Has the pronunciation of Persian vowels changed in contemporary era?

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant Professor Department of Persian Language & Literature

10.29252/kavosh.2023.19143.3328

Abstract

The prosodic meter of official Persian poetry is based on the distinction between short and long syllables. The number and order of short and long syllables in all the hemistich of a poem should be the same. The shortness and length of syllables is itself the result of the shortness and length of vowels. There are three long vowels: "â", "u" and "i" and three short vowel: "a", "o" and "e". The length of each long vowel should be twice of its short symmetry. But in today's colloquial language, long vowel can be pronounced short and short vowel can be pronounced long, without each vowel being mistaken for its counterpart because today, in addition to the difference in length, the vowels are also different in place of articulation. As a result, today the official prosodic meter seems incompatible and foreign to the Persian language and the question is, did this inconsistency exist since the beginning of official prosodic poetry or did arise later of changes in the phonetic system of the Persian language? Some researchers believe in the second clause and obtain important and extensive results from this belief, which all seem to be false. Here we have examined this issue in a descriptive- analytical manner and provided reasons for the inaccuracy of the opinion of these researchers.

Keywords

Journal of Kavoshnameh in Persian Language and Literature

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 07 June 2023

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