Wiktionary:Persian transliteration/Dari

These are the rules concerning transliteration of Dari in Persian entries. These rules also apply to Classical Persian, but there are some differences in phonology.

This is the transliteration scheme used by the {{fa-IPA}} template to convert Classical Persian to modern varieties of Persian.

Consonants

No.	Letter	Name of letter	Transcription	IPA
1	ا, آ	alif	ā, a, i, u, ∅(see below)	[ʔɑː, ɑː, ʔ∅]
2	ب	bē	b	[bʰ]
3	پ	pē	p	[pʰ]
4	ت	tē	t	[t̪ʰ]
5	ث	sē	s	[s]
6	ج	jīm	j	[d͡ʒʰ]
7	چ	čē	č	[t͡ʃʰ]
8	ح	hē	h	[h]
9	خ	xē	x	[x]
10	د	dāl	d	[d̪ʰ]
11	ذ	zāl	z	[z]
12	ر	rē	r	[ɾ]
13	ز	zē	z	[z]
14	ژ	žē	ž	[ʒ]
15	س	sīn	s	[s]
16	ش	šīn	š	[ʃ]
17	ص	sād or swād	s	[s]
18	ض	zād or zwād	z	[z]
19	ط	tā or tōy	t	[t̪ʰ]
20	ظ	zā or zōy	z	[z]
21	ع	'ayn	'	[ʔ, ː]
22	غ	ğayn	ğ	[ɣ]
23	ف	fē	f	[f]
24	ق	qāf	q	[q]
25	ک	kāf	k	[kʰ]
26	گ	gāf	g	[ɡʰ]
27	ل	lām	l	[l]
28	م	mīm	m	[m]
29	ن	nūn	n	[n, ŋ, ɴ]
30	و	wāw (ma'rūf)	w, ū	[w ~ ʋ, uː]
		wāw (majhūl)	ō	[oː]
31	ه	hē	h, ∅(see below)	[h]
32	ی	yē (ma'rūf)	y, ī	[j, iː]
		yē (majhūl)	ē	[eː]
0	ء	hamza	', –	[ʔ]

• Dental, labial and velar stops are always aspirated, except at the end of a word.

• Alif is only a glottal stop in word initial positions

• Geminated consonants are shown with the consonant diacritic tašdīd (ـّ). Geminated consonants are transliterated with doubled letters, both in IPA and in transliterations.

• hē (ه) in word final positions may act as a placeholder for any short vowel instead of a consonant. Most commonly the short vowel /a/.

About retroflex forms

Some regional dialects in Afghanistan, such as Hazaragi, have the retroflex consonants /ʈ/ and /ɖ/ as distinct phonemes. However, Hazaragi is treated by its speakers as a spoken form of Dari so it does not have a standardized written form. As these phonemes are not present in standard Dari, their standardized forms are always written with tē (ت) and dāl (د) respectively.

Occasionally the nonstandard characters ٹ, ڈ or ټ, ډ are used by Hazaragi speakers. But there is no consensus on how these forms should be treated.

Vowels

The vocalization used by Classical Persian and Dari differs slightly from the vocalization used by Iranian Persian. The table below shows the vocalization used by Classical Persian and Dari.

Romanization	IPA	Final	Medial	Initial
a	/a/	ـَ		اَ
ā	/ɑː/	ـا,ـیٰ	ـا	آ
i	/ɪ/	ـِ		اِ
ī	/iː/	ـِى	ـِیـ	اِیـ
ē	/eː/	ـی	ـیـ	ایـ
u	/ʊ/	ـُ		اُ
ū	/uː/	ـُو		اُو
ō	/oː/	ـو		او

• Word final short vowels are usually shown proceeding a ه (hē)

• The diacritic zēr is often realized as [ɛ] in many nonstandard dialects outside of Kabul, such as the Herati dialect. However, it is /ɪ/ in standard pronunciation and in the Kabuli dialect.

