A Comparative Study of Word Initial Consonant Clusters in Persian and Arabic

Linguists agree that there are no initial consonant clusters in Arabic، i. e. words cannot begin with consecutive consonants. However، Persian is evidenced to have had initial consonant clusters in the Pre-Islamic period. Considering the long term linguistic contact between Arabic and Persian، this paper attempts to investigate the following questions from a comparative linguistics perspective. First، in case of borrowing، what has Arabic done to Persian loanwords beginning with consonant clusters? To answer this، we have studied two Persian words، namely ''klid'' and ''stabrag''، which are borrowed into Arabic in the pre-Islamic period. Secondly، has the prosodic meter of modern Persian played a role in the evolution and disappearance of Old and Middle-Persian initial consonant clusters? An investigation of early modern Persian poetry gives evidence as to how the initial consonant clusters had been broken and points at the possibility of positing the evolution to have been spread from poetry.