# Persian: khaane-ye taan



## Jamshed Aslam

People say khaane-ye taan aabaad baashad but I think it should have been khaane taan in formal Persian. What do you guys say?


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## James Bates

My textbook confirms that in formal Persian it should indeed be خانہ تان and not خانۂ تان.


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## darush

It is pronounced _khaaneyetaan _and rarely _khaane e taan _(a very short _e _between _khanne _and _taan_).

In recent years, it is advised to be written as خانه ی  تان instead of its traditional form خانۂ تان or simply خانه تان


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## Treaty

darush said:


> In recent years, it is advised to be written as خانه ی  تان instead of its traditional form خانۂ تان or simply خانه تان



The Persian Academy website says otherwise (خانه تان):
فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فارسی


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## fdb

darush said:


> It is pronounced _khaaneyetaan _and rarely _khaane e taan _(a very short _e _between _khanne _and _taan_).



I agree. In classical Persian it is xāna(y)itān (4 syllables).


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## James Bates

Wheeler Thackston's textbook says that خانہ تان خانہ مان and خانہ شان are to be pronounced khaane taan, khaane maan, and khaane shaan, respectively.

He also says that کتاب تان, etc. are to be pronounced ketaab etaan (as opposed to ketaab taan, which would be completely wrong).

What makes them different is the presence of absence of a silent ہ at the end of the word.


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## James Bates

I just went through Bozorg Alvi and Manfred Lorenz's "Lehrbuch der persischen Sprache" and it turns out that, according to the authors at least, خانہ مان should be pronounced khaane-ye maan. I wonder why Thackston says otherwise.


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## Asadullah

Just goes to show you that anybody can make a mistake.


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## darush

Treaty said:


> The Persian Academy website says otherwise (خانه تان):
> فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فارسی


Hello,

Two photos taken from elementary school _Farsi_ textbook showing خانه ی and پایه ی :


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## PersoLatin

I was taught it as خانهٔ ما, it then changed to خانه ی ما, now it is خانه ما.

It is just plain hard to pronounce two short vowels, one after another & distinctly, without the 'y' sound creeping in. That has always been the case, especially in colloquial speech which we all learn first.

Looks like however you write it, the masses will always pronounce it as xânéye (khâneye) mâ.

BTW - farhangestân uses a mixure of styles in their own text:
    در صورتى که پیوسته‌نویسى «هم» با کلمهٔ بعد از خود موجب دشوارخوانى شود، مانند *همصنف*


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## Treaty

darush said:


> Two photos taken from elementary school _Farsi_ textbook showing خانه ی and پایه ی :


This thread is about when the possessive pronoun (مان، تان) is used not other types of ezaafe (as in your examples). Because the possessive pronouns are not standalone words (unlike ما in خانه ی ما), we'd better to reduce its distance from the modified word (خانه) as much as possible to avoid confusion.


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## James Bates

Here's what Dr. W. M. Thackston, the author of An Introduction to Persian and professor emeritus of Persian at Harvard, wrote to me yesterday when I informed him that Bozorg Alvi and Manfred Lorenz's Lehrbuch der persischen Sprache says خانۂ مان ("our house") is to be pronounced khaane-ye maan (remember that Dr. Thackston's book states it is to be pronounced khaane maan):

Dear Mr Abdul Ghani,

I don't know what to say except that the example in the German book is flat-out wrong. Never in the history of Persian has an enclitic been preceded by the ezafe vowel. 

In modern colloquial Persian, which most likely reflects classical usage as well, that vowel on the end of words like khane reverts to its original value, and the standard khane-tan becomes khuna-tun. All three plural enclitics also occur, especially in poetry, without the 'e' vowel after consonants, e.g. the standard pedar-eshan would be pedar-shan in poetry (where so required by the meter).

This may be more than you wanted to know, but you asked for it.

WMT​


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## colognial

The only exception to the basic rule propounded above is when there is a ها involved, that is, where خانه is made plural by the use of a ها. Of course the 'ya' is there, though only by choice, to improve the sound of the compound word: evidently خانه های تان sounds better than خانه هاتان to some ears. This may explain why some speakers are inclined to use the unnecessary 'ya' indiscriminately, applying it in cases where the noun with the mute 'h' at the end is in fact singular.


