“IJMES-D”: Romanizing Afghan Persian

The IJMES romanization standard (see guidelines) is now dominant among anglophone scholars in Near Eastern / Islamic Studies. Persianists tend not to like it, but we use it nonetheless—or are compelled to do so—because it’s well established. (Among the unfortunate aspects of IJMES Persian romanization is its treatment of the silent hāʾ word ending, which is rendered -ih. This is insane. It seems to have resulted from a desire to observe contradictory principles, leading to a result that pleases no one.)

In any case, we need to work with IJMES. It would be good to have a variation of the standard for romanizing Afghan / South Asian Persian, a.k.a. “Dari.” (NB: Different adjustments would be needed for Tajik Persian.) The changes involved are few but impactful. They are as follows:

• Consonantalوbecomes w, not v.
• The silent hāʾ ending becomes -a, not -ih. (One happy consequence of this is that it meshes better with the IJMES romanization of Arabic words ending in tāʾ marbūṭa. For example, madrasa would be the same coming from either language.)
• The majhūl vowels—ē in place of ī, ō in place of ū—are notated as appropriate. See, for example, khurshēd vs. khurshīd, kōh vs. kūh. (It is on the practitioner to know which Persian words have majhūl vowels.)