# Persian: Pronunciation of تلویزیون



## congergs

As far as I know it should be pronounced */televi:zju:n/*, however according to some people on Forvo it's */televizjon/*, with differences in both the quality and the quantity of some vowels. Is that so because the word was loaned or did I get some rules wrong?


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## Qureshpor

congergs, I thought I would wait for Persian speakers to respond but as there has not been any reply so far........

I was under the impression that this word would be written as تلویژیون but the vowel change from  *u:n* to *on* could be due to French influence. A lot of such words into Persian have come via French as opposed to English.


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## congergs

Thanks for the answer.

It makes sense but I wonder why they don't use *یُن *to represent *yon/jon*, which seems to be more accurate. As for the short "i" sound I can only guess that they use *ی *since they lack a separate diacritic/letter for the short "i". But still, I'm open to further illumination.


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## Qureshpor

congergs said:


> Thanks for the answer.
> 
> It makes sense but I wonder why they don't use *یُن *to represent *yon/jon*, which seems to be more accurate. As for the short "i" sound I can only guess that they use *ی *since they lack a separate diacritic/letter for the short "i". But still, I'm open to further illumination.


I am not sure if *یُن  *would accurately represent the final *-on* sound and that is why *ون *is used. There is a short "i" which is represent by this sign... say in the Persian word... خِنگ . This is not a horizontal line but more a short line at an angle similar to this / but not as steep.


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## truce

I would pronounce that "Telveezyon" *(تِلْویزیون).*


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## mannoushka

congergs said:


> Thanks for the answer.
> 
> It makes sense but I wonder why they don't use *یُن *to represent *yon/jon*, which seems to be more accurate. As for the short "i" sound I can only guess that they use *ی *since they lack a separate diacritic/letter for the short "i". But still, I'm open to further illumination.


Hello, cogergs! The spelling you suggest would work except it isn’t used among Iranians. و as vowel occasionally sounds like the ‘o’ in ‘born’, almost, in words such as, 
خورشید (the sun).
گود (deep).
دوره (revision).
کولی (gypsy).


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## PersoLatin

mannoushka said:


> خورشید (the sun).
> گود (deep).
> دوره (revision).
> کولی (gypsy).


Hi mannoushka, in the above, only و in  خورشید (the sun) sounds the same as 'o' in  té-lé-vizi-*o*n, in the rest o is longer, isn't that right?
گود/gôd  (deep)
دوره/dôré (revision)
کولی/kôli   (gypsy)
Compare قوم/qôm and قم/Qom


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## mannoushka

Hello, PersoLatin. I see now that there is a difference, even though it was so slight as to pass by me undetected at first. Actually my only object was to show that in none of the words in my example did the و have an ‘oo’ sound such as you would hear pronounced in خوب, or شور. Or is this distinction totally irrelevant to the original question? I don’t really fully understand the question, I admit.


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## PersoLatin

mannoushka said:


> ...Actually my only object was to show that in none of the words in my example did the و have an ‘oo’ sound such as you would hear pronounced in خوب, or شور.


Yes I understand that.



mannoushka said:


> Or is this distinction totally irrelevant to the original question? I don’t really fully understand the question, I admit.


I wasn't too clear about the question either but other replies made it clearer.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> Hi mannoushka, in the above, only و in  خورشید (the sun) sounds the same as 'o' in  té-lé-vizi-*o*n, in the rest o is longer, isn't that right?
> گود/gôd  (deep)
> دوره/dôré (revision)
> کولی/kôli   (gypsy)
> Compare قوم/qôm and قم/Qom


ٰInteresting to see that in all the words listed apart from خورشید, the vowel after the initial consonant is what is termed as "dipthong" and is normally represented as "*au*". Dari speakers make a very prounced differentiation of this vowel, along with the other dipthong "*ai*" as in دیر d*ai*r (monastery) and شیطان Sh*ai*taan. It seems that in Iranian (Tehrani) Persian, the "*au*" dipthong has shifted to a majhuul like sound "o" and the "*ai*" has shifted to "ey".


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## congergs

Thanks to everyone up there, I appreciate it.

So I believe I can conclude that I should look up most of the words to be sure about the pronunciation, because there seem to be irregularities especially with و.


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## Qureshpor

congergs said:


> Thanks to everyone up there, I appreciate it.
> 
> So I believe I can conclude that I should look up most of the words to be sure about the pronunciation, because there seem to be irregularities especially with و.


I would n't worry about how the words are supposed to be pronounced or should be pronounced. Just follow the speech pattern of native speakers and you should be ok.


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## PersoLatin

congergs said:


> because there seem to be irregularities especially with و.


