# Persian: بدہ



## James Bates

Somebody told me recently that the formal way of pronouncing بدہ and بدھید was bedah and bedahid respectively.
However, take a look at the attached picture taken from a textbook.
It clearly says "bedeh".


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## truce

Yes. That is right. The common pronunciation for it is "bede".
"bedah" might be Afghan pronunciation for it.


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## curious boy

بده is an informal word and it's just used in spoken language and I don't think there is any need to use the formal form.by the way I don't think anyone says "bedah" as the formal form of it.


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## Treaty

بده is both formal and informal, written and spoken. The _bedah _pronunciation was an assumption for the (early) classical period of Persian (which I disagree as it rhymed with _zih_). Anyway, there are _dah _pronunciations in compound words like Tajik фармондаҳ (فرمانده) but it can also be because it is an allusion to the active noun suffix _anda _ـنده.


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## colognial

Treaty said:


> بده is both formal and informal, written and spoken. *The bedah pronunciation was an assumption for the (early) classical period of Persian (which I disagree as it rhymed with zih). *Anyway, there are _dah _pronunciations in compound words like Tajik фармондаҳ (فرمانده) but it can also be because it is an allusion to the active noun suffix _anda _ـنده.



Treaty, what do you mean by the bold part of your statement? Do you mean people suppose that during the early classical period of Persian - how long ago is that? - the word was pronounced as 'bedah'? And if so, why do you say you disagree with this supposition, and how does 'zih' play a part in all this? (What is 'zih', anyway?) Thanks in advance for the clarification!


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## Treaty

colognial said:


> Treaty, what do you mean by the bold part of your statement? Do you mean people suppose that during the early classical period of Persian - how long ago is that? - the word was pronounced as 'bedah'? And if so, why do you say you disagree with this supposition, and how does 'zih' play a part in all this? (What is 'zih', anyway?) Thanks in advance for the clarification!


In another thread, someone (maybe Persolatin) proposed that _bedah _was the original pronunciation in Ferdowsi's time (that is early classic period of New Persian). It is not my suggestion. James Bates got the idea of _bedah_ from there. I disagree with this because Ferdowsi himself has the following couplet where ده is rhyming with زه (which was then pronounced _zih_ not _zeh_):
قضا گفت گیر و قدر گفت ده
فلک گفت احسن ملک گفت زه


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## PersoLatin

Treaty said:


> In another thread, someone (maybe Persolatin)


I am a 'classical Persian pronunciation' denier , I don't believe it was me, while on the subject, can I ask about the following:


Treaty said:


> I disagree with this because Ferdowsi himself has the following couplet where ده is rhyming with زه (which was then pronounced _zih_ not _zeh_):
> قضا گفت گیر و قدر گفت ده
> فلک گفت احسن ملک گفت زه


If زه was pronounced zih, how would it ever rhyme with ده, in that couplet, as neither deh or dah do? That might be the point exactly, but I don't get it, Thanks.


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## Dib

PersoLatin said:


> If زه was pronounced zih, how would it ever rhyme with ده, in that couplet, as neither deh or dah do? That might be the point exactly, but I don't get it, Thanks.



Today's short /e/ is supposed to be the development of classical short /i/. So, the dispute between /bedah/ and /bedeh/ in modern pronunciation is equivalent to a dispute between /bidah/ and /bidih/ in classical pronunciation. So, this rhyme should be evidence that it was pronounced /dih/ at Ferdowsi's time.


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## PersoLatin

Dib said:


> Today's short /e/ is supposed to be the development of classical short /i/. So, the dispute between /bedah/ and /bedeh/ in modern pronunciation is equivalent to a dispute between /bidah/ and /bidih/ in classical pronunciation. So, this rhyme should be evidence that it was pronounced /dih/ at Ferdowsi's time.


Thanks Dib, I get it now but this has made it even worse for me, I wonder if I ever met Ferdowsi (Firdowsi, surely) I can communicate with him, I think we we can, only if he ditches the 'classical pronunciation', but I have a feeling he also never knew this 'classical' pronunciation 

It's strange that even though Arabic has been prevalent in Persia/Iran for at least 12-13 centuries and that, in the early days learned Persians had to become very familiar with the Arabic grammar, we still pronounce اتحاد as 'etehád' and Arabs, Turks and Urdu speakers, pronounce it as 'itihád/etihád', same goes for most Arabic words of the same structure. Where did it all go wrong? Is it possibly the case that these differences crept in, due to lack of representation of short vowels in the script/ or was it because Persians could only pronounce Arabic words, based on the alphabetic sounds they were given so *ا* could only be 'e' 'o' or 'a' and never 'ee', and to pronouned it as 'itihád' then they'd expect it to see it as *ایتیحاد*


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## Dib

I am curious, why do you think "he also never knew this 'classical' pronunciation"? Do you mean, Persian pronunciation hasn't evolved since his time? It would be truly remarkable if a language held onto its pronunciation for 1000 years. Do we have any other similar example? Or is Persian somehow exceptional? In any case, how come Afghans, Tajiks, Iranians are pronouncing stuffs differently right now? Or, has only one of them "kept it pure", while the others got "corrupted"? Who's which?

