Maharashtra HSC Persian (MSBSHSE) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Nasr

Persian for prose: unmetered, unrhymed writing. Covers story, essay, travelogue, biography and oration. Comprehension relies on sentence logic and context, not on prosody or scansion.

Mauḍūʿ versus mafhūm

Mauḍūʿ is the subject a passage is about; mafhūm (or markazī khiyāl) is the value or message the author asserts about that subject. Confusing the two loses theme marks.

Sajʿ

Rhymed prose: the prose counterpart of qāfiya, in which clause endings share a sound pattern. Common in classical ornate nasr and in formal prefaces and introductions.

Vazn

The metre of a poem, derived from the ʿarūz system of feet such as mafāʿīlun and fāʿilātun. Every line of a classical Persian poem conforms to one metre throughout.

Qāfiya and radīf

Qāfiya is the rhyming sound at the end of each line; radīf is a word or phrase repeated identically after the qāfiya in every verse. Radīf is optional, qāfiya is not.

Tashbīh

Simile. It has four parts: mushabbah (subject), mushabbah bih (analogue), wajh-i shabah (point of similarity), and adāt-i tashbīh (particle such as chūn, mānand, mithl).

Istiʿāra

Metaphor: a tashbīh with one side deleted. If the analogue is kept and the subject dropped it is muṣarraḥa; if the subject is kept and the analogue implied it is makniyya.

Maṭlaʿ and maqṭaʿ

Maṭlaʿ is the opening bayt of a ghazal, maqṭaʿ the closing bayt. These are the only two couplets in which both half-lines rhyme; the maqṭaʿ often carries the takhalluṣ.

Rubāʿī rhyme scheme

A quatrain with its own metre, rhyming lines one, two and four (a-a-b-a). The third line is deliberately left unrhymed, which is what distinguishes it from a four-line ghazal fragment.

Kināya

Indirect statement: a literal phrase used to imply a different meaning, as dast-i kasī rā giriftan (to take someone's hand) means to help them. The literal sense is not intended.

SOV order

Persian sentences normally run subject, then object, then verb, with the verb last. Anything placed after the verb is emphatic or poetic rather than neutral word order.

Izāfa

An unstressed linking vowel -e (written -ye after a vowel) joining a noun to its modifier or possessor: kitāb-e sabz, khāna-ye man. It is not a separate word.

Object marker -rā

Suffix marking a definite direct object. It is omitted for indefinite objects ending in -ī and after verbs of being; it may also mark objects of certain prepositions in formal prose.

Subjunctive marker be-

The prefix be- plus present stem forms the subjunctive (be-ravam). It follows modals such as bāyad and shāyad and conjunctions such as agar and tā.

Passive with shudan

Formed from the past participle plus forms of shudan: nivishta shud (it was written), karda mī-shavad (it is being done). Distinguish from the perfect, which uses ast.

Past and present stems

Every Persian verb has two stems. The past stem builds past tenses (raft-), the present stem builds present and subjunctive (rav-). All tenses derive from these two.

Compound verb light verbs

In kār kardan or qadam zadan, the noun carries meaning and the light verb (kardan, shudan, dādan, zadan, khurdan) carries grammar. Translate the whole, never the parts.

dast dādan

An idiom meaning 'to happen' or 'to occur', not 'to give a hand'. Idioms of this type must be translated as a unit or the sentence meaning collapses.

chashm dāshtan

Idiom meaning 'to expect' or 'to await'. It is not literally 'to have an eye'. Persian verb idioms routinely fail under word-for-word rendering into English.

Solar Hijri year conversion

Persian dates use the Solar Hijri calendar. To approximate the Common Era year, add 621; thus 1400 SH corresponds to about 2021 CE.

Formal letter opening

Standard formal openings are baʿd az salām va iḥtirām or ba nām-i Khudā, followed by a courtesy inquiry about the recipient's health before the purpose sentence.

Formal letter closing

Close with bā tashakkur-i farāvān, arāḍatmand-i shumā, or bā iḥtirām, then signature and date. Informal second person must not appear anywhere in the letter.

Report structure

A guzārish contains a heading, a statement of purpose, a chronological account of facts, findings, and a recommendation. Greetings and personal courtesies are excluded from the body.

Essay connectors

Formal Persian links sentences with avvalan, sāniyan, hamchunīn, az suy-i dīgar, bā īn hāl, dar natīja and binābar-īn. They sit at sentence boundaries, not inside clauses.

Contrast signal words

ammā, valī, balki and dar ʿain-i ḥāl signal contrast. chūn, zirā and binābar-īn signal cause. pas, sipas and āngāh signal sequence in a passage.

Vocabulary-in-context method

Substitute each option into the original sentence and keep only the one preserving both the sentence's logic and its register. Plausible but register-mismatched options are distractors.

Inference item rule

A valid inference needs a stated premise plus one logical step. Any option requiring outside knowledge or a second unstated assumption is a distractor, however true it may be in general.

Bī- and nā- prefixes

bī- means 'without' (bī-kār, without work) and nā- means 'un-' (nā-ummed, hopeless). Both negate a noun or adjective rather than a verb, unlike the verbal prefix na-.

Arabic vazn patterns

Loanword patterns aid decoding: fāʿil is the doer (kātib), mafʿūl the object (maktūb), fiʿāl the verbal noun (kitābat). Recognising the pattern gives the word class.

Relative clause with ki

Relative clauses follow the noun they modify and are introduced by ki: mard-ī ki āmad, 'the man who came'. Complement clauses after guftan and dānestan also take ki plus subjunctive.

āyā questions

Yes/no questions are formed with āyā at the start of the sentence or with rising intonation. Question words such as chī, kī, kujā and chirā occupy the slot of the element asked about.

Ghazal bayt structure

A ghazal runs roughly five to fifteen bayts. Rhyme and radīf stay constant, both half-lines rhyme only in the maṭlaʿ and maqṭaʿ, and the maqṭaʿ often names the poet.