Word Order - SOV

ترتيب واژه ها

Grammar • Word Order •
by Rezwan on 12/13 at 08:06 PM
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Persian is read from right to left, English from left to right. If an English speaker flips over a sentence made from Persian magnets and reads it from left to right they will be reading the sentence backwards. Not to panic! They will still get the idea of what the sentence is about.

In fact, reading the sentence correctly from right to left may be more confusing to them than reading it backwards. This is because Persian word order is different from English in two key ways.

1. The modifier comes before the word it modifies.

The modifier comes before the word it modifies. Here is the phrase “Your Father”. From right to left, you read it “Pedar (e)

In our transliterations on this website, you will often come across an (e) or (ye). These are in parenthesis to represent the sound of the "ezafe". In written Persian, the “ezafe” is never shown, but always sounded out. The purpose of this sound is to show that one word modifies another. Say you want to modify the word "Car", by adding the word "Blue" or "fast". In English, you just say the words the same as if they were by themselves. Blue car. Fast car. In Persian, you write it in reverse order - car blue, car fast - and it looks just like that written down, however, when you say it out loud, you add the ezafe sound - car(e) blue. car(e) fast. (or mAshin(e) Abi, mAshin(e) tond as the case may be). If the word you are modifying ends in an alef, he or ye sound, the ezafe is pronounced (ye). Since the ezafe sound only gets used if a word is modifying another one, our magnets do not have it printed out. For more info on Persian modifiers and word order click the (e)/(ye).

ShomA” - “Father (e) Your.” To an English reader, it looks fine backwards since “ShomA Pedar,” though backwards in Persian, looks like “Your Father” going from left to right.

*Important note about modifiers: In Persian, the modifier and the modified are connected with an “ezAfe”. This is an “e” sound which is never shown but always pronounced that comes at the end of the modifier. While it looks like “Pedar shomA”, you have to sound it out as “Pedar-e shomA”. It can be translated to mean “of” (e.g., “father of you").

2. Persian sentence word order is different from English

Persian sentences use this order: Subject (S), Object (O), Verb (V) - (SOV). English sentences use Subject, Verb, Object (SVO). Consider this sentence:

The subject here is “your father”, the verb is “was” and the object is “a brave man.” In Persian, from right to left, you read:

*The letter (ى) is very versatile. Here it is the “indefinite suffix.” It is added to the phrase “mard (e) shojA’” to make it indefinite - “a” brave man, “some” brave man vs. “the” brave man or “that” brave man. The letter should actually be connected to the word “shojA’” like so: شجاعى, but we are limiting ourselves here to what you can do with words on magnetic tiles.

It may take some time to get used to these differences, but once you do, you will feel your brain getting more flexible and versatile as you switch back and forth between languages.

For more information on word order, see Answers.com. And don’t forget the fun you can have with words in Object-Subject-Verb order, just like Yoda. Yoda would say, of course:

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