Old Persian phonology

The following phonemes are expressed in the Old Persian script:

Vowels


 * Long:
 * Short:

Consonants

Notes: Lycian Kizzaprñna ~ Zisaprñna for (genuine) Old Persian *Ciçafarnā (besides the Median form *Ciθrafarnah) = Tissaphernes rather suggests /ts/ as the pronunciation of ç (compare and Kloekhorst 2008, p. 125 in  for this example, who, however, mistakenly writes Çiçafarnā, which contradicts the etymology [ PIIr. *Čitra-swarnas-] and the Middle Persian form Čehrfar [ç gives Middle Persian s]).

The phoneme /l/ does not occur in native Iranian vocabulary, only in borrowings from Akkadian (a new /l/ develops in Middle Persian from Old Persian /rd/ and the change of /rθ/ to /hl/). The phoneme /r/ can also form a syllable peak; both the way Persian names with syllabic /r/ (such as Brdiya) are rendered in Elamite and its further development in Middle Persian suggest that before the syllabic /r/, an epenthetic vowel [i] had developed already in the Old Persian period, which later became [u] after labials. For example, OP Vᵃ-rᵃ-kᵃ-a-nᵃ /vrkaːna/ is rendered in Elamite as Mirkānu-, rendering transcriptions such as V(a)rakāna, Varkāna or even Vurkāna questionable, and making Vrkāna or Virkāna much more realistic (and equally for vrka- "wolf", Brdiya and other Old Persian words and names with syllabic /r/).

While /v/ usually became /v/ in Middle Persian, it became /b/ word-initially, except before [u] (including the epenthetic vowel mentioned above), where it became /g/. This suggests that it was really pronounced as [w].

Xavier Tremblay has argued that final /ah/ (from Proto-Indo-Iranian *as), which is spelt as if it had been a long /aː/, was really pronounced as [e(ː)] (a pronunciation also found in part of the Middle Indic dialects, reconstructed on this basis for some of the non-Vedic Old Indo-Aryan dialects, and reconstructed for some non-Persian Old Iranian dialects, as well), based on Middle Persian orthography, which suggests a pronunciation /i/ in Late Old Persian.