Tehrani accent

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Tehrani accent (Persian: لهجهٔ تهرانی‎) is a dialect of modern Persian language spoken in Tehran Province, and the most common colloquial variant of the modern Persian language. Compared to literary standard Persian, the Tehrani dialect lacks original Persian diphthongs and tends to fuse certain sounds. Tehrani accent of Persian language should not be confused with the old Tehrani dialect, which was a northwestern Iranian dialect, belonging to the central group.

Differences with the standard Persian[edit]

Here are some of the main differences between the colloquial Tehrani Persian and standard Iranian Persian:

  • standard Persian ("ān", "ām") ↔ Tehrani ("un", "um"). Example: "bādām" ↔ "bādum"
  • "ow" ↔ "o". Examples: "borow" ↔ "boro", "nowrūz" ↔ "noruz"
  • "zd" ↔ "zz". Example: "dozdi" ↔ "dozzi"
  • "st" ↔ "ss". Examples: "daste" ↔ "dasse", "peste" ↔ "pesse"
  • "e" ↔ "i". Examples: "jegar" ↔ "jigar", "shekār" ↔ "shikār", "keshmesh" ↔ "kishmish"
  • غ and ق denoted the original Arabic phonemes in Classical Persian, the voiced velar fricative [ɣ] and the voiceless uvular stop [q] (pronounced in Persian as voiced uvular stop [ɢ]), respectively. In modern Tehrani Persian (which is used in the Iranian mass media, both colloquial and standard), there is no difference in the pronunciation of غ and ق, and they are both normally pronounced as a voiced uvular stop [ɢ]; however, when they are positioned intervocalically and unstressed, lenition occurs and they tend to be pronounced more like a voiced velar fricative [ɣ]. [1][2] [3] This allophone 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 (i.e. Dari and Tajiki), as well as in the southern dialects of the modern Iranian variety (e.g. Yazdi and Kermani dialects). Examples: [dæɣiːˈɢe] ↔ [dæɣiːˈɣe], [ɒˈɢɒ] ↔ [ɒˈɣɒ].
  • The word-final /æ/ in Classical Persian became [e] in modern Tehrani Persian, both colloquial and standard dialects (often romanized as "eh", meaning [e] is also an allophone of /æ/ in word-final position in modern Tehrani Persian) except for [] ('no'), but is preserved in the Dari dialects.

Note that Iranians can interchange colloquial Tehrani and standard Iranian Persian sociolects in conversational speech.


  2. ^ Jahani, Carina (2005). "The Glottal Plosive: A Phoneme in Spoken Modern Persian or Not?". In Éva Ágnes Csató, Bo Isaksson, and Carina Jahani. Linguistic Convergence and Areal Diffusion: Case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic. London: RoutledgeCurzon. pp. 79–96. ISBN 0-415-30804-6. 