نشریه زبان فارسی و گویش های ایرانی
سال هشتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 15، بهار و تابستان 1402)

Jowsheqani is a central Iranian language, spoken in the city of Jowsheqan in the northern Isfahan. Jowsheqani is ergative with respect to verb-agreement since the past transitive verb agrees with object in person, number and gender. The purpose of this article is to investigate how past transitive verbs agree with object in ergative construction, and how the split ergative is conditioned. The findings of this article show that the past transitive verb in the ergative construction agrees with object in gender when object occurs as a noun or pronoun. With respect to person and number, it agrees with the object that occur as independent or enclitic pronoun. But also the past verb can mark an object that has not a reference in the sentence. Jowshaqani, generally, exhibit what is known as split ergativity, since the ergative construction is found only in clause

Ergative, which is one of the characteristic features of most Iranian languages, is a construction in which the subject of an intransitive verb is marked the same as the object of a transitive verb, while the agent of a transitive verb is marked differently. Ergative in Iranian languages has two forms, case marking and verb agreement. If the Ergative involved is a case, then the subject and object are typically described as being in an absolute or direct case, while the agent is in an oblique or ergative case. Verb agreement Ergative appears with the past tenses of transitive verbs, where the verb agrees with its object in terms of person, number, or gender. In Iranian languages, the ending that shows such agreement is often removed, and the past transitive verbs are often used without any ending. But in some Iranian languages including Jowshaqani, past transitive verbs retain an ending that agrees with the object. This article examines how the transitive verbs agree with objects in Jowshaqani and how it is used in terms of splitness of ergativity.

Theoretical Framework :

Ergative is used to describe a grammatical pattern in which the subject of an intransitive clause is treated in the same way as the object of a transitive clause, and differently from a transitive subject. Ergative is thus complementary to the familiar grammatical pattern of accusativity, in which one case (nominative) marks both intransitive and transitive subjects, with another case (accusative) being employed for transitive objects. Many languages have a largely ergative nature, but there always seem to be some traces of accusative organization, while yet other languages show quite a mix of ergative and accusative characteristics. The split between ergative and accusative patterning can be organized along a number of dimensions, and it can span both morphology and syntax. In general, languages with ergative case marking patterns are actually split between ergative and accusative. There is a continuum: some use nearly entirely ergative case marking, whereas in others ergativity is much more limited. A dimension of variation is what conditions the split. Another very common form of a split is between nominal case marking and verbal co-referencing. Split ergativity can also be viewed historically as an intermediate point in a historical evolution. Languages are not statically ergative or accusative. There are fairly well-examined cases of languages changing their features from ergative to accusative and vice versa.

This article examines the features of ergative in the Jowsheqanii, a central Iranian language spoken in the Jowsheqan City central Iran. The data used in this article are taken from a corpus of Jowsheqani archived at the ‘Endangered Languages Archive’ (www.elararchive.org). The data are transcribed based on the APA phonetic transcription and glossed in a semi-Persian way of glossing which the meanings are in Persian, while the grammatical features are shown in English.

As there is no case system in Jowsheqani, the language only uses ergative as verb agreement. It means that the ending of a transitive verb agrees with the object of the sentence in terms of person number or gender. Agreement with gender like: šüa jan-eš babarda šahr ‘The husband took his wife to the city’. In addition to gender, present conjugation in ergative construction can also mark the number and person of the object, if the object appears as pronoun: dast-e man bagat o ba-š-bard-am ‘He took my hand and took me’. But the ending can also mark an object that has no reference in a sentence: nona ke šoam ba-šu-hosnâ-am ‘Where I went, they put me to sleep’. It should be noted that Jowsheqani exhibits what is known as split ergativity. it is generally said that in Iranian Languages the ergative is used only in sentences that have a past tense, while the data in the corpus show that in Jowshaqani ergative is also used with distant future: pâyiz ke bae iyye-mun komi kašt ‘When autumn comes, we will plant barley’, and irrealis: aga kâmâ-mun zunâ ke ba-mun vâta kom bâ ‘If we had known, we would have said’.

Conclusions and suggestions:

Considering that Jowsheqani marks the gender of the verb only in the third person singular, the verb can only mark the singular object. This subject can be a feminine noun that is mentioned in the sentence, or a feminine pronoun. But sometimes the female subject does not have a formal reference in sentence, but it is a semantic characteristic that the verb of the sentence agrees to. In addition to gender, verb agreement in ergative construction can also mark the number and person of the object. That is, the ending of the verb agrees to the object. But such agreement is done when the object itself is not mentioned as a noun in the sentence, because person and number are features of the pronoun, and the ending of the verb agrees to the object that occurs in the form of a free or enclitic pronoun. The ending may not have an object reference and the ending itself marks the pronominal object of the verb without being co-referenced. Regarding the splitness of the ergative, and how is conditioned by tense or aspect or voice, considering the use of the ergative in the future and irrealis which is formed by past stem, it cannot be said that the ergative in Jowsheqani is used on the past tense. The correct expression is that it is used in all constructions that are made with the past stem.

In this article, the researcher has examined the language varieties of Shahroud district in Khalkhal county in Ardebil province. The varieties are spoken in villages of Askestan, Shal, Derav, Kareen, kolour, Gilavan and Lerd, and locally are known as Tati. Also, he has compared these varieties, synchronically, with the three main dialects of Taleshi at phonological, morphological and syntactic levels. These villages are located to the west of Guilan, exactly beyond the Talesh Mountains. The survey is based on studying phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features of the language varieties in question. Data are obtained through library and fieldwork studies. Tati dialects, in spite of their similarities in vocabulary, are so diverse and scattered that cannot all be defined under a specific language group. Because of this, linguists have classified them differently, and in some cases, have added Taleshi dialects to them. The purpose of the article is to answer the question whether the language varieties spoken in Shahroud district of Khalkhal can be categorized as varieties of Taleshi, or are they independent varieties? Based on the data of this article, the language varieties of five villages out of seven villages in question, i.e. Askestan, Shal, Derav, Kolour, and Gilavan, can be placed with Southern Taleshi in the same category, but the language varieties of the two villages of Kerin and Lerd have differences with the varieties of the other five villages, and are different from the Southern Taleshi.

