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PUBLICATIONS IN NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST STUDIES COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Editorial Board John S. Badeau Charles P. Issawi Jacob C. Hurewitz Karl Menges Alex Wayman Ehsan Yar-Shater (Chairman) Series B III This work was approved and edited for publication in this series in 1964 by the Editorial Board consisting at that time of: John S. Badeau Charles P. Issawi Douglas M. Dunlop Tibor Halasi-Kun (Chairman) Jacob C. Hurewitz Joseph Schacht Ehsan Yar-Shater This series, published under the auspices of the Department of Middle East Languages and Cultures and the Middle East Institute of Columbia University, consists of monographs, readers and other studies designed to promote systematic research on the Near and Middle East and to further public understanding of the problems of the area. The opinions expressed are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department or the Institute. ; MEDIAN DIALECT STUDIES I A GRAMMAR OF SOUTHERN TATI DIALECTS EHSAN YAR-SHATER 1969 MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS © 1969 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 68-13334 PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS BY MOUTON & CO., PRINTERS, THE HAGUE To the memory of W. B. Henning (1908-1967) 185460 PREFACE The work presented here is a descriptive grammatical sketch of nine closely related Iranian dialects spoken in Ramand and some of its neighbouring regions, all of them to the southwest and south of Qazvin. The majority of these dialects are recorded or treated here for the first time. Together with the Northern Tati group, spoken mainly in the southeast corner of Persian Azerbaijan, they constitute an important branch of North Western Iranian. I owe my initial interest in Tati dialects to Professor W. B. Henning, who made a brief visit to Takestan in 1950, realized the significance of its dialect, and discussed it in a paper read to the London Philological Society in 1953.1 The dialect materials which served as the basis of this work were collected in the course of several intermittent short trips between 1955 and 19632 to the Tati-speaking villages. My studies were facilitated by the generous help I received from the Persian authorities. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to His Excellency A. A. Alam, now the President of Pahlavi University at Shiraz, for his liberal assistance throughout these years. My thanks are also due to Mr. I. Yar-Afshar, a gentleman farmer of Ramand and now a senator from Qazvin, for the many facilities he kindly afforded me within the area. I am deeply indebted to Professor W. B. Henning, my respected teacher, for his continued interest as well as his many helpful criticisms 1 “The Ancient Language of Azerbaijan”, Trans. Philol. Soc., 1954. 2 The latest of these trips to the Tati-speaking regions was made possible through a grant from the Council for Research in the Humanities, Columbia University, the American Council of Learned Societies, to both of which I am grateful. My thanks are also due to the Social Science Research Center and The American Philosophical Society whose aid enabled me to make a more thorough search for the unrecorded varieties of Tati in 1964 (of which the results will be published later). _ A treatment of the materials collected during my earliest trips on Takestani, Chali and Eshtehardi served as my dissertation for the degree of Ph.D., University of London, 1960. 8 PREFACE and suggestions in the course of this study. I am also grateful to Dr. Ilya Gershevitch and Professor Sir Harold Bailey, both of Cambridge Univer¬ sity, for their remarks concerning the historical development of Southern Tati, of which I hope to make use in the future. I am further thankful to Professor R. Austerlitz of Columbia University and Professor A. Kuipers, now of the University of Leiden, who discussed with me some relevant phonological problems. Joseph Carter, M. A., my former student, kindly read the chapter on phonology and made useful suggestions. It is also my pleasant duty to thank my many Tati informants for their cooperation and helpfulness. In particular I should like to record my thanks to Yadollah Sadeqi, my host and informant in Eshtehard, Javad Taheri and ‘Aziz Rahmani of Takestan, the brothers Shah-Moham madi of Chal, and the gifted and courteous cleric and poet, Bordbar Ameli, of the same village. A list of my informants from different villages, to whom reference is made in the body of the Grammar, appears on pp. 275-6. E.Y. CONTENTS 7 Preface . 15 List of Abbreviations. 17 Introduction. 18 A. Villages and the Villagers . . . . 21 B. General Features of the Dialects. 23 C. Dialect Variations. 24 D. Dialect Materials. 26 E. Problems of Phonemization . . . 27 F. Method and Scope. PART ONE: PHONOLOGY 31 I. Chali. 31 A. Consonants. . . 31 1. Stops . . . 33 2. Affricates . . 33 3. Fricatives . . 35 4. Nasals . . . 35 5. Liquids. . . 35 6. Semivowels . 36 B. Vowels. 40 II. Takestani. 43 III. Eshtehardi. 45 IV. Xiaraji. 47 V. Ebrahim-abadi . . 49 VI. Sagz-abadi . . . • 10 CONTENTS VII. Danesfani, Esfarvarini, Xoznini. 51 VIII. General. 52 A. Length. 52 B. Reduced Vowels. 53 C. Hiatus. 53 D. Vowel Assimilation. 54 E. Clusters. 54 F. Vowel Combinations. 56 G. Stress. 57 1. Nouns and Pronouns. 58 2. Verbs. 59 H. Intonation. 61 PART TWO: MORPHOLOGY I. Nouns. 65 A. Definition. 65 B. Number. 68 C. Gender. 68 D. Case. 73 1. General Remarks. 73 2. Inflection of nouns. 74 (a) Chali. 75 (b) Takestani. 78 (c) Eshtehardi. 79 (d) Xiaraji. 81 (e) Ebrahim-abadi. 81 (f) Sagz-abadi. 82 (g) Danesfani. 83 (h) Esfarvarini. 84 (i) Xoznini. 85 3. The oblique in-r. 86 (a) Chali. 87 (b) Takestani. 90 (c) Eshtehardi. 91 (d) Xiaraji. 92 (e) Other Dialects. 93 E. Use of the Nominal Cases. 96 1. General Remarks. 96