A Consistent Persian Orthography Based on the Latin Script

SLPO: A Consistent Persian Orthography Based on the Latin Script

Reza Salarmehr Amirkabir University [email protected]

Abstract Persian is officially written in Arabic script which causes some well-known problems in writing academic materialfor native and non-native speakers. In this paper we propose a standard romanization and orthography scheme for Persian named SLPO that is best fitted for natural language processing, learning purposes and writing academic material (but not limited to) and we claim that it is the most comprehensive and consistent scheme ever presented for this language.

Keywords: romanization scheme, Persian, natural language processing, orthography

1 Introduction 2 The Arabic Script Problems

In Iran and Afghanistan, Persian is officially written in Arabic The problems of the Arabic script for writing Persian have script that is a right to left script (RTL). In this script short been investigated extensively during the two last centuries [?]. vowels are usually not written, and as a result a lot of word- A complete review of this topic is out of the scope of this pa- forms have more than one pronunciation and meaning (e.g: per. Here, we point to two main enigma regarding using the This fact makes writing and reading Persian hard Arabic script to write Persian (For a comprehensive overview .(ﺳﯿﺮ، ﺑﺮ، ﮐﺮم for non-native (and even native) speakers [?]. As a result most of related literature refer to [?]) . authors prefer to use a romanized form of Persian words that is easier to read and is supported better in computer environ- 2.1 Short Vowel Enigma ments. However, the absence of an accepted romanization stan- Short vowels (/æ/, /e/, /o/) are not generally represented in dard caused authors to use various personal romanization written Persian while changing the short vowel in a word can -rep ‹ﮔﻞ› schemes that in turn caused some problems. In this paper, create a totally unrelated new word. As an example we represent two romanization schemes for two distinct use- resents two unrelated words: ‹gel› (mud) and ‹gol› (ﬂower). cases. We claim that they are the most suitable schemes avail- So correct pronunciation of words which contains a short able to be used in general and particularly in academic cases. vowel is not possible without prior knowledge and if a word- The first scheme is intended to be used for general applica- form represents more that one word, the reader should choose tions but it is not totally reversible, and the second one is in- correct pronunciation according to its context. As a real extended to be used in situations that reversibility is important. ample see ?? figure. The name of a single alley could notbe We have provided a web site that contains the Latin form of pronounced correctly by the mayoralty staffer and is roman- more than 350,000 Persian words and idioms. You can access ized differently on two signboards in the alley. it in http://vajje.com. Ezafe is a one of most important grammatical features of The structure of this paper is as follows: in the next sec- Persian. Ezafe is pronounced as a short vowel, /e/, and similar tion we draw an overview of related works. In section ?? we to other short vowels it is generally not written. If the word point to characteristics of our proposed orthography named preceding Ezafe ends in a vowel, Ezafe will be articulated /je/ Also there is no .‹ی› ,SLPO. In sections ?? and ?? romanization and orthography is- and it will have a written presentation sues are discussed respectively. consensus on how to write the Persian indefinite article when may be ‹ی›+‹ﺧﺎﻧﻪ› the referent ends in /e/. As an example

1 3 Related works

In this section, we overview Persian romanization schemes that have been proposed in the past twenty years. Maleki [?] proposed a romanization scheme which contains 29 phonemes (23 consonants and 6 vowels) named Dabire (formerly eFarsi [?]). Dabire uses a single Latin grapheme for Arabic graphemes that have the same phonology in Persian. The author provides some guidelines for writ- Figure 1: Two signboards in Tehran. The name of the alley, ing compound words, abbreviations and foreign load words. ‹ ›, could not be pronounced correctly and is romanized -He also describes capitalization and punctuation in his ro ﭘﺸﻦ in two different forms in the same alley. manization scheme. Ghayour [?] provides a romanization mapping table named Ironic. Using the letter ‹w› to represent /u:/, his .[?] ‹ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﺋﯽ› or ‹ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﯾﯽ› ,‹ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ای› wrote as scheme only includes basic Latin alphabet. In his scheme letters ‹a›, ‹e›, ‹o›, ‹i›, ‹u› and ‹w› respectively represent /æ/, 2.2 ZWNJ Enigma /e/, /ɒ:/, /i:/, /o/ and /u:/. Unfortunately, this caused the Appearance of Arabic letters changes depending on the let- well-known pronunciation of letters ‹o›, ‹u›, ‹j› and ‹w› ters that precede or succeed them in a word and the struc- to be changed. Currently, Iranians generally pronounce these ture of the word that the letter belongs to. For exam- letters /o/, /uː/, /ʤ/ and /v/, respectively. Furthermore it uses a digraph for /ʤ/ and a monograph for /ʒ/ while /ʒ/ has ‹ﺳـ›,‹ـﺲ›,‹س› :has these forms (‹س›) ple, the letter sin .When writing Persian compound words, some the least frequency in Persian .‹ـﺴـ› and times letters in the concatenation point join each other Moslehi [?] introduced a romanization scheme named and sometimes they not (e.g. IPA2 (Pársik). He uses a lot of diacritics to represent aiyn (‹ﮔﻼب› →‹آب›+‹ﮔﻞ› .e.g) In computer ty- and hamza (called mul in IPA2). He also used a digraph for .(‹ﺟﺴﺘﻪ ﮔﺮﯾﺨﺘﻪ› →‹ﮔﺮﯾﺨﺘﻪ›+ZWNJ+‹ﺟﺴﺘﻪ› is a frequent Persian ‹ش› pography a zero width non-joiner character (ZWNJ) is in- /ʃ/ and a monograph for /ʧ/, while has very low frequency in Persian. The letter ‹چ› serted between stems to prevent them from joining each letter and mowz›. The› = ‹ﻣﻮز› .other. Unfortunately, there is no accepted rule for writing ‹w› is also used in some words, e.g derived and compound words (e.g. ‹dunecjoo› is written as scheme also has some rules for writing in informal language .and some other guidelines .[? ,? ,? ,?] (‹داﻧﺶ ﺟﻮ› and ‹داﻧﺸﺠﻮ› Similar to other Semitic languages, Arabic has a noncon- Mahdavi [?] proposed a strict mapping from Arabic script catenative "root-and-pattern" morphology. The pattern can to Latin script that maintains all Arabic diacritics and even The .‹(ڡ› .be used to read words correctly even without presenting short radical and ambiguous forms of letters (e.g vowels. Compounding and derivation are not used in the Ara- scheme contains almost 80 characters. Actually, adding Ara- bic language to form new words. As a result, the above two bic diacritics to Persian texts is simpler to learn and use. Nev- enigmas are not relevant in that language. Indeed the Arabic ertheless his suggestion may be useful in processing the old script only works well for writing the Arabic language. Persian and Arabic manuscripts. There are also some other rudimentary schemes, in- 2.3 Why is a standard romanization scheme nec- cluding: The Tajik alphabet in Latin (obsolete), Paarsi [?], essary? UniPers [?], UN romanization of Persian for Geographical Names [?], Library of Congress/American Library Associa- In addition to the above issues, there are some other diffi- tion romanization of Persian, IJMES transliteration system culties that caused those whose first language is not Persian for Arabic, Persian, and Turkish [?], Encyclopaedia Iranica’s to use the Latin script, instead of the Arabic script during scheme [?]. their learning course or in their publications. Unfortunately, All proposed schemes suffer from at least two of the fol- each author uses her/his personal romanization scheme that lowing deficiencies: (i) they use some new or modified Latin makes reading and indexing of romanized Persian texts diffi- letters that make their use hard for Persian-learners. (ii) they cult. Even in Iran when there is a need to romanize the name ignore phonological rules of Persian and spell some words un- of people and places, there is no unique accepted romaniza- necessarily long (iii) they lack a firm rule for writing saken ayin tion scheme. Consequently different romanized forms may and hamza. (iii) they do not comprehensively describe or- be used by distinct users which make searching the name of thography of all Persian grammatical structures. (iv) they do people and places hard and confusing.

2 not suggest a romanization scheme in situations in which re- 5 General Romanization versibility matters. (v) they ignore the semantic accepts of the writing system and do not provide any clues to shed light on The Latin script of Persian consists of 25 letters. It does not the meaning of words (vi) they do not provide a firm regular use the letter ‹w›. You can see the letters in table ??. There method to spell Persian verbs. are some rules in using this alphabet as follow: In this paper we have proposed a new orthography scheme which addresses all of these issues. Rule 1 Each word contains at least one vowel letter (‹a,e,i,o,u›). 4 SLPO Rule 2 No word begins with more than two consonants.

