Romanization orLatinization of Persian (Persian:لاتین‌نِویسی فارسی,romanized: Lâtin-Nevisiye Fârsi,pronounced[lɒːtiːn.neviːˌsijefɒːɾˈsiː]) is the representation of thePersian language (Iranian Persian,Dari andTajik) with theLatin script. Several different romanization schemes exist, each with its own set of rules driven by its own set of ideological goals.

Romanization is familiar to many Persian speakers.Many use anad hocromanization for text messaging and email;^[1]road signs in Iran commonly include both Persian and English (in order to make them accessible to foreigners);^[2]and websites use romanizeddomain names.

Because thePersian script is anabjad writing system (with aconsonant-heavy inventory of letters), many distinct words in standard Persian can have identical spellings, with widely varying pronunciations that differ in their (unwritten)vowel sounds. Thus a romanization paradigm can follow either transliteration (which mirrors spelling andorthography) or transcription (which mirrors pronunciation andphonology).

Transliteration (in the strict sense) attempts to be a complete representation of the original writing, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. Transliterations of Persian are used to represent individual Persian words or short quotations, in scholarly texts in English or other languages that do not use an Abjad alphabet.

A transliteration will still have separate representations for different consonants of thePersian alphabet that are pronounced identically in Persian.

Transliterations commonly used in the English-speaking world includeBGN/PCGN romanization andALA-LC Romanization.

Non-academic English-language quotation of Persian words usually uses a simplification of one of the strict transliteration schemes (typically omittingdiacritical marks) and/or unsystematic choices of spellings meant to guide English speakers using English spelling rules towards an approximation of the Persian sounds.

Transcriptions of Persian attempt to straightforwardly representPersian phonology in theLatin script, without requiring a close or reversible correspondence with the Persian script, and also without requiring a close correspondence to English phonetic values of Roman letters.

• DMG (1969), a strict scientific system by the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft). It corresponds to Deutsches Institut für Normung standardDIN 31635.^[3]
• ALA-LC (1997), theALA-LC romanization.^[4]
• BGN/PCGN (1958), theBGN/PCGN romanization.^[5]
• EI (1960), the system used in early editions ofEncyclopædia Iranica.^[3]
• EI (2012), its contemporary modification.^[6]
• UN (1967), the Iranian national system (1966), that was approved by theUNGEGN in 1967.^[7][8]
• UN (2012), its contemporary modification.^[7][9]

Notes:

In antiquity, Old and Middle Persian employed various scripts includingOld Persian cuneiform, Pahlavi and Avestan scripts. For each period there are established transcriptions and transliterations by prominent linguists.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Notes:

A sample romanization (a poem by the Persian poet Hâfez):

Baháʼís use a system standardized byShoghi Effendi, which he initiated in a general letter on March 12, 1923.^[14] The Baháʼí transliteration scheme was based on a standard adopted by the Tenth International Congress of Orientalists which took place inGeneva in September 1894. Shoghi Effendi changed some details of the Congress's system, most notably in the use ofdigraphs in certain cases (e.g.s͟h instead ofš).

A detailed introduction to the Baháʼí Persian romanization can usually be found at the back of a Baháʼí scripture.

It is common to write Persian language with only theLatin alphabet (as opposed to thePersian alphabet) especially inonline chat,social networks,emails andSMS. It has developed and spread due to a former lack of software supporting the Persian alphabet, and/or due to a lack of knowledge about the software that was available. Although Persian writing is supported in recentoperating systems, there are still many cases where the Persian alphabet is unavailable and there is a need for an alternative way to write Persian with thebasic Latin alphabet. This way of writing is sometimes calledFingilish orPingilish (aportmanteau ofFârsi orPersian andEnglish).^[15] In most cases this is anad hoc simplification of the scientific systems listed above (such as ALA-LC or BGN/PCGN), but ignoring any special letters or diacritical signs. The details of the spelling also depend on the contact language of the speaker; for example, the vowel[u] is often spelt "oo" after English, but Persian speakers from Germany and some other European countries are more likely to use "u".

In the USSR from 1931 to 1938, the Persian alphabet based on Latinwas used. It was used for teaching in schools, theBejraqe Sorx (Red Banner) newspaper was published inAshgabat, as well as textbooks and other literature.^[16][17]

TheTajik language or Tajik Persian is a variety of the Persian language. It was written in theTajik SSR in a standardized Latin script from 1926 until the late 1930s, when the script was officiallychanged to Cyrillic. As a result of these factors romanization schemes of the Tajik Cyrillic script follow rather different principles.^[18] Even though it is largely unused,Google Translate implements the alphabet as the Latin transliteration for Tajik.

A variation (that is sometimes called "Pârstin") proposed by linguistMir Shamsuddin Adib-Soltani in 1976^[20] has seen some use by other linguists, such asDavid Neil MacKenzie for the transliteration of the Persian scripture.

The letters of this variation of the Latin alphabet are the basic Latin letters:Aa,Bb,Cc,Dd,Ee,Ff,Gg,Hh,Ii,Jj,Kk,Ll,Mm,Nn,Oo,Pp,Qq,Rr,Ss,Tt,Uu,Vv,Xx,Yy,Zz, plus the additional letters to support the native sounds:Ââ,Čč,Šš,Žž (the latter three from Slavic alphabets, like theCzech one).

Besides being one of the simplest variations proposed for the Latinization of thePersian alphabet, this variation is based on theAlphabetic principle. Based on this principle, each individual speech sound is represented by a single letter and there is a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and the letters that represent them. This principle, besides increasing the clarity of the text and preventing confusion for the reader, is specifically useful for representing the native sounds of the Persian language, for which there are no equivalents in most other languages written in a Latin-based alphabet. For instance, compound letters used in the other variations, such askh andgh, in addition tosh andzh are respectively represented byx,q,š andž.

• Persian alphabet
• Persian phonology
• Romanization of Syriac
• List of English words of Persian origin
• Zabân-e Pâk, a 1944 treatise byAhmad Kasravi, proposing reforms to Persian including writing it in the Latin script.

• Comparison of DMG, UN, ALA-LC, BGN/PCGN, EI, ISO 233-3 transliterations
• Transliteration of Non-Roman Scripts
• Iranian Committee on the Standardization of Geographical Names (ICSGN)Archived 2010-12-02 at theWayback Machine

• Persian orthography
• Romanization of Arabic
• Persian scripts

• Articles containing Persian-language text
• Pages with plain IPA
• CS1 maint: location missing publisher
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Pages with Persian IPA
• Webarchive template wayback links