official documents, is permitted:

Shiraz [Ŝirâz]

Jaleh [Ĵâle]

Khosrow [Xosrow]

The bound conjunction “e” (ezâfe) may be omitted between first and last name:

Sârâ Pâkneĵâd

Navid Panâhju

Nasrin Foruhar

Colloquial Persian

Many Persian words, especially present stems and objective / possessive pronouns, have an “abraded” colloquial form. Taking this fact into account all rules defined here can also be applied for writing colloquial Persian.

Contractions

Omitted sounds during contractions are represented by an apostrophe:

ci ‘st

what’s

k’ u

who

v’ az

and from

k’ az

that from

Note: Usually, there is no ambiguity with the representation of the mul sound by an apostrophe as mul occurs only in some Arabic loanwords, require always a syllable (vowel) and never occurs at the word beginning. Contractions, on the other hand, take often place in the following cases:

short form of to be	u injâ ‘st	she’s here	u yek dâneŝju ‘st	he is a student
objective / possessive pronouns (colloquial)	bâlâ ‘ŝ	on it	sedâ ‘m	my voice
some present stems	ben’ŝin	sit	ben’gar	look
plural suffix -hâ after a consonant (colloquial)	sedâhâ	voices	ketâb’â	books
postposition râ after a consonant (colloquial ro)	sedâ ro ŝenidam	I heard the voice	ketâb ‘o xundam	I read the book

Cases in which ambiguities with mul may happen, e.g. ye’, one (colloquial), are considered to be exceptions.

Gemination (taŝdid)

Gemination occurring normally in Arabic loanwords, is represented by doubling a consonant. Usually, the first one ends a syllable whereas the second one begins the following syllable.

mo’allem

teacher

taŝakkor

thanks

mokarrar

repeated

tasavvor

imagination

A gemination is indicated, whenever it is pronounced:

xat(t)

script

dastxat

handwriting

xattât

calligrapher

xatt e fârsi

Persian script

Epenthesis & sound transitions

Epenthesis and sound transitions are directly represented in the script:

sedâ yam

my voice

zendegi

life

bed u

to her

nemibinam (na>ne)

I don’t see

Solid, spaced and hyphenated writing

Words that follow one another can be a word group or a compound. In rare cases both variants are possible. Word groups and the following cases are written in the spaced form:

verbal parts in compound verbs / infinitives	yâd gereftan	to learn	yâd migiram	I learn
verbal parts in derivative verbs	bardâŝtan	to take	bar midâram	I take
prepositions in compound prepositions & conjunctions	piŝ az	before	bana bar in	therefore

Note: Sub-compounds belonging to other parts of speech as well as compounds containing an element without independent use are written in the solid form:

barkenâr kardan

to dismiss

az ânja ke

since

bedune

without

Furthermore, enclitics acting on phrases are written in the spaced form, in contrary to suffixes / endings acting on words. Enclitics can be considered as words without stress as they are phonetically bound to their previous words:

conjunctions e & o	doxtar e ziba	beautiful girl	man o to	you and I
objective / possessive pronouns	ketâb am	my book	pesar aŝ	her son
short forms of to be	xub im	we are well	doktor ast	she is a doctor
postpositions i & râ	ketâb i dâram	I have a book	ketâb râ xândam	I read the book

Note: In Persian, if a syllable ends with a consonant which is followed by a vowel, that consonant usually begins the following syllable. This phenomenon can also occur among the words:

elements	ham, âhang	written	hamâhang	spoken	ha-mâ-hang
elements	az, injâ	written	az injâ	spoken	a-zin-ja
elements	dast, e, man	written	dast e man	spoken	das-te-man

The following compounds are written in the hyphenated form:

consist of more than 3 unbound elements	tâze-be-dowrân-reside	new rich
indicate 2 aspects	irâni-âlmâni	Iranian-German
include word repetitions	tond-tond	quick-quick
include semi-word repetitions	pul-mul	money and so
include letter names  / abbreviations	N-ha	the Ns
are new or unusual	raveŝ e sang-dar-miân	the stone-in-the-middle method
include digits & a word	25-ruze	25-day

The solid form is the default form for writing compounds. Furthermore word forms and derivatives are also written in the solid form:

inflection affixes	mixoram	I eat	mizhâ	tables
derivative affixes	hamkâr	colleague	honarmand	artist
nouns	âbohavâ	climate	toxmemorq	egg
adjectives	qulpeykar	huge	azkâroftâde	broken
adverbs	bâham	together	besaxti	hardly
pronouns	yekdigar	each other	xiŝtan	self
conjunctions	zirâke	because	haminke	as soon as
include digits & a suffix	5om	5th	5omin	5th

Numbers

Compound cardinal numbers less than 100 as well as the hundreds are written in the solid form:

davâzdah	12	haftâd	70	pânsad	500
bistopanj	25	pânsad o bistopanj	525	bistodo hezâr o pânsad o bistopanj	22,525

