Persian is a synonym for Farsi, and they both refer to an Indo-European language that was spoken in the old Persian Empire. It is spoken in today's Iran, parts of Afghanistan, and parts of the old southern Soviet states such as Tajikestan. There are numerous dialects of Persian language, such as Dari, Gilaki, etc. The standard and modern Farsi is spoken in today's Iran. Persian alphabet has 32 letters (as compared to 28 in Arabic and 26 in English) and is written from right to left. Some of the letters can be connected to from both left and right and some can only be connected from right. Therefore, each letter may have two or three different shapes based on connectivity and its occurence at the beginning, middle or the end of a word. It means that memorizing less than 100 visual icons is sufficient to read and write Persian words. As compared to latin scripts, there is no limitation on the width of the letters and this brings a great variability in form and writing style. Letters can be expanded, curved and angled to fit the width. Many have an image that Persian and Arabic alphabet are the same. Persian alphabet includes but not restricted to Arabic letters. Arabic alphabet belongs to the group of Semitic scripts in which the consonants are actually written and vowels are placed in between the lines. Arabic script is derived from the Aramic Nabataean alphabet and has 28 letters derived from 18 shapes, distinguished by one (10 cases) or two dots (3 cases) placed above or below the letter or three dots place above the letter only (2 cases). Persian has 32 letters derived from 18 shapes. Letters are distinguished by one (10 cases), two (3 cases) or three dots (5 cases) placed above or below the letter. Three long vowels, AA, EE and OO are also represented by letters. Short vowels for A, E and O have no letters and may be shown by small diagonal underbar stroke (for E) and overbar stroke (for A) or small comma (for O). Long vowels pronounced like English Arch AA pronounced like English Iran EE pronounced like English occUr UU Those letters exclusive to Persian, that are not found in Arabic, are: Exclusive Persian letters pronounced like English push pe pronounced like English change che pronounced like French John je pronounced like English groove gaf Again many people have a wrong image that Persian and Arabic scripts are the same. There are six script styles, named Shesh Ghalam: Nasta-ligh (Farsi), Kufi, Deewani, Naskh, Req'aa and Thuluth. The most common Persian script is called Nasta-ligh, that is a lighter and much more elegant version of Taligh or hanging script. The basic rules of Nasta-ligh were developped over centuries and were revised in the Safavi (~1500 A.D.) period. Nasta-ligh is different from Naskh which is common in Arabic, roughly, due to shape of letters and style of writing. Here comes the Persian Alphabet: Pronunciation Position in a word Character (stand alone) char. no. Shape no. end middle beginning alef 1 1 a be 2 2 pe 3 te 4 the 5 jim 6 3 che 7 he 8 khe 9 dal 10 4 zal 11 re 12 5 ze 13 je 14 sin 15 6 shin 16 sad 17 7 zad 18 teyn 19 8 zeyn 20 eyn 21 9 gheyn 22 fe 23 10 qaf 24 11 kaf 25 12 gaf 26 lam 27 13 mim 28 14 nun 29 15 waw 30 16 he 31 17 ye 32 18 hamze

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