Phonological processes in northern Tālishi dialect (Anbarāni variety)

Tālishi is one of the northwestern Iranian dialects, spoken in southwest borders of Caspian Sea in Guilān, and also in Ardebil and the Republic of Azerbāijān. Considering dialectical and geographical characteristics, it can be classified into three major groups: northern, central and southern. No linguistic description about Anbarāni variety of northern Tālishi dialect has yet been carried out, while it’s an endangered Iranian dialect, saving characteristics of old and middle Persian. In this paper, the most frequent phonological processes of northern Tāti (Anbarāni variety) have been investigated according to changes from Old Persian and compared to Modern Persian. The phonological processes included final vowel omission, raising, centralization, length reduction, weakening or lenition amd strengthening or fortition. The data were collected through field study and based on the author’s linguistic intuition as a native speaker and also through interview with native speakers. The Old and Middle Persian data have been collected through library research. If there was none of the required words in the written documents, or if they were not accessible, they have been reconstructed.