Taleshi is one of the North Western Iranian languages spoken mainly between two rivers of Koura in Azerbaijan Republic, and Sefidroud in Guilan province of Iran. Other rivers separate three main varieties of the language: Northern Taleshi between Koura and Navroud, Central variety between Navroud and Shafaroud, Southern variety between Shafaroud and Sefidroud. From a political geography point of view, Northern Taleshi, in addition to Azerbaijan, spreads in Iran till Karganroud of Talesh country; Central Taleshi involves parts of Asalem and Paresar, and Southern Taleshi involves parts of Fouman, Shaft, Rasht, Rezvanshahr, Masal, Shanderman, and Someasara.
    A large number of the dialects scattered in a vast geographical area are called Tati. Tati has been divided into two groups, as Caucasus and Iranian Tati. Forgetting about this categorization, there is high degree of diversity between different varieties of the language, in a way that sometimes there is little or no mutual intelligibility between their speakers. On the other hand, from the previous centuries, authors like Ibne Hawqal, al-Maqdisi, and Yaqut al-Hamawi have written about people and languages of Iran and namely Azerbaijan region of the country; and notwithstanding the fact that they have mentioned of Azariye, Fahlavi, and Persian in their works, non have referred to Tati. Most authors have used the word Tat to mean Iranian and non-Turk. There wasn't any trace of the word Tat in Azerbaijan at least till thirteenth century, even Hamdallah Mustawfi Qazvini, the historian and geographer of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries hasn't pointed to Tat in his book Nuzhat al-Qulub, although he has talked about some of the present villages of Shahroud.
    According to the above-mentioned views, the purpose of the survey is to compare, synchronically, the dialects of villages of Askestan, Shal, Derav, Kareen, Kolour, Guilevan, and Lerd of Shahroud district in Khalkhal county, with three dialects of Northern, Southern and Central dialects of Taleshi, based on field and library research, at phonological, morphological, and syntactic levels. Shahroud is located in Khalkhal county in Ardabil province, and includes three Dehestans of Shal, Palanga, and Shahroud. This district is neighbor to Guilan from the East, and Talysh Mountains have separated the region from Guilan.
    The fact that Taleshi and the language varieties of Shahroud are of the same origin is something known, but the degree of proximity of the language varieties of Shahroud villages to each other and to Taleshi dialects is something that needs more study. The purpose of this article is to find out whether we can categorize the languages of the seven villages with the three Taleshi dialects or not, or is it possible to categorize the language varieties of all of these villages in one group? Or shall we categorize them based on theie differences at various levels? How far are the language varieties of these villages from each other, and how close are to various dialects of Taleshi?

Theoretical framework:

Comparative Linguistics examines similarities between languages. Here, the survey area includes phonetic, morphological and syntactic levels.  In comparative linguistics, researchers pay attention to descriptive studies of languages, and compare them with each other. In this article, the researcher has illustrated the above-mentioned characteristics of various Tati dialects of Shahroud, and then has compared them with Taleshi, and has discussed their similarities and differences.

In the first part of the article, the researcher has provided the phones of Taleshi and Tati, and has illustrated that some phonetic features of Ancient and Middle Iranian languages are maintained in both of them. At morphological level, we have investigated nominative and non-nominative cases in singular and plural nouns, pronouns, case in adjectives, strong and weak forms of the root, subjunctives, infinitives, verbal prefixes, and syntactic form of the verbs with different tenses. Also, the ways to build derived words, and derivational prefixes of Taleshi and Tati of Shahroud have been investigated, and examples are provided for the affixes of the languages. At the syntactic level, we have considered the nominal group, order of the constituents, and functional markers. Then, we have studied the vocabularies of the two dialects, and have given a list of the Tati's words used in the varieties of Shahroud district that aren't used in Taleshi. Finally, we have examined the words according to their topic in the tables.

Based on examining the linguistic features, we have found out that dialects known as Tati in Shahroud district are in the same group with Taleshi Language. On the other hand, similarities of Southern Taleshi with the language varieties of Shahroud villages are more than the similarities of Southern Taleshi with Northern Taleshi. There are some differences phonetically but little. Some phonetic features of the Ancient and Middle Iranian languages are maintained in both Taleshi and Tati almost in similar ways.
    In the morphology, in both languages, nouns and pronouns have two cases of nominative and non-nominative, but adjectives have a single case form. There aren't any differences in the way of making present participle, past participle and relative adjectives. Verb roots have two strong and weak forms. Inflection is the same in Taleshi and Tati varieties in question. Pronouns are the same but have little differences at phonetic levels. Infinitive markers in the language varieties of the villages of Shahroud are not the same, but all of them are used in Taleshi too. In syntax, the way of making noun modifiers and adjective phrases are the same. The nouns in genitive case are in non-nominative form. Ergative structures have remained in both languages, but structures aren't the same for both of them. In this context, Lerd and Kerin villages are closer to Central Taleshi. The linguistic differences of these two villages with the other villages of Shahroud are more than the differences that exist between the language varieties of those villages and the Taleshi varieties. At the lexical level, those lexical items of the language varieties of Shahroud that are not found in Taleshi are Turkish, or loan-words from other language. Of course, the influence of Turkish on language varieties of Shahroud is much lower than the influence of the language on the North Taleshi. This has caused the language varieties of two villages of Kerin and Lerd to be more simillar to the North Taleshi, and be more different from the language varieties of other villages of Shahroud. Therefore, the most important causes for the lexical differences between the two languages are geographical factors and the borrowing from Turkish. However, at different levels, the difference between the language varieties of the villages of Shahroud, obviously, is less that the differences that exist between Central and South Taleshi and North Taleshi. Accordingly, the people of Shahroud can talk easily and have the best relationship with the Talysh. For trade, they could pass through the mountains of Talysh and come to Guilan through three ways of Masal, Asalem, and Masoule. In addition to language continuity, the people of the both sides of the mountains of Taleshian have cultural continuity too. According to our investigation at the three mentioned levels, we can categorize the language varieties of Eskestan, Derav, Shal, Kolour, and Guilvan with Southern Taleshi. And, we can categorize language varieties of Kerin and Lerd differently, because of some differences at phonetic level that make them more similar to North Taleshi, and because of differences at the syntax level, especially considering ergative structures, that make them more similar to Central Taleshi.  In addition, because of having grammatical gender, the language varieties of the two villages are separated from the language varieties of the other villages of Shahroud district.

Conclusions and suggestions:

Based on the findings of this article, and in order to be able to have a more accurate idea about the relationship between the language varieties of Shahroud district in Khalkhal county and Taleshi language, we suggest that the other language varieties ​​of the villages of the district, and the language varieties of the villages of Khvoresh Rostam district, be compared with the three main varieties of Taleshi, based on fieldwork and library studies, at three phonological, morphological and syntactic levels.

