The Relative Frequency of Phonemes in Written and Spoken Persian

The investigation of phonemes frequency in a given language can be a means in description of the language. Studying the differences in the occurrences of phonological segments of Persian, the study has tried to indicate that the frequency of phonemes would be a good means for the description of phonemes. In other words the study has indicated that minimal pair is not enough to distinguish phonemes. In the study 60399 occurrences of Persian Phonological segments taken from the spoken (30326 segments)and written(30073 segments)Persian texts with similar genres and styles, have been recorded, transcribed and counted.The study has showed that there is no significant difference in the frequency of phonemes in spoken and written Persian in general. Mean while there are some remarkable differences among the occurrences of some phonemes in the two forms. The study has also indicated that, in general, the consonants and vowels articulated in front part of oral cavity are more frequent in spoken language and those articulated in back of it are more frequent in written one.