The Phonology of Koroshi Dialect

Korosh is a tribe mainly dispersed across the provinces of Fars and Hormozgan in Iran. The objective of this article is to study and describe the phonemic system of Koroshi dialect in the province of Fars. Koroshi is a dialect of Baluchi language which belongs to the northwestern branch of New Iranian languages. The article introduces and explains the consonants and vowels of the dialect and then proceeds to examine the phoneme arrangement, syllable structure, phonemic processes such as assimilation, dissimilation, alteration, epenthesis and deletion. Considering the analysis and evaluation of the phonemes conducted above, this dialect has twenty-five consonants (p, b, t, d, k, g, Ɂ, f, v, s, z, š, ž, x, γ, h, č, ǰ, m, n, ŋ, l, r, ř, y), eight vowels (i, e, ē, a, â, o, ō, u) and five diphthongs (ey, ay, ow, ây, uy). The phoneme /ř/ is a trill, double flap, alveolar and voiced consonant versus the phoneme /r/ which is a trill, single flap, alveolar and voiced. Notwithstanding, the consonant /ř/ has low frequency, it makes a phonemic distinction and has a minimal pair with /r/. In addition, the nasal consonant /ŋ/ is a nasal and velar phoneme which it does not appear in onsets. The syllable structure in this dialect, like standard Persian, is CV(C)(C).