# Persian: چہ غم استی



## Qureshpor

Friends,

The following quote is from the مطلع of a Ghazal of Mirza Asadullah Khan "Ghalib".

گر نہ نواھا سرودمے چہ غمستی
منکہ نیم گر نبودمے چہ غمستی

What does چہ غمستی mean? Is it equivalent to تُرا چہ غمستی ? Could you also provide a translation of the second line please.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> What does چہ غمستی mean? Is it equivalent to تُرا چہ غمستی ?


I would say ‏چه ‏غمی ‏است




Qureshpor said:


> Could you also provide a translation of the second line please.


*گر نہ نواھا سرودمے چہ غمستی*
اگر نوایی نسرودم چه غمی است 

*منکہ نیم گر نبودمے چہ غمستی*
من که (*نیم*) نیستم اگر نمی‌بودم چه غمی است

I expected *نبودمے *to be *بودمے *to make it: 
*من که نیستم اگر می‌بودم چه غمی است*

که to be read as کی/who.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> I would say ‏چه ‏غمی ‏است


Thank you. If this is the case, then should n't it have been written as چه غمیست ?

Having done a little more (re)search, it seems the matla3 ought to be written and read as:

گر نہ نواھا سرودمے چہ غمستے
منکہ نیم گر نبودمے چہ غمستے

where ے as you know already represents a majhuul ye.

What do you think?


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Thank you. If this is the case, then should n't it have been written as چه غمیست ?


Of course yes, but in its constituent parts it is easier for others to understand.



Qureshpor said:


> where ے as you know already represents a majhuul ye.
> 
> What do you think?


Yes, th‌at is is an indefinite ی


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Having done a little more (re)search, it seems the matla3 ought to be written and read as:


What is _matla3_ please?


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> ...Yes, th‌at is is an indefinite ی


But in this context, it is not an indefinite ye as it is attached to a verb and not to a noun or an adjective.

The first couplet of a Ghazal is traditionally called a مطلع, i.e the point/place of the Ghazal's beginning just as مطلع is the place of the sun's rising. The final couplet is called the مقطع, the cutting (off) point.


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## PersoLatin

Thank you.

I really don’t know what a مجهول ی is.


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## marrish

^ ē


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## PersoLatin

Thanks, it is the meaning of it that I have difficulty understanding. So in Urdu you distinguish the two ی’s in writing too?


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> Thank you.
> 
> I really don’t know what a مجهول ی is.


As I have said in a previous post of mine, when you say "a" in a somewhat prolonged or exaggerated  manner, you are pronouncing the "majhuul" ye sound. The word "bake" rhymes with "nek" نیک (pious) where "e" in nek has the majhuul ye sound. On the other hand, the English letter "e", again somewhat prolonged has ma3ruuf ye sound as in "meek" which rhymes with the Modern Persian pronunciation of نیک.

Yes, we distinguish the final "ye" in writing by using ے in Urdu (because this sound exists in Urdu) as well as in Persian because it helps with understanding of Persian poetry and prose. گفتی You (thou) said, گفتے He/She used to say.

اگر گفتی If he/she said; اگر گفتے If she/he had said...

شاھے a king; شاھی royal

This e/ē sound (along with the majhuul vaao for "o" as in Sa'di's "Bostaan") did not exist in Arabic. It was not known/unknown/majhuul to them. I hope you follow the gist now.


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## marrish

PersoLatin said:


> Thanks, it is the meaning of it that I have difficulty understanding. So in Urdu you distinguish the two ی’s in writing too?


Yes, that's right, in the final shape. ی- is ī, ے- is ē.

My attempt at transcription:

گر نہ نواھا سرودمے چہ غمستے gar na nawāhā sarōdamē či ghamastē
منکہ نیم گر نبودمے چہ غمستے manké na-yam gar nabūdamē či ghamastē

How should نیم be read?


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## PersoLatin

I do know the sound difference but not quite what it should sound like but that’s not that important, so when I said I don’t what it means, it was their grammatical difference in the context of the above غزل that I was referring to, and this is the first time I have heard that.


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> Yes, that's right, in the final shape. ی- is ī, ے- is ē.
> 
> My attempt at transcription:
> 
> گر نہ نواھا سرودمے چہ غمستے gar na nawāhā sarōdamē či ghamastē
> منکہ نیم گر نبودمے چہ غمستے manké na-yam gar nabūdamē či ghamastē
> 
> How should نیم be read?


na-yam.