The surviving poems from the old dialect of Shiraz are one of the most valuable surviving collections from the old Iranian dialects, which still contain many lexical, grammatical and semantic ambiguities. One of the ambiguous words of this dialect, which is also used in the old Hervi dialect with fundamental differences in meaning and application, is “هن” /hen/. This word has entered in old Persian dictionaries with the explanation “in the old dialect of Shiraz” with the meaning “ast”. In this article, considering the basic differences of this word in Shirazi and Heravi dialects, we will only discuss the use of this word in Shirazi dialect. Based on the poems of Shah Dai Shirazi (which is currently the most complete, available and published corpus in the old Shirazi dialect) and referring to some other surviving verses from this dialect, we will try to find out the types, morphemes, uses, and developments; and finally show its original version. “hen” /h-en/ is used in three forms in the old Shirazi dialect: 1. with initial h- (complete with n): (هن) /hen?/; 2. with initial h- (imperfect bin): (هه) /he/ (rarely /e/, similar to spoken Persian); 3. Without initial h-: (-en) /-en?/ (rarely /n/). “هن” and “هه” are only used as copula in this dialect; but the form without the initial h of this word has progressed to the stage of complete exhaustion. According to the author, “هن” in the old Shirazi dialect can be a product of the transformation of the third person regular form of the verb ah-: hēd/hed > hen. Therefore, the verb “هن” has changed from two aspects in comparison to the Middle Persian: 1. Sound; 2. Application.

In some ancient Persian dictionaries, there is an entry whose appearance is “هن” and the meaning “is” is mentioned for it (for example, cf. Sorouri, 1338, Vol. 3: 1536 and Khalaf Tabrizi, 1376, Volume 4: Under هن and Farouqi, 1386, Volume 1: 1088). This meaning and use is also proved by the old poems and phrases of the Shirazi dialect (for example, cf.: Da'i, verse 195 and Sadeghi, 2011: 21 and Mahmoud ibn-Othman, 2018: 278 and also cf.: Introduction 60 and three). But in the old Shirazi texts, in addition to the form of “هن” in the meaning of “is”, other forms and uses can be mentioned for it, which have not been mentioned in any of the researches in this field. For example, in a verse by Shah Da'i (1353: 58) it is said: “Vâ ham-end o 'az ham-end-en dur” (meaning they are together and far from each other). In this paper, we have investigated the uses and roots of this word according to the surviving texts.

Theoretical framework:

“Being and existing” in the present tense (participle) in the MP is expressed in two ways: 1/ with the present participle b(aw)- (< OP: bav-); 2/ With the present participle h- (< OP: ah-) and third person singular “ast” (< OP: asti) (cf.: Cheung, 2007: 152-153). The present participle ah- has been used in two ways in NP: 1/ with initial h-: h-ēm, h-ē, 'ast/hast, h-ēm, h-ēd, h-ēnd; 2/ Without initial h-: -am, -ī, -ast, -īm, -īd, -and. “hast” (< MP: hast [hozwaresh: AYT'] < OI: *has-ti) is formed with a non-derivative initial h-. In the NP, the simple form of “hast” was also made into the form of “hast-īd-an”. The verb h- and its various conjugations have various uses in the old dialect of Shiraz. These applications can be summarized as follows:First person singular:هم      /h-em/  ,  آهم        /â-hem/     ,       -م          / em/
 
First person plural:هیم        /h-em/
 
Second person singular:هه         /h-e/     ,           هسته      / hest-e/
 
Second person plural:هیت       /h-et/
 
Third person singular:هست  /hest/     ,    آهست    /â-hest/  ,  هن   / hen/   and its varieties   هه  /h-e/  ,  ه   /e/  ,  ن   /en/
 
Third person plural:هند            /h-end/     ,      هستند    hest-end    ,    -ند     /end/ 

In this research, based on the largest corrected and published corpus of Shirazi's dialect, that is, the poems of Shah Dai, we will examine the uses and different types of the verb “هن”. For this purpose, first all examples of this verb and its variants will be extracted from the above text and then its meanings and uses will be analyzed with the help of analogy. In order to investigate the origin and use of this verb in the MP, examples of the third person singular form of the verb h- are extracted in MP texts and compared with the forms of this verb in the old Shirazi dialect.

The usages of the verb “هن” and its variants in the old Shirazi dialect:In general, “هن” can be seen in three ways in the poems of Shah Da'ei and other works of the old Shirazi dialect: 1. with initial h- (complete with n): (hen) /hēn?/; 2. with initial h- (imperfect stem): (heh) /he/ (rarely /e/); 3. Without initial h-: /-ēn?/ (rarely /n/). “هن” is always used as a conjunction and means “is”. “هه” also has no use except as a relative agent; But “ن” is much more diverse than its original form in terms of usage, meaning and grammatical role: 1. In the position of the connecting agent and equivalent to “is/is”; 2. Null morphology (connected to the verb); 3. Auxiliary verb in past (indefinite) construction.
hēd in third person singular participle:“هست/ است” unlike other forms of the present participle verb is not made by joining the participle identifiers to the participle. Rather, without observing the rules of construction of the present participle verb, it is directly taken from the OP form of “asti”, and in the form of “ast/hast” it is used in MP and then “ast/hast” in NP (cf.: Cheung, 2007: 152-153). But in rare examples, the third person singular form of the verb h is regularly h-ēd (h: stem of the past tense, -ēd: third person singular present tense) in MP. The verb h-ēd is also used as a linking factor in NP with changes. While examining the verb “اید” and the suffix “-ید” in Tabaqat al-Sufiyah, he considers Pahlavi hēδ as the root of “اید/ -ید” (Ivanow, 1923: 349). Lazard also considers –ی/یذ/اید as a remnant of MP hē/heδ (Lazard, 1963: 34-327). It seems that "hēd" gradually evolved into “هن” /hēn?/hen?/. The transformation of d at the end of the word to n is observed in the second person plural identifier of spoken Persian in Tehran and many other parts of Iran: -ēd > -edd > -end > -en > -in (cf. Sadeghi, 2010: 61).

“هن” in the old Shirazi dialect is a product of the transformation of the regular third person conjugation of the verb ah-: hēd/hed > hen. Compared to the MP, this verb has changed from two perspectives: 1. phonetic; 2. Application. Phonetically, in the first stage, the final d of the identifier -ēd has changed to n. In the second stage, “هن” /h-en/ is used in the old Shirazi dialect with three phonetic transformations: 1. with initial h- (complete with n): (هن) /hēn?/; 2. with initial h- (imperfect stem): (heh) /he/ (rarely /e/); 3. Without initial h-: /-ēn?/ (rarely /n/). In terms of usage, “هن” and its morphemes have undergone changes compared to hēd/ast in the MP. What is interesting in this context is that with the disappearance of the initial h of this verb, on the one hand, its uses have changed, and on the other hand, it has progressed towards complete emptying, which is in complete agreement with the rules of grammaticalization.

