A Western Iranian language and the official language of Iran — successor to Old and Middle Persian, written in a modified Arabic script and source of much vocabulary across the Islamic world.
Where it’s spoken
Iranian Persian, known as Farsi (فارسی), is the official language of Iran and is closely related to Dari (Afghanistan) and Tajik (Tajikistan) — together forming the Persian dialect continuum. Farsi has historically functioned as a literary lingua franca across the Islamic world from the Balkans to Bengal, shaping Urdu, Ottoman Turkish, Pashto, and Bengali vocabulary.
What it sounds like
Persian has six vowels and a consonant inventory similar to Arabic with some simplifications. Crucially, Persian dropped Arabic emphatic consonants when borrowing terms. Stress generally falls on the final syllable. The language is agglutinative in some morphology and isolating in others, with no grammatical gender.
How it’s written
Persian uses a modified Arabic alphabet of 32 letters (Arabic’s 28 plus گ, چ, پ, ژ). Short vowels are usually unwritten. The script flows right to left and uses the Nastaliq calligraphic style for poetry and decorative writing.
History
Modern Persian (Farsi-ye Dari) emerged after the Arab conquest, retaining its Indo-European grammar while absorbing Arabic vocabulary. The 10th-century epic Shahnameh of Ferdowsi cemented its literary prestige.
Find more languages by letter
Iranian Persian (Farsi) starts with I . Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Iranian Persian (Farsi)":