Language Reference Guide For Farsi

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1. Grammar and Spelling
2. Punctuation
3. Measurements and Abbreviations
4. Hyphenation
5. Miscellaneous Peculiarities
6. Geographic Distribution
7. Character Set

1. Word order: The general word order for an affirmative sentence is "Subject / Object / Verb."

3. Articles: Farsi does not use articles, as these are conveyed by
context. Other than this, Farsi grammar is very similar to English.

1. Speech marks: Chevrons «...» are used rather than English-style “…”.
However, they work in the same way as in English:

2. Other punctuation marks: Colons, semi-colons, full stops and
ellipses are all used in the same way as in English.

3. Capitalisation: There is no upper/lower case distinction in Farsi.

Section Three – Measurements and Abbreviations

Measurements: Measurements are always written using the metric system.

Decimals are written with a slash (‘/’) and thousands are separated with a comma.

Time: Times can be written thus:
10.30 am = ﺢﺒﺻ ١٠:٣٠
noon = ﺮﻬﻇ
4.30 pm = ﺮﻬﻇ زا ﺪﻌﺏ ۴: ٣٠
midnight = ﺐﺷ ﻪﻤﻴﻧ

Date:
20 February 2004 = ﻪیرﻮﻓ ٢٠٠۴ ٢٠
20th February 2004 = ﻪیرﻮﻓ ﻢﺘﺴﻴﺏ ٢٠٠۴
20/02/2004 = ٢٠/٢/٢٠٠۴
February 20 = ٢٠

Abbreviations: The use of abbreviations and symbols is rare in Farsi. All words, including currency names, are generally written in full. Equivalent abbreviations for measurements such as ‘kg’, ‘cm’, ‘yr’ do not exist. There should always be a space between a measurement and its unit.

Section Four – Hyphenation

Hyphens: Hyphens are used in Farsi but not often. They are mostly used to split words over lines, but also occasionally to make compound nouns. In the former case, words are broken down by syllabic structure.

Dashes: Long dashes are occasionally used to convey parenthetical information in a sentence.

Section Five – Miscellaneous Peculiarities

The use of bold/italicized letters for emphasis is relatively new to Farsi. It is best to avoid them, as emphasis is traditionally conveyed by phrasing rather than by orthography.

The order of first names and surnames is the same as in English.

Section Six – Geographic Distribution

Farsi (also known as Persian) is spoken in Afghanistan, India, Iran, Tajikistan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America.

Nearly all writing in Iran is in standard Farsi, despite the fact that there are dozens of regional dialects, as well as a large number of non-Farsi languages and dialects prevalent in the country.

A language called Dari, which is very closely akin to Farsi, is used in Afghanistan. Dari is intelligible to Farsi speakers and vice-versa, but the two are not interchangeable and one could not necessarily be written correctly by a speaker of the other. Farsi and Dari are both written in a version of the Arabic alphabet. Another language akin to Farsi, Tajik, is used in Tajikistan, but it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Section Seven – Character Set

All of the letters have several different forms; the form used depends on the particular letter’s position in a word.

ﮎ

ﻩ

ﯼ