How to Speak Persian

[SoroushPersepolisi]

Originally Posted by Big Abdul

I would be open to the idea that farsi should do the Turkey route. And save the Perso Arabic script for Koran.

you know the cost, amount of lost heritage etc that would cause

i would certainly like an officialized latin script for persian, to use internationally, online or in the industry but a total switch... its not good
many of my turkish friends like the latin alphabet but also hate how they arent able to read many old turkish things, also, the perso arabic alphabet entered turkish as a fully foreign thing, the same was not the case for iran

anyway

there is a whole thread for this if you search, a once very live thread where people from all over the site had arguments on lol

[persian]

Originally Posted by Big Abdul

I would be open to the idea that farsi should do the Turkey route. And save the Perso Arabic script for Koran.

I disagree. Not only it has been in our country for 14 centuries, but I also find it more beautiful and engaging for the eye. I personally hate it when people write in Pinglish, hard to read if it is more than 2 sentence.

[urbastar]

Originally Posted by persian

I disagree. Not only it has been in our country for 14 centuries, but I also find it more beautiful and engaging for the eye. I personally hate it when people write in Pinglish, hard to read if it is more than 2 sentence.

I think exactly the opposite.

However, it is true that Pinglish is ugly because, people use the same latin letters that arabs use to write their language ("kh", "gh", "q", "oo"...)

[Daguy]

While beautiful and of historical importance, the abjad is functionally inferior to a proper alphabet. English would be a bad example because it is highly irregular, but compared to a language like Spanish it is not as good because the short vowels are rarely written. Relics of the past are maintained in the script, including some silent letters and Arabic forms, which in some cases have different pronunciation from native Persian.

If using a word like "گرفتن" as an example, the first time I see this word as a non-native speaker I basically see "grftn" if translated to Latin script. I may know the last letter is "a" because verbs end that way, but the other letters are a complete guessing game.

I admit that this argument could be considered irrelevant because it is a language mainly used by native speakers, so knowing the vowels is pretty obvious. I will say however, that people too often equate certain traditions with some kind of moral value. Changing the script of a language shouldn't be equated with loss of cultural identity, a script is simply a construct of man to express the words he or she says, and shouldn't be overvalued.

[gerraSPB]

Dorud bär šoma.
Hal e šoma cetor äst?
Xoš amädi.
Ešqe bi gonah.
Hic Yek Do Se Cahar (Car) Pänj Šiš Häft Häšt Noh Däh

Abeye (Alefbaye) parsi: Aa Ää Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Šš Tt Uu Vv Xx Yy Zz Žž

What do you Think about this? As for me this is better than Pinglish and much easy)

[SoroushPersepolisi]

looks cool! i think persian in latin especially with symboled letters looks very "exotic"
did you make it or is it a proposal from somewhere else? its nice
also i thing the q should be replaced , it looks distinctly arabic, i think a g with maybe an accent like on à or å or a would be cool

[gerraSPB]

Originally Posted by SoroushPersepolisi

looks cool! i think persian in latin especially with symboled letters looks very "exotic"
did you make it or is it a proposal from somewhere else? its nice
also i thing the q should be replaced , it looks distinctly arabic, i think a g with maybe an accent like on à or å or a would be cool

Thanks. That's my own invention (but I think something similar was created before). In Azeri or Turkish languages we have the letter Ğğ that in perso-arabic written as غ. But in my opinion Qq would be much habitual.

[Mesch]

It looks like an eyesore compared to this:

image hosted on flickr


I think a new modified version of the current Perso-Arabic script should be in place. I studied Persian for a short while here in the US and the students' (including myself) only complaint regarding the alphabet was that it contained a lot of letters with the same sound. Eliminating those letters and perhaps finding a proper solution to the short-vowel/diacritics ordeal would certainly suffice from a drastic change to the Latin alphabet.

