Afghan-Persian/Dari: یای وحدت/نکره has the same sound as کسره اضافه?

[Abu Talha]

From another thread گاهی is pronounced gāhe (with یای مجهول) in Classical Persian and not gāhi:

Also, especially in the Classical language..

gaah-gaah/gaah ba-gaah (From time to time/sometimes/now and again)

gaah-e (sometimes)

I'm not sure.

gaah-e: time of
گاهِ رفتن است : it's time to go

No, you have misinterpreted my transliteration. The "e" after "gaah" had the sound of "e" (as in A and NOT as in E). I know it is written and pronounced as "gaahii" these days. The modern izaafat sound -e- (as in gaah-e-raftan ast) is close if not equivalent to the gaahe (sometimes). The izaafat sound was more "-i-" than "e" in the olden days. Tajiks still pronounce it -i- (as in English bill).

Does today's formal (کتابی) Afghan-Persian/Dari retain the یای مجهول sound in یای وحدت/نکره. And if so, is it the same sound as the کسره اضافه ?

For example do the underlined parts below sound the same in today's formal (کتابی) Afghan-Persian/Dari:
گاهِ رفتن است
گاهی می روم

 

[colognial]

Hi, Abu Talha. The answer is no, the two words گاهِ and گاهی should not sound the same. The kasre, as pronounced around Iran, should be pronounced as a short vowel, while the y should be a bit more drawn out.

 

[Treaty]

I have seen many times that Afghan blogs and sites use کسره instead of ی to indicate یای نکره. But I can't say whether it is because of pronunciation similarity, regional accents or lack of standardised orthography.

 

[Abu Talha]

Thank you colognial, Treaty.

If the vowel quality is the same between کسره اضافه and ياى نکره, is the vowel length really different? I think we can't go by orthographical signs (کسره vs يا) which are only completely accurate in Arabic.

For example would the listener detect a difference in the following two sentences (assuming same vowel quality in گاهِ and گاهى)?

گاهِ رفتن بايد
گاهى رفتن بايد

(Apologies if the sentences are unnatural or incorrect in meaning. I was struggling to come up with similar sounding sentences and my Persian is very weak.)

 

[colognial]

The sentences are fine, Abu Talha. The first one is incomplete in meaning, but it's not incorrect as a sentence. ...

If the quality happens to be the same, then this is likely to lead to some confusion! Why? Because actually the length will not vary from one word to the other, I should imagine. This is pure conjecture, but I suspect that a native speaker would not be too sensitive about minute differences in pronunciation, so that such small variations as you mention are probably redundant.

 

[fdb]

In Kabul dialect (and in the Kabuli reading tradition for written Persian) historic /i/ and /ē/ are distinguished by quality, not by length: the former is /ɛ/ and the latter is /e/. So the answer to your question is yes, there is an audible difference between kasra-i izāfa and yā-i wahdat.

 

[Abu Talha]

Thank you fdb, colognial.

So in summary, will the following table be accurate:

Persian	kasra-i izāfa	yā-i wahdat
Early New/Classical	/i/	/ē/
Modern Standard Iranian	/e/	/ī/
Modern Standard Afghan	/ɛ/	/e/
Indo-Persian	/e/	/ē/ ?