Btw, I have found a paper in English talking about the Early New Persian as well as modern vowels in major varieties. Maybe of your interest:
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:657365/FULLTEXT01.pdf


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## Treaty

PersoLatin said:


> I am a 'classical Persian pronunciation' denier , I don't believe it was me


My bad, I seems to have added a few crows. However, it was you who assumed Ferdowsi read روزی ده as _rūzīdah_, which I think is one of the reasons James considered _bedah _as the formal way.


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## PersoLatin

Treaty said:


> it was you who assumed Ferdowsi read روزی ده as _rūzīdah_


True, that was me and I stand by it as it matches the meter and the rhyming requirements better there, but not everywhere.


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## PersoLatin

Dib said:


> I am curious, why do you think "he also never knew this 'classical' pronunciation"?


The current evidence doesn't convince me, but I will read your link and reply, maybe, on a more appropriate thread, I think there's already one open.



Dib said:


> It would be truly remarkable if a language held onto its pronunciation for 1000 years. Do we have any other similar example? Or is Persian somehow exceptional?


English of 1000 years ago, is not comprehensible by the average English speaker, that's not the case with Persian from the same period, or even much older. Persian is not exceptional although we don't know that, the evidence of text from 1000+ years ago, may point that way. Anyway can't a language change & evolve and then slow down for a 1000 years or so, especially after introduction of Arabic, maybe Persian has been in a state of shock since then and hasn't had to change so radically, like other languages have. In my view Persian has changed more in the last 100 years than in the 900+ years, before that.



Dib said:


> In any case, how come Afghans, Tajiks, Iranians are pronouncing stuffs differently right now? Or, has only one of them "kept it pure", while the others got "corrupted"? Who's which?


There's no doubt that there different pronunciations but there's no convincing evidence that Ferdowsi spoke 'classical' Persian which happens to coincide with the current Tajik and Afghan accents.

You can read the whole of Sháhnámé, in modern Persian pronunciation, without ever being aware of the 'classical' pronunciation, of course that doesn't mean the 'classical' pronunciation wasn't there. However I think the reverse is not so easy, i.e. trying to read Sháhnámé, with only classical pronunciation, you'll come across some difficulties, (and some threads of this forum, are testimony to that). But if I am wrong on the latter, then that proves the genius Ferdowsi; he either knew at the time, how Persian of 1000 years later was going to evolve, or was aware of this difference, at the time, and so chose every rhyming word with such care that they couldbe read in both accents, with equal ease.


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## James Bates

PersoLatin said:


> But if I am wrong on the latter, then that proves the genius Ferdowsi; he either knew at the time, how Persian of 1000 years later was going to evolve, or was aware of this difference, at the time, and so chose every rhyming word with such care that they could be read in both accents, with equal ease.



I don't think you understand the nature of the differences that supposedly exist between classical and modern Persian. Allow me to explain. If a vowel changed, it changed across the board. Therefore, if two words rhymed because of a certain vowel, they continued to rhyme because the vowel had changed in the same way.

Does that mean that there are just as many vowels today as there were a thousand years ago but some of them have changed? No, because the in addition to some vowels changing, some vowels completely disappeared and merged with others. Take for example شیر (milk) and شیر (lion). They are now pronounced identically in Iran but not from Tajikistan to the south of India. This means that words that did not rhyme in Ferdawsi's time do rhyme now.

To sum up, words that rhymed in Ferdawsi's time continue to rhyme. Some words that did not rhyme in his time rhyme now.


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## PersoLatin

James Bates said:


> Some words that did not rhyme in his time rhyme now.


James, this makes a mockery of his work, and also bear in mind his ruthless sponsor, do you think he would accept non rhyming words from Ferdowsi, maybe that explains why Ferdowsi received silver where he expected gold.


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## James Bates

I'm afraid you have misunderstood me. I did not mean that he made mistakes in rhyming words. What I meant was that some words that he would have been unable to rhyme in his time can now rhyme. In other words, if he had been alive today, he would have had even more options with regarding to rhyming. For example, today one can rhyme شیر (milk) and سیر (satiated).


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## PersoLatin

James, I understood you fully the first time, but


James Bates said:


> some words that he would have been unable to rhyme in his time can now rhyme.


I don't believe in this,. It suggests, most of us modern Persian speakers who value Ferdowsi's work so much, are hanging on to some fortunate accident.


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## James Bates

I remember someone recounting an incident where he was talking to a Greek speaker and telling her that there was a difference of opinion among scholars over how such and such letter was pronounced in classical Greek. She, being a native Greek speaker, immediately informed him how the letter was pronounced and dismissed the alternative pronunciation. She went on to say, "We should know!"
I'll never forget his reply: "Why? Are you 2,500 years old?"


