The Persian alphabet (الفبای فارسی) is a 32-letter right-to-left script derived from Arabic, with four extra letters for sounds unique to Persian. Because the script is cursive, almost every letter changes shape depending on whether it begins, sits inside, ends, or stands alone in a word. This reference shows all four positional forms side by side, with the letter name and a Latin transliteration, so you can read, write, and type Farsi correctly.
How the four positional forms work
Persian letters join to their neighbours, and the connection points determine which shape a letter takes:
- Isolated — the bare letter with no connection on either side; used when a letter stands completely alone.
- Initial — connects only on its left (the word continues to the left in RTL text); used when the letter opens a connected cluster.
- Medial — connects on both sides, inside an unbroken run.
- Final — connects only on its right, ending a connected run; used after any letter that connects on its left.
Seven letters are non-connecting on the left: ا د ذ ر ز ژ و. They have only two meaningful shapes (isolated and final) because they never connect to the letter that follows them in the right-to-left flow. Whenever one of these appears inside a word, it breaks the run and forces the next letter to restart in its initial form.
The four Persian-only letters
Persian adds four letters not found in Arabic by modifying existing base letters:
| Persian letter | Name | Sound | Derived from |
|---|---|---|---|
| پ | pe | /p/ | ب (be) — adds a third dot below |
| چ | che | /tʃ/ (“ch”) | ج (jim) — adds two dots below |
| ژ | zhe | /ʒ/ (“zh”) | ز (ze) — adds three dots above |
| گ | gaf | /ɡ/ | ک (kaf) — adds a horizontal stroke |
Arabic lacks the /p/, /tʃ/, /ʒ/, and /ɡ/ sounds, so these four letters were invented to write Persian words correctly.
Reading words in practice
To understand how the forms work in context, consider پدر (pedar, “father”), read right to left:
- پ — initial form, connects to its left.
- د — non-connecting letter, so it appears in its final form after پ, and the run breaks.
- ر — also non-connecting; it appears in isolated form since nothing connects to it from the right.
The word is written as three visible letter shapes even though it is three letters, because both د and ر break the cursive run. Spotting the seven non-connecting letters early is the fastest shortcut to reading Persian naturally.
Using the reference
Click any glyph in the table to copy it to your clipboard — useful when typing in an app that does not have a Persian keyboard layout loaded. Use the search box to filter by transliteration (type kh to find خ, or sh to find ش) or by letter name (type gaf to find گ). All four positional forms are shown per row so you can see at a glance which shape the letter takes in each position.