The Farsi Alphabet

The Farsi alphabet has 32 letters, all derived from the Perso-Arabic script. The 32 letters include the 28 Arabic letters plus 4 letters unique to Persian and Dari: پ (pe, /p/), چ (che, /tʃ/), ژ (zhe, /ʒ/), and گ (gaf, /ɡ/). Short vowels are generally not written but can be indicated with optional diacritical marks called harakat.

Farsi and Persian refer to the same language: the official language of Iran. "Farsi" is the name used within Iran, derived from "Pars" — the historical name for the region of Fars Province. "Persian" is the traditional English name. Both terms correctly describe the same language. The ISO 639-3 code is fas. Closely related varieties include Dari (spoken in Afghanistan) and Tajik (spoken in Tajikistan, written in Cyrillic).

Yes. Like all Perso-Arabic scripts, Farsi is written and read from right to left. Each letter connects to adjacent letters within a word in cursive style, and most letters change shape depending on their position — initial, medial, final, or isolated form. The only exception is numerals, which are written left to right even within otherwise RTL Farsi text. The script falls within the Arabic Unicode Block (U+0600–U+06FF).

Farsi is an abjad — a consonantal writing system where short vowels are not written in everyday text. The three short vowels (/a/, /e/, /o/) must be inferred from context. Long vowels are represented by three letters: ا for /ā/, ی for /i/, and و for /u/ or /o/. Optional diacritical marks (harakat) — fatha, kasra, and damma — can be added above or below consonants to indicate short vowels, and are used in educational, religious, and children's texts.

Farsi has one of the richest literary traditions in the world. Major works include the Shahnameh ("Book of Kings") by Ferdowsi (10th–11th century CE), the mystical poetry of Rumi (the Masnavi), the ghazals of Hafez, the Golestan and Bustan of Saadi, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Persian was also the literary and administrative language of the Mughal Empire in India. The language has been in continuous use as a literary medium for over 1,000 years.

Farsi belongs to the Southwest Iranian branch of the Iranian language family, within the larger Indo-Iranian sub-family of Indo-European. Its closest relatives are Dari (the form of Persian spoken in Afghanistan) and Tajik (the form spoken in Tajikistan, now written in Cyrillic). All three are mutually intelligible. Farsi is descended from Middle Persian (Pahlavi), the language of the Sasanian Empire, which in turn descended from Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid Empire and the Behistun Inscription.