Khosrownameh or Gol -o Hermez is one of the famous poems attributed to Attar, which, unlike other fake poems attributed to him, due to its poetic order and coherence, some linguistic features, and the relative mastery of the poet, has been praised by some in a way that they consider the poem as Attar's, and put besides his four main and definite poems, "Manṭiq-uṭ-Ṭayr", "Asrarnameh", "Elahinameh" and "Mosibatnameh". On the contrary, some others have rejected this attribution by stating evidence. This article deals with the stylistic study of Khosrownameh in terms of structure, language and content. The research results show that the attribution of this poem to Attar is incorrect; beecause there are major differences between Khosrownamaeh, and  Attar's  main works, both in terms of form and structure, also in terms of language usages in both lexical and syntactic levels, and in terms of content and theme. On the other hand, the rejection of its attribution to Attar is strengthened by the manuscript issues and extratextual study of this poem and the discovery of some historical facts.

Attar-e Neishabouri is one of the poets whose works have been underestimated throughout the history, to the point that a large number of inappropriate poems have been attributed to him and being placed in the ranks of his four main works "Manṭiq-uṭ-Ṭayr", "Asrarnameh", "Elahinameh" and "Mosibatnameh". Among the works wrongly attributed to Attar, and the subject of discussion and research by many researchers of Persian literature, is Khosrownameh. The subject of this poem is the love story of two lovers named Khosro and Gol. The poem is written like some other romantic poems as Khosrow and Shirin of Nezami. This poem is written fluently, and in terms of style and poetic language, it has coherence, arrangement and the ability to induce the content to the reader, and by the way, this issue has caused some people to consider it as that of Attar without comprehensive investigation. In the present study, an attempt has been made to compare the Khosrownameh with Attar's main works both in terms of extratextual aspect (historical and manuscript issues) and from the stylistic aspect in the three fields of structure, language and content.

Theoretical framework :

In general, there are many differences of opinion regarding the attribution of Khosrownameh to Attar. Among the prominent scholars of Persian literature, Saeed Nafisi, without any doubts, recognizes Khosrownameh as Attar's, and believes this poem is one of the works of Attar's youth and middle life. Shafi'i Kadkani believes that the name of this poem is actually Gol and Hermez, that Hermez is another form of the Greek word "Hermes", and Khosrownameh is the original name of Attar's Elahinamah. According to others, such as Zarrinkoob, by composing a romantic poem such as Khosrownameh, despite the interpretability of some of its verses to mystical themes, at the end of Attar's life and after composing his four main poems, the poet's spiritual and mystical behavior cannot be justifiable. Other valid reasons have also been presented later by other researchers in rejecting the attribution of Khosrownameh to Attar,  including Ahmad Ezzatiporur in a research while criticizing the reasons of other researchers pointing to some extratextual evidence and clues, such as The names of some characters in it, and the belief that its author is a “Shia” have led to the conclusion that Khosrownameh is not from Attar. Among the other important researches that have been done regarding the attribution of Khosrownameh to Attar, is “the stylistic study of Khosrownameh to explain the correctness of its attribution to Attar e Neishaburi” by Teimur Malmir. In this research, it has been concluded that due to the frequency of commonalities between Khosrownameh and Attar's main works, its attribution to Attar is correct. In a research titled "Whose is Khosrownameh from?" from Akbar Nahvi, the conclusion is that this poem is undoubtedly not from Attar, and it was written in Isfahan near 600 AH, and its poet was Sheikh Attar Abu Abdullah Muhammad Mianaji (d. 619 AH). A number of other researchers have also presented their opinions regarding the correctness or incorrectness of the attribution of Khosrownameh to Attar e Neishabouri in various articles, but in none of these studies, the investigations have not been comprehensive, and have not led to correct conclusion.

In this research, an attempt has been made to investigate the attribution of Khosrownameh to Attar, both in terms of extratextual evidence, and in terms of intratextuality, i.e. stylistic issues using analytical-inferential methods.

In this research, the indisposition and correctness of the attribution of Khosrownameh to Attar has been investigated from two extratextual (historical and manuscript issues) and intratextual (stylistic) aspects. From extratextual analysis, it was concluded that the date of writing of the oldest manuscript of Khosrownameh is 696 AH, so it can be definitely said that this poem was written in the 7th century of hegira. Another important point that can be considered from a historical point of view in this poem is the praise of “Imam Hasan” and “Imam Hussain” (second and third “Imams” of Shia Muslims), and two Hanafi and Shafei imams by the poet, which shows that he was of the Shafei religion; and if he mentioned Imam Hanafi as well, it was because of observing the social and religious situation of Isfahan in the sixth century. Since in this era, most of the people of Isfahan were Shafi'i and Hanafi, and both clans were very strict in their beliefs and were constantly in conflict with each other. The comparison of Khosrownameh with Attar's four main works in terms of intratextual and stylistic issues indicates that, firstly, Khosrownameh was written with an almost coherent structure and with a slight difference from Attar's style in arranging the contents in his poems; With full knowledge of the ways of composing a long poem, the poet has divided and arranged the different contents of the work and has started his story. Secondly, due to the fact that Khosrownameh has the necessary eloquence and fluency to an acceptable extent, the lexical and syntactic level of the language in this poem is not much different from the lexical and syntactic level of Attar's poems, and only in a few cases we can carefully point out the differences. Thirdly, in terms of theme, this poem can be interpreted into mystical themes, so that from many of its verses, the influence of the poet from Thoughts of Ibn e Arabi, especially his most famous theory, "pantheism", is evident, while Attar puts "Oneness" in opposition to polytheism.

Conclusions & Suggestions:

Based on the examination and comparison of Khosrownamah with the main works of Attar from two very important extratextual and intratextual aspects, the conclusion was reached that firstly, according to the date of the oldest manuscript, this poem was written in the 7th century of hegira, and secondly, despite having eloquence and coherence, in terms of structure, syntax, vocabulary, content, and theme is different from Attar's main poems.

morphological purposes. Reduplication is divided into two main types in most languages: total reduplication and partial reduplication. The present study aims to describe this process, classify different types and patterns of total reduplication, and explore its semantic functions in Tati language (the Rudbari dialect) within the framework of Morphological Doubling Theory (MDT) (Inkelas & Zoll, 2005). The method of this research is descriptive-analytical and the data, which consist of about 150 reduplication constructions in Tati, have been collected from written texts, and based on one of the author’s language intuition. Among the most important findings of this study, the followings are worth mentioning: there are two main types of total reduplication in Tati, pure total reduplication and added total reduplication and each of them has some subcategories. In this language, the elements engaged in total reduplication can belong to different grammatical categories, such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, phrases, sounds, or onomatopoeia. The semantic functions of reduplication in Tati can range from clear meanings to iconic and idiomatic meanings expressing continuation, abundancy, hesitation, increasing and decreasing the intensity.