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## marrish

PersoLatin said:


> ...their grammatical difference in the context of the above غزل I was referring to, and this is the first time I have heard that.


Now I understand what you meant, and do disregard the above explanation about the sounds if unhelpful.


Qureshpor said:


> na-yam.


Thanks so much.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> I do know the sound difference but not quite what it should sound like but that’s not that important, so when I said I don’t what it means, it was their grammatical difference in the context of the above غزل that I was referring to, and this is the first time I have heard that.


This is one of the features of Classical Persian which perhaps most Modern Persian speakers are not aware of.

گر این می نیستے عالم همه یکسر خرابستے
وگر در کالبد جان را بدیلستے شرابستے
اگر این می به ابر اندربه چنگال عقابستے
از او تا ناکسان هرگز نخوردندے صوابستے

رودکی

ماه نو چون زورق زرین نگشتے هر شبے
گرنه این گردنده گردون نیلگون دریاستے 

ناصرخسرو


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> گفتی You (thou) said, گفتے He/She used to say.


‌‌So گفتے not only is a third person it has a different tense?


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> ‌‌So گفتے not only is a third person it has a different tense?


Yes, it is ماضیءِ استمراری as well as تمنائی with کاش etc and شرطی with اگر.


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## Alfaaz

marrish said:
			
		

> Yes, that's right, in the final shape. ی- is ī, ے- is ē.


 Please excuse my lack of familiarity with the different representations and symbols often used in this forum, but wouldn't a _majhuul yaa_ be represented by _ā_ (as also suggested by Qureshpor)…? 

Based on pronunciation guides used in English dictionaries: 

_ā_ as in _maze_ (_māz_)  - میز (مے + ز) - _mez: table, desk, etc. _
_ē_ as in _seem_ (_sēm_) - سیم (سی + م) - _seem/siim: silver_
_ī_ as in _mile_ (_mīl_) - مائل - _maa'il: inclined, etc._


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Yes, it is ماضیءِ استمراری as well as تمنائی with کاش


So what do the two verbs in your OP actually mean? In Persian please.


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## marrish

@Alfaaz, The above from some English dictionaries looks very different than the way the letters with macron are used to represent long vowels. It takes the phonetic value of English language alphabets instead of phonetic value of the vowel system of Classical Persian, Urdu etc.

aa=ā, ii=ī, uu=ū, then ō and ē. 
I'm not writing double 'e' for a long ē and double 'o' for long ō because 'ee' sequence of letters is used in English to represent ī, while 'oo' is used in English for u or ū, not ō. That's why it's practical to use ē and ō for the instances every time there's a long vowel like in 'شیر shēr 'lion' and 'شیر _shiir_' 'milk'. Please also do note that the length of o and e is usually not indicated in Urdu because there's usually the long ō  in Urdu. In today's Persian however, the short o is a commonplace because the ُاُ (zamma, pesh, pish) is pronounced 'o'. Therefore, there's no opposition in Persian of short and long o and the length needs no notation. Neither is there an opposition between the lengths of e, because the short e is omnipresent through the realisation of  اِ  (kasra, zer, ziir) like in کتاب ketâb. This opposition is present in some varieties of Persian including the Classical, which differentiate 'milk' and 'lion' in pronunciation, so ē can be well used for the purpose of this couplet.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> So what do the two verbs in your OP actually mean? In Persian please.


Well, I am not a Persian speaker and as the couplet is in Persian, Persian speakers are best placed to understand its content. All I can say is that it imparts the same kind of meaning as سرودمے and بودمے convey.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Well, I am not a Persian speaker and as the couplet is in Persian, Persian speakers are best placed to understand its content. All I can say is that it imparts the same kind of meaning as سرودمے and بودمے convey.


Dear Queshpor, again, we/I get tantalising close to understanding this but we hit a block. I'm not trying to test anyone's Persian, I would like to know, like many others who are reading this, what  سرودمے and بودمے meant in Persian then and what we think it means now, so we can establish if any meaning has been lost.  Of course you don't have to give me the meaning in Persian, I want the meaning, rather than it's interpretation in Urdu or English that's why I went for Persian.

For my part, I think this is what they say:
بودمے is equivalent to می‌بودم which in modern Persian stands for بوده ‏بودم/I had been, the latter is grammatically correct but for some reason never unused.
Same for سرودمے which means سروده ‏بودم in the context.

