The Tehrani accent ( fa, لهجهٔ تهرانی), or Tehrani dialect (), is a dialect of

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

spoken in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

and the most common colloquial variant of the Western Persian. Compared to literary standard Persian, the Tehrani dialect lacks original Persian diphthongs and tends to fuse certain sounds. The Tehrani accent should not be confused with the Old Tehrani dialect, which was a Northwestern Iranian dialect, belonging to the central group. Some of the words used in the Tehrani accent may derive from the

northwestern Iranian language The Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranic languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC) and Median. Languages The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southwestern languages, rather than a g ...

of Razi, such as ''sūsk'' "beetle; cockroach", ''jīrjīrak'' "cricket", ''zālzālak'' "haw(thorn)", and ''vejīn'' "weeding".

Differences between Standard Persian and Tehrani dialect

The following are some of the main differences between colloquial Tehrani Persian and standard Iranian Persian: *Simplification of some internal consonant clusters: **Standard Persian /zd/ ↔ Tehrani /zː/. Example: دزدى /dozdi/ ↔ /dozːi/ **Standard Persian /st/ ↔ Tehrani /sː/. Examples: دسته /dæste/ ↔ /dæsːe/; پسته /peste/ ↔ /pesːe/ *A number of vowel raising processes and diphthong loss: **Standard Persian /ɒːn, ɒːm/ ↔ Tehrani /uːn, uːm/. Example: بادام /bɒːdɒːm/ ↔ /bɒːduːm/ **Standard Persian /e/ ↔ Tehrani Examples: جگر /dʒegær/ ↔ ʒigær شکار /ʃekɒːr/ ↔ �ikɒːr کشمش /keʃmeʃ/ ↔ iʃmiʃ**The word-final // in Classical Persian became [] in modern Tehrani Persian, both colloquial and standard dialects (often romanized as "eh", meaning [] is also an allophone of // in word-final position in modern Tehrani Persian) except for نه [] ('no'), but is preserved in the

Dari Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī ...

dialects. **Standard Persian /ou̯/ ↔ Tehrani ː Examples: برو /borou̯/ ↔ oroː نوروز /nou̯ruːz/ ↔ oːruːz* غ and ق denoted the original Arabic phonemes in Classical Persian, the

voiced velar fricative The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...

and the

voiceless uvular stop The voiceless uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like a voiceless velar plosive , except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula. The symbol in th ...

(pronounced in Persian as

voiced uvular stop The voiced uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G\. is a rare sound, even ...

), respectively. In modern Tehrani Persian (which is used in the Iranian mass media, both colloquial and standard), there is no difference in the pronunciation of غ and ق. Both letters are pronounced as a voiced velar fricative when positioned intervocalically and unstressed, and as a voiced uvular stop otherwise. This

allophony In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...

is probably influenced by

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia ( Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic l ...

like Azeri and Turkmen. The classic pronunciations of غ and ق are preserved in the eastern variants of Persian (i.e.

and

Tajiki Tajik (Tajik: , , ), also called Tajiki Persian (Tajik: , , ) or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely related to neighbouring Dari with which it forms a continuum of mutually intelligibl ...

), as well as in the southern dialects of the modern Iranian variety (e.g. Yazdi and Kermani dialects). Example: دقيقه [] ↔ []. *-e as the 3rd person singular suffix for verbs instead of Standard Persian -ad: می‌راوه ['mi:rɒve] ↔ می‌راود ['mi:rɒ:væd] *Use of verbal person suffixes on nominals for the verb بودن u:dæn Iranians can interchange colloquial Tehrani and standard Persian

sociolect In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group. Sociolects involve both passive acqui ...

s in conversational speech.

References

Sources

* Standard Persian Persian dialects and varieties Tehran City colloquials {{iran-stub