Some Specificities of Written Tehrani Colloquial Persian

Résumé En

Phonological phenomena specific to colloquial Persian are partly reflected in the popular practice of writing Persian in Iran, and numerous examples are documented in LAZARD (2006). This is the case of, e.g. the verb endings (e.g. 3SG ending -e: میبینه mibin-e ‘s/he sees’) or words containing un and um (e.g., نون nun ‘bread’ and کدوم kodum ‘which (one)’). In this presentation I intend to highlight three particular and less known spelling practices in colloquial Persian, which are widely used among speakers: (a) the adverbs in ـاً as daġiġan ‘exactly’ (borrowed from Arabic): in the classical and standard conventions, these adverbs are written as in Arabic, i.e. with alif marked with tanwin, viz. اً (cf. LAZARD 2006: 43). However, Persian speakers have seemingly regularized the spelling by using the letter ن (representing the sound n) instead of اً; (b) the initial and ا in the 3SG copula =e, preceding words ending in u or o;(c) the initial ع for a couple of words with an initial vowel such as åre (آره) ‘yes’; speakers often add an ع word-initially. This includes the 3SG copula =e, preceding words ending in u, o or å.