They can be rearranged as ‏می‌سرودم and می‌بودم, and in this form, می‌سرودم ordinarily means 'used to sing' and not always 'I had sung' but the latter always means 'I had been'.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Thank you. If this is the case, then should n't it have been written as چه غمیست ?


Also I sense you don't believe غمستی means ‏چه ‏غمی ‏است/چه غمیست, am I correct?

Anyway based on the following:


Qureshpor said:


> But in this context, it is not an indefinite ye as it is attached to a verb and not to a noun or an adjective.


The ی in غمستی should also be a majhul as it is attached to a verb (است), so غمستی would mean ‏چه ‏غم می‌بود and NOT چه غمیست, I think that works well too, what do think?


So another visit to this:
گر نہ نواھا سرودمے چہ غمستی
منکہ نیم گر نبودمے چہ غمستی
*
اگر نواھا نسروده بودم چه غم می‌بود 
من که نیستم اگر نمی‌بودم چه غم می‌بود*


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## Derakhshan

I thought the conditional/past habitual ی only attaches to past tense verbs? Like: رفتمی، گفتمی etc.

So می‌بود would be بودی. I don't know how to interpret the استی in غمستی but I wouldn't have thought it means می‌بود.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Yes, we distinguish the final "ye" in writing by using ے in Urdu (because this sound exists in Urdu) as well as in Persian because it helps with understanding of Persian poetry and prose. گفتی You (thou) said, گفتے He/She used to say.
> 
> اگر گفتی If he/she said; اگر گفتے If she/he had said...
> 
> شاھے a king; شاھی royal


Also in Urdu, ے attached to a noun, here شاه, means 'a/some' i.e. indefinite, a/some king but when attached to a verb it takes on a different meaning, isn't that confusing.

Can you please also let me know what happens to ے i.e. majhul, when it falls in the middle of a word, in either noun or verb case.


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## PersoLatin

Derakhshan said:


> I thought the conditional/past habitual ی only attaches to past tense verbs? Like: رفتمی، گفتمی etc.
> 
> So می‌بود would be بودی. I don't know how to interpret the استی in غمستی but I wouldn't have thought it means می‌بود.


I am also asking, based on what has been said.


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## Qureshpor

@PersoLatin. Whilst searching for some Persian grammatical construction, I came across this Ghazal in a book. The compiler of this book was differentiating between the majhuul and ma3ruuf ی and this couplet was written as below.

گر نہ نواھا سرودمے چہ غمستی
منکہ نیم گر نبودمے چہ غمستی

It did not occur to me there may be a typo and consequently غمستی did n't make sense to me. Neither did the second line, where like you but for a different reason, I felt it made more sense if the line had been

منکہ ھستم گر نبودمے ۔۔۔۔

Apart from you no response from Persian speaking/knowing friends came forth and I continued my search for an explanation. As it happens, I then came across more than one source where I found غمستے and I was already familiar with this construction. (@Derakhshan I have already provided examples of ے ending with the present). Here is an example from سعدی.

سود دریا نیک بودے گر نبودے بیم موج
صحبت گل خوش بدے گر نیستے تشویش خار

Now returning to

گر نہ نواھا سرودمے چہ غمستے
منکہ نیم گر نبودمے چہ غمستے

If I had not sung melodies, what loss would there have been
If I am not* or had not been, what loss would there have been

(In the second line the first "if" is understood.....If I am not*, i.e If I don't exist now...or perhaps if I am a nobody)

This ے verb strictly speaking is NOT equivalent to بودہ بود i.e past perfect or pluperfect because it spans both the past and the present/future according to context, as the following example illustrates.

سود دریا نیک بودے گر نبودے بیم موج
صحبت گل خوش بدے گر نیستے تشویش خار

Gain in the sea would be worth while if there were n't the fear of waves
Mingling with roses would be nice if there was no anxiety of the thorns!

بودہ بود does exist and there are plenty of examples in the Classical literature.

In later Persian the ے construction (i.e with the majhuul ی) co-existed with مے/ھمے construction for some time and later still completely taken over by مے/ھمے which of course became to be pronounced as می/ھمی. So سرودمے and بودمے would be equivalent to می سرود and می بود.

There is no confusion between a ے added to a noun/adjective or to a verb. It merely indicates that the vowel is مجہول in most** of the cases.

