عدد

The split between تا and عدد maps onto the wider register split in Persian between everyday spoken language and formal written language. Persian, more than most languages, maintains a sharp diglossia: the language of the home is not the language of the document. عدد lives on the document side. Job applications, invoices, school report cards, and scientific papers all use عدد. This makes the word important for learners who want to read or write Persian in any professional capacity. The Pure Persian Movement (Farhangestan-e Zaban-e Farsi) has at times proposed replacing عدد with the Pure Persian شماره (shomâre, number), but the two words have specialized in different functions: شماره is now mostly used for assigned numbers (phone number, room number, ranking), while عدد retains the abstract-number sense and the classifier role.