In this section we introduce our suggested romanization See section ?? to see how to pronounce words that begin schema named Standard Latin-based Persian orthography ab- with two consonants. breviated as SLPO. In developing our romanization scheme we used some 5.1 Vowels statistics data such as letter frequency and phoneme frequency. You can see Persian letter frequency in figure ?? and Persian has six vowels, including: /ɒː/, /e/, /o/,/æ/, /iː/ and ??. /uː/. The first three rows of table ?? show how a single word- SLPO is the most comprehensive and consistent Persian form in the Arabic script can be pronounced differently and romanization scheme ever proposed. Some of its applications yet convey distinct semantics. In the following subsection include: we explain how to map each vowel to its equivalent in Latin script. • Writing academic materials such as papers and books.

• TeachingPersian to non-native learners. Table 2: Persian vowels Latin IPA Arabic • Transliteration of geographical names ﺳﺮ /sar /sær ﺳﺮ /Natural language processing and text mining ser /ser • ﺳﺮ /sor /sor ﺳﺎر /Priorities sur /sɒːr 4.1 ﺳﻮر /soor /suːr The orthography is based on the following important priori- ﺳﯿﺮ /sir /siːr ties.

1. Unequivocalness and Reversibility: The words and 5.1.1 A sentences should be unequivocal as much as possible. This means that a single word-form should represent Letter A represents the near-open front unrounded vowel as few words as possible. (/æ/). Table ?? shows some examples of its usage. 2. Conciseness: The least amount of glyphs should be used for writing words and phrases. Table3: Examples for A Latin Arabic 3. Phonetic: The orthography should be highly regular ادب and word's pronunciations could be identified by their adab ﻣﻌﻠّﻢ spelling. moallem ﻣﻌﺮﻓﯽ moarrefi 4. No new glyph: SLPO uses only basic Latin alphabets. akkus ﻋﮑّﺎس -As a result it can be entered in all computational envi Aruk اراک .ronments without any modifications ﻋﻼءاﻟﺪّﻳﻦ Alueddin 5. Easy to learn, easy to use: The proposed scheme is easy to learn and use even for new learners.

3 Figure 2: Relative frequencies of letters in Persian

Figure 3: Relative frequencies of letters in Persian (Considering letters with the same phonetic together)

4 Table 1: Letters of general scheme Latin Letter IPA Arabic counterparts Cyrillic counterpart(s) (А а, (ъ اَ ، َ ، ع ، ىA a /æ/  Б б ب /B b /b Ш ш ش /C c /ʃ Д д د /D d /d Е е, Э э ا، ئِ، عE e /e/  Ф ф ف /F f /f Г г گ /G g /g ه، ح /H h /h ( И и, Ӣ ӣ, (Ё ё ی؛ ای، ﺋﯽ، ﻋﯽ، ﯾﯽ /I i /iː ج /J j /ʤ К к ک /K k /k Л л ل /L l /l М м م /M m /m Н н ن /N n /n/ /ŋ У у اُ ، ُ ، ع، ىO o /o/  П п پ /P p /p , ق ،غ /Q q /ɢ Р р ر /R r /r С с س، ث، ص /S s /s Т т ت، ط /T t /t О о ا، آ، ﺋﺎ، ﻋﺎ /U u /ɒː В в و /V v /v Х х خ /X x /x Й й ی /Y y /j З з ز، ذ، ض، ظ /Z z /z Digraphs (Ӯ ӯ, (Ю ю, Я я او، ﺋﻮ، ﻋﻮ، وoo /uː/  Ж ж ژ /jj /ʒ Ч ч چ /cc /ʧ

5 Rule 3 When the letter ‹a› is placed at the end of a word or 5.1.2 E when it is preceded by a vowel, it represents glottal stop(/ʔ/) Letter ‹E› presents the close-mid front unrounded vowel and so in these cases it is a consonant 1 (/ɒ:/). Table ?? shows some examples of its usage. In such situations, the corresponding Arabic letter is saken ayin 2 ( ) or saken hamza ( ). Table ?? shows some examples Table6: Examples for E ء ع of this usage (the words ‹jame› and ‹jamee› in this tables are only for comparison and do not contain consonant ‹a›). Latin Arabic ﻋﻨﺎﯾﺖ enuyat ﻧﺎﻣﻪ nume Table4: Examples for consonant A اﻧﻌﮑﺎس enekus ﭘﺴﺘﻪ Latin Arabic peste Eruq ﻋﺮاق ﺑﻌﺪ boad eatemud اﻋﺘﻤﺎد ﺑﻌﺪ baad erue اراﺋﻪ ﺷﻌﺮ cear majmooe ﻣﺠﻤﻮﻋﻪ رﻋﺐ roab ﺳﻌﺪی Saadi I 5.1.3 رؤﯾﺎ roayu ﻧﻌﻞ naal The letter ‹i› represents the long lose front unrounded vowel ﮐﻌﺒﻪ Kaabe (/i:/). Table ?? shows some examples of its usages. 4 رأی raay ﻧﻔﻊ nafa Table7: Examples for I ﻧﺎﻓﻊ nufea jume Latin Arabic ﺟﺎﻣﻪ ﺟﺎﻣﻊ jumea ﺳﯿﺐ sib ﺟﺎﻣﻌﻪ jumee اﯾﺮان Irun ﺟﺰ joz اﯾﻤﺎن imun ﺟﺰء joza ﺳﻌﯿﺪ Said اﻣﻀﺎء mzua3 اﯾﺪه ide اﻧﺸﺎء ncua ﻋﯿﺪ id ﻧﺎﯾﯿﻦ Nuin ﻧﯿﺎز niuz Rule 4 If /æ/ phoneme is preceded by another vowel it should be represented using two adjacent letters ‹a›. Notice that unlike English, in Persian two adjacent vowels Look at table ?? to see some examples of this rule. do not form a digraph and they should be pronounced sepa- rately (except ‹oo› digraph). Table ?? shows some examples of adjacent vowels. Table5: Examples for ‹aa› The pronunciation of ‹i› when is succeeded by a vowel is Latin Arabic comparable with the letter ‹ï› in English.

4In all tables Arabic refers to the Arabic script (Perso-Arabic script) and Latin ﺷُﻌﺐ coaab refers to the Latin script ﺷﻌﺮا coaarua ﺿﻌﻔﺎ zoaafu ﺑﯽ ادب biaadab

1The only exception for this rule is the word ‹na› (=no in English) that is pronounced: /næ/. 2A consonant that is not followed by a vowel is a saken consonant. 3Section ?? explains how to use two consonants in the beginning of words.

6 5.1.6 The digraph oo Table 8: Examples for I and an adjacent vowel Latin Arabic The digraph ‹oo› is pronounced /u:/ (long close back rounded vowel). Table ?? shows some examples of its usage. رﺋﯿﺲ a+i rais ﭘﺮوﺗﺌﻦ e+i perotein ‹Table 11: Examples for digraph ‹oo ﻣﻌﯿﻦ o+i moin Latin Arabic دﺳﺖ ﺷﻮﯾﯽ oo+i dastcooi ﻃﺒﯿﻌﯽ i+i tabii rooz روز ﺗﺸﯿﯿﻊ i+a tacia ﭘﻮﺳﺖ poost ﺷﯿﻌﻪ i+e cie ﻫﻠﻮ holoo ﺑﯽ ﻋﺮﺿﻪ i+o biorze ﻣﻮﺳﯿﻘﯽ moosiqi ﭘﯿﺎز i+a piuz ﻧﻮﺷﯿﺪن noocid an ﻧﯿﻮﺷﺎ i+oo Nioocu رﺋﻮف raoof ﺷﯿﻌﯽ i+i cii ﻣﺴﺌﻮل masool او oo ﻋﻮد O ood 5.1.4 ﻫﯿﻮﻻ hayoolu The letter ‹o› represents theclose-mid back rounded vowel ﯾﻮز yooz (/o/). Table ?? shows some examples of its usage. ﯾﻮﺳﻒ Yoosof ﯾﻮﻧﺎن Yoonun Table 9: Examples for O Latin Arabic 5.2 Consonants -The Latin alphabet of Persian is consists of 20 consonant let اردک ordak ters, as described below. Most of the examples that follow ﺗﻨﺪ tond are intended to be used as a pattern for writing other Persian ﺑﺮدن bord an .words اﻣﯿﺪ omid اروﭘﺎ Oroopu B 5.2.1 اروﻣﯿﻪ Oroomie اﺳﺘﺴﺘﺎن Osetestun The letter ‹b› is always used to represent the voiced bilabial stop (/b/) (like most other languages that use Latin Scripts). Table ?? shows some .‹ب› U Its counterpart in Arabic script is 5.1.5 The letter ‹o› represents the long open back rounded vowel, examples of its usage. (/ɒ:/). Table ?? shows some examples of its usage. Table12: Examples for B Table10: Examples for A Latin Arabic ﺑﺒﺮ Latin Arabic babr morabbu ﻣﺮﺑﺎ آب ub bomb ﺑﻤﺐ ﻋﺎﻟﻢ ulem ﺗﺮﺑﯿﺖ tarbiat ﻋﺎﻟﻢ ulam ﺑﯿﺮﺟﻨﺪ Birjand رﻋﺎﯾﺖ reuyat ﻫﺮآﯾﻨﻪ haruyene C 5.2.2 آﯾﻨﻪ uyene When this letter is not used in the digraph ‹cc› it is always آﻣﻞ Umol .(/used to represent the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative (/ʃ آﺑﺨﺎزﺳﺘﺎن Ubxuzestun Similar to its usage in Zhuang and Kabyle alphabets.) Its) ﻗﺮآن Qorun

