Persian Alphabet vs Arabic: 7 Key Differences

People ask me constantly whether the Farsi vs Arabic alphabet situation is as confusing as it looks. My answer: the scripts look almost identical at a glance, but they’re not the same script. they’re related scripts. Persian borrowed Arabic writing about 1,400 years ago, then spent centuries quietly modifying it to fit a completely different language. The result is something that trips up learners on both sides: Arabic speakers who assume they can already read Persian, and Persian learners who panic because they’ve heard “it’s like Arabic.”

I’m Elyar. I’m Iranian, grew up speaking Tehrani Persian, and now live in Milan where I teach Farsi to non-natives. I’ve worked with students who came to me from Arabic backgrounds expecting a shortcut, and students who avoided Persian entirely because they assumed the script was some kind of impenetrable Arabic mystery. Both groups were wrong. Here are the seven differences that actually matter.

A Quick History: How Persian Got the Arabic Script

Before the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE, Persians used a script called Pahlavi. a cursive script derived from Aramaic. When Islam spread through Iran, the Arabic script came with it, partly through religious texts, partly through administration. Iranians adopted it for practical reasons, not because it was a perfect fit.

And it wasn’t a perfect fit. Arabic and Persian are linguistically unrelated. Arabic is a Semitic language, Persian is Indo-European. Persian has sounds that Arabic simply doesn’t have. So rather than forcing their language into an ill-fitting alphabet, Iranian scholars added four new letters. The Arabic script became the Persian script, also called the Perso-Arabic script, somewhere around the 9th to 10th centuries. That’s the script Iranians (and Afghans writing Dari, and Pakistanis writing Urdu) still use today.

If you want the full picture of the Persian writing system before tackling the comparison, the Persian alphabet complete guide covers every letter from alef to ye with pronunciation and connection rules.

Difference 1: Persian Has 4 Extra Letters

Arabic has 28 letters. Persian has 32. The four added letters exist because Persian has sounds that simply don’t appear in Arabic:

These four letters are visually based on existing Arabic letters. پ is built on ب (ba), چ on ج (jim), ژ on ز (ze), and گ on ک (kaf). with extra dots or strokes added. It’s an elegant solution, and it’s why Persian script can look so similar to Arabic at a distance. Up close, you’ll start seeing those extra markers.

Arabic, for its part, has letters that don’t appear in Persian at all: ث (tha), ذ (dhal), ص (sad), ض (dad), ط (tha), ظ (zha). at least in terms of distinct sounds. Persian borrowed these letters but repurposed them, which brings us to difference two.

Difference 2: Persian Merged Several Arabic Sounds

Arabic distinguishes between sounds that Persian doesn’t. This is one of the biggest practical points of confusion, because the letters exist in both scripts. they just don’t produce the same sounds in Persian.

Take the four Arabic letters that all map to the “z” sound in Persian: ز (ze), ذ (dhal), ض (dad), and ظ (zha). In Arabic, each has a distinct phonetic identity. In Persian, they’ve all collapsed to a single /z/ sound. An Arabic speaker reading a Persian text would pronounce those letters differently. A Persian speaker reads them all the same.

The same thing happens with the “s” cluster: س (sin), ث (tha), and ص (sad) all produce /s/ in Persian. And ح (he) and ه (he) both give you /h/. In Arabic, ح is a pharyngeal fricative. a sound produced deep in the throat that simply doesn’t exist in spoken Persian.

For learners, this means: if you’re learning Persian, you don’t need to worry about producing different sounds for these letters. You do need to know which spelling to use when writing specific words. because صبح (sobh, morning) uses ص, not س, even though they sound identical in Persian. This is the spelling memorization that trips people up.

Difference 3: The Vowel System Works Differently

Both Arabic and Persian are written without short vowels by default. they’re abjads, writing systems where vowels are implied. But they handle vowels differently in important ways.

Arabic has a diacritical system called tashkeel (حَرَكَات) that marks short vowels above and below letters when needed. you see this in the Quran, children’s books, and language learning materials. These marks indicate the three short vowels: fatha (/a/), kasra (/i/), damma (/u/).

Persian uses a nearly identical system called harakat (حرکات), but in everyday Persian text, these markings are almost never used. even in materials for learners. The three short vowels in Persian (a, e, o) are context-inferred. You read the consonants and your knowledge of the language fills in the vowels.

The long vowels are different too. Arabic has three: /â/, /î/, /û/. Persian also has three long vowels, but the system diverged: Persian has /â/, /i/, /u/ in formal speech. though in Tehrani colloquial, the vowels shift significantly. The formal word for “I want” is می‌خواهم. mikhhâham. but in real spoken Tehran Persian, everyone says می‌خوام. mikhâm. The vowels compress and shift in ways that diverge entirely from how Arabic works.

Difference 4: Persian Has No Grammatical Gender in the Script

Arabic is a heavily gendered language. Nouns are masculine or feminine, verbs agree with their subjects in gender, and the script reflects this through specific suffixes and forms. The Arabic feminine suffix ـة (ta marbuta) is one of the most immediately visible markers. words like مدرسة (madrasa, school) carry it at the end.

For a full guide to the sounds these letters make and how to produce them. including mouth positions for every non-English sound. see our guide to the 7 Persian sounds English doesn’t have.Persian has no grammatical gender. None. No masculine/feminine nouns, no agreement in verbs, no gendered pronouns. The word او. u. means both “he” and “she.” When Persian borrowed Arabic vocabulary (and it borrowed a lot. roughly 40% of formal Persian vocabulary has Arabic roots), it usually dropped the grammatical gender markers. Arabic مدرسة (madrasa) becomes Persian مدرسه (madrese). same word, similar spelling, but the ta marbuta became a regular he (ه) and carries no gendered meaning in Persian.

