Persian Ezafe Detector

Highlight likely ezafe connectors in Persian noun phrases

Scan Persian text for noun phrases and flag the gaps where the silent ezafe linker belongs, choosing -e after a consonant or -ye after a vowel-final word, while skipping prepositions and clause-starting particles. Runs entirely in your browser.

What is the ezafe?

The ezafe (izafe) is a short unstressed vowel, -e, that links a noun to a following adjective, possessor, or other modifier in Persian. It usually goes unwritten in everyday script, so ketab-e bozorg (the big book) looks like two plain words but is pronounced with the linking -e between them.

Finding the invisible linker in Persian

Persian writes most short vowels invisibly, and the most important of them is the ezafe — the -e that ties a noun to whatever describes or possesses it. Beginners constantly mis-read phrases because the linker is not on the page. This tool scans your text and flags where the ezafe most likely belongs, and in which form.

How it works

The ezafe links a head noun to a following modifier, so the tool examines each gap between adjacent words and decides whether a link is plausible:

کتاب  بزرگ  من   ->  ketab -e bozorg -e man
"book" "big"  "my"      book-EZAFE big-EZAFE my

A gap is flagged unless the first word is a known preposition or conjunction, or the second word begins a new clause (for example va, ke, the copula ast, or a preposition). For each flagged gap the form is chosen by the first word’s final letter: vowel-final words ا و ه ی take -ye, everything else takes -e.

Tips and notes

The default phrase کتاب بزرگ من (“my big book”) shows two ezafe links in a row, which is normal — a chain of modifiers each gets its own linker. Because Persian leaves vowels unwritten, no purely lexical tool can be perfect; treat the flags as a learning aid and confirm them against meaning. For other invisible-pronunciation rules, see the Arabic sun/moon letter checker and the Hindi schwa deletion helper.