7 Table ?? shows some ex- 5.2.5 G .‹ش› counterpart in Arabic script is amples of its usage. The letter ‹g› always represents voiceless labiodental fricative (/g/), (like a lot of languages that use the Latin script). Its -Some examples of its us .‹گ› Table13: Examples for C counterpart in Arabic script is age are shown in table ??. Latin Arabic voiced velar stop ﺷﯿﺮ cir ﺷﮑﻼت cokolut Table 16: Examples for G ﺗﺸﮑّﺮ tacakkor Latin Arabic اﻧﺸﺎاﻟﻪ ncuallah ﺷﯿﺮﯾﻦ cirin ﮔﻞ gol ﺷﯿﺮﯾﻦ Cirin ﮔﻞ gel ﺷﻮش Cuc ﮔﻠﻮﮔﺎه gelooguh ﺳﮓ sag ﮔﯿﻼن D Gilun 5.2.3 ﮔﻮش gooc The letter D always represents the voiced alveolar plosive (/d/), ﮔﺮم garm (like nearly all languages using the Latin script). Its counter- ﮔﺮم geram Some examples of its usage are . ‹د› part in Arabic script is shown in table ??. 5.2.6 H Table14: Examples for D The letter ‹h› always represents the voiceless glottal transition Latin Arabic (/h/), (like English, Faroese, German, Swedish etc. alphabets). -Some exam .‹ح› and ‹ه› Its counterparts in Arabic script are dooq .?? ples of its usage are shown in table دوغ دار dur در dar Table 17: Examples for H ﺗﺮدد taraddod moaaddab Latin Arabic ﻣﺆدب دوﺷﻨﺒﻪ Docanbe ﻫﺪﻫﺪ hodhod دوﺷﻨﺒﻪ docanbe ﺣﻮﻟﻪ hole ﺗﺤﻤﻞ tahammol 5.2.4 F ﺗﻬﺪﯾﺪ tahdid ﻣﺎه The letter ‹f› always represents the voiced alveolar plosive muh ﻧﮕﺎه f/), (like most languages that use the Latin script). Its coun- neguh/) mehrub ﻣﺤﺮاب Some examples of its usages . ‹ف› terpart in Arabic script is are shown in table ??. 5.2.7 J Table15: Examples for F When this letter is not used in the digraph ‹jj›, it always repre- Latin Arabic sents the voiced palato-alveolar aﬀricate (/ʤ/), 5 (like English, Portuguese and Turkmen alphabets). Its counterpart in Ara- ﻓﺮدا fardu bic script is ‹ › . Some examples of its usage are shown in ج ﻓﺎراﺑﯽ Furubi table ??. ﺗﻔﺎوت tafuvot ./5In this paper we use /ʤ/ to represent /d͡ʒ ﺗﻔﮑّﺮ tafakkor ﻓﺮودﮔﺎه foroodguh ﻓﻮت foot

8 Table 18: Examples for J Table20: Examples for L Latin Arabic Latin Arabic ﻟﻐﺰﯾﺪن laqzid an ﺟﺎن jun ﻻﻟﻪ lule ﺗﺠﺪّد tajaddod ﻻﻟﻪ Lule ﺟﺎﮐﺎرﺗﺎ Jukurtu ﻟﯿﻼ Leylu ﺟﮕﺎره jagure ﺗﻸﻟﻮ talaalo ﻫﺠﺪه hejdah ﺟﻮ joo ﺟﻮ jo 5.2.10 M ﺟﻮ jav The letter ‹M› always represents the bilabial nasal (/m/) (like a lot of languages that use the Latin script). Its counterpart in 5.2.8 K Some examples of its usage are shown in .‹م› Arabic script is The letter ‹k› always represents the voiceless velar stop (/k/) table ??. (like most languages that use the Latin script). Its counterpart Some examples of its usage are shown . ‹ک› in Arabic script is Table21: Examples for M in table ??. Latin Arabic ﻣﺎر Table 19: Examples for K mur mudar ﻣﺎدر Latin Arabic ﺗﻠﻤﺰ talammoz ﻣﺆﺛﺮ moaasser ﮐﻮه kooh ﻣﻮزاﺋﯿﮏ mozuik ﮐﺎک kuk ﮐﯿﮏ keyk ﻣﺮﮐّﺐ morakkab 5.2.11 N ﮔﺮاﻓﯿﮏ gerufik -The letter ‹n› when preceded by letters ‹K› or ‹G› repre ﮐﺮه kare sent velar nasal (/ŋ/) and in all other cases represents alveolar ﮐﺮه korre .(nasal (/n/) (like a lot of languages that use the Latin script ﮐﺮه kore Some examples of its .‹ن› Its counterpart in Arabic script is ﮐﺮه korh .?? usage are shown in table دﮐﻤﻪ dokme ﺗﮑﻤﻪ tekme اﮐﺒﺮ Akbar Table22: Examples for N ﮐﺎﺑﻞ Kubol 6 Latin Arabic اﻟﻪ اﮐﺒﺮ Alluhoakbar ﻧﺎﻧﻮا nunvu ﻧﯿﺠﺮﯾﻪ Nijerie ﻣﺆﻧّﺚ L moaannas 5.2.9 ﻧﺨﺴﺖ The letter ‹l› always represents the alveolar lateral approxi- noxost mant (/l/) (like most languages that use the Latin script). Its Some examples of its us- 5.2.12 P .‹ل› counterpart in Arabic script is age are shown in table ??. The letter ‹p› always represents voiceless bilabial stop (/p/) 6Common Arabic short sentences are written as a word in Persian (like most of the languages that use the Latin script). Its coun- Some examples of its usage are . ‹پ› terpart in Arabic script is shown in table ??.

9 -Some exam .‹ث› and ‹ص› ,‹س› terparts in Arabic script are Table 23: Examples for P ples of its usage are shown in table ??. Latin Arabic pu Table 26: Examples for S ﭘﺎ ﭘﻮل pool Latin Arabic ﭘﺎرﺳﯽ Pursi اﺳﺎس asus ﺗﻮپ toop ﺻﺎﺑﻮن saboon ﭘﭻ ﭘﭻ pecc-pecc ﻟﺜﻪ lase ﭘﻮﺷﺎک poocuk ﺳﺘﺎره seture ﭘﻮﺷﮏ poocak اﺳﺘﺨﺮ staxr sfenuj اﺳﻔﻨﺎج Q 5.2.13 اﺳﺘﺨﺎره stexure اﺳﺘﺒﺪاد The letter ‹q› always represents the voiced velar fricative stebdud 7 اﺳﻔﻨﺪ Some exam- Sfand .‹ق› q/)/ Its counterpart in Arabic script is/) ples of its usage are shown in table ??.

5.2.16 T Table24: Examples for Q The letter ‹t› always represents voiceless alveolar plosive (/t/) Latin Arabic (like the English, German and Norwegian languages). Its -Some exam .‹ط› and ‹ت› counterparts in Arabic script are ﻏﺎر qur .?? ples of its usage are shown in table ﮐﻼغ kaluq ﻏﻠﺘﺎن qaltun qucoq Table 27: Examples for T ﻗﺎﺷﻖ رﻗّﺖ reqqat Latin Arabic ﻗﺎﺋﻦ Quen ﺗﻮت toot ﻣﺮﺗّﺐ R morattab 5.2.14 ﺗﺮ tar ﺗﺎر The letter ‹r› always represents the alveolar trill (/r/) (like tur ﻃﻮﻃﯽ a lot of languages written in Latin script). Its counterpart in tooti ﻋﻄﺎرد Some examples of its usage are shown in Oturod .‹ر› Arabic script is ﺗﺮک table ??. tarak ﺗﺮک tark ﺗﺮک Table 25: Examples for R tork ﺗﺮک Tork Latin Arabic roostu V 5.2.17 روﺳﺘﺎ ﻣﻬﺮ mehr -The letter ‹v› always represents the voiced labiodental frica ربِ اﻧﺎر rob e anur tive (/v/) (like a lot of languages that use the Latin script). Its ﺳﺎﻻر sulur -when it is used as a conso) ‹و› counterpart in Arabic script is ﻣﺮﺑﺎ morabbu .?? nant). Some examples of its usage are shown in table رﺿﺎ Rezu

5.2.15 S The letter ‹s› always represents voiceless alveolar sibilant (/s/) (like almost all languages that use the Latin script). Its coun-

7According to dialects and words it also may be pronounced voiceless uvular stop /ɢ/ or voiced uvular stop /ɣ/.