** The ے innovation in Urdu and Persian in the Subcontinent is a relatively new phenomenon, perhaps around the mid-nineteenth century. It also indicates a diphthong, e.g مَے، شَے، نَے etc. I hope I have covered everything.


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## Qureshpor

Derakhshan said:


> I thought the conditional/past habitual ی only attaches to past tense verbs? Like: رفتمی، گفتمی etc. So می‌بود would be بودی. I don't know how to interpret the استی in غمستی but I wouldn't have thought it means می‌بود.


See گنجور » مسعود سعد سلمان » دیوان اشعار » قصاید » شمارهٔ ۲۹۱ - مدح دیگر از آن پادشاه for باشدے، داردے، آیدے and نیستے. This is by مسعود سعد سلمان born in Lahore (1046-1121) with parentage from Hamadan. How to you interpret these lines?


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> ** The ے innovation in Urdu and Persian in the Subcontinent is a relatively new phenomenon, perhaps around the mid-nineteenth century. It also indicates a diphthong, e.g مَے، شَے، نَے etc. I hope I have covered everything.


Many thanks this is great.

But one thing is still puzzling me (in 2-) and this may not necessary be a question for you :
1 - I understand majhule ی‌ (correct rendition ے) and the sound difference it represents e.g. in میز and شیر, and that, this does not affect the grammar or the meaning.
2 - When this ے is applied to verbs, majhul, as a sound difference still makes sense BUT as we know ے  affects aspects of verb tense also, and in this respect the label majhul, doesn't fit the purpose, and that is very confusing for beginners.

Also I still don't know the rendition of ے in the middle of a word, just want to establish if in Urdu that distinction extent to these.




Qureshpor said:


> بودہ بود does exist and there are plenty of examples in the Classical literature.


This was raised in another post sometime ago & I was convinced بودہ بود & its variant did exist but there was no proponent of this,  at the time.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> ...because it spans both the past and the present/future according to context, as the following example illustrates.
> 
> سود دریا نیک بودے گر نبودے بیم موج
> صحبت گل خوش بدے گر نیستے تشویش خار


The above can be changed to this without any change in the meaning:
سود دریا نیک *باشد *گر *نباشد *بیم موج
صحبت گل خوش *بود *گر *نباشد *تشویش خار (read *بود as *bovad)

Obviously my version does not read well, but the point is, the poet's choice of verbs is purely to get the meter and rhythm right, whilst giving the intended/correct meaning, that is the highest priority, of course when they can express the words more eloquently, whilst keeping  those priorities intact, they will.

So I don't believe "..._because it spans both the past and the present/future according to context_" to be a the reason, my version doesn't cover the past but no poet believes his audience are dumb and can't work out anything worldly that can happen in the present or future couldn't have happened in the past (potentially).


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## Derakhshan

Seems I was mistaken:


> The ENPA irrealis particle -_ē(δ)_ (< MP _hēd_), attached to *present* and past verbal forms, corresponds to EJP -_ē(h)_(the -_h_ occurring in 2 texts only), in which it is only attested with past verbs. In later NP, the -_ē_ (> _i_) was used mainly in conditional clauses of the type _agar raftami _“if I had gone,” and it is no longer used in modern NP. There is a “hortative” particle EJP _(h)ē_ going back to MMP _hēb_ / ZMP _ē(w)_ that occurs with present indicative verbs, e.g., Du1.9 _yazīd ḵudāh ē yār bāšad_ “the Lord God may be a helper,” and does not seem to occur in ENPA or later forms of NP (Paul, 2013, §146.b, §151).


PERSIAN LANGUAGE   i. Early New Persian – Encyclopaedia Iranica

If this was used as an irrealis particle in present verbs as it says above, we should expect to find constructions like کاشکی مرا هستی "I wish that I had/would have..."


Qureshpor said:


> How to you interpret these lines?