Ordinal numbers, fractions as well as compounds including numbers are written in the solid form:

bistopanjom	25th	bistosesadom	0.23	bist o sesadom	20.03
bistosesâle	23-year-old	sadohaŝtruze	108-day	sadhezârnafare	hundred thousand seater

The decimal part of a number is separated by a period. A comma is placed after each three digits to the left for numbers with at least four digits:

25.05

25.05

2,000

2,000

2,025.05

2,025.05

Capitalization

Sentence beginnings, titles, headlines, proper nouns and forms of address before and after proper nouns are capitalized. Proper nouns refer to names of persons, animals, things (products, works and objects), organizations, geographic locations and unique events:

Man raftam.	I went.	Havâdes	headline of a column	Âlmân	Germany
Tehrân	Tehran	Sepidrud	a river in Iran	Ŝâh Abbâs	King Abbas

Proper nouns are not capitalized in derivations and compounds:

Xodâ

God

bâxodâ

piously

xodâyi

divine

Foreign words and loanwords

Names of individuals, companies, products and registered trademarks are written 1-1. Loanwords are written according to their Persian pronunciations. Foreign words are written in italics. Other proper nouns of foreign origin are either written according to their Persian pronunciations or 1-1 but in italics. In all cases diacritics can be omitted:

James

futbâl

déjà-vu [deja-vu]

Landan [London]

Abbreviations

For a compound or a word group, at least letters from all nouns should be used for abbreviations. For a compound in the solid form a dot is used. Otherwise each word is abbreviated individually with a dot but without a space:

Teh. (Tehrân – Tehran)

cr. (câhârrâh – crossing)

b.b.i. (banâ bar in – therefore)

With regard to the case-sensitiveness, the abbreviations follow their written out forms. If a word is abbreviated with capital letters, then no dots will be used.

Du. (Duŝize – Miss)

MF (Muze ye Farŝ – Carpet Museum)

Acronyms such as UNESCO can also be written as written out words, so Unesco. International abbreviations of units of measurement, such as cm and GB are written 1-1.

For the calendar, the following abbreviations are available:

x. (xorŝidi)	h.x. (hejri e  xorŝidi)	h.sh. (hejri e  ŝamsi)
h.q. (hejri e qamari)	mi. (milâdi, pas az Milâd – BC)	p.M. (piŝ az Milâd – AD)

For the Iranian month names, the following abbreviations are used:

FAR, far.	ORD, ord.	XOR, xor.	TIR, tir	MOR, mor.	ŜAH, ŝah.
MEH, meh.	ÂBÂ, âbâ.	ÂZA, âza.	DEY, dey.	BAH, bah.	ESF, esf.

For the Christian names of the months, the following abbreviations are used:

ĴÂN, ĵân.	FEV, fev.	MÂR, mâr.	ÂVR, âvr.	ME, me	ĴUA, ĵua.
ĴUI, ĵui.	UT, ut	SEP, sep.	OKT, okt.	NOV, nov.	DES, des.

For the weekdays, the following abbreviations are used:

ŜA, ŝa.

YŜ, yŝ.

DŜ, dŝ.

SŜ, sŝ.

CŜ, cŝ.

PŜ, pŝ.

JO, jo. or ÂD, âd.

Date & Time

Date can optionally be expressed as follows:

ŝanbe, 31om( e) farvardin 1383	31 far.( e) 1383	31-01-83	farvardin( e) ‘83
ŝanbe, 31( e) farvardin 1383	31om( e) far. 1383	31-01-1383 h.ŝ.	far.( e) ‘83

Date can optionally be expressed as follows:

11:15 bd. (bâmdâd – am)

05:00 bz. (ba’dazzohr – pm)

13:15

Syllabification

For the syllabification, one goes through a word from right to left and stops at the first vowel. If a consonant other than w occurs after the vowel, this is the beginning of a syllable. Otherwise, the vowel itself is the beginning of a syllable, and so on:

xâ-ne

house

mo-’al-lem

teacher

le-bâs-hâ

dresses

now-â-muz

trainee

Typing / relaxing diacritical letters

Using the Canadian Multilingual Standard Keyboard layout (preinstalled in Windows) the diacritical letters â, ĵ, and ŝ can be obtained by entering the circumflex (^) followed by the corresponding base letter. A similar extended keyboard layout is provided for many other countries. The Standard Alefbâ ye 2^om Keyboard layout makes it possible to enter the diacritical letters directly.  For details on keyboard layouts see Keyboard layouts.

If the diacritical letters are not available / applicable, they can be relaxed as follows:

Letter â can be relaxed to aa or a.

Letter ĵ is relaxed to jh.

Letter ŝ is relaxed to sh.

If the apostrophe is not applicable (e.g. in URLs), it is omitted.