Persian vocative article 'ا' comes at the end of, where the Arabic vocative 'يا' comes before, the noun.
There's of course another Persian vocative 'ای/ey' which comes before the noun, as in: ای خدا ,ای حافظ, ای یار
See here.
As can be seen in these examples یارا, حافظا, خدایا and كريما, please note خدایا is خدا+ی+ا where ی always acts as a liaison before a long vowel, here the 'ا' article.
There's of course another Persian vocative 'ای/ey' which comes before the noun, as in: ای خدا ,ای حافظ, ای یار
See here.
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That’s interesting & very likely as it is used only formally, in less formal situations ای/ey is used which, to me , is more authentic Persian.
Has it survived in any of the other Semitic languages?
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I don't know how one can say one is "more authentic Persian" than the other. For me, both are equally authentic Persian, whatever the origin of the vocative suffix.
A very good question.
A question from me.
Is this suffix also used with plural nouns? Can we have, for example, مردانا O men?
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The fact it is only used in formal & poetic Persian points to its non-Persian origin, I believe that’s a fair comment to make on a linguistic forum, my observation may not be accurate or correct but I’m hoping someone will enlighten us all.
What about خدایا? Isn't this used in ordinary everyday speech?
Yes it is. In any case everyday speech would be a very bad measure for the origin of the words.
This has not been suggested by me.
Everyday spoken speech is way way older than formal speech, formal speech is standardised spoken speech after all.
Spoken language is dynamic and ever-changing. We cannot draw any conclusion about the origin of words or expressions based on their current usage status in colloquial speech. It is just wrong to say some word or affix is of foreign origin if its current usage is limited to formal or poetic language, especially when we're dealing with a time scale of more than a thousand years! By that logic thousands of Persian words would have to be considered non-Persian, and vice versa.
I think you’re referring to prescribed language, like sometimes the Academy of Persian language invents a new word but it fails to find currency among speakers so it remains a prescribed word in official documents.
The suffix -ā is common in poetry, not only after nouns but also after verbs and other words, e.g. in guftā “he said”. It is not (exclusively) vocative, at best mildly emphatic. It has no parallel in Semitic.
The determinate suffix is already in Old Aramaic. It does not occur in Persian until the Middle Persian stage.
Possible yes, likely no.