10 when it is used as a consonant). Some examples of its) ‹ی› Table 28: Examples for V usage are shown in table ??. Latin Arabic vorood Table 30: Examples for Y ورود وزغ vazaq Latin Arabic ﻧﺎو nuv ﯾﺎس yus داوود Davood ﯾﮏ yek ﻧﻮﯾﺪ navid ری Rey rey ری X 5.2.18 ﯾﺎر yur ﭼﺎی The letter ‹x› always represents voiceless velar fricative (/x/) ccuy رﻋﯿﺖ It’s similar to Chi in the Greek script and Kha in the Cyrillic raiyyat) Some examples .‹خ› script). Its counterpart in Arabic script is of its usage are shown in table ??. 5.2.20 Z Rule 5 The letter ‹v› after the letter ‹x› is not pronounced. The Letter ‹z› always represents voiced alveolar fricatives (/z/) Notice this rule is important to satisfy the second priority. (like almost all languages that use the Latin script). Its coun- Some .‹ظ› and ‹ض› ,‹ذ› ,‹ز› see section ??) terparts in Arabic script are) examples of its usage are shown in table ??.

Table 29: Examples for X Table 31: Examples for Z Latin Arabic Latin Arabic ﺧﺪا Xodu ﮔﺰاردن gozurdan ﺧﺮد xerad زﻧﺒﻮر zanboor ﻧﺦ nax soozan ﺳﻮزن ﺗﺨﯿﻞ taxayyol arziz ارزﯾﺰ ﺧﯿﺎل xiul Zohre زﻫﺮه ﺷﯿﺦ ceyx zahre زﻫﺮه ﺧﺮﺧﺮه xerxere زﻣﯿﻦ Zamin ﺧﺮ xar زﻣﯿﻦ zamin ﺧﺎر xur زﻧﺠﺎن Zanjun ﺧﻮار xvur ذرت zorrat ﺧﺎن xun ﻇﻠﻢ zolm ﺧﻮان xvun tazud ﺗﻀﺎد ﺧﺎﺳﺘﻦ xust an zoozanaqe ذوزﻧﻘﻪ ﺧﻮاﺳﺘﻦ xvust an ﺧﻮاﺑﯿﺪن xvubid an Digraphs 5.3 ﺧﻮرﺷﯿﺪ xorcid ﺧُﺮد xord SLPO has two digraphs for presenting /ʒ/ and /ʧ/ both of ﺧﻮرد xord .which are phonemes with the least frequency in Persian ﺧﻮﯾﺶ xvic ﺧﯿﺶ xic Jj 5.3.1 ﺧﻮارزم Xvurazm The digraph ‹jj› represents the voiced palato-alveolar fricative ﺧﺮداد Xordud (/ʒ/). Some examples of its usage are shown in table ??. 5.2.19 Y The letter ‹y› always represents the voiced palatal approxi- mant (/j/) (like English). Its counterpart in Arabic script is

11 Table32: Examples for ‹jj› Table34: Two consonants in the beginning of words Latin Arabic Latin Arabic اﺑﺘﮑﺎر btekur ﭘﮋﻣﺮدن pajjmord an اﺷﻐﺎل cqul ﻣﮋده mojjde ادﺑﺎر dbur ﭘﺮوژه perojje اﻓﺘﺨﺎر ftexur ﭘﮋﻣﺎن Pejjmun اﮔﺰﻣﺎ gzemu ژﯾﻤﻨﺎﺳﺘﯿﮏ jjimnustik اﺣﺴﺎن hsun ژاﭘﻦ Jjupon اﺟﺒﺎر jbur ژاﻟﻪ Jjule اﮐﺘﺴﺎب ktesub اژی Ajji اﻟﺰام lzum اژدﻫﺎ ajjdahu اﻣﺸﺐ mcab nfejur اﻧﻔﺠﺎر Cc 5.3.2 اﭘﺴﯿﻠﻮن psilon اﻏﺮاق The digraph ‹cc› represents the voiceless palato-alveolar af- qruq 8 ارﺗﺒﺎط fricate (/ʧ/) . Some examples of its usage are shown in table rtebut اﺳﺘﺨﺮ staxr .?? اﺗّﺤﺎد ttehud اﯾﻮان Table 33: Examples for C yvun xruj اﺧﺮاج Latin Arabic اﺿﻄﺮاب zterub ﭼﺎپ ccup ﭼﭗ ccap they are saken, they are always preceded by a vowel letter. In ﭼﮑﺎوک ccakuvak .‹this situation, they are written as ‹a ﻣﭽﺎﻟﻪ moccule ﭼﻠﭽﻠﻪ ccelccele Compound words 5.4.3 ﭼﺸﻢ ccacm Persian has a lot of compound words. In Latin script, no space 5.4 Other Rules should be used between the building blocks of a compound word. Table ?? shows some examples of Persian compound 5.4.1 Two consonant in the beginning of words words. Rule 6 If a word begins with two consonants, the ﬁrst consonant is pronounced by adding /e/ at its beginning and the second consonant is pronounced using the vowel succeeding it. 6 Reversible Romanization Such words include a lot of Persian originated words (which If you want to map some texts in Arabic script to the Latin a large number of Arabic loan words (in script and the reversibility of the result is your concern, you ,(‹اس› begin with -and should use the reversible alphabet which adds a number of di اﻓﻌﺎل ,اﺳﺘﻔﻌﺎل :particular, words derived from these forms and a considerable number of other Indo-European acritics to the general alphabets. The new letters and diacritics (اﻧﻔﻌﺎل 9 ?? skate). Examples of these words are shown in table=)‹اﺳﮑﯿﺖ› .load words e.g are presented in table ??. 9 Also if necessary you can use ‹› character (U+2423, OPEN BOX) to denote Notice that rule ?? causes letter ‹e› to appear in the a space character that does not have a counterpart in Arabic text e.g. .‹bebaxc›→‹ﺑﺒﺨﺶ› ,‹(اﺳﻢ›=‹esm› ,‹ﻋﺸﻖ›= ‹begging of some words e.g. ‹ecq Similarly you can denote a ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER character in Arabic script .‹اﻣﺎرت›=‹emurat› ,‹اﻧﻌﮑﺎس›=‹enekus› tanˌhu› and›→‹ﺗﻦ ﻫﺎ› .using ‹ˌ› (U+02CC, MODIFIER LETTER LOW VERTICAL LINE) e.g .‹tanha› →‹ﺗﻨﻬﺎ› 5.4.2 Ayin 10 :They are .‹شActually only three in-use words have ‹ .‹ocçuq›=‹ﻋﺸّﺎق› bacçuc› and›=‹ﺑﺸّﺎش› ,‹muaocçair›=‹ﻣﺎء اﻟﺸّﻌﯿﺮ› As is obvious in the previous sections, Arabic letters ayin and So you seldom see ‹cç›. When .(ﺳﺎﮐﻦ) hazma are not written when they are not saken 8In this paper, /ʧ/ have been used to represent /t͡ʃ/.

