The Persian language has six vowels and twenty-three consonants, including two affricates // and //.

Vowels

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Diachronically, Persian possessed a distinction of length in its underlying vowel inventory, contrasting the long vowels , , with the short vowels , , respectively. In Modern Persian, this distinction of quantity is neutralized in most environments; short vowels lengthen in closed syllables. Because the neutralization is not complete and other processes, including a number of vowel quality alternations, depend on this distinction of length, it is not possible to analyze the underlying vowel inventory of Modern Persian without length. On the other hand, for reasons of concreteness, it is not desirable to analyze the short and long vowels as identical in quality (with their respective differences being derived by rule.)

Word-final does not occur frequently (except for to - 'thou'), and word-final is very rare in Iranian Persian (except for næ - 'no'). The word-final in Early New Persian mostly shifted to in contemporary Iranian Persian (often romanized as ), but is preserved in the Eastern dialects.

Diphthongs

Persian has two diphthongs, and .

Chart

Phoneme (in IPA)	Letter	Romanization	Example(s)
	َ , ا	a	نه   no
	آ , ا	a, aa, ā, â, A	تا   till
	ِ , ا	e	که   that
	ی	i, ee, y	کی   who
	ا , ُ , و	o	تو   thou
	و	u, oo, ou	تو   in
	ی	ey, ei, ay, ai	کی   when
	و	ow, au	کو   weevil

Historical shifts

Early New Persian had eight vowels: /i, ī, ē, u, ū, ō, a, ā/. The following chart describes their shifts into Tajik, Afghan Dari, and contemporary Iranian Persian .

Tajik i e u ů a o ┌⇑┐ ⇑ ┌⇑┐ ⇑ ⇑ ⇑ Early NP i ī ē u ū ō a ā ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ Afghan e i ē o u ō a ā ⇓ └⇓┘ ⇓ └⇓┘ ⇓ ⇓ Iranian e ī o ū a ā

Consonants

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Alveolar stops and are either apico-alveolar or apico-dental. The unvoiced plosives are aspirated much like their English counterparts: they become aspirated when they begin a syllable, though aspiration is not contrastive . When occurs at the beginning of a word, it is realized as a voiced uvular plosive .

Consonants

	labial	alveolars	post-alveolars	velars	glottals
voiceless stops
voiced stops
voiceless fricatives
voiced fricatives
nasals
liquids		,
glides

Note that and are affricates, not stops.

Chart

Phoneme	Sound (in IPA)	Letter	Romanization	Example(s)
		پ	p	پارسی
		ب	b	بانو
		ت , ط	t	توران
		د	d	دنيا
		ک	k	كشور
		گ	g	گروه
		ء , ع	' , Ø	عمل / مسائل
		چ	ch, č, c	چوب
		ج	j,	جوان
		ف	f	فارسی
		و	v	ويژه
		س , ص, ث	s	سايه
		ز , ذ , ض , ظ	z	آزاد
		ش	sh, š	شاه
		ژ	zh, ž	پژوهش
		خ	kh, x	خانواده
		غ , ق	gh, q, ġ	باغ
		غ , ق	q, gh	غذا
		ه , ح	h	حال
		م	m	نام
		ن	n	نان
		ل	l	لب
		ر	r	رستوران
		ی	y	يا

References

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1. .
2. .

Language phonologies | Persian language