Tehrani accent


The Tehrani accent, or Tehrani dialect, is a dialect of Persian spoken in Tehran and the most common colloquial variant of 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 of Razi, such as sūsk "beetle; cockroach", jīrjīrak "cricket", zālzālak "haw", and vejīn "weeding".

History

The Tehrani dialect in its current form has existed since the Qajar era and is different from the language of the natives of Tehran; the old Tehrani dialect still exists in areas like Shemiran and Damavand, although it is subject to extinction.
In every part of Tehran, this dialect was influenced by the neighboring cities. The northern regions such as Vanak, Shemiran, and Tajrish had the Mazandarani dialect. The southern regions of Tehran, which are adjacent to the city of Ray, had the Raji (Razi) dialect. The western regions of Tehran towards Karaj were also affected from Tati [language (Iran)|Tati].

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 آم،آن/ɒːn, ɒːm/ ↔ Tehrani /uːn, uːm/. Example: بادام /bɒːdɒːm/ ↔ /bɒːduːm/
  • *Standard Persian /e/ ↔ Tehrani . Examples: جگر /dʒegær/ ↔ ; شکار /ʃekɒːr/ ↔ ; کشمش /keʃmeʃ/ ↔
  • *The word-final // in Classical Persian became in modern Tehrani Persian, both colloquial and standard dialects except for نه, but is preserved in the Dari dialects.
  • *Standard Persian /ou̯/ ↔ Tehrani . Examples برو /borou̯/ ↔ ; نوروز /nou̯ruːz/ ↔
  • غ and ق denoted the original Arabic phonemes in Classical Persian, the voiced [velar fricative] and the voiceless uvular stop, respectively. In modern Tehrani Persian, 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 is probably influenced by Turkic languages like Azeri and Turkmen. The classic pronunciations of غ and ق are preserved in the eastern variants of Persian, as well as in the southern dialects of the modern Iranian variety. Example: دقيقه ↔ .
  • -e as the 3rd person singular suffix for verbs instead of Standard Persian -ad: می‌خوره ↔ می‌خورد
  • Use of verbal person suffixes on nominals for the verb بودن
Iranians can interchange colloquial Tehrani and standard Persian sociolects in conversational speech.