12 Table 36: Reversible alphabet and their general alphabet counterparts Arabic General Reversible Table 35: Compound words a a ʿ ﻋـ Latin Arabic note a ʿa ﻋـ e ʿe ﻋـ ﺧﻮش ﺑﺮﺧﻮرد xocbarxord o ʿo ﻋـ رﻓﺖ وآﻣﺪ raftoumad u ʿu ﻋﺎ costecoo ﺷﺴﺘﺸﻮ costocoo oo ʿoo ﻋﻮ دﯾﺪوﺑﺎزدﯾﺪ didobuzdid i ʿi ﻋﯽ goftegoo ﮔﻔﺘﮕﻮ goftogoo a aʾ ء رﯾﺨﺖ وﭘﺎش rixtopuc a ʾa ء زدوﺑﻨﺪ zadoband e ʾe ء ﻓﺮازوﻧﺸﯿﺐ faruzonacib o ʾo ء ﺳﯽ وﺳﻪ ﭘﻞ Siosepol u ʾu ﺋﺎ ﺑﯿﺖ اﻟﻤﻘﺪّس Beytolmoqaddus oo ʾoo ﺋﻮ ﻣﺨﺰن اﻟﺴﺮار Maxzanolasrur i ʾi ﺋﯽ ﻣﺘّﻔﻖ اﻟﻘﻮل mottafeqolqol H h H h ه airbag ﮐﯿﺴﻪ ﻫﻮا kisehavu H h Ḥ ḥ ح accessibility دﺳﺘﺮﺳﯽ ﭘﺬﯾﺮی dastrasipaziri T t T t ت ﻫﺰارﭘﺎﯾﺎن hezurpuyun T t Ṭ ṭ ط ﺟﺴﺘﻪ ﮔﺮﯾﺨﺘﻪ jastegorixte siuhsefid T t T̤ t̤ ة ﺳﯿﺎه ﺳﻔﯿﺪ bolandqumat Q q Q̇ q̇ غ ﺑﻠﻨﺪﻗﺎﻣﺖ ﻗﺎﻧﻮن ﮔﺮﯾﺰ qunoongoriz Q q Q q ق ontology ﻫﺴﺘﯽ ﺷﻨﺎﺳﯽ hasticenusi Z z Z z ز ﮔﯿﺎه ﺷﻨﺎﺳﯽ giuhcenusi Z z Ẕ ẕ ذ اﺳﭙﻨﺪدودﮐﻦ spanddoodkon Z z Z̤ z̤ ض آب ﮔﺮم ﮐﻦ ubgarmkon Z z ẓ Ẓ ظ ﺑﺎدام ﻫﻨﺪی budumhendi S s S s س ﭘﺴﺘﻪ ﺷﺎﻣﯽ pestecumi S s Ṣ ṣ ص localization ﻣﺤﻠﯽ ﺳﺎزی mahallisuzi S s S̤ s̤ ث internationalization ﺑﯿﻦ اﻟﻤﻠﻠﯽ ﺳﺎزی beynolmelalisuzi cc cç 10 ش o ọ ۇ [a/e/o/)[l] (ā/ē/ī)[l) ال

13 -in the Latin alphabet is repre (‹جThe geminated jim (‹ Table37: Examples for the reversible alphabet sented by ‹dj› digraph. See table ?? for some examples. Arabic Latin ʾemurat ‹Table 38: Examples for ‹dj اﻣﺎرت ʿemurat ﻋﻤﺎرت q̇aẕu Latin Arabic ﻏﺬا qaz̤u ﺗﻮﺟﻪ tavadjoh ﻗﻀﺎ motevajȷe ﻣﺘﻮﺟﻪ motevadjeh ﻣﺘﻮﺟﻪ ḥayut ﺳﺠﺎده sadjude ﺣﯿﺎت ḥayuṭ ﻧﺠﺎر nadjur ﺣﯿﺎط ﺿﺠﻪ taʾaallom zadje ﺗﺄﻟﻢ taʿ aallom ﺗﻌﻠّﻢ moʿ uṣer ﻣﻌﺎﺻﺮ maʾus̤er 7 Orthography ﻣﺂﺛﺮ boeʿ d ﺑﻌﺪ baaʿ d After introduction of the letters, we are ready to discuss some ﺑﻌﺪ issues related to orthography. raaʾy رأی dorr در dọr 7.1 Punctuation دور door In this section, usages of hyphen and apostrophe in SLPO are دور .xord described ﺧُﺮد xọrd ﺧﻮرد rọqan Hyphen 7.1.1 روﻏﻦ umadọcod آﻣﺪوﺷﺪ foqōluʿade Hyphen usage is like its usage in English (in particular to join ﻓﻮق اﻟﻌﺎده Abōlfazl ordinarily separate words into single words to make some new اﺑﻮاﻟﻔﻀﻞ bēlaxare technical or context-specific terms, but for general compound ﺑﺎﻻﺧﺮه .(?? beytōlmul words no hyphen is used. See section ﺑﯿﺖ اﻟﻤﺎل ʿAbdōrraḥmun A hyphen is also used in some interjection words, as you ﻋﺒﺪاﻟﺮﺣﻤﺎن .?? ʿAbdōlluh see in table ﻋﺒﺪاﻟﻪ duyerat̤ọlmaʿ uref داﯾﺮة اﻟﻤﻌﺎرف mottafeqọlqol Table39: Interjection ﻣﺘّﻔﻖ اﻟﻘﻮل ʿAluʾēddin ﻋﻼءاﻟﺪّﻳﻦ Latin Arabic note sound of boiling water ﻏُﻞ ﻏُﻞ When you are transliterating from the Latin script to the qol-qol clack ﺗﻎ ﺗﻎ Arabic script and encounter a vowel with a macron (ˉ) above, teq-teq croak ﻏﺎرﻏﺎر Alef) in its place, qur-qur) ‹ا› you should immediately place a letter ticktack ﺗﯿﮏ ﺗﺎک if it was followed by two adjacent moon letters 11, you should tik-tuk bark ﻋﻮﻋﻮ Alef). o-o) ‹ › اLam) after inserted) ‹ل› also add a letter miaou ﻣﯿﻮﻣﯿﻮ mio-mio gurgle ﺷُﺮﺷُﺮ Germination cor-cor 6.1 bleat ﺑﻊ ﺑﻊ baa-baa In the Arabic script the germination can be denoted by shad- .In SLPO a germinated letter is written twice e.g .(‹ـّ›) dah -pelle›. Also notice that the second letter of two› → ‹ﭘﻠّﻪ› letter Arabic loan words are always germinated regardless of 7.1.2 Apostrophe :Apostrophe has the following usages →‹ﺣﻖhadd›, ‹›→‹ﺣﺪّ› .their position in the sentence, e.g ‹haqq› (Arabic words with duplicated root).

11 ‹ء›, ‹ب›, ‹ج›, ‹ح›, ‹خ›, ‹ع›, ‹غ›, ‹ف›, ‹ق›, ‹ک›, ‹م›, ‹و›, ‹ی›, :Moon letters are .‹ه›

14 As a mark of contraction: Omission of one or more sounds 7.3 Ezafe (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or Ezafe has a wide range of uses in Persian, most importantly for phrase to make easier pronunciation is very common in collo- making possessive and adjective phrases. [?,?,?], Ezafe should quial Persian and some times in Persian poetry. The omitted be written as a word in the Latin script: ‹e›. If the last letter of letters in a contraction are replaced by an apostrophe. its previous word is a vowel, it is pronounced /je/, otherwise it is pronounced /e/. See table ?? and the following examples. As a mark of elision: Elision has no influence on writing, but in poetry, theater text and other similar situations to show the actual speech of a character you can omit some characters and use an apostrophe instead. Table42: Ezafe examples ketub e darsi ﮐﺘﺎبِ درﺳﯽ sib e cirin ﺳﯿﺐِ ﺷﯿﺮﯾﻦ Vocative form ‹'a› can be used to make vocative form nouns xune e vilui ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ی وﯾﻼﯾﯽ vocative case). See table ??. Notice that the ‹’a› particle is) uhoo e zibu آﻫﻮی زﯾﺒﺎ pronounced /jɒ:/ if the word ends in a vowel and /ɒ:/ in other parto e muh ﭘﺮﺗﻮی ﻣﺎه .cases joo e ub ﺟﻮی آب ju e xuli ﺟﺎی ﺧﺎﻟﯽ Table40: Vocative form Latin Arabic Example 1 Mohammad ccuy ru dar qoori e bozorg i ke az ﺧﺪاﯾﺎ Xodu'u .jens e rooy bood rixt va roo e miz gozuct ﭘﺮودﮔﺎرا Parvardegur'u ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﭼﺎی را در ﻗﻮری ﺑﺰرﮔﯽ ﮐﻪ از ﺟﻨﺲ روی ﺑﻮد رﯾﺨﺖ و روی ﻣﯿﺰ ﺑﺰرﮔﺎ bozorg'u ﮔﺬاﺷﺖ. ﺳﻌﺪﯾﺎ Saadi'u Example 2 Be ju e negahduri e mohemmut zarrudxune mi goo'and. ﺑﻪ ﺟﺎی ﻧﮕﻬﺪاری ﻣﻬﻤﺎت زرادﺧﺎﻧﻪﻣﯽ ﮔﻮﯾﻨﺪ. Plural nouns 7.2 Toform a plural noun add the ‹-hu› suffix to a singular noun. 7.3.1 Comparison .(‹ﺳﯿﺐ ﻫﺎ›) ‹For example ‹sib›+‹hu›→‹sibhu Also for words that refer to humans you can form plural You can use suffixes ‹-ar› (the "comparative") and ‹-tarin› by adding the ‹-un› suffix. If the noun ends in a vowel itmay (the "superlative") for comparison. Table?? provides three ex- be changed before adding ‹un›. See table ?? to see some examples. amples [?]. 7.4 Indefinite article Table41: Using ‹an› to form plural form The Persian indefinite article is ‹i› that is placed after theref- karmand+un → karmandun erent. See table ?? for some examples. Note that in Arabic ﮐﺎرﻣﻨﺪان suffix and ‹ › یdunecamooz+un → dunecamoozun script the indefinite noun is formed by adding داﻧﺶ آﻣﻮزان in Latin script it is a word. moallem+un → moallemun ﻣﻌﻠّﻤﺎن ostad+un → ostadun اﺳﺘﺎدان ucna+yun → ucnayun Table44: Indefinite article آﺷﻨﺎﯾﺎن bunoo → bunov+ un → bunovun definite indefinite ﺑﺎﻧﻮان xastoo → xastov+un → xastovun ﺧﺴﺘﻮان nakare ﻧﮑﺮه maarefe ﻣﻌﺮﻓﻪ ketub i ﮐﺘﺎﺑﯽ ketub ﮐﺘﺎب This suffix can also be added to some wordsto ketubhu i ﮐﺘﺎب ﻫﺎﯾﯽ ketubhu ﮐﺘﺎب ﻫﺎ make new nouns that refer to a particular group. xune i ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ای xune ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ‹giuh›+‹un›→‹giuhun›=‹ › (refer to plants as a xunehu i ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﻫﺎﯾﯽ xunehu ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﻫﺎ ﮔﯿﺎﻫﺎن category). For some Arabic loan words suffixes ‹-at› and ‹-in› can Har gerd i gerdoo nist. also be used to form plural nouns. Example 3 ﻫﺮ ﮔﺮدی ﮔﺮدو ﻧﯿﺴﺖ.

