Assam Higher Secondary Persian cheat sheet

Persian Language and Literature (AHSEC)

• Alphabet order: ا ب پ ت ث ج چ ح خ د ذ ر ز ژ س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک گ ل م ن و ه ی - 32 letters; Persian adds پ چ ژ گ to the Arabic 28.

• Short vowels (اِ زِبَر, اَ زِیر, اُ پیش) are normally unwritten; long vowels are ا، و، ی. Distinguish homographs by context, e.g. کِرم (worm) vs کَرَم (generosity).

• Ezāfe (اضافه) links a noun to its modifier with an unwritten -e: کتابِ نو (new book), درِ خانه (house door). It is written as kasra only when needed to avoid ambiguity.

• Verb goes last in neutral Persian clauses: من دیروز کتاب را خواندم (SOV). را marks a definite direct object; indefinite objects take no را.

• Past stem + suffixes form the simple past (رفتم، رفتی، رفت، رفتیم، رفتید، رفتند); present stem + prefixes می/بِ forms present and subjunctive (می‌روم، بِرَوم).

• Suffix -ی makes nouns/adjectives indefinite (کتابی = a book) and also forms nouns of relation (ایرانی، دانشجویی). Plural: -ها (inanimate, general) vs -ان (animate/human, formal).

• Classical verse metres (بحور) are quantitative ʿarūz patterns of فعولن، مفاعیلن، فاعلاتن etc.; the same metre runs through a whole ghazal, and the radīf (ردیف) is a repeated word after the qāfiya rhyme.

• Major figures and works to anchor answers: Ferdowsī – Shāhnāme; Rūmī – Masnavī; Saʿdī – Gulistān, Būstān; Hāfez – Divān ghazals; Khayyām – rubāʿiyyāt; Nizāmī – Khamsa; Jāmī – Bahāristān.

• Literary forms: ghazal (love/mystic lyric, 5–15 bayts), qasīda (panegyric, monorhyme), masnavī (rhyming couplets, long narrative), rubāʿī (4 hemistichs, metres like لاحول), qitʿa (thematic fragment).