A Holistic Treatment of /ān/ to [un] in Persian

One of the most commonly mentioned features of informal spoken Iranian Persian in contrast to its formal or written form is the pronunciation of /ān/ as [un], as in [tehrun] ‘Tehran’, and [iruni] ‘Iranian’. While several aspects of this phenomenon have been reported, a comprehensive treatment of the dialectal, sociolinguistic, phonological and phonetic aspects has not appeared. This paper attempts to pose the most relevant questions, providing answers where possible, and highlighting areas where more investigation is required.