15 Table43: Comparison Positive Comparative Superlative tarin- ﺗﺮﯾﻦ- tar- ﺗﺮ- bozorgtarin ﺑﺰرگ ﺗﺮﯾﻦ bozorgtar ﺑﺰرگ ﺗﺮ bozorg ﺑﺰرگ zibatarin زﯾﺒﺎﺗﺮﯾﻦ zibutar زﯾﺒﺎﺗﺮ zibu زﯾﺒﺎ paktarin ﭘﺎک ﺗﺮﯾﻦ puktar ﭘﺎک ﺗﺮ puk ﭘﺎک

Ali zarf i az zeytoon be man dud. Example 4 The past stem of a lot of Persian verb can be built by adding -id› to the end of the corresponding present stem. Addi-› ﻋﻠﯽ ﻇﺮﻓﯽ از زﯾﺘﻮن ﺑﻪ ﻣﻦ داد. tionally, the past participle can be formed by adding ‹-e› to Dunu i muru nejut dud. the end of the past stem. To construct verbs, person suffixes are added to the three principal parts and if necessary some داﻧﺎﯾﯽ ﻣﺮا ﻧﺠﺎت داد. Example 5 A wise person saved me. grammatical particles precede or secede the result. Verb suf- and person suffixes in the (‹ن› and ‹ب› ,‹ﻧﻤﯽ› ,‹ﻣﯽ›) fixes Dunui maru nejut dud. Arabic script, are written as a separate word in SLPO. Verbal person pronouns (person suffix in the Arabic script) are listed داﻧﺎﯾﯽ ﻣﺮا ﻧﺠﺎت داد. Example 6 The wisdom saved me. in table ??. In table ?? you can see conjugation of indicative present of ,Note that in the case of 3rd person singular .(‹ ›) رﻓﺘﻦ‹Possessive Adjectives ‹raft an 7.5 Possessive suffixes in the Arabic Script are written as awordin no suffix is added to the past stem; ‹ad› is added to present stem SLPO. Please look at table ?? and ‹ast› is added to past participle.

Table45: Possessive Adjectives Table 46: Verbal Person Pronouns mun Person Singular Plural ﻣﺎن am ام tun 1st am im ﺗﺎن at ات cun 2nd i id ﺷﺎن ac اش 12 Example 1 3rd φ / ad / ast and ketub mun ﮐﺘﺎب ﻣﺎن ketub am ﮐﺘﺎﺑﻢ ketub tun ﮐﺘﺎب ﺗﺎن ketub at ﮐﺘﺎﺑﺖ ketub cun ﮐﺘﺎب ﺷﺎن ketub ac ﮐﺘﺎﺑﺶ (‹ ›) رﻓﺘﻦ‹Table47: Conjugation of indicative present ‹raft an Example 2 Person Singular Plural xune mun ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﻣﺎن xune am ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ام xune tun 1st mi rav'am mi rav'im ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﺗﺎن xune at ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ات xune cun 2nd mi rav'i mi rav'id ﺧﺎﻧﻪ ﺷﺎن xune ac ﺧﺎﻧﻪ اش 3rd mi rav'ad mi rav'and

7.6 Verbs In table ?? examples of various tenses are presented. 12φ= nothing. All Persian Verbs in contemporary Persian can be built using three principal parts:

• Present stem

• Past stem • Past participle

16 7.6.1 Infinitive form Table48: Examples of various tenses of ‹did an› The infinitive form of a verb is constructed by placing ‹an› xvuh'am did ﺧﻮاﻫﻢ دﯾﺪ after the past stem of the verb. e.g. ‹did›+‹ ›+‹an›→‹did mi xvuh'am be bin'am ﻣﯽ ﺧﻮاﻫﻢ ﺑﺒﯿﻨﻢ ”.e.g. “Lotfan feal e 'zist an' ru sarf kon .(‹دﯾﺪن›) ‹an dur'am mi bin'am Notice when it is used as a noun instead of infinitive, no دارمﻣﯽ ﺑﯿﻨﻢ dide buc'am space is placed between past stem and ‹an› suffix. e.g. “Ali az دﯾﺪه ﺑﺎﺷﻢ ”.dide cod'am didan e tabiat xaste nemi cav’ad دﯾﺪه ﺷﺪم dide mi cav'am دﯾﺪهﻣﯽ ﺷﻮم 7.6.2 Imperative mood The general structure of Persian active verbs are demon- Imperative is formed by preceding the present stem by ‹be› or strated in figure ??. Beginning from colored nodes (green ‹bi› particles (later used when the stem begins with a vowel). nodes) and ending in dashed nodes, a verb group can be con- Negated imperative is formed by preceding the present structed. The figure can be used to form fifteen active typesof stem by ‹na› or in historical texts by ‹ma›. Table ?? shows Persian verbs. If a path contains any dashed edge (99K), this some examples. means that type is not in active use any longer. To construct the passive type counterpart of an active Table50: Examples of imperative mood -in figure ?? and add the past par (‹ﺷﺪن›) ‹type, use ‹cod an ticiple part of the main verb to it. e.g. ‹duct’am mi did’am → imperative negated imperative ducat’am dide mi cod’am›. be xor na xor ﻧﺨﻮر ﺑﺨﻮر -The general structure of Persian passive verbs are demon be necin na necin ﻧﻨﺸﯿﻦ ﺑﻨﺸﯿﻦ strated in figure ??. A verb can be constructed beginning from bi andic na andic ﻧﯿﺎﻧﺪﯾﺶ ﺑﯿﺎﻧﺪﯾﺶ .colored nodes (oranges nodes) and ending in dashed nodes be ro na ro ﻧﺮو ﺑﺮو The figure can be used to form 15 passive types of Persian be bin na bin ﻧﺒﯿﻦ ﺑﺒﯿﻦ verbs. If a path contains any dashed edge (99K), this means bi u na u ﻧﯿﺎ ﺑﯿﺎ .that type is not in active use any longer be coor na coor ﻧﺸﻮر ﺑﺸﻮر A full description of Persian verbs is out of the scope of be xand na xand ﻧﺨﻨﺪ ﺑﺨﻨﺪ this paper. We will only show some examples here as a guide be farmu na farmu ﻧﻔﺮﻣﺎ ﺑﻔﺮﻣﺎ .to write verbs in this orthography na deh ﻧﺪه be deh ﺑﺪه

Table 49: Examples of three principal parts of some Persian verbs 8 Ease of Acquiring Infinitive Present stem Past stem Past Participant To measure how much time is required to learn SLPO, we buc bood boode conducted two experiments. In the first experiment we ask 14 ﺑﻮدن dur duct ducte native Persian speakers to read out a poem which was typeset داﺷﺘﻦ -xvuh xvust xvuste in the Arabic script (each participant was isolated from oth ﺧﻮاﺳﺘﻦ rav raft rafte ers). After that we ask them to read the same poem written رﻓﺘﻦ cuy cost coste in SLPO. We counted the number of errors in their reading ﺷﺴﺘﻦ zi zist ziste in both scripts. The figure shows the number of errors. It زﯾﺴﺘﻦ u umad umade is obvious that the number of errors when reading a text in آﻣﺪن andic andicid andicide SLPO is dramatically less than reading the same text in the اﻧﺪﯾﺸﯿﺪن fahm fahmid fahmide Arabic script. The test participants were trained less than five ﻓﻬﻤﯿﺪن dav david davide minutes to be familiar with SLPO. The age of the participants دوﯾﺪن davun davunad davunde were between 12 and 50. Their education levels were between دواﻧﺪن ,num numid numide secondary school students and masters degree. Additionally ﻧﺎﻣﯿﺪن zang zangid zangide notice the errors in reading SLPO were the result of reading زﻧﮕﯿﺪن carelessly while the mistakes in reading the Arabic script were the result of its deficiencies.