Reduplication is a morphological process and has a high productivity in some languages. In reduplication a whole word or part of it is repeated. According to the copied part linguists categorize this process into two types: total reduplication and partial reduplication. Each reduplication construction consists of two parts: the base and the reduplicant. The base is the part that is totally or partially copied and the reduplicant is the repeated part. Total reduplication is divided into two types: pure total reduplication and added total reduplication and each of them has their own subcategories. There are two main approaches toward reduplication, phonological approach and morphological approach. In this paper we try to analyze reduplication in Tati language within the framework of the second approach.

Inkelas and Zoll (2005) introduced a model for analyzing reduplication constructions. Their model is called Morphological Doubling Theory (MDT). According to this theory, each reduplication construction consists of two daughters or two inputs (equal to the base and the reduplicant in phonological theory) and a mother node (reduplication construction). The two daughters must have the same morpho-syntactic features, however, phonological identity is not required. There is a significant hypothesis in this theory which claims that the daughters are independent, but identical at semantic levels.

This descriptive-analytical research is done within the framework of Morpholodical Doubling Theory of Inkelas and Zoll (2005). The data consist of about 150 reduplication constructions in Tati language and have been collected from written texts. The corresponding author’s language intuition was also used for providing examples. All reduplication constructions of this research have been written phonetically and divided into seven categories regarding the grammatical category of the elements involved in pure total reduplication. For each type of total reduplication some examples have been provided and semantic functions of each kind of total reduplication have been studied.

There are two types of total reduplication in Tati language: pure and added total reduplication. In pure total reduplication, only the base is totally repeated. Regarding the grammatical category of the elements engaged in pure total reduplication, we can divide it into seven subcategories. In this language, pure total reduplication of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, imperatives, phrases, sounds, or onomatopoeia can be observed. In this kind of reduplication, the grammatical category of the reduplication construction can be the same as the base or they can belong to different grammatical categories. Pure total reduplication of nouns has three patterns, and the construction can be a noun, an adverb or an adjective. Pure total reduplication of adjectives has two patterns, and the resulting construction can be an adjective or an adverb. Pure total reduplication of adverbs has only one pattern in which the final construction is an adverb too. Pure total reduplication of sounds and onomatopoeia also have one pattern in which the grammatical category of the reduplication construction is the same as the grammatical category of the base. When there is an imperative as the base in pure total reduplication, the grammatical category of reduplication construction is a noun or an adverb, so it has two patterns. If a phrase is used as the base, there will be two patterns. In the first pattern two phrases are put together as the base and the reduplicant and the result will be an adverb. In the second pattern, a phrase consisting of a numeral or /tɑ/ or /gela/ (that are two numerals in Tati) is repeated totally and the final construction is an adverb or an adjective. In added total reduplication, an element is added between the base and the reduplicant, or after the reduplicant. We will have medial added total reduplication if the element is added between the base and the reduplicant. In Tati this process is done with the preposition /be/ or the formatives /e/ and /ɑ/. In final added total reduplication, a morpheme will follow the second input or the reduplicant; and in Tati this process is done with suffixes /e/, /ere/, /ake/, /ijaj/ and /i/. Reduplication constructions in Tati are used to express meanings such as plurality, abundance, consistency, increasing and decreasing the intensity. They are also used to talk about details of an action or similar items to the base.

In this descriptive-analytical research, we described and categorized different types of total reduplication in Tati language (the Rudbari dialect) within the framework of Morphological Doubling Theory of Inkelas and Zoll (2005). The results of this study show that total reduplication in Tati is of two main types: pure total reduplication and added total reduplication. Pure total reduplication is divided into seven sub-types: pure total reduplication of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, imperatives, phrases, sounds and onomatopoeia. Added total reduplication has two sub-types: medial and final added reduplication. Medial added total reduplication in Tati is done with the preposition /be/ or the formatives /e/ and /ɑ/. Final added total reduplication has five subcategories in Tati and is done with suffixes /e/, /ere/, /ake/, /ijay/ and /i/. In Tati, reduplication in nouns shows plurality and abundance; in adjectives shows increasing and decreasing the intensity of the adjective; in adverbs shows rapidity, intensity, distance and consistency, and in verbs it is used to talk about details of an action, rapidity, intensity, continuation of an action or situation, hesitation, and similar actions to the verb. In most cases the meaning of the reduplication construction can be predicted according to the meaning of the inputs.

In this article, first the distinctive features of Persian phonological system based on articulatory features have been described, then the feature specification of 29 Persian phonemes in two tables of consonants and vowels have been presented. In the next section, the theory of feature geometry and such concepts as feature tree and segment trees have been briefly explained. The final part of this article deals with some incomplete natural classes.

Trubetzkoy (1939) and Jakobson (1941), and especially Jakobson and Halle (1956), spoke about distinctive features for the first time. They introduced these features mainly based on the acoustic characteristics, but due to the poor technologies of the sound analysis devices at that time, they could not do the job as they should. About a decade later, Chomsky and Halle (1968) replaced acoustic features with articulatory distinctive features and presented the first table of articulatory distinctive features. With the improvement of the level of acoustics studies, some researchers again tried to adjust these tables according to acoustics features, but articulatory distinctive features also maintained their importance and underwent many developments and changes (for example, see Gussenhoven and Jacobs 2017: 64-75).

In early distinctive features tables, the order of presentation of features was not very important and these features were presented in any arbitrary order, but during the research that resulted in feature geometry, features were included in a tree-like hierarchical structure called feature tree (Clements & Hume 1996: 245). Now, based on this hierarchical structure, for which several forms have been introduced so far, it is possible to determine the order of presentation of features within the features tables as well as the matrices of each sound.

In this article, we try to specify the Persian phoneme features based on their articulatory properties, and then introduce the phoneme feature table of this language based on the model presented by Gussenhoven and Jacobs (2017: 64-75). Based on the theory of feature geometry then, we display the feature tree of this language and extract segment trees of individual Persian phonemes from it.

In the last part of this article, by mentioning some examples, we show the use of feature analysis in explaining the natural classes of sounds and the natural classes of features, and then we talk about the natural class of long and short Persian vowels. We will see that these two natural classes in Persian have some characteristics of natural classes, and lack some others, and therefore we call them incomplete natural classes. In this part, I introduce two natural segment classes of the so-called long and short vowels in Persian, i.e., /i α u/ and /e a o/ respectively. Natural segment classes are groups of phonemes with two characteristics: firstly, that the language has the same behavior with them, and secondly that the number of features necessary to describe each class must be less than the number of features necessary to describe each member of that class. I will show that /i α u/ and /e a o/ are natural segment classes only based on the first characteristics and not the second one. This contradiction may be related to the historical changes of Persian phonological system, in which quantity used to be a distinctive feature, but today it no longer has such a role. I suggest that such classes having one of the two conditions of natural classes, to be called incomplete natural classes.