Diphthongs

Romanization	IPA	Final	Medial	Initial
ay	/aj/	ـَىْ	ـَیْـ	اَیْـ
āy	/ɑj/	ـاىْ	ـایْـ	آیْـ
aw	/aw/	ـَوْ		اَوْ
āw	/ɑw/	ـاوْ		آوْ
ūy	/uj/	ـُوىْ	ـُویْـ	اُویْـ
ōy	/oj/	ـوىْ	ـویْـ	اویْـ

• All other vowel + semi vowel combinations are not diphthongs, as the vowel and semivowel are not pronounced in the same syllable. For example, دیو is pronounced [deː.uː] not [dew], and دیوانه is pronounced [deː.wɑː.na] not [dew.ɑː.na]. In case a semi-vowel is part of a diphthong and is acting as a consonant, it should be written as a geminated consonant.

Vowel diacritics

Vowel	Name	Transcription	IPA	Notes
	zabar	a	/a/, [ä]~[æ]
	zēr	i	/ɪ/	May also be called zēr-i ma'rūf
	zēr-i majhūl		[e̞]	Only appears before glottal consonants, technically an allophone.
	pēš	u	/ʊ/	May also be called pēš-i ma'rūf
	pēš-i majhūl		[o̞]	Only appears before glottal consonants, technically an allophone.
	jazm	N/A	none	Vowel killer / zero-vowel diacritic.

• before a word-final ه, ma'rūf and majhūl diacritics are not clearly distinguished.

• Though short vowels also have ma'rūf-majhūl variants, majhūl short vowels likely will not be included in romanizations. Unlike the majhūl long vowels, which can appear anywhere, the majhūl short vowels only appear before glottal consonants, and are technically allophones.

Additional information

1. ـاً, ءً (always word-final) – an (The position of [fatHatan] is after the alif, not before, as is the current practice with Arabic)
2. ء – '
3. ؤ – ' or o'

   سؤال ("so'āl", question)

   Majhūl vowels can not appear directly next to other vowels without a glottal stop (excluding semivowels acting as consonants). Without a hamza, this would be pronounced as swāl.

4. ئ – ' or e'
5. ـِ (izāfa) (always word-final, unmarked in regular writing) – -i
6. یِ (izāfa) (after long vowels ا (ā) or و (ū, ō), unmarked in regular writing) - -yi

   آفریقایِ جنوبی ― āfrīqā-yi janūbī ― South Africa

7. یِّ (izāfa) (always word-final with ی, unmarked in regular writing) - ī-yi

   جَمْهُوریِّ کورِیا ― jamhūrī-yi kōriyā ― Republic of Korea

8. ـهٔ (U+0647 U+0654), sometimes written as ـه‌ی (always word-final) – a-yi.

   خانهٔ کلان (spelled with a hamza diacritic) ― xāna-i kalān ― a big house

   In spoken Dari هٔ may reduce to a short e (or i). So خانهٔ کلان may be pronounced as xāne kalān. It is not known if this will be included since this is the only Izāfa vowel with which this occurs.

   خانه‌ی کلان (spelled with a a non-connecting ye) ― xāna-yi kalān ― a big house

9. ـّ (tašdīd) – geminate consonant (Arabic shadda)
10. ـه - when used as a colloquial copula in the 3rd person singular (he/she/it is) - -a (with a hyphen)

    تَهْران پایتَخْتِ ایرانه. (colloquial) ― ta(h)rān pāytaxt-i ērān-a. ― Tehran is the capital of Iran.

11. ZWNJ – - (hyphen)
12. Various governments of Afghanistan have recommended that the suffix ـگی have a space or ZWNJ when added to a word ending in ـه. This suggestion is not always observed, even in academic settings and by media broadcasters in Afghanistan. These spellings may be included as alternative forms.

    زنده‌گی (recommended spelling) ― zinda-gī

    زندگی (common spelling) ― zindagī