Persian Phonology - Colloquial Iranian Persian

Colloquial Iranian Persian

When spoken formally, Iranian Persian is pronounced as written. But colloquial pronunciation as used by all classes makes a number of very common substitutions. Note that Iranians can interchange colloquial and formal sociolects in conversational speech. They include:

  • In the Tehrani accent and also most of the accents in Central and Southern Iran, the sequence /ɒn/ in the colloquial language is nearly always pronounced . The only common exceptions are high prestige words, such as ('Qur'an'), and ('Iran'), and foreign nouns (both common and proper), like the Spanish surname Beltran, which are pronounced as written. A few words written as /ɒm/ are pronounced, especially forms of the verb /ɒmædæn/ ('to come').
  • In the Tehrani accent, the unstressed direct object suffix marker /ɾɒ/ is pronounced /ɾo/, or /o/ after a consonant.
  • The stems of many verbs have a short colloquial form, especially /æst/ ('he/she is'), which is colloquially shortened to /e/ after a consonant or /je/ after a vowel.
  • The 2nd and 3rd person plural verb subject suffixes, written /-id/ and /-ænd/ respectively, are pronounced and .
  • Many frequently-occurring verbs are shortened, such as /mixɒːhæm/ ('I want') →, and /miɾævæm/ ('I go'_ → .

Read more about this topic:  Persian Phonology

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