The Takestani Alphabet

The Takestani 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.

Takestani is spoken in Takestan city and the surrounding villages of Qazvin Province, in northwestern Iran. The language takes its name from the city of Takestan, located on the agricultural plains south of the Alborz mountains. With an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 speakers, Takestani is one of the larger endangered Northwest Iranian language communities. Persian has long been the dominant language in education, government, and urban life in the region, contributing to pressure on Takestani.

Takestani belongs to the Northwest Iranian branch of the Iranian language family, within the broader Tati-Takestani sub-group. Its closest relative is Tati; more distantly it is related to Gilaki, Mazanderani, and other Caspian languages. Takestani is distinct from Persian (a Southwest Iranian language), preserving Northwest Iranian phonological features — particularly in consonant correspondences and verb morphology — that set it apart from the dominant Persian standard of Iran.

Yes. Takestani is classified as endangered, with an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 speakers concentrated in and around Takestan in Qazvin Province. Despite this relatively larger speaker base compared to some micro-minority languages, Takestani faces strong pressure from Persian, which dominates education, media, official communication, and urban life throughout Iran. Intergenerational transmission is declining, particularly in urban areas, and the language has no official status or standardised orthography. Linguistic documentation is ongoing but limited.

Yes. Like all Perso-Arabic scripts, Takestani 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 to the right-to-left direction is numerals, which are written left to right even within otherwise RTL text. The script falls within the Arabic Unicode Block (U+0600–U+06FF).

While Takestani and Persian are both Iranian languages that share the same Perso-Arabic writing system, they differ in significant ways. Takestani belongs to the Northwest Iranian branch, while Persian (Farsi) belongs to the Southwest Iranian branch. These two branches diverged in ancient times, producing different phonological correspondences: a sound that is /d/ in Persian is often /d/ or another consonant in Northwest Iranian languages, and verb morphology can differ considerably. Takestani also preserves vowel contrasts and consonant clusters that have simplified in modern standard Persian. Despite centuries of contact and lexical borrowing, Takestani remains structurally distinct from Farsi.