Vowels
   

It must be understood that in Persian vowels are not glided upon. In English they are always accompanied by a glide:

æy off-glide on /a/ as in “cat”
ey off-glide on /e/ as in “forte”
ow off-glide on /o/ as in “roller”
ūe off-glide on /oo/ (= /ū/) as in “poor”

This is not the case with Persian. In this lesson vowels are discussed briefly; more extensive discussion is left for the advanced level.

Short Vowels: In Persian short vowels and their signs are as follows:

ـــَـــ á as in “cat” (no off-glide)
ـــِـــ é as in “let”
ــــُـــ ó as in “lord” (no off-glide)

Long Vowels are actual alphabetical characters, which functions as, both, a long vowel or a consonant:

ــا ā as in “father” پا pā foot, leg, باد bād wind
ــو ū as in “tool” (no off-glide) شور šur salty, توت tut mulberry
ــی ī as in “beet” دیر dir late, زین zin saddle

Diphthongs: In Persian they are as follows:

āy as in چای čāy black tea
ey as in نی ney reed, bamboo, whicker, reed-flute
ow as in جو jow barley
uy as in رویگر ruygar zinc-worker, coppersmith

In the initial position, all vowels are accompanied by an alef:

horse asb اَسب
name esm اِسم
duck ordak اُردک
water āb آب
he, she u او
Iran irān ایران
veranda, portico eyvān اِیوان
apogie, zenith owj اُوج
ooch! uy اوی