The Persian Alphabet looks like a work of art.
The curves, the squiggles and dots! it is creative genius.
The same shape with a dot has a completely different sound! I love it! and so do my children. They love tracing it, creating characters out of it and making words that sound like the letters in bubble writing.
But I digress, here are some of my favourite combos to
help introduce them to you.
The Persian alphabet has 32 official letters
(that doesn't include the short vowels).
The letters change form depending on their position in a word or when they appear seperate from other letters.
It is important to note that Persian books are read from right to left. The short vowels are usually omitted from literature. They are depicted by markings above and below the letters
|
َ ِ ُ |
(they have the phonetic sounds of 'ah'= a 'eh' = e and 'oh = o)
Now lets get into the letters! These letters are termed
Stand alone or seperate letters. This means that they do not connect with their adjacent letters the way other letters in the Persian Alphabet do.
There are seven in total described below:
Stand Alone Letters in shape groups:
د ذ
dál, zál
د
dál as in dandún [Teeth]
ذ
zál as in zorrat [corn]
ژ ر ز
ze, re, zhe
ز
ze as in zarráfeh [giraffe]
ر
re as in rúbah [fox]
ژ
zhe as in zhákat [jacket]
آ اُ اَ اِ
eh, ah, oh, áw,
اِ
eh as in estefrágh [vomit]
اَ
ah as in asb [horse]
اُ
oh as in ordak [duck]
آ
áw as in áb [water]
و
váv
و
váv as in vánet [ute]
vás as in túp [ball]
These are stand alone letters- which means they do not change form when they are in different positions in a word (their shape doesn't change)