BSEB Matric SIL Persian key terms

The 32 letters of the Persian alphabet as taught in the subcontinent, from ا to ی. Candidates must name them in order, give each letter's sound, and recognise them in their isolated, initial, medial and final shapes.

The division of Persian letters into 'solar' letters, which cause a following ل of the definite article to merge and double (الشمس read ash-shams), and 'lunar' letters, which leave the ل pronounced clearly (القمر read al-qamar).

The Persian definite article, written ل prefixed to a word and pronounced clearly before lunar letters but assimilated before solar letters. It also marks a noun as definite: کتاب 'a book', الکتاب 'the book'.

The diacritic sign ( ّ ) placed over a consonant to show it is doubled, i.e. pronounced twice, as in معلّم. In Persian verse it also affects syllable weight, so it matters for metre as well as spelling.

The three short-vowel signs: زیر (kasra, i/e), زبر (fatha, a) and پیش (damma, o/u). Persian also uses سکون for a vowelless consonant and تنوین for final -an in Arabic loanwords.

The doubled final vowel sign of Arabic-origin words, usually written as ـًا or ـاً and pronounced -an in Persian, as in لطفاً 'please' and تقریباً 'approximately'. It is a spelling feature, not a separate letter.

The glottal-stop sign ء, written on ا, و or ی (اَ، ؤ، ئ) according to the neighbouring vowels. Candidates must know where it is written and where Persian simplifies it, e.g. خواہش without a pronounced hamza.

The long ā sound written with ا, as in باب 'door'. It lengthens a syllable and is one of the three long vowels of Persian; confusing it with the short fatha is a common spelling error.

The 'weak' or vowel letters: ا, و and ی, which can represent long vowels ā, ū/ō and ī/ē. They also form diphthongs and are the letters most often dropped or changed in derivation and in metre.

The cursive calligraphic style in which Persian and Urdu are normally printed and handwritten in South Asia, with sloping, rounded letter forms. Recognising letters in this script is a basic reading skill for the paper.

Correct spelling. It covers joining and non-joining letters, the writing of hamza and tanwin, and distinctions such as خواہش and خواب that are often misspelt because pronunciation differs from writing.

A noun or name-word: the word class naming a person, place, thing or abstract idea, e.g. کتاب, شہر, حسن. In Persian it may take the plural, the ezafe ending and the article, and it can stand as subject or object.

The verb, the word carrying the action or state and marked for tense, person and number. Persian verbs are built from a past stem and a present stem plus personal endings, e.g. رفتن / رفتم / میروم.

The infinitive, the dictionary form of a Persian verb, normally ending in ـن, e.g. نوشتن 'to write'. Removing the ـن gives the past stem; the present stem must be learned separately for irregular verbs.

Past and present tenses. Persian distinguishes simple past (رفتم), past continuous (میرفتم), present (میروم), present perfect (رفتهام) and future (خواہم رفت); recognising each form is essential for comprehension and translation.

The past participle (اسم مفعول), made from the past stem and usually ending in ہ/ـہ, e.g. نوشتہ 'written', and the present participle or agent noun (اسم فاعل), e.g. نویسندہ 'writer'. Both are frequent in prose and poetry.

An adjective, a word describing a noun, e.g. خوب 'good', بزرگ 'great'. In Persian the adjective follows its noun and is linked by the ezafe: مردِ بزرگ 'a great man'; it does not agree in gender.

The ezafe construction: an unstressed -e (-ye after vowels) linking a noun to its adjective, possessor or title, written as a small kasra, e.g. کتابِ من 'my book', شہرِ لاہور 'the city of Lahore'.

A pronoun. Persian has separate and enclitic sets: من، تو، او، ما، شما، ایشان, and the joined forms ـم، ـت، ـش، ـمان، ـتان، ـشان used for possession and as verb objects, e.g. کتابم 'my book'.