In this article, I described Persian distinctive features based on their articulatory properties, then included those features in the hierarchical structure of a feature tree according to the theory of feature geometry. I determined the order of presentation of features in this table, based on a feature tree, and based on the same tree, I displayed segment trees of all Persian phonemes. Describing the natural segment and feature classes is another topic of this article. In the final part of this article, I talked about the importance of feature analysis in explaining natural segment and feature classes with some examples, and at the end, I talked about the possibility of incomplete natural segment classes versus complete natural segment classes in languages.

The verb particles of the verb phrases in Persian were simple verbs in which new role don't have their primary meaning. The purpose of this research is to identify what verbs in New Persian have gone through this passage, which ones have been more stable in the language, and also which ones have had strong tendencies to have new roles in Persian verb phrases. For this, we have used a quantitative statistical criterion called “coefficient of variance”. This parameter creates a new ranking for verbs, which shows a numerical presentation of their behavioral changes. The results show that “zadan” has had the most behavioral change and “dāštan” has been the most stable verb particle.

Verb is one of the essential elements of sentence.  Like the other linguistic components, verbs are also born, go through changes in their lifetime and then they may die or may have a longer lifetime. From one point of view, structurally, verbs can be classified into two general categories: simple verbs and verbs with complex structures. Generally, simple verbs, which are usually one word, have the same semantic content represented lexically.  The primary goal of this paper is to investigate which verbs have been used as verb particles in the structure of modern Persian non-simple verbs in the last twelve centuries. Therefore, instead of the term “light verb” used for the verb component in compound verbs, the term “verb particle” has been used to include more verb constructions. Besides, this research seeks to identify verbs used as verb participles and find those verbs that have been continuously present during recent 12 centuries. Obviously, the frequency of verbs that have this condition is not the same. So, if we are looking for a quantitative measure for it, it is clear that frequency is not a suitable one. Therefore, another goal of this research is to provide a quantitative measure to determine which of these verbs, which have always been verb particle, have a growing tendency to change from simple verbs to verb participles, and which ones show almost constant behavior.

In order to observe language change, Paul Baker has done a corpus survey on English. His study deals with the concept of “lockwords”. A lockword is a word that may change its meaning or even use, but still have an approximately equal number in the corpus, especially in multi-part historical corpuses. The aim of Baker's research was to examine how English vocabulary has developed over the past eight decades. His main research questions were to identify words whose frequency was increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant over time relative to other words. He tries to provide acceptable explanations for such phenomena. Unlike previous studies, Baker was also interested in stability including which words have not changed much over time in recent English corpora.

Conducting this research required a historical corpus. This corpus contains 1200 pages of complete text, with 100 pages from each century as random samples. That is, 100 pages with 12 B Nazanin font have been selected from the texts of each century, excluding any type of paragraphing and punctuation marks. This body contains more than 1,000,000 words in total. But even with a text corpus, this research wouldn’t be completed. Rather, it was necessary to create a labeled body.

182 different verb participles were found in this corpus from which only 24 were used in all centuries. Their appropriate quantitative measure is the “coefficient of variance” that quantitatively determines their tendency during these centuries. Therefore, the frequency factor alone cannot show this trend accurately.

This research sought to find a quantitative measure to show which verbs have had a greater tendency to be used in more complicated verb structures, as well as in simple ones, from 10th century until now. First, we had to investigate which verbs participated in this process. Next, 182 verbs were found from which only 24 were continuously found in all centuries.
Therefore, the investigation was continued on these 24 verb components. Then, by examining the tools provided by statistics, a search was made to find the best measure to quantify the behavior of these verb components. According to Baker, neither the frequency nor the standard deviation was appropriate for this research, but the appropriate measure was the coefficient of variance. Based on the results obtained from this criterion, a new ranking of the behavior of the verb components in terms of participation in more complex constructions was obtained. In this ranking, the verb “zadan” showed the most tendency to participate in this type of verb constructions and the verb “dāštan” had the least change. That is, “dāštan” has always participated in these types of verb constructions in a stable way during these centuries. Therefore, it can be concluded that “zaden” has shown the most tendency to participate in more complex verb constructions and the verb “dāštan” is the most stable lockword in the verb class in New Persian.

Due to dynamicity, short-livedness, and malleability of slang, investigations into this register could provide linguists with invaluable information. Despite its significance, the study of slang, especially the type used by adolescent Iranians, has not met with a warm reception. Drawing on a linguistic approach and identifying slang words employed by young adults, this study delved into the salient word-formation processes involved and the in-group formation function fulfilled by the register in the data collected. To this end, initially 119 informal words were spotted in the user comments of the news of Tarafdari sports online media within 1400-1401. To determine whether they can be counted slang, a continuous informal-formal scale was developed and distributed among a sample of 385 male and female native speakers within the age range of 15-29. The judgment based on the native speaker linguistic hunch subsequently yielded 63 words, which were then exposed to word-formation analysis. It was found, as far as the data of this study is concerned, slang used in the aforementioned social arena essentially fulfills an othering function through euphemism/weak dysphemism. In addition, Persian slang words are created through such word-formation processes as borrowing, analogy, and some types of reduction, including initialism and backformation. 

Providing a strict definition of slang in the form of a cut and dried simple statement is no easy task. Accordingly, it may be more appropriate to refer to its characteristic features to understand it accurately. Its first property is that the register is a reflection of casual and informal spoken interactions. The next characteristic is its low distribution and transient life so that it gives way to other words and expressions after a while. Slang words are also generally inconceivable and not easy to pigeonhole. Finally, the register places emphasis on taboo aspects of life.
If we consider language as an organism which is constantly in the process of change and growth, its study helps linguists to better understand its nature and mode with regard to word-formation processes and semantic developments. Additionally, since such a register is closely entwined with the community and its problems and is in a way a reflection of the issues of the contemporary society which we inhabit, sociologists, and preferably sociolinguists, are able to discover, analyze, and record specific linguistic and cultural patterns through its study.
The overarching questions advanced in this case study include:- What salient word-formation processes have been employed in the slang words and expressions of the field of soccer in Persian online media?
- How do the aforementioned words and expressions fulfill an in-group formation function?
In keeping with this and with regard to the scant attention linguists have paid to the Persian slang and especially the register used in sports, the present research has sought to examine the slang words and expressions employed in discussions on soccer in online media in terms of word-formation processes so that it could, in its own turn, expose how the register functions. The main purpose of the investigation was initially identifying a list of the most significant word-formation processes in the comments posted under the sports news and reports of Tarafdari online media containing slang expressions and subsequently illuminating the strategies of in-group inclusion and out-group exclusion.

