Arabic vs Persian: What’s The Difference?

Arabic vs Persian Semitic languages are similar in a number of ways, but at the same time, they are also different in numerous ways. Besides the vision of pronunciation and the arrangement of the Arabic alphabets, there exist numerous other differences such as the structure of the sentence and the words. Unlike Persian, Arabic has not been influenced by other languages such as French and English hence the two languages are different.

In the following paper, we will examine more closely the difference between Persian and Arabic.

About Farsi Language

Persian dialect is referred to as Farsi which is spoken by the Iranians. It is also referred to as Western Persian. Although it is not hidden that, in the past Persian language had its own alphabet, the contemporary speakers of Farsi language used Arabic alphabet rather than their own.

Persian Empire controlled a lot of land in the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea encompassing Egypt where the people spoke Farsi or Parsi as their mother tongue. Moreover, this language was the court language of the ancient Indian empire, before the advent of the British who banned its use.

Farsi is a name of the Arabic form of the word Persian which is the original name of the language. Its P is missing in the Arabic script, hence the correct name of the language is Farsi.

About Arabic language

The family of languages used by Arabs is an Afro-Asian, where Hebrew and Arabic are the other members of the family. The calligraphy of Arabic language is what is referred to as the numerous types of Arabic writing.

Persian vs. Arabic; Pronunciation

Persian and Arabic have different pronunciations of their characters. As an illustration, in the Tehrani/ Shirazi accent Arabic harder and throaty consonants are said softer or not at all.

The most obvious variances in pronunciation include:

  • Qaff (ق): This letter is often spoken in Persian in the same manner as ghayn.
  • 3ayn (ع):  This letter  sounds as a hamze or glottal stop.
  • He (ح): This letter has been softened to a he (ه).
  • Zaal and the: These are Persian letters that are pronounced as “z” and “s.”
  • Zaad, Zaa, Taa (ط), Saad:  Persian speakers pronounce them as “z,” “z,”,”t” and “s”.

What’s the reason for the variance in pronunciation?

You will see by this section that the Persian letters are very much similar in pronunciation. The letters that sound like the letter z are four in number. The colloquial Arabic accents have a significant regional difference. There are many Arabic-speaking individuals who attest the fact that Egypt and Lebanon accents are the weakest of all the Arabic-speaking countries.

Persian vs. Arabic; Grammar

One of the areas where Persian and Arabic are so different to each other is grammar. The majority of the responses to this question contain academic descriptions of the origin of Persian and Arabic. However, we will attempt to define it in normal language.

There is no need to elaborate on that. Nevertheless, the concept of verbs, grammatical gender, grammatical cases, plurals, tone, and numerous other elements of grammatical apparatus of the language are all the differences between Arabic and Persian.

The root systems of Arabic and Persian verbs differ enormously, with the root system of the Arabic language containing many more terms that are interrelated and the Persian verbs are even less like French, they are separate stand-alone conjugated words.

Sentence structures and orders

  • Arabic is subject-verb-object
  • Persian is subject-object-verb

Grammatical gender

Unlike Persian, which has no grammatical gender, Arabic has gendered nouns and uses it in agreeing with plural.

Plurals

Arabic agreement is rather odd in plural; and Arabic nouns alter to the plural, yet Persian plurals are not too complicated.

Cases

Standard Arabic grammar has grammatical cases, which Persian lacks (neither does colloquial Arabic).

Written/spoken

The informal Arabic is not a written form of the Modern Standard Arabic; conversely, the Persian is pronounced much the same as it is spelt (at least this is much nearer). The grammar of the Persian and Arabic is as different as possible. Once again, the level of the disparity is similar to that between French and English. 

Arabic vs Persian— Vocabulary Overlap

Persian has a number of Arabic words. The degree of Persian words of Arabic etymology is very variable, depending upon the style and form of the dictionary, but may extend even to 40%. It has been estimated that it comprises 25 percent of the text printed. But surprisingly, no reverse is effected: comparatively few Persian words find their way to Arabic (and when they do, they are in colloquial, not official, Arabic).

Interesting Facts about Arabic

Arabic is the 6 th most spoken language in the world. The name Arabic was derived as a Greek expression, meaning of Arabia. Arabic is among the most spoken languages with over a hundred million speakers and it is officially spoken in 25 countries.

Over 25 percent of the total books released in the world are then translated to Arabic every year. The earliest known written work in Arabic is the writings done by Ibn Muqlah in 800 AD. 

Which language is better for learning—Arabic vs Persian

You are plunged into such a choice when you have to encounter such dilemmas as: Do you want to speak to other people in Persian or Arabic dialect, or would you learn to read texts?

Conclusion

Persian is the fourth most spoken language in the world hence it is worth taking time to learn it in order to be in a position to communicate using such a helpful language. Persian and Arabic share common roots which have influenced the two languages despite having a lot of differences.

The scripts and writing directions of both these civilizations vary (Persians have the direction as right-left, and the Arabs as top-bottom).

It is possible some words in one language might not be borrowed by the other; however, there is some level of clarity that this is likely to change over time depending on the frequency with which both languages come to contact with each other. Don’t miss anything.

The history of the trade routes and conquests has been mixed up with the two languages. Despite the fact that they have been together long enough, there is much to learn about them.

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