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## hadronic

Even if -tân, -mân,... are suffixes (as opposed to ezafe+pronoun), should one write them separated from the های mark of plural?
How would you write "my books": کتاب های م, with a stranded م,  or کتاب هایم?
Or کتاب های ام?


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## Jamshed Aslam

Please allow me to remind you that my question concerned pronunciation, not orthography. I'm not that interested in how to write "your house". I am only concerned with the pronunciation of "your house". Everybody knows that "house" is "khaane", so my only question is: is "your" pronounced taan or etaan or yetaan? It seems that under normal circumstances it is "etaan", e.g. ketaab etaan (your book), kuh etaan (your mountain). However, when the preceding word ends in an "h" that is silent (unlike the one in kuh) the word for "your" becomes "taan", as in khaane taan. 

"Your" is never pronounced "yetaan" under any circumstances, at least not in formal Persian.

All of the above applies to "their" and "our" too, e.g. khaane shaan, khaane maan.


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## PersoLatin

_


Jamshed Aslam said:



			so my only question is: is "your" pronounced taan or etaan or yetaan?
		
Click to expand...


The answer is yetân/yetaan.

*Words ending in consonants*: in formal speech, use possessive pronouns emân, etân or ešân:
dast - dast etân > dastetân
kuh - kuh etân > kuhetân

*Words ending in vowels *(incl. & especially words with mute 'h'): in formal speech, use possessive pronouns yemân, *yetân *or yešân: where *y* acts as liaison between two vowels and *is pronounced*:_
xâné - xâné yetân > xânéyetân or khaaneyetaan
mu - mu yetân > muyetân
pâ - pâ yetân > pâyetân

Of course the pronunciation affects the spelling, hence the discussions. There doesn't seem to be a consensus on whether y should be used or not, but classical & contemporary evidence shows, it has always been used.


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## colognial

hadronic said:


> Even if -tân, -mân,... are suffixes (as opposed to ezafe+pronoun), should one write them separated from the های mark of plural?
> How would you write "my books": کتاب های م, with a stranded م,  or کتاب هایم?
> Or کتاب های ام?



کتاب های م is highly uncommon, while کتاب هایم is the regular spelling. Also, کتاب های ام may be used, even though it is disjointed and appears contrary to the idea of the liaison created by the insertion of the ی.


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## hadronic

PersoLatin said:


> _
> 
> The answer is yetân/yetaan.
> _
> .



As mentioned above, a lot of authoritative grammars (including mine in French by Fauchécour) state otherwise,  namely that it should be _khâne-tân._
Similarly, for first person singular, it is _khâne-am_, and not *_khâne-y-am _or_ *khâne-ye-am. _
In colloquial it is_ khunam / khunatun. 
_
Which register of Persian says_ khâne-y-etân _?


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## PersoLatin

hadronic said:


> Which register of Persian says_ khâne-y-etân _?



Classical Persian (post #5), and up to 10-20 years ago, (not sure of the exact date) mainstream schools used to teach it that way (post #9), it is in recent times that text books and فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فار recommend _khânetân. _In fact, khânetân sounds more like a regional accent, to my ears.


فرهنگستان زبان و ادب فارسی seems to recommend different treatments for words;
1 ending in short vowels, incl. mute 'h' - The y liaison is not recommended, e.g. _khânetân (خانه‌تان), rahrotân (رهروتان) _
2 ending in long vowels, the y liaison is recommended  e.g. amuyetân(عمویتان) & pâyetân (پایتان)

I suppose your source Fauchécour, is following these recommendations. But the reasons for having the y liaison, is just as valid for set 1.



hadronic said:


> it is _khâne-am_, and not *_khâne-y-am _or_ *khâne-ye-am._


_khâne-am is fine, khâne-y-am is also fine as it popularly used in regional accents, you can see the same pattern.

khâne-ye-am is not correct as there's no need for 'e' in 'ye' since 'am' starts with a vowel, therefore back to khâne-y-am.
_


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