Persian Diacritics Cleaner

A simple Python tool to strip Persian short vowel diacritics (fatha, kasra, damma, shadda, sukun) from text files while keeping tanween marks untouched.

Features

• Removes only short-vowel diacritics:
  Fatha (ﹶ U+064E), Damma (ﹹ U+064F), Kasra (ﹺ U+0650), Shadda (ﹽ U+0651), Sukun (ﹿ U+0652)
• Keeps tanween ( ً ٌ ٍ ) and other marks (maddah, hamza above/below) unchanged
• Recursively processes all files inside a directory
• Supports UTF-8 encoded text files
• Dry-run mode to preview changes without modifying files

Installation

No dependencies beyond Python 3.6+.

git clone https://github.com/BaseMax/persian-diacritics-cleaner.git
cd persian-diacritics-cleaner

Usage

Run the script with the path to the folder containing your text files:

python persian-diacritics-cleaner.py /path/to/folder

To see what would be changed without actually writing to files, add the --dry-run flag:

python persian-diacritics-cleaner.py /path/to/folder --dry-run

Options

Argument	Description
folder	Path to the directory to process (required)
--dry-run	Preview changes only; no files are overwritten

Example

Before:

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُم

After:

السلام عليكم

Note that tanween remains intact:

شُكْرًا  →  شكرًا

What gets removed / kept

Diacritic	Unicode	Removed?
Fatha	U+064E	✅
Damma	U+064F	✅
Kasra	U+0650	✅
Shadda	U+0651	✅
Sukun	U+0652	✅
Tanween Fath	U+064B	❌
Tanween Damm	U+064C	❌
Tanween Kasr	U+064D	❌
Maddah	U+0653	❌
Hamza above	U+0654	❌
Hamza below	U+0655	❌

Copyright

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

Copyright (c) 2026 Seyyed Ali Mohammadiyeh