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Persian alphabet

( Arabic Alphabets )

History
Letters

Overview table

Variants
Letter construction

Letters that do not link..
Diacritics

Short vowels
Tanvin (nunation)
Tašdid

Other characters
Novel letters
Deviations from the Arab..
Comparison of different ..

Word boundaries
Cyrillic Persian alphabe..
See also
References
External links

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The Persian alphabet (), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is a variation of the Arabic script with four additional letters: پ چ ژ گ (the sounds 'g', 'zh', 'ch', and 'p', respectively), in addition to the obsolete ڤ that was used for the sound . This letter is no longer used in Persian, as the -sound changed to , e.g. archaic زڤان > زبان 'language'.

It was the basis of many Arabic script used in Central and South Asia. It is used for both Iranian Persian and Dari: standard varieties of Persian; and is one of two official script for the Persian language, alongside the Cyrillic script-based Tajik alphabet.

The script is mostly but not exclusively right-to-left; mathematical expressions, numeric dates and numbers bearing units are embedded from left to right. The script is cursive, meaning most letters in a word connect to each other; when they are typed, contemporary automatically join adjacent letter forms. Persian is unusual among Arabic scripts because a zero-width non-joiner is sometimes entered in a word, causing a letter to become disconnected from others in the same word.

History

The Persian alphabet is directly derived and developed from the Arabic alphabet. The Arabic alphabet was introduced to the Persian-speaking world after the Muslim conquest of Persia and the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the 7th century. Following this, the Arabic language became the principal language of government and religious institutions in Iran, which led to the widespread usage of the Arabic script. Classical Persian literature and poetry were affected by this simultaneous usage of Arabic and Persian language. A new influx of Arabic vocabulary soon entered the Persian language language. In the 8th century, the Tahirid dynasty and Samanid Empire officially adopted the Arabic script for writing Persian, followed by the Saffarid dynasty in the 9th century, gradually displacing the various Pahlavi scripts used for the Persian language earlier. By the 9th-century, the Perso-Arabic alphabet became the dominant form of writing in Greater Khorasan.

Ira M. Lapidus (2025). 9780521514415, Cambridge University Press. . ISBN 9780521514415

Ira M. Lapidus (2025). 9780521779333, Cambridge University Press. . ISBN 9780521779333

Under the influence of various Persian Empires, many languages in Central and South Asia that adopted the Arabic script use the Persian Alphabet as the basis of their writing systems. Today, extended versions of the Persian alphabet are used to write a wide variety of Indo-Iranian languages, including Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto alphabet, Urdu alphabet (from Classical Hindustani), Saraiki, Shahmukhi, Sindhi and Kashmiri. In the past the use of the Persian alphabet was common amongst Turkic languages, but today is relegated to those spoken within Iran, such as Azerbaijani, Turkmen language, Qashqai language, Chaharmahali and Khalaj language. The Uyghur language in western China is the most notable exception to this.

During the Soviet Union period many languages in Central Asia, including Persian, were reformed by the government. This ultimately resulted in the Cyrillic-based alphabet used in Tajikistan today. See: .

Letters

Below are the 32 letters of the modern Persian alphabet. Since the script is cursive, the appearance of a letter changes depending on its position: isolated, initial (joined on the left), medial (joined on both sides) and final (joined on the right) of a word. These include 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet, in addition to 4 other letters.

The names of the letters are mostly the ones used in Arabic except for the Persian pronunciation. The only ambiguous name is , which is used for both ح and ه. For clarification, they are often called (literally "-like " after , the name for the letter ج that uses the same base form) and (literally "two-eyed ", after the contextual middle letterform ـهـ), respectively. There are eight Persian letters that are mainly used in Arabic or foreign loanwords and not in native words: ث, ح, ذ, ص, ض, ط, ظ, ع and غ. These eight letters are also common used in proper names only. Unlike Arabic, the Persian language absolutely does not have pharyngealization at all. Although the letter غ is mainly used in Arabic loanwords, there are some native Persian words with this letter: آغاز, زغال, etc. The pronunciation of these letters in Persian can differ from their pronunciation in Arabic. For example, the letter ث is pronounced as /s/ in Persian, while it is pronounced as /θ/ in Arabic.