17 12 provided for situations reversibility is required. Textsthat are romanized by the reversible scheme, can be converted to the 10 general scheme only by removing the diacritics. (6) According

8 to our experiments, SLPO is easy to learn and use. A native speaker who has problems in reading classic Persian poetry can 6 read them error-free when they are written in SLPO. Indeed

number of erros of number SLPO can also help them to comprehend the poem more cor- 4 rectly. (7) The scheme has regular firm rules for writing verbs. (8) SLPO provides some clues to show some semantic aspects 2 of texts. (9) A database of nearly all Persian words in SLPO

0 is also available that can be easily used to create SLPO spell test participant

Arabic SLPO checker.

Figure 6: Totalof errors among participants in the first exper- Acknowledgment iment I would like to thank Prof. R. Safabakhsh, Dr. M. M. Homay- To measure the time length required to learn SLPO ›In ounpour, Dr. S. Khadivi, Dr. M. Omidali, O. Ghayour, M. the second experiment, we prepared a three-page manual for Kouhestani, A. Moloodi, M. Mahdavi, A. Mirzai to read the SLPO. We asked another 22 participants to read the manual paper and to provide some suggestions, F. Ranjbaran to re- and convert a given sentence in the Arabic script to SLPO and proof the paper, as well as all the other scholars who have to convert another sentence in SLPO to its counterpart in the helped in someways during devising SLPO. In addition, I Arabic script. We requested from the participants to declare would like thank all who participate in evaluation phase of the time length it took them to read the manual and write SLPO. down the answers. Analyzing the answers, we discovered they could map SLPO to the Arabic script perfectly. They also could convert the Arabic script to SLOP near-perfectly. In References average, the time required for learning and using SLPO was [1] Paarsi. http://paarsi.org. 20.4 minutes among the participants. [2] Unipers. http://www.unipers.com/. 9 Conclusions [3] Encyclopaedia Iranica Notes for Contributors, 2012.

In this paper we introduced a novel romanization and orthog- [4] New persian romanization system. in Tenth United Na- raphy scheme for Persian that is easy to learn and use, consis- tions Conference on the Standardization of Geographical tent and applicable in a lot of scenarios, particularly in writing Names, 2012. academic materials (NLP and linguistics) and language learn- [5] Baluch, Bahman. Persian orthography and its relation ing. Here is a summary of its characteristics that make it supe- to literacy. Handbook of orthography and literacy, pp. rior to other proposed schemes: 365--376, 2006. (1) Using only the basic Latin alphabet that consequently makes SLPO usable in almost all computer environments [6] Cour, Jaafar. Sluh e mlu e fursi ru az koju corooa kon'im: without any configuration. (2) Persian has a lot of long words be monusebat e tackil e farhangestun. Yaqmu, (273):157- and phrases. Writing vowels in the Latin scripts make them -161, 1971. even longer, to abate this issue: (i) Persian consonants and vowels are mapped to graphs and digraphs by considering [7] Farcidvard, Xosro. Bahs i darbure e xat e fursi va pis- their relative frequencies in the Persian language vocabulary nahudhu i darbureye yeksunsun kardan e un. Vahid, (ii) using Persian language phonology rules and avoiding to (96):1318--1330, 1971. write vowels in some situations, yet the pronunciation of [8] Ftexuri, Seyyed Smuil. Darumad i bar xatcenusi va words are completely identifiable by their spelling. As are- nazmgorizi e nevectur e fursi. Duneckade e oloom e nsuni sult, the romanized text will be as short as possible (3) A clear dunecguh e emum Hoseyn, (58):33--62, 2005. and consistent rule is proposed to write the saken ayin. (4) The orthography scheme covers all Persian grammatical struc- [9] Ghayour, Omid. Ironik. http://xrad.ir/ tures. (5) A complementary reversible romanization scheme is xat-e-ironik/.

18 [10] Hendi, Said. Dastoor e xat e fursi: Cive i dar negurec e kalamut e morakkab. Rocd e zabun va adab e Fursi, (63):27--31, 2002.

[11] International Journal Of Middle East Studies. IJMES Transliteration System For Arabic, Persian, And Turk- ish. [12] Kahnemuyipour, Arsalan. Persian ezafe construction: case, agreement or something else. in Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Persian Language and Computer, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran, 2006. [13] Karimidoostun, Qolumhoseyn. Goonugooni e ne- cunehu e jama '-ut' va '-un' dar fursi. Oloom e jtemui va nsuni dunecguh e Ciruz, (40):29--41.

[14] Mahdavi, M. A. A proposed unicode-based extended romanization system for persian texts. International Jour- nal of Information Science and Management (IJISM), 10(1):57--71, 2012. [15] Maleki, Jalal. efarsi - a latin-based writing scheme for farsi. [16] Maleki, Jalal. A romanized transcription for persian. Proceedings of Natural Language Processing Track (IN- FOS2008), Cairo, 2008.

[17] Moslehabadi, Ali Moslehi. Ipa2 (pársik). http://www.persiandirect.com/projects/ ipa2/ipa2_tutor.htm. [18] Ostudi, Kuzem. Guhcomur e camsi e taqiir e xat e fursi (az qarn e avval e hejri tu konoon). Payum e Bahurestun, 15, 2012.

[19] Pantcheva, Marina Blagoeva. Persian preposition classes. 2006.

[20] Rajabzude, Hucem. Andice e sluh va vasvase e taqir e xat dar irun va jupon e mouser. Nume e Farhangestun, (33):9--27, 2007. [21] Samiian, Vida. The ezafe construction: Some implica- tions for the theory of x-bar syntax. Persian Studies in North America, pp. 17--41, 1994.

[22] Vahedi-Langrudi,Mohammad Mehdi. Lexical represen- tation of morphologically complex words and lexical access in persian. Zabun va adabiut e Fursi, (33):35--66, 2001.

19 Figure 4: General pattern of Persian active verbs

Figure 5: General pattern of Persian passive verbs

20 A Additional Examples A.3 Pronouns

In this section we provide some important groups of words to A.3.1 Subject pronouns be used as a reference and a learning material.

A.1 Name of months Table53: Subject pronouns man mu ﻣﺎ ﻣﻦ Month’s names are capitalized in the orthography. Table to comu ﺷﻤﺎ ﺗﻮ .shows the names of Solar Hiji months in Latin script ?? oo icun اﯾﺸﺎن او Month’s names and their 3-letter abbreviation are shown in table ?? A.3.2 Object Pronouns Table 51: Name of months Arabic Latin Latin Abr. Table54: Object pronouns Farvardin Frv mura ﻣﺎرا maru ﻣﺮا ﻓﺮوردﯾﻦ Ordibehehect Ord comuru ﺷﻤﺎرا toru ﺗﺮا اردﯾﺒﻬﺸﺖ Xordud Xrd icunru اﯾﺸﺎن را ooru او را ﺧﺮداد Tir Tir ﺗﯿﺮ Mordud Mrd ﻣﺮداد Cahrivar Chr A.4 Demonstrative pronouns ﺷﻬﺮﯾﻮر Mehr Mhr ﻣﻬﺮ Ubun Ubn آﺑﺎن Uzar Uzr Table55: Demonstrative pronouns آذر Dey Dey دی in اﯾﻦ Bahman Bhm ﺑﻬﻤﻦ un آن Sfand Sfn اﺳﻔﻨﺪ inhu اﯾﻦ ﻫﺎ unhu آن ﻫﺎ inun اﯾﻨﺎن A.2 Week days unun آﻧﺎن ?? Names of weekdays should be capitalized in SLPO. Table shows the names and their 1-letter and 3-letter abbreviations. ‹Inan› and ‹anan› are usually used only for humans.

