Symbols
74Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Bakhtiari alphabet (Persian script)
Read right to left. Bakhtiari is written with the 32 letters of the Persian alphabet, in Persian order, with the rough sound of each. Forms with madda or hamza sit beside their base letter: آ and أ beside ا, ؤ beside و, ئ beside ی, and the Arabic ة beside ه. The letters ث ح ذ ص ض ط ظ ع and the hamza forms appear mostly in words from Arabic, spelled as in Persian.
Vowel signs and marks
Optional signs written above or below a letter. Writers of Bakhtiari poems and songs add the short-vowel signs zebar َ, pish ُ and zir ِ, and sokun ْ for no vowel, to show how a word is said. Tashdid ّ doubles a consonant, the tanvin signs ً ٌ ٍ come with Arabic words such as حتماً, and the small hamza ٔ marks the ezafe on a final ه, as in خانهٔ.
Punctuation
The Persian marks used in Iran: the reversed comma and semicolon, the mirrored question mark, and guillemets for quotations.
Persian digits and number signs
Numbers are written with Persian digits, left to right inside the right-to-left line. ۴ ۵ ۶ differ in shape from the Arabic ٤ ٥ ٦.
Currency and where it's spoken
The Iranian rial ﷼ (prices are usually said in toman, ten rials) and the flag of Iran, the one country where Bakhtiari is spoken.
Bakhtiari life in emoji
The flocks, horses and Zagros mountains of the seasonal migration, the black tents of the camps, and the wool of Bakhtiari rugs.
On the map
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The Bakhtiari language and its alphabet
Bakhtiari, also called Bakhtiari Luri (لری بختیاری), is a Southwestern Iranian language of the Luri group, a close relative of Northern and Southern Luri and of Persian. It is the language of the Bakhtiari, a large tribal confederation (ایل, il) of the central Zagros, traditionally divided into two branches, the Haft Lang (هفتلنگ) and the Chahar Lang (چهارلنگ).
Bakhtiari has no official standard spelling and is not taught in school; Persian is the language of education and print, and most Bakhtiari speakers also read and write Persian. Bakhtiari is usually written in a Persian-based script, but written conventions vary; the orthography proposed by Anonby and Asadi (2018) keeps the Arabo-Persian script and adds conventions for Bakhtiari sounds, and it has no official status.
The consonants are read as in Persian: پ p, چ ch, ژ zh and گ g are the four letters Persian added to the Arabic alphabet, and ک and ی are the Persian forms of kaf and ye. Several letters share a sound because they keep the spelling of Arabic words: ث س ص are all s, ذ ز ض ظ are all z, ت ط are t, and ح ه are h.
Writing Bakhtiari sounds: vowels and marks
The Persian script writes long vowels with letters, ا for ā, و for u and ی for i, and leaves short vowels out, so a reader has to know the word. Bakhtiari is pronounced differently from Persian in many words, and since it has no fixed spelling, writers who want to show the Bakhtiari form often add the optional vowel signs zebar َ (a), pish ُ (o) and zir ِ (e), and sokun ْ over a consonant with no vowel after it.
The other marks in the CLDR set come with words borrowed through Persian. Tashdid ّ doubles a consonant, as in اوّل (avval, first). Tanvin ً is written on adverbs from Arabic such as حتماً (hatman, certainly). The small hamza ٔ above a final ه marks the ezafe link, as in خانهٔ (khane-ye, the house of). The hamza forms أ ؤ ئ and the free hamza ء appear in Arabic words such as تأثیر (ta'sir, effect) and مسئله (mas'ale, problem), and ة in a few fixed Arabic expressions.
As in Persian, the invisible zero-width non-joiner keeps the parts of a compound apart without a space, as in هفتلنگ (Haft Lang). Without it the letters run together into one long joined shape; with a full space the compound breaks across lines.
Punctuation, Persian digits and the rial sign
Bakhtiari writing follows Iranian Persian conventions: the comma ، and semicolon ؛ turned upside down, the mirrored question mark ؟ and guillemets « » for quotations. The full stop and exclamation mark are the ordinary . and !.
