Sound and Meaning in Shahnameh

There is a close relationship between sound and meaning such that the way phonemes are deployed and the conveyed meaning are intertwined. In choosing their words, language speakers are highly affected by their emotions and opt for words whose phonemes is expressive of the meaning they intend to convey. Besides their semantic function, phonological structures of words, through a combination of sounds, indirectly expresses the idea the poet intends to communicate. Morris Gramoon, the renowned French linguist, sheds light on the underlying layers of words and phonemes and the undeniable role they play in conveying meaning. The present study adopts and draws upon the theories proposed by him. Scrutinizing 300 lines of Shahnameh, falling into three semantic fields of epic, lyric, and elegy, the results of the present study revealed that there is a significant relationship between the expressed meaning and the deployed phonemes and syllables in Shahnameh. To put it differently, the results indicated that the language used in Shahnameh varies according to the conveyed meaning and Ferdowsi capitalizes on phonemes invoking secondary meanings in mind. In love poems, Ferdowsi heavily draws on fricitive (24%), trill (13.5%), glide (6.5%) consonants and open syllables (CV), (CV:). In epics; however, the most extensively used consonants and syllables are stop (38.7%) and (CVC), respectively. Finally, as for elegies, nasal (19.3%), stop-fricative (3.3%), and long syllables (CV:CC) are heavily drawn upon.