A Ghazal by Nâser al-Din Khatib-e Shaf awi in Old Shirazi Dialect

The language of the inhabitants of Shiraz, until the 9th century A.H./15th century A.D., was a dialect derived from a variety of Middle Persian. This dialect was called Sherazi by its speakers. The oldest specimens of Shirazi were composed by Qotb al-Din-e Shirazi, Sa’di, Hâfez, Shams pos-e Nâser, Shâh Dâ’i, Abu Eshâq and others. From amongst the syntactic characteristics of Shirazi one should mention the ergative construction of the simple past tense of the transitive verbs, while a prominent trait of its phonological component is the development of Middle Persian /g/ into /γ/ in postvocalic position. The author has studied in this article the Shirazi part of a trilingual ghazal by Nâser al-Din Khatib-e Shafa’wi, an obscure Shirazi poet of the 8th century A.H./14th century A.D.