+ !Letter !Persian !Arabic
	/s/	/θ/
	/h/	/ħ/
	/z/	/ð/
ص	/s/	/sˤ/
ض	/z/	/dˤ/
ط	/t/	/tˤ/
ظ	/z/	/ðˤ/
ع	Glottal stop	/ʕ/
غ	or	/ɣ/

Overview table

0	همزه			Glottal stop	U+0621				ء
					U+0623	ـأ		أ
					U+0626	ـئ	ـئـ	ئـ	ئ
					U+0624	ـؤ		ؤ
1	الف				U+0627	ـا		ا
2	ب				U+0628	ـب	ـبـ	بـ	ب
3	پ				U+067E	ـپ	ـپـ	پـ	پ
4	ت				U+062A	ـت	ـتـ	تـ	ت
5	ث		/		U+062B	ـث	ـثـ	ثـ	ث
6	جیم		/		U+062C	ـج	ـجـ	جـ	ج
7	چ				U+0686	ـچ	ـچـ	چـ	چ
8	ح	()	/		U+062D	ـح	ـحـ	حـ	ح
9	خ				U+062E	ـخ	ـخـ	خـ	خ
10	دال				U+062F	ـد		د
11	ذال		/		U+0630	ـذ		ذ
12	ر				U+0631	ـر		ر
13	ز				U+0632	ـز		ز
14	ژ				U+0698	ـژ		ژ
15	سین				U+0633	ـس	ـسـ	سـ	س
16	شین				U+0634	ـش	ـشـ	شـ	ش
17	صاد		/		U+0635	ـص	ـصـ	صـ	ص
18	ضاد		/		U+0636	ـض	ـضـ	ضـ	ض
19	طا		/		U+0637	ـط	ـطـ	طـ	ط
20	ظا		/		U+0638	ـظ	ـظـ	ظـ	ظ
21	عین			, /	U+0639	ـع	ـعـ	عـ	ع
22	غین			,	U+063A	ـغ	ـغـ	غـ	غ
23	ف				U+0641	ـف	ـفـ	فـ	ف
24	قاف				U+0642	ـق	ـقـ	قـ	ق
25	کاف				U+06A9	ـک	ـکـ	کـ	ک
26	گاف				U+06AF	ـگ	ـگـ	گـ	گ
27	لام				U+0644	ـل	ـلـ	لـ	ل
28	میم				U+0645	ـم	ـمـ	مـ	م
29	نون				U+0646	ـن	ـنـ	نـ	ن
30	واو	(in Farsi)	/ / /	, , , (only word-finally)	U+0648	ـو		و
30	واو	(in Dari)	/ / /	, , ,	U+0648	ـو		و
31	ه	()		, or and (word-finally)	U+0647	ـه	ـهـ	هـ	ه
32	ی		/ / / (Also / in Dari)	, , ( / in Dari)	U+06CC	ـی	ـیـ	یـ	ی

Historically, in Early New Persian, there was a special letter for the sound . This letter is no longer used, as the -sound changed to , e.g. archaic زڤان /zaβān/ > زبان 'language'.

/ /

ـڤ

ـڤـ

ڤـ

Another obsolete variant of the twenty-sixth letter گ is ݣ‎ which used to appear in old manuscripts.

ݣ‎

ـݣ‎

ـݣـ‎

ڭـ

Another obsolete variant of the twenty-fifth letter ک is ك‎ which used to appear in old manuscripts.

ك‎

‎ـك

ـكـ‎

كـ

The archaic letter ݿ was also used as a substitute for the twenty-sixth letter of the Persian alphabet, گ, which was used to appear in the older manuscripts of Persian in the late 18th century to the early 19th century.

