Open any Persian chat room and you will see sentences like "salam chetori? khubam mersi". This is Persian, written with the Latin alphabet. Persian speakers call it Finglish, Fingilish or Pinglish, and millions of people type it every day.
Why it exists
Persian is officially written in a version of the Arabic script, from right to left. Finglish grew up for practical reasons:
- Early technology. For years many phones and computers had no Persian keyboard, or displayed Persian letters as broken symbols.
- Text message limits. A classic SMS held 160 Latin characters but only 70 characters in scripts such as Persian, so writing in Latin letters was literally cheaper.
- Life abroad. Many people who grew up outside Iran speak Persian at home but never learned to read and write the script.
- Speed. Switching keyboards in the middle of a fast chat is a nuisance, especially when the conversation mixes Persian and English or German.
Today every phone has a Persian keyboard, and Persian script is far more common online than it used to be. Finglish has survived anyway, mainly in chat, among the diaspora and with learners.
There is no official spelling
Finglish is not a standard. Nobody teaches it, and everybody spells by ear, usually influenced by English. The word خیلی ("very") appears as kheili, kheyli, khaili and kheli, and all four are understood. After a few days of reading you stop noticing the differences.
The usual letter choices
| Sound | Persian letter | Usually written | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| "kh" as in "Bach" | خ | kh (sometimes x) | khub (good) |
| throaty "gh" | ق / غ | gh (sometimes q) | ghashang (pretty) |
| "sh" | ش | sh | shab (night) |
| "ch" | چ | ch | chetori (how are you) |
| "zh" as in "measure" | ژ | zh (sometimes j) | zhâkat (jacket) |
| long "a" as in "father" | آ / ا | a (sometimes aa) | salam, baba |
| short "a" as in "cat" | not written | a | man (I) |
| long "u" as in "moon" | و | u, oo or ou | dust / doost (friend) |
| long "i" as in "see" | ی | i or ee | shirin (sweet) |
Where confusion comes from
Two different "a" sounds, one letter
Persian distinguishes a short a from a long â, and the difference changes the meaning. In Finglish both are usually typed as plain "a":
- bad can be بد (bad, "bad") or باد (bâd, "wind").
- kar can be کر (kar, "deaf") or کار (kâr, "work").
- dar can be در (dar, "door" or "in") or دار (dâr, "gallows").
Context nearly always settles it. Some writers double the letter for the long sound ("kaar"), which helps.
English spelling habits
Because most people borrow English conventions, "oo" and "ee" appear for long vowels, and "e" at the end of a word is pronounced, unlike in English: khune ("house") has two syllables, khu-ne.
The little "-e" that links words
Persian joins a noun to what describes it with a short "e" sound that is not written in the script at all. In Finglish it shows up as "-e" or " e": ketab-e man or ketabe man, "my book". When you see a stray "e" between two words, this is almost always what it is.
Spoken forms, not textbook forms
Finglish follows the way people actually speak, which is shorter than formal written Persian. If you learned from a textbook, these are the most common differences:
| Written Persian | Spoken / Finglish | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| mikhâham | mikham | I want |
| nemidânam | nemidunam | I don't know |
| khub ast | khube | It is good |
| mishavad | mishe | It is possible / it becomes |
| ân | un | That |
| khâne | khune | House, home |
| miravam | miram | I am going |
A sample, decoded
"salam, emshab miay chat? kheyli vaght nadidamet."
In Persian script: سلام، امشب میای چت؟ خیلی وقت ندیدمت.
Meaning: "Hi, are you coming to the chat tonight? I haven't seen you for a long time."
When Persian script is the better choice
- Anything formal: a letter, an application, a message to someone older whom you do not know.
- Searching the web. Persian pages are indexed in Persian script. A Finglish search finds very little.
- Names and poetry, where exact spelling and sound matter.
- Long texts. A paragraph of Finglish is tiring to read, even for people who write it daily.
If you can speak Persian but not write it, Finglish is a perfectly respectable way to take part, and nobody in a chat room will think twice about it. If you want to move on to the script, start with our overview of the Persian alphabet and the guide to typing Persian.
Tips for writing Finglish that people can read
- Pick one spelling for common words and keep to it.
- Use "kh", "gh", "sh" and "ch" consistently; they are what readers expect.
- Separate words clearly. Running the linking "-e" into the next word makes sentences hard to parse.
- For a word that could be misread, double the long vowel or add the Persian word in brackets.