Early Concept

Pingilish — Standardizing Persian in Latin Script

Pingilish is an early-stage effort to define a reference Latin spelling for Persian: clear transliteration rules, a normal keyboard, and principles that can travel into tools and data. It grew from personal enthusiasm (اشتیاق) as a Persian speaker—pronunciation is hard for beginners, and romanization is still all over the map. The conventions are meant to be crowd-sourced; we are building the online venue (discussion per proposal, likes on proposals) where contributors hash out spellings, including awkward cases like entrenched English forms vs. pronunciation-faithful ones. The examples below sketch a direction, not a finished spec.

Problem

Persian is often written in Latin letters online (“Pingilish”), but there is no shared standard. The same idea shows up many ways (e.g. doost, dost, dust for “friend”), so sounds are easy to misread and beginners get little help from ad hoc spellings. Fluent writers still disagree in formal settings—code, domains, Wikipedia—which also makes automated handling harder. The result is friction for learners, developers, and tools.

Approach

Pingilish explores a transliteration where Persian sounds map to Latin letters in a predictable, repeatable way.

Rules Under Exploration

One sound → one representation.
ASCII-only characters (no special symbols).
Explicit vowel length (aa / i / oo).
Consistent consonant mapping (sh, ch, kh, zh).

What Consistent Spelling Could Enable

Clearer ties between spelling and pronunciation for learners.
More reliable processing in software and datasets.
A stable reference that communities could adopt over time.

Early Design Principles

Clarity over familiarity — avoid ambiguous common spellings.
Consistency over flexibility — minimize multiple valid forms.
Accessibility — work on any standard keyboard.
Scalability — usable in tools, datasets, and products.

Example Transliterations

Illustrative mappings only; not a full specification. Everyday English exonyms often differ from pronunciation-faithful Pingilish, as with the place names at the end.

فارسی faarsi

خوب khoob

سلام salaam

تهران tehraan

اصفهان esfaahaan

The Platform: Crowd-Sourced Development

Native and fluent Persian speakers drive Pingilish by proposing spellings and weighing trade-offs. The project’s central job is to ship an online platform for that work: discussion sections tied to proposals (and to broader topics) and like-based grading on each proposal so shared preferences and strong arguments can surface from participation.

Edge cases—where real usage disagrees, or where a familiar English spelling (e.g. “Tehran”, “Isfahan”) sits next to pronunciation-faithful forms such as tehraan and esfaahaan—belong in those same threads and votes, alongside everyday vocabulary.

Who It May Serve

Persian language learners Developers & researchers Public-sector & digital naming (e.g. domains, signage)

Next Steps

Design and build the participation platform (discussions, proposal grading).
Validate flows with learners and developers.
Prototype transliteration tooling that reflects agreed rules.
Test readability against familiarity as proposals evolve.

Reflection

The focus is not on erasing how people already write, but on offering a structured option when consistency matters. If Pingilish proves useful and lasts, it could be introduced to Persian learners from the first lessons—so sound and spelling reinforce each other from the start.