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## PersoLatin

James, I'm hurt  that you put me in that category , anyway how does:



PersoLatin said:


> It suggests, most of us modern Persian speakers who value Ferdowsi's work so much, are hanging on to some fortunate accident.


 relate to the Greek story? I am saying us Persian speakers are living a 'life of folly', if what you are saying about rhyming is true. I never said we know better.

Jokes aside, I'm not saying anything like that, there's a huge volume of text in Greek, compared to Persian, so non native scholars of Greek have a wealth of data to work from. We don't.


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## James Bates

True, but we have access to many other things, including how the vast majority of Persian speakers pronounced words like شیر/شیر and سیر/سیر. I am talking about Central Asia to the south of India. Until relatively recently Persian was THE pan-Indian language, used by Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs alike. Ranjit Singh used Persian as his official language during the time of the Sikh kingdom in the 19th century. When Ram Mohan Roy started a newspaper to reform his fellow Bengali Hindus in the 19th century, he did so in Persian.

Just as importantly, we have the pronunciations of older Persian preserved in languages like Urdu, Turkish, and Pashto in the form of borrowings.


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## PersoLatin

James Bates said:


> True, but we have access to many other things, including how the vast majority of Persian speakers pronounced words like شیر/شیر and سیر/سیر. I am talking about Central Asia to the south of India. Until relatively recently Persian was THE pan-Indian language, used by Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs alike. Ranjit Singh used Persian as his official language during the time of the Sikh kingdom in the 19th century. When Ram Mohan Roy started a newspaper to reform his fellow Bengali Hindus in the 19th century, he did so in Persian.


But most the above (except in relation to Turkish) occurred less than 500 years ago, by which time the accent of the areas where the borrowings were made, had changed, or had always been different to mainstream Persian, isn't that a possibility too?


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## James Bates

Regardless of when the borrowings were made, the fact remains that their pronunciation is different from that of modern Persian. By the way, Persian was around in India for about a millennium.


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## Treaty

PersoLatin said:


> There's no doubt that there different pronunciations but there's no convincing evidence that Ferdowsi spoke 'classical' Persian which happens to coincide with the current Tajik and Afghan accents.





PersoLatin said:


> James, this makes a mockery of his work, and also bear in mind his ruthless sponsor, do you think he would accept non rhyming words from Ferdowsi, maybe that explains why Ferdowsi received silver where he expected gold.


Apart from James' link, one evidence is that Ferdowsi didn't rhyme words with ī (e.g.,شیر milk پیر اردشیر) with those with ē (e.g., شیر lion دلیر سیر). 


PersoLatin said:


> True, that was me and I stand by it as it matches the meter and the rhyming requirements better there, but not everywhere.


Would you please explain how _dah _or _dih/deh_ would have made a difference in the meter or rhyme of that couplet?


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## PersoLatin

Treaty said:


> Apart from James' link, one evidence is that Ferdowsi didn't rhyme words with ī (e.g.,شیر milk پیر اردشیر) with those with ē (e.g., شیر lion دلیر سیر).


I haven't read Dib's link yet, but the above is the kind of evidence that is not convincing, it is circumstantial, but let me read the link first.

I'd like to ask a question in order to give me a reference point. So far for دادن we have deh, dah, dih, bedeh, bedah and bidih (please delete any that's not correct), does this extend to زدن i.e. zan, zen, zin, bezan, bezen, bizin? Or دادن is the only exception. In classical persain, is bigu (say!), bifrush(sell!), bixor(eat!) allowed?


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## Treaty

PersoLatin said:


> I haven't read Dib's link yet, but the above is the kind of evidence that is not convincing, it is circumstantial, but let me read the link first.


Of course, you should read that first. Anyway, that circumstantial evidence is about 1100 couplets ending with یر.



PersoLatin said:


> I'd like to ask a question in order to give me a reference point. So far for دادن we have deh, dah, dih, bedeh, bedah and bidih (please delete any that's not correct), does this extend to زدن i.e. zan, zen, zin, bezan, bezen, bizin? Or دادن is the only exception. In classical persain, is bigu (say!), bifrush(sell!), bixor(eat!) allowed?


We don't have all of those variants in one time and accent. The Early New Persian [.i](not ī) changed to Iranian Persian [e] but remained intact in Tajik Persian. So whatever we now pronounce with [e] was then pronounced with (unless other factors involved). This also includes all Arabic words with kasre in them.

As for your examples, they should be bigū[y]*, bifrūš* and bixʷar (Ferdowsi rhymed it with pisar پسر and digar دگر).

* Or maybe with ō instead of ū. Anyway, I think the difference between ō and ū was getting less in his time.


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## colognial

I admit I understand very little of the discussion that is going on. It has, I think, been established by now that today بده  is not pronounced with a _fathe_ (or _zebar_ or the 'a' sound) by native Iranians. So that's fine.

But I would like to add that the book page that James Bates has provided an image of in the OP contains an error on this word. The word is not pronounced with a distinct 'h' sound at the end of it. The 'h' sound is there in the other inflections, but not in this one:

بدهم bedaham
بده bede
بدهد bedahad
بدهیم bedaheem
بدهید bedaheed
بدهند bedahand


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