[SoroushPersepolisi]

dont get me wrong im certainly against changing the perso arabic script to latin, i just wouldnt mind having a more formal method of latinized persian

no doubt the current alphabet is a million times more beautiful, regarding the different letters with the same sound, most of the "exceptions" like saad, ta , za the three dotted s etc are usually because of loan words, mainly arabic, which eliminating them might be miss-spelling foreign words, with keeping them, it might be confusing but when you write it several times especially when you constantly write persian (like the every day iranian) its easy, same with the short vowels, i sometimes think about dropping the repetitive same sounding letters but sometimes i think to keep them especially in foreign words helps the understanding of arabic rooted words etc easier

it surprises me that the main thing foreigners when learning persian dont like are these two things , its interesting, i used to hate it in first and second grade since it was hard to memorize aswell

[SoroushPersepolisi]

Originally Posted by gerraSPB

Thanks. That's my own invention (but I think something similar was created before). In Azeri or Turkish languages we have the letter Ğğ that in perso-arabic written as غ. But in my opinion Qq would be much habitual.

yea thats why i didnt suggest the turkish g, because then it would be ultra imitated, not to mention the latinizing itself is imitation

[gerraSPB]

Originally Posted by Mesch

It looks like an eyesore compared to this:

image hosted on flickr


I think a new modified version of the current Perso-Arabic script should be in place. I studied Persian for a short while here in the US and the students' (including myself) only complaint regarding the alphabet was that it contained a lot of letters with the same sound. Eliminating those letters and perhaps finding a proper solution to the short-vowel/diacritics ordeal would certainly suffice from a drastic change to the Latin alphabet.

Of course, perso-arabic script looks very beautiful... Moreover not Latin not Cirillic, Georgian, Coptic or not Chinese looks so awesome like this one (may be Aramaic or Mongolian vertical, again in my opinion). But tell me please, how will you write letter E and how A and I in the begining? If you think that there must be special mark above Aleph or another mark below to denote different sounds, that's nice... but only in writing by hand. Reading this in printed form it becomes eyesore, despite of numbers that written from left to right that makes chaos in the text. Today the most easy and popular script is Latin.

So think about this...

[gerraSPB]

That sentence in the pic looks amazing! But for me, as for foreigner, it's so difficult to read that. I see the following:

"RUSTI KI AKHNAR bla-bla-bla ARAN RAKHP SHIR?"

ahah) now tell me please is it right?

[SoroushPersepolisi]

lol, it says "doosti key akhar amad, doostaran ra che shod?"

[SoroushPersepolisi]

random question, does anybody have know the origin of the word kabab? in arab stories, its said that persian soldiers would grill meat on their swords, makes sense, however, in many sources they say the word is persian in origin then a few lines underneath they say the arabic word kabab comes from aramaic kbabu
which is which and which is correct? reliable sources please

[Big Abdul]

I heard the sword story before, makes sense really. The main problem for me reading words in farsi being a none native speaker is the lack of vowels drives me insane. To me it seems lazy to miss letters. Don't get me wrong even English has changed over the centuries to remove the accents over the letters, much to the detrement of the language too. But if they created a dual latin perso arabic way of learning then maybe it would be a way into the walled garden theory.

[Eurasian Union]

Has anybody compiled a list of proper/pure Persian words to use instead of the Arabic loanwords?

[Big Abdul]

What is proper, what is pure, what is persian. I can tell you what is Persian, what people use now. No harking back to days long gone, as languages evolve over time gain words lose words.

[persian]

I would say Kabab is definitely a persian word. It has been used in many old Iranian poems and stories.

[Aerithia]

Indeed Persian, it IS Persian!

I think it means grilled meat, lots of countries in South Asia which were influenced by the Persians also use that word, and many other Persian words.

[SoroushPersepolisi]

yea but what would explain the arabic origin of the word? in aramaic , kababu means to grill?

does anybody know a good online arabic etymology dictionary?
theres nişanyansozluk which is great for turkish
is there a persian or arabic equivalent of such thing?