ݿ‎

‎ـݿ

ـݿـ‎

ݿـ

Variants

ی ه و ن م ل گ ک ق ف غ ع ظ ط ض ص ش س ژ ز ر ذ د خ ح چ ج ث ت پ ب ا ء
	•	Noto Nastaliq Urdu
	•	Scheherazade
	•	Lateef
	•	Noto Naskh Arabic
	•	Markazi Text
	•	Noto Sans Arabic
	•	Baloo Bhaijaan
	•	El Messiri SemiBold
	•	Lemonada Medium
	•	Changa Medium
	•	Mada
	•	Noto Kufi Arabic
	•	Reem Kufi
	•	Lalezar
	•	Jomhuria
	•	Rakkas
The alphabet in 16 fonts: Noto Nastaliq Urdu, Scheherazade, Lateef, Noto Naskh Arabic, Markazi Text, Noto Sans Arabic, Baloo Bhaijaan, El Messiri SemiBold, Lemonada Medium, Changa Medium, Mada, Noto Kufi Arabic, Reem Kufi, Lalezar, Jomhuria, and Rakkas.

Letter construction

1 dot below

﮳

1 dot above

﮲

2 dots below

﮵

2 dots above

﮴

3 dots below

﮹

3 dots above

﮶

line above

‾

none

madda above

Hamza below

ــٕـ

Hamza above

ــٔـ

The i'jam diacritic characters are illustrative only; in most typesetting the combined characters in the middle of the table are used.

Persian ''yē'' has 2 dots below in the initial and middle positions only. The [[standard Arabic]] version  ي يـ ـيـ ـي  always has 2 dots below.

Letters that do not link to a following letter

Seven letters (و, ژ, ز, ر, ذ, د, ا) do not connect to the following letter, unlike the rest of the letters of the alphabet. The seven letters have the same form in isolated and initial position and a second form in medial and final position. For example, when the letter ا is at the beginning of a word such as اینجا ("here"), the same form is used as in an isolated . In the case of امروز ("today"), the letter ر takes the final form and the letter و takes the isolated form, but they are in the middle of the word, and ز also has its isolated form, but it occurs at the end of the word.

Diacritics

Persian script has adopted a subset of Arabic diacritics: ( in Arabic), ( in Arabic), and or ( in Arabic, pronounced in Western Persian), and (gemination). Other Arabic diacritics may be seen in Arabic loanwords in Persian.

Short vowels

Of the four Arabic diacritics, the Persian language has adopted the following three for short vowels. The last one, sukūn, which indicates the lack of a vowel, has not been adopted.

064E	زبر (فتحه)	/
0650	زیر (کسره)	/	;	;
064F	پیش (ضمّه)	/	;

There is no standard transliteration for Persian. The letters 'i' and 'u' are only ever used as short vowels when transliterating Dari or Tajik Persian. See Persian Phonology

Diacritics differ by dialect, due to Dari having 8 distinct vowels compared to the 6 vowels of Farsi. See Persian Phonology

In Farsi, none of these short vowels may be the initial or final grapheme in an isolated word, although they may appear in the final position as an inflection, when the word is part of a noun group. In a word that starts with a vowel, the first grapheme is a silent which carries the short vowel, e.g. اُمید (, meaning "hope"). In a word that ends with a vowel, letters rtl=yes, rtl=yes and و respectively become the proxy letters for , and , e.g. نو (, meaning "new") or بسته (, meaning "package").

Tanvin (nunation)

Nunation (, tanvin) is the addition of one of three vowel diacritics to a noun or adjective to indicate that the word ends in an alveolar nasal sound without the addition of the letter nun.

064B	تنوین نَصْبْ
064D	تنوین جَرّ	Never used in the Persian language. Taught in Islamic nations to complement Quran education.
064C	تنوین رَفْعْ

Tašdid

0651

تشدید

Other characters

The following are not actual letters but different orthographical shapes for letters, a ligature in the case of the . As to ﺀ ( hamza), it has only one graphical form since it is never tied to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes 'seated' on a , or , and in that case, the seat behaves like an ordinary , or respectively. Technically, hamza is not a letter but a diacritic.

	U+0622	ـآ	—	آ		The final form is very rare and is freely replaced with ordinary alef.
or	U+06C0	ـۀ	—		ۀ	Validity of this form depends on region and dialect. Some may use the two-letter ـه‌ی or ه‌ی combinations instead.
	U+0644 (lām) and U+0627 (alef)	ـلا	—		لا
	U+0640	—	ـ	—		This is the medial character which connects other characters

Although at first glance, they may seem similar, there are many differences in the way the different languages use the alphabets. For example, similar words are written differently in Persian and Arabic, as they are used differently.

