Ezāfe

The ezāfe is a grammatical particle found in some Iranian languages, as well as Persian-influenced languages such as Azerbaijani, Ottoman Turkish and Hindi-Urdu, that links two words together. In the Persian language, it consists of the unstressed short vowel -e or -i between the words it connects and often approximately corresponds in usage to the English preposition of. It is generally not indicated in writing in the Persian script, which is normally written without short vowels, but it is indicated in Tajiki, which is written in the Cyrillic script, as -и without a hyphen.

Ezafe in Persian

Common uses of the Persian ezafe are:

Possessive : برادرِ مریم "Mary's brother".
Adjective-noun: برادرِ بزرگ "the big brother".
Given name/title-family name: محمد مصدق, آقای مصدق "Mr. Mosaddeq"
Linking two nouns: خیابانِ تهران "Tehran Street" or "Road to Tehran"

After final long vowels in words, the ezâfe is written with the letter intervening before the ezâfe ending. If a word ends in the short vowel, the ezâfe may be marked either by placing a hamze diacritic over the or a non-connecting after it. The is prevented from joining by placing a zero-width non-joiner, known in Persian as , after the.

Form	Example	Example	Transliteration	Meaning
ـِ	زبانِ فارسی	забони форсӣ	zabân-e fârsi	Persian language
ـِ	جمهوریِ اسلامی	ҷумҳурии исломӣ	jomhuri-ye eslâmi	Islamic republic
ـِ	دانشگاهِ تهران	Донишгоҳи Теҳрон	Dâneshgâh-e Tehrân	University of Tehran
هٔ	خانهٔ مجلل	хонаи муҷаллал	khâne-ye mojallal	Luxurious House
ه‌یِ	خانه‌یِ مجلل	хонаи муҷаллал	khâne-ye mojallal	Luxurious House
یِ	دریایِ خزر	Дарёи Хазар	Daryâ-ye Khazar	Caspian Sea
یِ	عمویِ محمد	амуи Муҳаммад	amu-ye Muhammad	the uncle of Muhammad

In Hindi-Urdu

Iẓāfat, in Hindi and Urdu, is a syntactical construction of two nouns, where the first component is a determined noun, and the second is a determiner. This construction was borrowed from Persian. In Hindi-Urdu, a short vowel "i" is used to connect these two words, and when pronouncing the newly formed word the short vowel is connected to the first word. If the first word ends in a consonant or an , it may be written as at the end of the first word, but usually is not written at all. If the first word ends in or then hamzā is used above the last letter. If the first word ends in a long vowel, then a different variation of with hamzā on top is added at the end of the first word. In Devanagari, these characters are written as ए.

In other languages

Besides Persian, ezafe is found in other Iranian languages and in Turkic languages, which have historically borrowed many phrases from Persian. Ottoman Turkish made extensive use of ezafe, borrowing it from Persian, but it is transcribed as -i or -ı rather than -e. Ezafe is also used frequently in Hindustani, but its use is mostly restricted to poetic settings or to phrases imported wholesale from Persian since Hindustani expresses the genitive with the native declined possessive postposition kā. The title of the Bollywood film, Salaam-e-Ishq, is an example of the use of the ezafe in Hindustani. Other examples of ezafe in Hindustani include terms like "death penalty" and "praiseworthy". It can also be found in the neo-Bengali language constructions especially for titles such as , and .
The Albanian language also has an ezafe-like construction, as for example in Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë, Party of Labour of Albania. The linking particle declines in accordance to the gender, definiteness, and number of the noun that precedes it. It is used in adjectival declension and forming the genitive:

Zyra e Shefit "The Boss' office"
Në një zyrë të afërt "In an adjacent office"
Jashtë zyrës së tij "Outside his office"

Besides the above mentioned languages, ezafe is used in Kurdish in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran:

Etymology

Originally, in Old Persian, nouns had case endings, just like every other early Indo-European language. A genitive construction would have looked much like a Latin construct, with the first noun being in any case, and the second being in the genitive case.

"by the will of Auramazda"
: :wikt:????| "will"
: "Ahura Mazda "

However, over time, a relative pronoun such as or began to be interposed between the first element and its genitive attribute.

by the will which of Auramazdah

William St. Clair Tisdall states that the modern Persian ezafe stems from the relative pronoun which, which in Eastern Iranian languages was or. Pahlavi shortened it to , and after noun case endings passed out of usage, this relative pronoun which, became a genitive "construct" marker. Thus the phrase

مردِ خوب

historically means "man which good" rather than "good man."
In other modern Iranian languages, such as Northern Kurdish, the ezafe particle is still a relative pronoun, which declines for gender and number. However, rather than translating it as "which," as its etymological origin suggests, a more accurate translation for the New Persian use of ezafe would be a linking genitive/attributive "of" or, in the case of adjectives, not translating it.
Since the ezafe is not typical of the Avestan language and most East Iranian languages, where the possessives and adjectives normally precede their head noun without a linker, an argument has been put forward that the ezafe construction ultimately represents a substrate feature, more specifically, an outcome of the ancient Elamite influence on Old Persian, which followed the Iranian migration to the territories of the Iranian Plateau previously inhabited by the ancient Elamites.