Expert: Mojtaba Parsa - 10/10/2009

Question
Dear Mojtaba,

I've come across a rather difficult sentence in the book I'm reading, an autobiography of an aristocratic woman. She is describing her two servants:

نورجان تند تند حرف می زد و رایشام به آرامی نظرات عقلانه خود را ارائه می داد
Nurjan was talking very quickly and Raysham …

Unfortunately from the word “Raysham” (the other servant’s name) onwards I can't understand anything. Please could you explain, indicating any ezafes etc. Ezafes etc. are very important for me to understand the grammar.

All the best, and many thanks,

Simon

Answer
Hi Simon,


عقلانه here means wise, in a wise manner. Though this word exists, it is not prevalently used.

There are two words: عاقلانه, عقلانی that the author could have used. Anyway, whether عقلانه means either عاقلانه or عقلانی, or it does not, it doesn't matter. This word has meaning, too. The difference is about how commonly these words are used, not more.

Translation: Raysham was gently offering his/her wise ideas (I'm not sure about the gender of Raysham).

I don't know why you continuously emphasize to use the word "ezafe" instead of "kasre". You can freely say "kasre" (e), "fathe" (a) or "zamme" (o) and then everyone will surely understand better what you really mean by saying "ezafe"!

It looks essential for you to get familiar with what we call the "مصوت"s (To see better, I suggest you to enlarge the text).
ـَ ـِ ـُ آ ای او
The six sounds above are called the "Mosavvet"s. The first three sounds are called مصوتهای کوتاه and the rest are مصوتهای کشیده or مصوتهای بلند.
Sometimes, the Mosavvets are also known as حروف صدادار.

I'm going to give you examples for مصوتهای کوتاه
ـَ (= Fat`he) as in سرد (cold)
ـِ (= Kasre) as in خرس (bear)
ـُ (= Zamme) as in مرغ (hen)

It is obviously wrong to call them all, the ezafes. Using this word is also a little bit obscure.

One more thing is that if you ever wanted to ask someone to indicate مصوتهای کوتاه on a word or a sentence, you can ask him to do a حرکت گذاری upon the word or the sentence.

لطفا جمله‌ی روبرو را حرکت گذاری کنید: آن سگ به دنبال گربه‌ام نخواهد آمد.
آن سَگ به دُنبالِ گُربه‌‌اَم نَخواهَد آمَد.

You can also say "اعراب گذاری" instead of "حرکت گذاری" and both are correct.

Your sentence, after a simple حرکت گذاری will become:
رایشام به آرامی نَظَراتِ عَقلانه‌یِ خود را اِرائه می داد

Remember the script the author has used follows a rule omitting the ی after عقلانه. This ی is the same as the kasre in the phrase: کتابِ من. According to this script, "my house" is "خانه من". There are generally three types of facing to this ی in different scripts:

خانه من (like this one)
خانه‌ی من
خانۀ من

The pronunciation of all of them is the same. And using the second script is recommended.

With Best Regards, Mojtaba Parsa