Unicode has accepted in the Miscellaneous Symbols range. "Miscellaneous Symbols". p. 4. The Unicode Standard, Version 13.0. Unicode.org In Unicode 1.0 this symbol was known as . "3.8 Block-by-block Charts" § Miscellaneous Dingbats p. 325 (155 electronically). The Unicode Standard Version 1.0. Unicode.org It is a stylization of الله () used as the emblem of Iran. It is also a part of the flag of Iran.

The Unicode Standard has a compatibility character defined that can represent ریال, the Persian name of the Iranian rial.For the proposal, see It proposes the character under the name of , which was changed by the standard committees to .

Novel letters

The Persian alphabet has four extra letters that are not in the Arabic alphabet: , ( ch in chair), ( s in measure), . An additional fifth letter ڤ was used for ( v in Spanish language huevo) but it is no longer used.

	پ	U+067E
(ch)	چ	U+0686
(zh)	ژ	U+0698
	گ	U+06AF

Deviations from the Arabic script

Persian uses the Eastern Arabic numerals, but the shapes of the digits 'four' (۴), 'five' (۵), and 'six' (۶) are different from the shapes used in Arabic. All the digits also have different codepoints in Unicode:

۰	صفر sefr	U+0660
۱	يک yek	U+0661
۲	دو do	U+0662
۳	سه se	U+0663
۴	چهار čahâr	U+0664
۵	پنج panj	U+0665
۶	شش šeš	U+0666
۷	هفت haft	U+0667
۸	هشت hašt	U+0668
۹	نه no	U+0669
ی	U+06CC	U+064A
ک	U+0643

Comparison of different numerals

Arabic numerals	4	9	10
Eastern Arabic	٤	٩	١٠
Persian	۴	۹	۱۰
Urdu alphabet
Abjad numerals	ه	ي

Word boundaries

Typically, words are separated from each other by a space. Certain morphemes (such as the plural ending '-hâ'), however, are written without a space. On a computer, they are separated from the word using the zero-width non-joiner.

Cyrillic Persian alphabet in Tajikistan

As part of the russification of Central Asia, the Cyrillic script was introduced in the late 1930s.

Christa Hämmerle (2025). 9783412201401, Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar. . ISBN 9783412201401

Marshall Cavendish (2006). 9780761475712, Marshall Cavendish. . ISBN 9780761475712

(2025). 9780472112265, University of Michigan Press. . ISBN 9780472112265

Lydia M. Buyers (2025). 9781590331538, Nova Publishers. . ISBN 9781590331538

The alphabet has remained Cyrillic since then. In 1989, with the growth in Tajik nationalism, a law was enacted declaring Tajik the state language. In addition, the law officially equated Tajik with Persian language, placing the word Farsi (the endonym for the Persian language) after Tajik. The law also called for a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic alphabet.

Anoushiravan Ehteshami (1994). 9780859894517, University of Exeter Press. . ISBN 9780859894517

Hafeez Malik (1996). 9780312164522, St. Martin's Press. . ISBN 9780312164522

(1994). 9780253209184, Indiana University Press. . ISBN 9780253209184

(1999). 9780312226916, St. Martin's Press. . ISBN 9780312226916

(1995). 9780813013671, University Press of Florida. . ISBN 9780813013671

Gareth M. Winrow (1995). 9780905031996, Royal Institute of International Affairs. . ISBN 9780905031996

(2010). 9780073385624, McGraw-Hill Education. . ISBN 9780073385624

(2025). 9781414448923, Gale. . ISBN 9781414448923

The Persian alphabet was introduced into education and public life, although the banning of the Islamic Renaissance Party in 1993 slowed adoption. In 1999, the word Farsi was removed from the state-language law, reverting the name to simply Tajik. the de facto standard in use is the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet, and only a very small part of the population can read the Persian alphabet.

Persian alphabet

( Arabic Alphabets )

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Persian alphabet

( Arabic Alphabets )