2. Basic Features of the Persian Alphabet

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Persian Alphabet

The Modern Persian alphabet is comprised of 32 letters. Four of these letters are exclusively Persian . ( /ge/ گ ،/zhe/ژ , /che/ چ , /p/پ)
There are three short vowels that are placed over and under the consonants and are not indicated in writing. There are three long vowels that are indicated in writing.
Words are written and read from right to left.
Numbers are written from left to right.
To write a word, the letters in the word need to be attached to one another, but some letters only attach on the right, and not on the left.
سلام , خداحافظ
The letters can be divided into two groups:
a. Seven non-connecting letters that do not connect forward to the next letter to the left :
آ، د ، ذ ، ر، ز، ژ، و
b. 25 connecting letters that connect on both sides:
ب، پ، ت، ث،ج ،چ، ح، خ، س، ش، ص، ض، ط، ظ، ع، غ
ف، ق، ک، گ، ل، م، ن، ه، ی
There are some letters that are pronounced the same way:
Letters ظ ز- ذ- ض- are all pronounced /z/ .
Letters ت - ط are all pronounced /t/.
Letters س- ص - ث are all pronounced /s/.
Letters ح - ه both have the gliding sound of /h/.
Letters غ - ق roughly are equal to /q/ in English and basically appears in Arabic and some Turkish words as adapted in Persian.
Letters ا -ع are pronounced /?/.
Some letters are distinguished by the number of dots:

Since the script is cursive, the appearance of a letter changes depending on its position. Persian letters have one to four forms depending they appear as ‘initial’, ‘medial’ or ‘final’ of a word.

Initial : a. when the letter is the first letter of the word and followed by another letter. (با ، آب، تاب)
b. when the letter is proceeded by a non-connecting letter. (آبی، بابا، زیر)
Medial: when the letter is both proceeded and followed by connecting letters.( پنجره، دختر، پسر)
Final: when it is the last letter in a word and is preceded by a connecting letter. (اسم، ثابت، ربع)
Alone: when it is the last letter in the word and preceded by a non-connecting letter. ( نوه، چراغ، راه)