The word-formation processes, which support the productivity feature in human linguistic system telling it apart from other animals’ communication system, is one of the major issues and sub-disciplines within the science of linguistics posing two basic questions: What new linguistic forms, being previously absent in a language, come to be used to express certain (new) concepts? and, what old forms, being used in a language, are employed to communicate new ideas? Some of the most salient word-formation processes in language include: borrowing, calque, blending, compounding, initialism, clipping, derivation, backformation, and analogy.
One of the properties of the slang register, about whose functioning little information is available and, in this respect, warrants conducting more scientific and systematic research into, is the ideological role played by that linguistic variety in interactions. Such a role played by slang in text and talk, especially of the sort used by the youth, indicates the discursive function of foregrounding a range of identity types based on gender, age, ethnicity, etc. It is realized through reinforcing and highlighting in-group membership and excluding the other and positive self-presentation and negative other-representation with regard to actions and achievements.

To carry out this research, initially 119 informal words were spotted in the user comments of the news of Tarafdari sports online media within 2021-2022. To determine whether they can be counted slang, a continuous informal-formal scale was developed and distributed among a sample of 385 male and female native speakers within the age range of 15-29. The judgment based on the native speaker linguistic hunch subsequently yielded 63 words, which were then exposed to word-formation analysis.

Examination and analysis of the words and expressions selected by the youth participating in the research attested to the existence and role of a range of word-formation processes in the creation of Persian slang in the domain of soccer. The processes, which encompass borrowing, analogy as well as reduction ones such as initialism/abbreviation and backformation, were scrutinized in the present research and were accompanied by instances extracted from the data. A point worth noting was that, as far as the present small-scale study is concerned, such common processes in Persian as compounding, derivation, and reduplication were almost non-existent. This might show that the Persian slang deviates in some ways from the standard Persian.
With respect to the most important semantic strategies of inclusion and in-group membership and, by extension out-group exclusion, the data revealed that the slang words and expressions, arrived at in the course of the investigation, were involved in the othering of sports rivals via the functions of terminating a discussion in one’s favor, using vocative in a derogatory way to address the other groups, and reducing the force of dysphemistic expressions. 

It seems that English is the source of a considerable number of slang words and expressions used by the contemporary Iranian youth. It might appear to some extent natural and even inevitable; however, overlooking this phenomenon could pose a threat to the Persian language which is currently being flooded by the surprises of globalization.

The research aims at studying a frequent phonological process in Persian. A phonological process that is supposed to act in many Persian words, enjoying the respective phonological arrangements. As a content-oriented process, the vowel harmony may not act in certain Persian words even in the speakers' informal pronunciation. The research method is a survey, qualitative content analysis and the data included in 100 words, gathered by purposive sampling to make a questionnaire. The interviewees include 150 speakers who are fluent in standard Persian. They pronounced the words in an informal style. The findings show that the vowel harmony acts in many Persian words, while being encounter by some restrictions in many others. The frequency, the loanwords, the age, gender and education of the speakers, the vowel harmony output takes a similar phonetic representation to local dialects and accents, the amplification of using writing language in speaking, the required phonetic arrangement stands in two morphemes, bleeding, closed syllable, and sometimes the grammatical category of the words stimulated the vowel harmony and blocked it.

The phonological processes usually act in words. The phonological arrangement of words may pave the way for a phonological act or may not. The researcher aimed at taking a comprehensive study on the subject for his dissertation. The current paper is a part of the study based on discovering the reasons and finding out the situations in which the vowel harmony does not take place. The question of the research is “how to find out the restrictions that prevent the process to cover all potential words?”

The study is based on the generating morphology theory.

The research method is a survey, qualitative content analysis and the data included in 100 Persian words gathered by purposive sampling from books and written documents to make a questionnaire. The interviewees are 150 Persian native speakers, including 78 men and 72 women, at the age range of 25 to 65. Their education ranked from diploma to Ph.D. They have been asked to pronounce the words in an informal style. The questionnaire also included in a self-statement form to be filled with name, age, sex and … . The researcher filled and completed the questionnaires by a field method all over Tehran.  

The research data included in two main groups. The first are the words taking the vowel harmony when pronounced by the speakers and the second are the words did not take any vowel harmony, while having the required phonological context. One of the probable processes is the vowel harmony between short vowels with the vowel /ɑ/. When one of the short vowels followed by /-ɂɑ/ or /-hɑ/, they will be assimilated by the vowel /ɑ/. The frequently used words like /lahɑf/, /tʃahɑr/, /nahɑr/ and /ʃahɑmat/ have taken the respective vowel harmony by more than 50% of the speakers. Meanwhile the words like /rahɑ/, /maɂɑd/, /saɂɑdat/, and /raɂɑjat/ have not taken the corresponding vowel harmony by more than 50% of the speakers. The reason for such a lack of vowel harmony partly relates to the fact that the output of the speakers' pronunciation may take a sort of similarity to other language types. For example, if they harmonize the vowel in /sefid/ and pronounce it as /sifid/, it can be similar to Azeri language type. In the word /dahɑn/, there is also the same situation and if vowel harmony takes place, the phonetic representation will be /dɑhɑn/ but it does not occure. The speakers pronounce it as /dahan/ in which two vowel shortenings take place instead of vowel harmony.
Another koind of vowel harmony relates to the vowels of /e/ and /ɑ/. The word /ɂeltehɑb/ that takes less frequency, did not accompany with vowel harmony. The words /ɂemtehɑn/, /ɂeʃtehɑ/, /ɂentehɑ/ and /dehɑt/ harmonized a lot, while words like /ʃeɂɑr/, /ɂenʃeɂɑb/ and /ɂeltehɑb/ harmonized a little by the speakers.
Another kind of vowel harmony deals with /o/ and /ɑ/. The words like /mohɑceme/, /mohɑsere/, /mohɑsebe/, and /moɂɑʃerat/ took a regressive vowel harmony by 69%, 65%, 52% and 49% respectively. In some Arabic word of the Mofa'ala infinitive, as in /mobɑhese/, if the vowel harmony take place, the output will be /mobɑhɑse/ in which a progressive harmony occurs. But a progressive vowel harmony is not probable in such words, since the harmony in the similar phonological context is regressive. In other words, the first prerequisite (regressive harmony) does not exist, while the second prerequisite (the glottal consonant /h/ between the vowels) exists. So in the first rule (R1) we have: 
/# mo.bɑ.ha.sa#/
mo.bɑ.ha.sa
In the second rule (R2): 
R2: a → e/ --- #
R2: a → e/ c --- ce #
In the third rule (R3) the vowel /a/ changes to /e/ in the final position. In the forth rule (R4) the penultimate vowel (before final /e/) harmonizes with the syllable nucleus of 4th syllable.
 
