Persian (Farsi) phonology

Modern Persian distinguishes six vowels — front unrounded /i e æ/ against back /u o ɑ/, the back series rounded except for the variably rounded low vowel — and some two dozen consonants, among them the glottal stop /ʔ/ that breaks vowel hiatus. This file provides the PHOIBLE phoneme inventory and distinctive-feature specifications for the vowels and for /h tʃ m n ʔ/.

References

• M.-R. Majidi and E. Ternes, Persian (Farsi)
• S. Moran and D. McCloy, PHOIBLE 2.0
• B. Hayes, Introductory Phonology
• K. Ariyaee and P. Jurgec, Variable hiatus in Persian is affected by suffix length

def Farsi.Phonology.phonemeInventory : Data.PHOIBLE.Inventory

Canonical Persian phoneme inventory: first PHOIBLE inventory for ISO pes (the Stanford Phonology Archive doculect).

Equations

• Farsi.Phonology.phonemeInventory = Data.PHOIBLE.Inventories.Persian.pes

Vowels

The six-vowel system of modern Persian ([MT91]).

def Farsi.Phonology.i : Phonology.Segment

/i/ — high front unrounded vowel.

Equations

• Farsi.Phonology.i = Phonology.Segment.vowel Phonology.Segment.Height.high Phonology.Segment.Backness.front

def Farsi.Phonology.e : Phonology.Segment

/e/ — mid front unrounded vowel.

Equations

• Farsi.Phonology.e = Phonology.Segment.vowel Phonology.Segment.Height.mid Phonology.Segment.Backness.front

def Farsi.Phonology.ae : Phonology.Segment

/æ/ — low front unrounded vowel.

Equations

• Farsi.Phonology.ae = Phonology.Segment.vowel Phonology.Segment.Height.low Phonology.Segment.Backness.front

def Farsi.Phonology.u : Phonology.Segment

/u/ — high back rounded vowel.

Equations

• Farsi.Phonology.u = (Phonology.Segment.vowel Phonology.Segment.Height.high Phonology.Segment.Backness.back).setFeature Phonology.Feature.round true

def Farsi.Phonology.o : Phonology.Segment

/o/ — mid back rounded vowel.

Equations

• Farsi.Phonology.o = (Phonology.Segment.vowel Phonology.Segment.Height.mid Phonology.Segment.Backness.back).setFeature Phonology.Feature.round true

def Farsi.Phonology.aa : Phonology.Segment

/ɑ/ — low back vowel, variably rounded [ɑ ~ ɒ].

Equations

• Farsi.Phonology.aa = Phonology.Segment.vowel Phonology.Segment.Height.low Phonology.Segment.Backness.back

Consonants

def Farsi.Phonology.h : Phonology.Segment

/h/ — voiceless glottal fricative.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Farsi.Phonology.ch : Phonology.Segment

/tʃ/ — voiceless postalveolar affricate.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Farsi.Phonology.m : Phonology.Segment

/m/ — bilabial nasal.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Farsi.Phonology.n : Phonology.Segment

/n/ — alveolar nasal.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Farsi.Phonology.glottal : Phonology.Segment

/ʔ/ — glottal stop, the epenthetic hiatus-breaker.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

Consistency with the substrate and with PHOIBLE