A preposition governing a following noun: از 'from', بہ 'to', در 'in', با 'with', بر 'on', برای 'for'. Persian prepositions also combine with the enclitic pronoun, e.g. از او / ازو, and some are postpositions in effect.

An adverb or adverbial word or phrase modifying a verb or adjective, e.g. ہمیشہ 'always', آہستہ 'slowly', بسیار 'very much'. Many are formed with the suffix ـان or from adjectives, and their position in the clause is fairly free.

Definite and indefinite. A Persian noun is indefinite when it takes the enclitic ی (کتابی 'a book') or the numeral یک, and definite when it carries the article ال, a demonstrative, or is a proper name.

A synonym: a word of the same or nearly the same meaning as another, e.g. دل / قلب 'heart', بزرگ / عظیم 'great'. Synonym questions ask the candidate to choose the closest equivalent within the sentence's register.

An antonym: a word of opposite meaning, e.g. روشن 'bright' / تاریک 'dark', دوست 'friend' / دشمن 'enemy'. Antonym items test both vocabulary and the ability to keep the sentence's sense intact.

An idiom: a fixed expression whose meaning is not the sum of its words, e.g. دست و پا گم کرنا 'to lose one's nerve'. Idioms must be learned whole and matched to a Hindi/Urdu equivalent, not translated literally.

A proverb or familiar saying, such as ہر کہ خام گفتہ باشد نا تمام گفتہ باشد 'whoever has spoken crudely has not spoken fully'. Proverb items ask for the sense or the situation in which the saying is used.

Arabic loanwords that entered Persian and keep Arabic spelling features such as tanwin, hamza and broken plurals (کتب from کتاب). Recognising them helps with spelling, plurals and formal-register vocabulary.

Simile and metaphor. تشبیہ compares explicitly, usually with مانند or چوں ('like'), as in 'her face is like the moon'; استعارہ borrows the image without the comparison word, calling the beloved a moon outright.

The metre of a poem, the pattern of long and short syllables that governs each line. Candidates identify the بحر (metre) and check that a verse scans; a syllable wrongly lengthened or shortened breaks the وزن.

Rhyme elements: قافیہ is the recurring rhyme sound at the end of each verse, and ردیف is a word or short phrase repeated unchanged after it, as in the غزل. Both must match across the whole poem.

The principal lyric form of Persian poetry: usually 5 to 12 couplets rhyming in the first line and thereafter in every second line, with a single ردیف and قافیہ. Themes range from love and wine to mysticism and social comment.

A narrative poem in rhyming couplets (aa bb cc), each pair rhyming independently, which allows long works such as Rumi's Masnavi or Nizami's romances. Unlike the غزل, it has no single rhyme running through the poem.

A formal ode of one rhyme, opening with a lyrical prelude (تشبیب) and moving to praise, elegy or moral counsel. It follows the same rhyme scheme as the غزل but is longer and usually public or panegyric in purpose.

A بیت is a couplet, two half-lines; each half-line is a مصرع. Persian verse is counted in couplets, and in the غزل the first couplet (مطلع) rhymes in both half-lines.

The main idea or central message of a prose passage, stated in one sentence of the candidate's own words. It differs from the topic: the topic is what the passage is about, the main idea is what it says about that topic.

Context: the surrounding words and sentences that fix the meaning of an ambiguous word or phrase. Contextual-meaning questions ask what a word means in this passage, not its dictionary sense in isolation.

An inference: a conclusion the passage implies but does not state outright. Inference questions use wording such as 'it can be understood that' and require evidence from the text, not personal opinion.

Translation. For this paper it means rendering a Persian sentence or short passage into Hindi, Urdu or English faithfully, keeping tense, number and tone, and avoiding word-for-word awkwardness while preserving the original sense.

Short paragraph or essay writing in Persian on a set topic. It requires a clear opening sentence, three or four supporting sentences in correct verb forms, and a closing sentence, all in the candidate's own simple Persian.