Numbers are written with Persian digits ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹, which run left to right inside right-to-left text; ۴ ۵ ۶ look different from the Arabic-Indic ٤ ٥ ٦ used in Arabic, so copy the Persian set. The percent sign is ٪, the decimal separator ٫ and the thousands separator ٬. Money is the Iranian rial, written or ریال, although prices are usually said in toman (تومان), ten rials.
How to type the Bakhtiari alphabet
Use a Persian keyboard: it is built into Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, and it has every letter and mark on this page. Avoid an Arabic keyboard for Bakhtiari or Persian text: it types the Arabic kaf ك and ye ي instead of the Persian ک and ی, which look alike in the middle of a word but are different characters, so search and spell-checking treat the words as different.
In Microsoft Word you can type a code and press AltX: 067E gives پ, 0686 چ, 0698 ژ, 06AF گ, 06A9 ک, 06CC ی, 064E zebar, 0650 zir, 064F pish and FDFC gives . In HTML use numeric references such as پ, and set dir="rtl" and lang="bqi" on the text so it runs right to left. The simplest way is to tap a letter on this page to copy it.
Where Bakhtiari is spoken
Bakhtiari is spoken in western Iran , in the Zagros lands of the Bakhtiari: most of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, the northeast of Khuzestan around Masjed Soleyman and Izeh, and neighbouring parts of Isfahan and Lorestan provinces. CLDR estimates about 1.2 million speakers; other estimates differ, and many Bakhtiari now live in towns and cities, in their homeland and elsewhere in Iran.
Many Bakhtiari families still make the seasonal migration, the kuch (کوچ), between winter pastures in the warm lowlands of Khuzestan and summer pastures in the high Zagros, crossing rivers such as the Karun with their sheep, goats and horses. The 1925 documentary Grass followed one of these migrations across the Karun and over the snow of Zard Kuh. Related languages with their own collections are Northern Luri, Southern Luri and Persian; the Iran collection has the country's flag, food and emoji.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyBakhtiari Alphabet combos
12Worth knowing
- One of the first feature-length documentaries, Grass (1925), was filmed among the Bakhtiari by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, who later made King Kong.
- Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary, queen of Iran in the 1950s, and Shapour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister before the 1979 revolution, both came from Bakhtiari families.
- Bakhtiari horsemen led by their khans marched on Tehran in 1909 and helped restore Iran's constitution.
- Bakhtiari rugs are known for their garden pattern: the field is divided into square panels, each with its own tree, flower or vase.
Questions people ask
7What is the Bakhtiari alphabet?
Bakhtiari is written with the Persian alphabet, the 32-letter Persian form of the Arabic script, read right to left, with optional vowel signs َ ُ ِ to show pronunciation.
Is Bakhtiari a language or a dialect?
It is a Southwestern Iranian language of the Luri group, often called Bakhtiari Luri and sometimes counted as a dialect of Luri. It is close to Northern and Southern Luri and related to Persian.
Where is the Bakhtiari language spoken?
In western Iran: Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, northeastern Khuzestan, and parts of Isfahan and Lorestan provinces, plus Bakhtiari communities in Iranian cities. CLDR estimates about 1.2 million speakers.
How do you pronounce Bakhtiari?
Bakh-tee-ah-ree, with kh as in Scottish loch: in Persian script بختیاری, bakhtiāri.
How do I type Bakhtiari on my phone or computer?
Add the Persian keyboard in your phone or computer settings; it has every letter, including پ چ ژ گ ک ی. Do not use the Arabic keyboard, which types ك and ي instead of ک and ی.
What does Bakhtiari mean?
It names the Bakhtiari people, a tribal confederation of the Zagros mountains of Iran, and so also their language, their rugs and the Bakhtiari kebab.
How do I copy and paste Bakhtiari letters?
Tap or click any letter on this page to copy it, then paste with CtrlV, CmdV or long-press and Paste. Set the text direction to right to left if the letters come out in the wrong order.
