Persian for Arabs.

As soon as an Arab (especially a Kuwaiti) finds out that I speak Persian (Farsi), they will immediately start in with the few words they know; Ch (or if you are unlucky) Sh-etori, Khodafez and of course a curse word or two, usually khak to saret. Once the initial laughs are exchanged, the more serious reflections on the similarity of the languages are exchanged. I wish to begin with the alphabet. Persian has 4 more letters then Arabic, although 3 of those 4 sounds are found in Arabic dialects. پ or the ب with 3 dots below, the letter for the P sound is the only sound NOT found in any Arabic dialect (although I have heard that it is found amongst some Iraqis, but I digress). The پ is found however throughout the Arab world, in the French Bakery chain پول.
The three 'extra' Persian letters are as follows: چ/گ/ژ/. The چ or the ج with 3 dots, is the Ch sound in the word 'chill', found in the Gulf and Iraq. The گ or the ک with 2 lines, Gaf, as in the G sound in the word 'go', also found in the Gulf, Iraq, Bedouin accents in Jordan and the Egyptian ج. An interesting side note is that I have seen the چ used in Egypt as a J sound, while the ج is still exclusively used as a G sound. A common example is جراچ for a (car) garage or چورچ for the name, George. Lastly the ژ, the equivalent to the Levantine or North African pronunciation of the ج, the more "French" stylized pronunciation of J as Zh, opposed to the proper MSA pronunciation of ج as the J in Jim, really only pronounced 'correctly' in Saudi and Iraqi dialects of Arabic and Persian. Lastly the Kurdish ڤ or the ف with 3 dots, V is a sound not found in Arabic, but found in Persian as the و. Where as the و in Persian is a V, in Arabic it is a W, not found in Persian. Hence the 'Tehrangelian' youth, that make fun of their parents and grandparents for pronouncing Westwood (The heart of the Persian community in LA) as Vestvood.
Persian, unlike Arabic, does not make a distinction in pronunciation of similar sounding letters. Hence, ت/ط, ه/ح, ق/غ, are all the same sound. س/ص not to mention ث are all the same sound. Worst of all Persian has no emphatic consonants. ض/ظ/ذ/ are all sound the same sound as ز. So where as most Persians and Arabs think that they can NOT understand each other, the truth is if you are reading the words rather then hearing them (or now that you have read this tutorial) chances are you would understand a lot more then you previously assumed. Last but not least Persian has no ع, it is often times pronounced as a ء. As in the Persian (or Arabic) word for love; عشق, pronounced in Arabic as 'ashq/3sh8 and in Persian as Eshgh. I hope to able to spread more عشق through this post and in future posts, showing the things that connect us to each other rather then spread us apart.


P.S. My favorite Persian word that found its way into an Arabic dialect, ميوه. The word for fruit in Persian made its way into the Kuwaiti dialect, pronounced as the Arabized version of the Persian word. Rather then the Persian Meeveh, the Arabized; Maywa.

Some other fun facts. When the Arabs invaded Iran and took on Persian words into Arabic they heard certain letters differently. The two major examples of this are that they heard the چ as a ص, like in the word for China, چين opposed to صين. Another Persian borrowing in a contemporary dialect is the Persian word for Cinnamon, دارچين being used in the Gulf dialects as دارصين rather then the MSA term, قرفة.  Most ironic of all, especially for our Egyptian readers is the گ and ج. Many Arabic words ending in ج, such as برنامج، بنفشجي، طازج, are Persian words that the Arabs heard the old Persian plural suffix of گان as a ج. One of the few remaining examples of this is the word مهرگان, Mehregan or the Fall solstice in Persian and مهرجان, Mehrejan for festival in Arabic.