تلفن

What it means

تلفن (telefon) means “telephone.” French-route loanword from téléphone, adopted into Persian in the early 20th century when Iran’s first telephone lines opened (1885 Tehran-Shahr-e Rey trial line). Foundation A1 vocabulary.

How to use it

• تلفن کن (telefon kon) “Call (me / them)”
• شماره تلفنت چیه؟ (shomâre telefonet chiye?) “What is your phone number?”
• پشت تلفنم (posht-e telefonam) “I am on the phone” (literally “behind the phone”)

Common pairings

• تلفن کردن (telefon kardan) “to call, telephone”
• تلفن همراه (telefon-e hamrâh) “mobile phone” (formal register)
• تلفن خانه (telefon-e khâne) “home phone”
• دفترچه تلفن (daftarche-ye telefon) “phone book”

Etymology

From French téléphone, a 19th-century Greek compound: τῆλε (têle, “far”) + φωνή (phonê, “voice, sound”). Persian smoothed the final pronunciation. The Pure Persian Movement proposed دورگو (durgu, “far-speaker”) as an alternative, but it never took hold.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Wiktionary