Yes و can be pronounced in four ways at least, in mainstream modern Persian:

1) short o       -  خورشید خوش خورش
2) long o        - گور/gur,  شوم/ŝum, زور/zur
3) diphthong -  گود ,قوم ,شورا
4) pronounced as v - وزغ/vazaq (toad) اول/avval (first)   جو/javv (atmosphere),

To make matters worse but that's not the intention,  بود can be pronounced as bud, bod or bovad, depending on the register and context, where bud (formal/colloquial) and bod (poetic) mean "was", and bovad (poetic) (same as باشد) is in the subjunctive form meaning [if] it were/were it.

EDIT: Correction: ‘bod’ is usually written as بُد and not بود, see post #15.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> Yes و can be pronounced in four ways at least, in mainstream modern Persian:
> 
> 1) short o       -  خورشید خوش خورش
> 2) long o        - گور/gur,  شوم/ŝum, زور/zur
> 3) diphthong -  گود ,قوم ,شورا
> 4) pronounced as v - وزغ/vazaq (toad) اول/avval (first)   جو/javv (atmosphere),
> 
> To make matters worse but that's not the intention,  بود can be pronounced as bud, bod or bovad, depending on the register and context, where bud (formal/colloquial) and bod (poetic) mean "was", and bovad (poetic) (same as باشد) is in the subjunctive form meaning [if] it were/were it.


Never knew بود is also pronounced as "bod". I am aware of "buud", "bud", buwad" and "bawad".


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## mannoushka

Bovad, as in توانا بود هرکه دانا بود
Bod, as in 
 سیامک بدش نام و فرخنده بود


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## Qureshpor

mannoushka said:


> Bovad, as in توانا بود هرکه دانا بود
> Bod, as in سیامک بدش نام و فرخنده بود


So, is n't بود here buud/bood?

سیامک بدش نام و فرخنده بود
کیومرث را دل بدو زنده بود


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## mannoushka

Oh, sorry, I’ve confused by choosing this examle. 
It’s سیامک بدش نام , his name was Siaamak.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> So, is n't بود here buud/bood?


It is a short /o/


همه زیر برگستوان اندرون
*نبدشان* جز از چشم ز آهن برون


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## PersoLatin

^^ Another example of بُد/bod
ای دریغا اشک من دریا بُدی 
تا نثار دلبر زیبا شدی


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> ^^ Another example of بُد/bod
> ای دریغا اشک من دریا بُدی
> تا نثار دلبر زیبا شدی


Thank you PersoLatin. When you said بود was also pronounced "bod", I equated it to rhyme with "road". I would transcribe بُد as "bud" but that's just the way we represent "pesh" (your modern piish) to convey the older Persian "u" vowel.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Thank you PersoLatin. When you said بود was also pronounced "bod", I equated it to rhyme with "road". I would transcribe بُد as "bud" but that's just the way we represent "pesh" (your modern piish) to convey the older Persian "u" vowel.


I can't imagine how you'd pronounce it based on "bud", however the nearest pronunciation of 'o' in بُد/bod, in an English word, is /o/ in "info" but shorter as 'bod' ends in a consonant.

*Spelling and example words[edit]*
For Western Persian:



Phoneme (in IPA)LetterRomanizationExample(s)/æ/ـَ ,ـَه;a/næ/   نه   "no"/ɒː/ـَا, آ ,ىٰ;ā/tɒː/   تا  "until"/e̞/ـِ ,ـِه;e/ke/   که   "that"/iː/ـِیـ ,ـِی;ī/ʃiːr/   شیر   "milk"*/o/*ـُ* ,ـُو;*o/to/   *تو   *"you" (singular)/uː/ـُو;ū/zuːd/   زود   "early"





Early New PersianDariTajikiWestern PersianExampleTajikRomanizationEnglish/a//a//a//æ/شبшабšabnight/aː//ɒ̝ː//ɔ//ɒː/بادбодbādwind/i//e//ɪ//e/دلдилdilheart/iː//iː//iː/شیرширšīrmilk/eː//e̞ː//e̞/شیرшерšerlion/aj//aj//aj//ej/کیкайkaywhen/u//o//ʊ//o/گلгулgulflower/uː//uː//uː/نورнурnūrlight/oː//ö̞ː//ɵ/روزрӯзrozday/aw//aw//av//ow/نوнавnawnew


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## Qureshpor

The way "بُد" (bud) is pronounced by me would be exactly the same as a Tajik would pronounce "gul" as per your table. In fact, the Tajik vowels are as per the vowel system of Classical Persian.


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## PersoLatin

I was trying hard to explain how it is pronounced in modern Persian, classical Persian wasn’t on my mind in this instance. 

But while we are here, could you tell me if you believe there is or was a difference between the pronunciation of بود and بد, in classical Persian.


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## Qureshpor

Yes, there was. The former “buud” rhyming with the English word boot and the latter “bud” rhyming with  the English word put.

The Classical Persian pronunciation is the one that is pretty much what the Afghans, the Tajiks and Persian knowing people from Pakistan and India employ.


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