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The Persian Language has six Vowel s and twenty-three Consonant s, including two affricates // and //. VOWELS 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 Diphthongs Persian has two diphthongs, and . Chart 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 Alveolar stops and are either . When occurs at the beginning of a word, it is realized as a Voiced Uvular Plosive .
''Note that and are affricates, not stops.'' Chart REFERENCES
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