/#mo.bɑ.ha.sa#/   UR
R3:           mo.bɑ.ha.se
R4:           mo.bɑ.he.se
[mobɑhese]        PR
 
Another kind of vowel harmony deals with those words in which the first syllable is a short CV with /e/ or /o/ in nucleus. In the second syllable nucleus there is a high vowel of /i/ or /u/. The results show that words like /sefid/, /resid/, /ceʃid/ and /ʃenid/ all enjoy such a syllable with /e/ in the second syllable nucleus. Persian speakers do not harmonize the vowel in /sefid/ and never pronounce it as /sifid/ in order to prevent any similarity of their pronunciation to other language type. Meanwhile the speakers harmonized the vowel /o/ to /u/ in the words like /sopur/, /ɂotu/, /dorus/, /ʃocuh/, /bolur/ and /vorud/.

The results showed that the sequence of the vowels with common features must be in accordance with the vowel harmony rules. The glottal consonants facilitate the vowel harmony, while the oral consonants block it. The frequency of a word regarded as the most important factor for taking the vowel harmony rules. The next factor is the kind of consonant stands between the vowels, because in some vowel harmonies, the glottal consonants play a critical role. In the vowel harmony, corresponding to the vowel raising, the process is just probable in simple words enjoying a target short syllable of CV. Otherwise the syllable is not short and the words are not simple as in /xod.dʒuʃ/, /xoʃ.puʃ/, /por.mu/, and /por.ʃur/, and vowel harmony does not occur. The Arabic loanwords frequently used in Persian may not follow the progressive vowel harmony.

Travelogues are considered as valid and important documents. The travel writers of the Qajar period, who were mostly European and were mainly among the prominent scientific and literary characters of their time, have provided valuable information, with an in-depth look at the history of Iranian literature, Iranian languages, dialects and accents, Persian script, libraries, scientific and artistic centers, and the cultural and social situation of Iran. The explanation of the state of languages and dialects in the Qajar period is one of the issues, that is investigated in this essay, in an analytical-descriptive way. Findings show that the travel writers have discussed about the common languages and dialects of the Qajar period and different regions that have a pure Persian accent, and have mentioned the “ear-splitting” and “ear-scratching” dialects of Iran, as well as, the dialects that have ancient roots. According to their report, the Persian language is on the margins in the Qajar court and the Turkish language is common; but during the period of Naser al-Din Shah and after him, the Persian language became popular in the court. Turkish language is the second language, based on the number of speakers, and Mazandarani dialect is the most powerful dialect in attracting immigrant speakers. Non-Iranian languages, Georgian, Armenian, Hebrew, Nestorian and their geographical range are mentioned in the works in question. The roots of some Persian words have been identified, and a number of Persian and European words have been compared.

The literary situation of each country can be examined from different sides. Among all, this issue can be examined from view points of travel writers. The number of travelogues and travelogue writing is closely related to the civilization of each society, and it shows the cultural, social, economic and literary development of a nation. The Qajar period is the golden time of foreign travel writing about Iran. Most of the European travel writers who came to Iran in this era were among the prominent scientific and literary people of their time, and they traveled to the country with relatively high knowledge about Iranian culture, civilization and literature. Among these, we can mention scientists and travel writers such as Edward Brown, Karlaserna, Deulafova, Pollock, Kenneth Gobineau, George Curzon, and dozens of other travel writers.
One of the major advantages of foreign travelogues is the scientific attention of travelogues to the category of Persian language. Travel writers have provided valuable information in the fields of phonetics, accentology and dialectology, and etymology of Iranian words and in comparing them with words of European languages, aesthetics of dialects and accents, and knowledge of Persian grammar. In this research, we are looking for answers to these questions: “How are Iranian languages, dialects and accents reflected in foreign travelogues?” “In Qajar era, what are the non-Iranian languages spoken in Iran, and what is their geographical domain? What is the geographical domain of the Persian language and Iranian dialects and accents in the Qajar era?

Foreign travelogues are precious treasures of comprehensive information about countries and regions. The points in the travelogues can shed light on the obscure and dark parts of Persian literature. Their documented and tangible reports on the status of Persian and other languages of Iran in Qajar era are very important, and can be used as a basis for extensive research. In this essay, the foreign travelogues of the Qajar era, during 1794 to 1925 have been examined and analyzed with a qualitative approach, and from an integrative view point. We have had both a historical and descriptive look to linguistic contents presented in these travelogues. In these works, valuable and comprehensive information has been provided, not only about Persian but also about other Iranian languages, dialects, and accents spoken in the Qajar period, in different regions of Iran. Foreign travel writers have also paid attention to the etymology of some Persian words during their stay in Iran, and in addition to discussing the non-Iranian languages used by Iranians, they have also paid attention to the influences of Persian on European languages. However, their analyzes are not without problems and sometimes they even give incorrect opinions. Of course, it should be added that even these mistakes and forgetfulnesses, at least in the topics related to language, linguistics, and dialectology, do not reduce the precision and nobility of their opinions and the scientific value of their words, since their accurate and scholarly words are much more than their false and misleading words.

The research method is analytical-descriptive, and mainly relies on library readings, reviewing documents, and intertextual evidences and analysis, and comparison of data. In this research the forign travelogues of Qajar Periods, during 1794-1925, has been investigated.

The most important results obtained are: the second official language of Iran after Persian has been Turkish, in Qajar era; the common language in the Iranian court during the Qajar era has been Turkish, which, of course, is replaced by Persian from the period of Naser al-Din Shah; the languages  spoken in Iran during the Safavid and Qajar periods are described as “blik: baligh” for Persian, “shiash, arrogant” for Turlish, “Cheshik, eloquent” for Arabic, and  “Ilyati” for the language of the villagers; Laki and Qohrudi are dialects trlated to the Old Persian language; the regions of Khorasan, Shahrood, shores of the Caspian Sea (Mazandaran, Gilan), Kurdish speaking regions, Lorestan, Bakhtiari, Kermanshah, Shushtar and Dezful have a pure Persian accent; Brahui in Sistan is mixed with Indian language; the highest dialectal variety is in Mazandan; Zoroastrian dialect is more prevalent in central parts of the country (Yazd and Kerman); Zargari dialect can be a kind of secret lcode and is not a unique dialect not-related to Iranian dialects; no information has been reported about the languages and dialects of the Iranian shores of the Persian Gulf.