{"id":135,"date":"2015-10-31T05:44:25","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T05:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/?p=135"},"modified":"2015-09-15T04:15:59","modified_gmt":"2015-09-15T04:15:59","slug":"showing-pronunciation-in-written-dari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/2015\/10\/31\/showing-pronunciation-in-written-dari\/","title":{"rendered":"Showing pronunciation in written Dari"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an earlier post\u00a0I challenged you<\/a>\u00a0to think about the written Dari form of a word as the \u201creal\u201d form of the word.\u00a0This post will carry that a bit further by\u00a0teaching you how to represent pronunciation with the Dari script using the Dari vowel marks, the [zer o zabar]. You can do this to save yourself having to write down the IPA pronunciation of a word. It’ll also make it easier to talk to Afghans about pronunciation who haven’t been linguistically trained. (Throughout, I assume that you know how to read; if you don’t yet, there are worse places to start than this guide<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

This is a long-ish post, since I’m trying to explain<\/i>\u00a0something, instead of\u00a0just the usual yada-yada. You may want to bookmark this page and\u00a0come back to it later.<\/p>\n

First off we have the vowel sounds that have their own letters: [\u028c], [i], and [u]. These are written with their own vowel letters\u2014with a little complication at the beginnings of words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
i<\/td>\n[pir]<\/td>\n\u2018old\u2019<\/td>\n\u067e\u06cc\u0631<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
u<\/td>\n[bud]<\/td>\n\u2018was\u2019<\/td>\n\u0628\u0648\u062f<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u028c<\/td>\n[d\u028cs]<\/td>\n\u2018sickle\u2019<\/td>\n\u062f\u0627\u0633<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

For these sounds, you can tell what the pronunciation is from using the letter. Easy.<\/p>\n

To write this next set of words, you need the three vowel markers, which I’ll introduce below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
a<\/td>\n[tab]<\/td>\n\u2018fever\u2019<\/td>\n\u062a\u0628<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u025b<\/td>\n[d\u025bl]<\/td>\n\u2018heart\u2019<\/td>\n\u062f\u0644<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u028a<\/td>\n[p\u028at]<\/td>\n\u2018hidden\u2019<\/td>\n\u067e\u062a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The system is that the vowel goes above or below the consonant that it follows. The word below is [tab] \u2018fever.\u2019 The short line above the [\u062a] makes the [a] sound. It is called [zabar].<\/p>\n

\u062a\u064e\u0628<\/p>\n

To type\u00a0a zabar, do Shift+U\u00a0(or Shift+\u0639). (Here and throughout I assume you are using the Iranian Standard Keyboard<\/a> instead of the Windows default keyboard. My references to Latin keys assume an English keyboard layout.)<\/p>\n

The same\u00a0line below<\/em> the consonant makes the [\u025b] sound, as in [d\u025bl] \u2018heart.\u2019 It is called [zer].<\/p>\n

\u062f\u0650\u0644<\/p>\n

To type a zer, do\u00a0\u00a0Shift+Y (or Shift+\u063a).<\/p>\n

A little waw-like shape makes the [\u028a] sound, as in [p\u028at] \u2018hidden.\u2019 It is called a [pe\u0283].<\/p>\n

\u067e\u064f\u062a<\/p>\n

To type a pesh, do Shift+T (or Shift+\u0641).<\/p>\n

If you’re learning to type, note that these diacritics are in order on the keyboard. It starts with U and goes right-to-left: zabar, zer, pesh = U Y T.<\/p>\n

Now these letters do not have their own letters. [e] is written with \u06cc and [o] is written with \u0648. What to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
e<\/td>\n[bel]<\/td>\n\u2018shovel\u2019<\/td>\n\u0628\u06cc\u0644<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
o<\/td>\n[top]<\/td>\n\u2018ball\u2019<\/td>\n\u062a\u0648\u067e<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

My recommendation is to treat [e] as a zer followed by a \u06cc, and [o] as a pesh followed by a \u0648.<\/p>\n

\u0628\u0650\u06cc\u0644<\/p>\n

\u062a\u064f\u0648\u067e<\/p>\n

The only vowels that remain are the diphthongs, and we handle these as you would expect (shown after the table).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
aj<\/td>\n[bajt]<\/td>\n\u2018song\u2019<\/td>\n\u0628\u06cc\u062a<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
aw<\/td>\n[sawgand]<\/td>\n\u2018oath\u2019<\/td>\n\u0633\u0648\u06af\u0646\u062f<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
uj<\/td>\n[d\u0292uj]<\/td>\n\u2018sewer\u2019<\/td>\n\u062c\u0648\u06cc<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u028cj<\/td>\n[b\u028cj]<\/td>\n\u2018bigwig\u2019<\/td>\n\u0628\u0627\u06cc<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u028cw<\/td>\n[g\u028cw]<\/td>\n\u2018cow\u2019<\/td>\n\u06af\u0627\u0648<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

[aj] is zabar followed by \u06cc.<\/p>\n

\u0628\u064e\u06cc\u062a<\/p>\n

[a] is zabar followed by \u0648.<\/p>\n

\u0633\u064e\u0648\u06af\u064e\u0646\u062f<\/p>\n

For [uj] we can just write \u0648\u06cc:<\/p>\n

\u062c\u0648\u06cc<\/p>\n

For [\u028cj] we can just write \u0627\u06cc:<\/p>\n

\u0628\u0627\u06cc<\/p>\n

For [\u028cw] we can just write \u0627\u0648:<\/p>\n

\u06af\u0627\u0648<\/p>\n

And remember how \u0648 and \u06cc are ambiguous in the middle of a word? If there are vowel marks before and on top of a \u0648 (for instance), it’s making a [w] sound. Otherwise it’s a different sound. Look at [raw\u025b\u0283]:<\/p>\n

\u0631\u064e\u0648\u0650\u0634<\/p>\n

So, that is the system. Practice these a bit until you get comfortable with them. If you get good you can ditch IPA altogether. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\n

Two ironies:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I spent a good chunk of time last Spring moving LCP from the Glassman alphabet to the International Phonetic Alphabet. Now I’m moving the goal post again! Sigh…<\/li>\n
  2. Relying on the vowel markers will really\u00a0hurt your reading ability, so I have left them out of all other LCP materials. (Vowel markers are not typically used in texts.)\u00a0I recommend these only<\/em> for your personal use in writing!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In an earlier post\u00a0I challenged you\u00a0to think about the written Dari form of a word as the \u201creal\u201d form of the word.\u00a0This post will carry that a bit further by\u00a0teaching you how to represent pronunciation with the Dari script using the Dari vowel marks, the [zer o zabar]. You can do this to save yourself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mini-lessons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iam-afghanistan.org\/lcp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}