برای

Khalaj

Postposition

بَرایِ (bərâyı)

Arabic spelling of bərâyı (“because of, towards”)

Persian

Alternative forms

برا (barâ) (Iran, colloquial, usually in compounds with enclitic pronouns)
برهٔ (bara-yi /⁠bara-yi, barē⁠/) (colloquial Dari)
بری (barey) (dialectal, Shiraz)

Etymology

From a grammaticalized phrase in Middle Iranian, *pad rāy (“(literally) for the thing”), itself composed of Proto-Iranian *pati- (“for, towards, against”) + *rādi- (“reason, thing”), the latter a lexicalization of the locative singular of Proto-Iranian *rād-, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *HraHdʰ-, from Proto-Indo-European *Hreh₁dʰ- (“to think, arrange, accomplish”).^[1] By surface analysis, (be, “for”) +‎ (rây, “reason”) +‎ (-e, “ezafe”) Akin to Northern Kurdish bi ... re.

Pronunciation

(Classical Persian) IPA^(key): /ba.ˈraː.ji/

(Dari, formal) IPA^(key): [bä.ɾɑ́ː.jɪ]
- (Kabuli) IPA^(key): [bä.ɾá.jɪ]
- (Hazaragi) IPA^(key): [bä.ɾɔ́ː.ji]

(Iran, formal) IPA^(key): [bæ.ɹɒ́ː.je]

(Tajik, formal) IPA^(key): [bä.ɾɔ́.ji]

Readings
Classical reading^?	barāyi
Dari reading^?	barāyi
Iranian reading^?	barâye
Tajik reading^?	baroyi

Preposition

برای • (barā-yi / barâ-ye) (Tajik spelling барои)

Derived terms

برای این‌که (barā-yi īn-ki / barâ-ye in-ke, “because”)
برای چه (barā-yi či / barâ-ye če, “why”)

Descendants

→ Azerbaijani: bərayi-
→ Chagatai: از برای (ʾz brāy /⁠äz bärā-yı⁠/)
- Uyghur: ئەزبىرايى (ezbirayi)
- Uzbek:
  Latin script: azbaroyi
  
  Cyrillic script: азбаройи (azbaroyi)
  
  Afghan Uzbek: اَزْبَرایِ (azbaroyi)
→ Hindustani:
Hindi: बराए (barāe)

Urdu: بَرائے (barāe)
→ Khalaj: bərâyı
→ Punjabi:
Gurmukhi script: ਬਰਾਏ (barāē)

Shahmukhi script: براے (barāē)

References

^ Edelʹman, D. I. (2020), Etimologičeskij slovarʹ iranskix jazykov [Etymological Dictionary of Iranian Languages] (in Russian), volume 6, Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura, page 451; 456