For someone coming from Arabic, this is a genuine relief. For someone learning Persian who later tries Arabic, this is where it gets complicated fast.

Difference 5: Script Direction Is the Same, But Numerals Differ

Both Arabic and Persian are written right to left. that part is identical. The direction, the cursive nature, the way letters connect (or don’t, at the end of words). all the same. This is the surface similarity that makes the scripts look alike to outsiders.

Where it gets interesting is numerals. Both scripts have their own numeral system, but the Persian and Arabic numerals are not identical, despite both being derived from Hindu-Arabic numerals:

The differences are subtle but real. especially in 4, 5, and 6. Persian ۴ looks nothing like Arabic ٤. If you’re learning to read Persian numbers, don’t assume the Arabic numeral set will transfer directly. You’ll need to learn the Persian set separately. (The full breakdown of Persian numbers, both script and spoken forms, is in my post on Persian numbers.)

Difference 6: The Pronunciation Rules Diverge Significantly

Even identical letters produce different sounds depending on which language you’re reading. This is the difference that trips up Arabic speakers most when trying to read Persian.

The letter و (vav/waw) is a classic example. In Arabic, it produces a /w/ sound. In Persian, it produces /v/. So the Arabic word for “and”. و. is pronounced wa. In Persian, the same letter as the word for “and” is pronounced va. The letter hasn’t changed. The sound has.

The letter ق (qaf) is pronounced as a uvular stop /q/ in Arabic. produced at the back of the throat. In standard Tehran Persian, most speakers pronounce it as a glottal stop or a simple /gh/ sound. You’ll hear variation even among native Persian speakers depending on region and formality.

Then there’s the vowel shift when Persian borrowed Arabic vocabulary. The Arabic word كتاب is pronounced kitâb. The same word in Persian, کتاب, is ketâb. the first vowel shifted from /i/ to /e/. A small change, but it’s consistent enough to constitute a systematic pattern: many Arabic /i/ vowels in the first syllable become /e/ in Persian.

And then there’s the diglossia factor. The formal Persian you’d read in a newspaper versus the spoken Tehrani you’d hear in a café. these aren’t just style differences, they represent genuinely different phonological patterns. A word like می‌خواهی in written Persian is mikhâhi (you want), but in spoken Tehran it’s mikhâi or even just mikhâi. If you’re trying to speak to actual Iranians, you need the spoken forms. The spoken Farsi vs written Persian guide on this site covers exactly that divide.

Difference 7: Loan Words Go in Opposite Directions

Persian borrowed heavily from Arabic. religious terminology, philosophical vocabulary, administrative language, literary terms. Words like عشق. eshgh. love, or دانش. dânesh. knowledge (actually native Persian) sit alongside Arabic borrowings in everyday speech.

But the borrowing wasn’t one-directional. Persian also gave Arabic (and other languages) a significant number of words, particularly through trade routes and Persian’s historical role as a prestige language of culture and administration across Central Asia, South Asia, and the Ottoman Empire. Words like bazaar, caravan, divan, and saffron all have Persian origins that spread through Arabic and then into European languages.

For the learner, the practical implication is this: if you already know Arabic, you’ll recognize a significant chunk of formal Persian vocabulary. but the pronunciation will be off, and the grammatical context will be different. If you’re learning Persian from scratch, knowing that much of the formal register is Arabic-derived means you can sometimes reverse-engineer meanings from roots. The word مکتوب. maktub. written (as in “it is written”) uses the Arabic root k-t-b (writing), the same root as کتاب. ketâb. book.

Side-by-Side Alphabet Comparison

Here’s a direct comparison of the two alphabet sets, showing letters that exist in both scripts versus those unique to each:

What This Means If You’re Learning Persian

If you’re coming from zero. no Arabic background. the script differences are actually a minor issue. You learn 32 letters, their connection forms, and the basic vowel logic. Most students get comfortable reading within a few weeks of consistent practice. The real work is training your ear for spoken Persian, where the gap between written and spoken forms is wider than almost any other modern language you’ll encounter.

If you’re coming from Arabic, you have a head start on script recognition, and you’ll find a lot of familiar vocabulary in formal Persian texts. But watch out: the pronunciation rules, the vowel system, and the spoken register are all different enough that you can’t coast on your Arabic knowledge. Students I’ve had with strong Arabic backgrounds sometimes take longer to get natural-sounding spoken Persian precisely because they’re fighting Arabic pronunciation habits.

The dual register issue. formal written Persian versus spoken Tehrani. is the thing that actually matters most for learners who want to communicate with real Iranians. Here’s what that looks like with a common phrase:

The written forms are what most textbooks teach. The spoken forms are what every Iranian says. If you’re learning from a textbook that doesn’t address this, you’ll sound like a 19th-century newspaper when you try to speak. technically correct, completely unnatural.

This is exactly why I built ZabanYar. it focuses on the spoken Tehrani register from day one, not the formal literary Persian you’d learn in a classroom. If you want to understand what Iranians actually say, that’s where to start.

For those who prefer one-on-one work, I also teach Persian on Preply. If you want someone who grew up speaking actual street Tehrani, not textbook Persian, you can book a lesson here.

Frequently Asked Questions