Table 52: Week days A.5 Interrogative words Arabic Latin 1-letter abr. 3-letter abr. Canbe C Cnb ﺷﻨﺒﻪ Yekcanbe Y Ykc Table56: Interrogative words ﯾﮑﺸﻨﺒﻪ Docanbe D Doc دوﺷﻨﺒﻪ cce (cci) what ﭼﻪ (ﭼﯽ) Secanbe S Sec ﺳﻪ ﺷﻨﺒﻪ cceru why ﭼﺮا Ccurcanbe R Ccu ﭼﻬﺎرﺷﻨﺒﻪ ccegoone how ﭼﮕﻮﻧﻪ Panjcanbe P Pnc ﭘﻨﺞ ﺷﻨﺒﻪ (ccand (how much ﭼﻨﺪ Udine/Jome U / J Udn / Jom ccandtu how many ﭼﻨﺪﺗﺎ آدﯾﻨﻪ/ﺟﻤﻌﻪ cceqadr how much ﭼﻘﺪر ki who ﮐﯽ key when ﮐﯽ koju where ﮐﺠﺎ

21 A.6 Numbers A.6.1 Cardinal numbers

Table?? lists cardinal numbers. As an example 684,541,213,251 Table57: Cardinal numbers in letters is: 0 sefr cecsad o hactud o ccur bilyun o 1 yek punsad o ccel o yek milioon o 2 do devist o sizdah hezur o 3 se devist o panjuh o yek. 4 ccur13 5 panj A.6.2 Ordinal numbers 6 cec Table?? contains the first five ordinal numbers. 7 haft 8 hact 9 noh Table 58: Ordinal numbers 10 dah English number+om number+min 11 yuzdah 1st 1om yekom/naxost 1mn naxostin 12 davuzdah 2nd 2om dovom 2mn dovomin 13 sizdah 3rd 3om sevom 3mn sevomin 14 ccurdah 4th 4om ccurom 4mn ccuromin 15 punzdah 5th 5om panjom 5mn panjmin 16 cunzdah 17 hefdad 18 hejdah A.7 Poetry 19 noozdah 20 bist Tables?? and ?? represent two poems by Hufez and Saadi. 21 bist o yek ⋮ ⋮ 29 bist o noh 30 si 40 ccehel 50 panjuh 60 cast 70 haftud 80 hactud 90 navad 100 sad 200 devist 300 sisad 400 ccursad 500 punsad 600 cecsad 700 haftsad 800 hactsad 900 nohsad 1,000 hezur 1,000,000 milioon 1,000,000,000 bilyoon/bilyurd 1,000,000,000,000 tirilyoon

13Also ‹ccehur›

22 Table 59: An example of poetry in Latin script (by Saadi) Baniudam aazu e yekdigar'and ﺑﻨﯽ آدم اﻋﻀﺎی ﯾﮑﺪﯾﮕﺮﻧﺪ Ke dar ufarinec ze yek gohar'and ﮐﻪ در آﻓﺮﯾﻨﺶ ز ﯾﮏ ﮔﻮﻫﺮﻧﺪ Cco ozv i be dard uvar'ad roozgar ﭼﻮ ﻋﻀﻮی ﺑﻪ درد آورد روزﮔﺎر Degar ozvhu ru na mun'ad qarur دﮔﺮ ﻋﻀﻮﻫﺎ را ﻧﻤﺎﻧﺪ ﻗﺮار To k'az mehnat e digarun biqam'i ﺗﻮ ﮐﺰ ﻣﺤﻨﺖ دﯾﮕﺮانﺑﯽ ﻏﻤﯽ Na cuy'ad ke num at nah'and udami ﻧﺸﺎﯾﺪ ﮐﻪ ﻧﺎﻣﺖ ﻧﻬﻨﺪ آدﻣﯽ

Table60: An example of poetry in the general and reversible schemes (Hufez's 64th sonnet) اﮔﺮﭼﻪ ﻋﺮض ﻫﻨﺮ ﭘﯿﺶ ﯾﺎرﺑﯽ ادﺑﯿﺴﺖ زﺑﺎن ﺧﻤﻮش وﻟﯿﮑﻦ دﻫﺎن ﭘﺮ از ﻋﺮﺑﯿﺴﺖ Agarcce arz e honar pic e yur biaadabi’st Zabun xamooc valikan dahun por az Arabi’st Agarcce ʿarze honar pic e yur biaadabi’st Zabun xamooc valikan dahun por az ʾArabi’st ﭘﺮی ﻧﻬﻔﺘﻪ رخ و دﯾﻮ درﮐﺮﺷﻤﻪ ی ﺣﺴﻦ ﺑﺴﻮﺧﺖ دﯾﺪه ز ﺣﯿﺮت ﮐﻪ اﯾﻦ ﭼﻪ ﺑﻮاﻟﻌﺠﺒﯿﺴﺖ Pari nahofte rox o div dar kerercme e hosn Be sooxt dide ze heyrat ke in cce bolajabi’st Pari nahofte rox o div dar kerercme e ḥosn Be sooxt dide ze ḥeyratʿ keinccebol ajab i’st در اﯾﻦ ﭼﻤﻦ ﮔﻞﺑﯽ ﺧﺎر ﮐﺲ ﻧﭽﯿﺪ؛ آری ﭼﺮاغ ﻣﺼﻄﻔﻮی ﺑﺎ ﺷﺮار ﺑﻮﻟﻬﺒﯿﺴﺖ Dar in ccaman gol e bixur kas na ccid; uri Cceruq e mostavafi bu carur e boolahabi’st. Dar in ccaman gol e bixur kas na ccid; uri Cceruq e moṣṭavafi bu carur e boolahabi’st. ﺳﺒﺐ ﻣﭙﺮس ﮐﻪ ﭼﺮخ از ﭼﻪ ﺳﻔﻠﻪ ﭘﺮور ﺷﺪ ﮐﻪ ﮐﺎم ﺑﺨﺸﯽ او را ﺑﻬﺎﻧﻪﺑﯽ ﺳﺒﺒﯿﺴﺖ Sabab ma pors ke ccarx az cce sefleparvar cod Ke kumbaxci e oo ru bahune bisababi’st Sabab ma pors ke ccarx az cce sefleparvar cod Ke kumbaxci e oo ru bahune bisababi’st ﺑﻪ ﻧﯿﻢ ﺟﻮ ﻧﺨﺮم ﻃﺎق ﺧﺎﻧﻘﺎه و رﺑﺎط ﻣﺮا ﮐﻪ ﻣﺼﻄﺒﻪ اﯾﻮان و ﭘﺎی ﺧﻢ ﻃﻨﺒﯿﺴﺖ Be nim jo na xaram tuq e xunequh o rebut Maru ke mastabe eyvun o pu e xom tanab’ist. Be nim jo na xaram ṭuq e xunequh o rebuṭ Maru ke maṣṭabe eyvun o pu e xom ṭanab’ist. ﺟﻤﺎل دﺧﺘﺮ رز ﻧﻮر ﭼﺸﻢ ﻣﺎﺳﺖ ﻣﮕﺮ ﮐﻪ در ﻧﻘﺎب زﺟﺎﺟﯽ وﭘﺮده ی ﻋﻨﺒﯿﺴﺖ Jamul e doxtar e raz noor e ccacm e mu’st magar Ke dar nequb e zojuji o parde e enabi’st. Jamul e doxtar e raz noor e ccacm e mu’st magar Ke dar nequb e zojuji o parde e ʿenabi’st. ﻫﺰار ﻋﻘﻞ و ادب داﺷﺘﻢ ﻣﻦ؛ ای ﺧﻮاﺟﻪ ﮐﻨﻮن ﮐﻪ ﻣﺴﺖ ﺧﺮاﺑﻢ ﺻﻼحﺑﯽ ادﺑﯿﺴﺖ Hezur aql o adab ductam man ey xvuje Konoon ke mast e xarub’am saluh biadabi’st. Hezur ʿaql o adab ductam man ey xvuje Konoon ke mast e xarub’am ṣaluh biadabi’st. ﺑﯿﺎر ﻣﯽ ﮐﻪ ﭼﻮ ﺣﺎﻓﻆ ﻫﺰارم اﺳﺘﻈﻬﺎر ﺑﻪ ﮔﺮﯾﻪ ی ﺳﺤﺮی و ﻧﯿﺎزﻧﯿﻢ ﺷﺒﯿﺴﺖ Biur mey ke cco Hufez hazur’am stezhur Be gerye e sahari o niuz e nimcab i’st. Biur mey ke cco Ḥufez hazur’am steẓhur Be gerye e sahari o niuz e nimcab i’st.