اگر مملکت را زبان باشدی
ثنا گوی شاه جهان باشدی

Seems to me like

"If the country would have a tongue,
it would laud (=be a lauder of) Shah Jahan"

So, just a conditional, and unreal future, clauses, both of which are covered by the subjunctive باشد. Removing the ی doesn't seem like it would change the meaning much:

اگر مملکت را زبان باشد
ثنا گوی شاه جهان باشد


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## PersoLatin

Derakhshan said:


> اگر مملکت را زبان باشدی
> ثنا گوی شاه جهان باشدی


Here both باشدی's are equivalent to می‌بود

If the country had a tongue,
it would have lauded Shah Jahan


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## Qureshpor

@PersoLatin I apologise if I am unable to explain my thoughts to you. The label "majhuul" in our context of this thread is for the vowel only, i.e guft-e, nest-e, sarodam-e etc and it has nothing to do with any verb labels. The same majhuul vowel is used with nouns and adjectives, e.g مردے خوب or مردِ خوبے

گفتے can be "S/he used to say/would say" in the form of habitual, in the conditional (with اگر) "If s/he had said..." and with کاش/ کاشکے , "Would that s/he had said". There are other usages but that is not necessary now. It can be preceded by مے

The term "majhuul" when applied to verb means "passive voice" as in کشت "He killed" is active voice and کشتہ شد He was killed.

An example of بودہ بود

وسلطان را مقصود از ایشان ابوعلی بودہ بود ۔ چہار مقالہ۔ نظامی عروضی سمرقندی


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## Qureshpor

Derakhshan said:


> Seems I was mistaken:
> 
> PERSIAN LANGUAGE   i. Early New Persian – Encyclopaedia Iranica
> 
> If this was used as an irrealis particle in present verbs as it says above, we should expect to find constructions like کاشکی مرا هستی "I wish that I had..."


کاشکے اندر جهان شب نیستے
تـا مــرا هجـران آن لــب نیستے
دقیقی


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> The above can be changed to this without any change in the meaning:
> سود دریا نیک *باشد *گر *نباشد *بیم موج
> صحبت گل خوش *بود *گر *نباشد *تشویش خار (read *بود as *bovad)
> 
> Obviously my version does not read well, but the point is, the poet's choice of verbs is purely to get the meter and rhythm right, whilst giving the intended/correct meaning, that is the highest priority, of course when they can express the words more eloquently, whilst keeping  those priorities intact, they will.
> 
> So I don't believe "..._because it spans both the past and the present/future according to context_" to be a the reason, my version doesn't cover the past but no poet believes his audience are dumb and can't work out anything worldly that can happen in the present or future couldn't have happened in the past (potentially).


With due respect, I would be wasting my time in responding to all this. All I will say is that what we are discussing is not only in the realm of poetry but also prose.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> Here both باشدی's are equivalent to می‌بود
> 
> If the country had a tongue,
> it would have lauded Shah Jahan


Or:

If the kingdom were to have a tongue
It would praise the King of the World


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## Qureshpor

Derakhshan said:


> Seems I was mistaken:.........
> 
> اگر مملکت را زبان باشدی
> ثنا گوی شاه جهان باشدی
> 
> Seems to me like
> 
> "If the country would have a tongue,
> it would laud (=be a lauder of) Shah Jahan"
> 
> So, just a conditional, and unreal future, clauses. Removing the ی doesn't seem like it would change the meaning much:
> 
> اگر مملکت را زبان باشد
> ثنا گوی شاه جهان باشد


It does n't matter whether removing the ی would change the meaning or not. The fact is that ی is added to the present tense, as illustrated in this قصیدہ by مسعود سعد سلمان. In the following couplet, the sense is not conditional, would you agree?

بدان هر زبان صد لغت داندے
که در هر لغت صد بیان باشدے


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> All I will say is that what we are discussing is not only in the realm of poetry but also prose.


I am aware of that. In prose there's no need for rhyme and meter but the author, like a painter, can choose different words from his metaphoric pallet, depending on the fads at the time, rather than lack of colours.

In modern Persian we have verb tenses that cover past & present and present & future, like other languages, and I strongly believe the guys in CP times had access to those same ones, but they chose the styles under discussion through choice, rather than having to use them because the other set were somehow inadequate in words to express what they had to say.


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## Alfaaz

marrish said:
			
		

> Alfaaz, The above from some English dictionaries looks very different than the way the letters with macron are used to represent long vowels. It takes the phonetic value of English language alphabets instead of phonetic value of the vowel system of Classical Persian, Urdu etc.
> 
> aa=ā, ii=ī, uu=ū, then ō and ē. ...


 Thanks for the detailed reply. (I'm afraid I might not have quite understood due to being accustomed to the English usage.)

Please excuse the irrelevant (to the main topic of the thread) post and interruption everyone.


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