Relational adjectives (-i)

Forming Relational Adjectives

In Farsi, you can turn many nouns into adjectives by adding the suffix ی. These describe something as being related to the original noun.

For example, مرکز (center) becomes مرکزی (central), and جهان (world) becomes جهانی (global).

Describing Government and Politics

This pattern is incredibly common when describing political and government structures. دولت (government) becomes دولتی (governmental), and خارج (outside) becomes خارجی (foreign):

Notice how اساس (basis) becomes اساسی (fundamental). This forms the Farsi term for "constitution" (قانون اساسی, literally "fundamental law"):

Categorizing Everyday Concepts

Beyond politics, the ی suffix is the standard way to classify general categories. For example, turning عموم (the public) into عمومی (public) and شخص (person) into شخصی (private/personal).

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