How many persian letters are there

Register Email. Already a user? Register Fast! Password will be generated automatically and sent to your email. After registration you can change your password if you want.

Search in Learn Persian Online. Children Books. Persian Reading. Farsi Tutors. Get 3 months Audible membership for just 99p. If you need to type in many different languages, the Q International Keyboard can help. It enables you to type almost any language that uses the Latin, Cyrillic or Greek alphabets, and is free. If you like this site and find it useful, you can support it by making a donation via PayPal or Patreon , or by contributing in other ways.

Omniglot is how I make my living. Note : all links on this site to Amazon. This means I earn a commission if you click on any of them and buy something. So by clicking on these links you can help to support this site. Learn languages on iTalki Join shareasale. Then the combination of almost every consonant and vowel is represented by a different sign. Middle Persian was the official language of the Sasanian Empire.

It was also the second important language of the Zoroastrian religion. However, it was not written in a single alphabet. We have two groups of alphabets in which Middle Persian is written. The first, and most characteristic one is called Pahlavi script. This is the script by which the Zoroastrians used to write their literature.

It has three varieties which are called: Inscription Pahlavi alphabet, Book Pahlavi alphabet, and Pahlavi Psalter alphabet. The Inscription Pahlavi alphabet, which as you can guess is found in the inscriptions dating to the Sasanian period - AD , has overall 22 letters. It is based upon the Arameic alphabet.

This script is written from right to left. Most of its letters, as is characteristic to the Semitic alphabets, represent the consonants. A couple of letters are found only in words of Arameic origin. The Book Pahlavi alphabet is a later development of the Inscription Pahlavi. On the contrary, the number of letters has been reduced to 14, and difficulties in writing the script are sometimes overwhelming.

There are signs that may represent 4 or 5 sounds at the same time. You can only rely upon your memory or the context to determine how to read the word. Add to that also the fact that this alphabet is also a cursive one, i.

Sometimes this may result in different configurations that you have to learn by heart. This script was in use when the Arabic alphabet began to be adopted. Now you can understand, what an improvement was the Arabic script in comparison to this. The Psalter Pahlavi script was found on a small manuscript fragment and represents a middle stage between the Inscription and Book Pahlavi scripts.

Besides these, there was also another alphabet, by which the Middle Persian language was written. This was the Syriac alphabet, which was adopted by the followers of Mani , the founder of the Manichaean religion. If you are interested in learning Persian, you have to try to learn the Persian alphabet. In learning the language this is an unavoidable condition. If you are a language geek, then you are most probably going to enjoy this process. You may wonder why I am emphasizing this part especially?

The reason is simple, most of the Persian courses that are out there on the Web especially apps don't pay proper attention to the learning of the Persian alphabet, or touch it very briefly. This is a regrettable reality, for students who are not familiar with the eastern-type alphabets will puzzle themselves over it a lot. So my advice to all you beginners. If the online course you have chosen does not offer enough instruction in the Persian alphabet, or you are facing difficulties in understanding its basic principles, you might have a couple of options.

If this is the case:. Try to find other courses that offer a better explanation. Learn the alphabet and then come back to your original course.

Try to find a textbook of Persian, and learn the alphabet from there. You may also try to find an article on the Web.