Russian Loanwords in Gilaki Dialect

As a global phenomenon, loanwords are found in all languages. They could empower the target language, if being applied targetedly. Throughout the history, there have been vast linguistic relations between the Iranian province of Gilan and Russia. As a result of geographical proximity and long history of cultural, political, commercial, and military relations, many loanwords have entered the Gilaki dialect from Russian. Some of these loanwords could not be seen in the standard Persian language or other local dialects. In This paper, using Gilaki glossaries we will list Russian loanwords and will categorize them into: 1- loanwords which are not exclusive to the Gilaki dialect and could be seen in Persian language or other dialects. 2- loanwords that exclusively exist in the Gilaki dialect. Writing down the Russian equivalent for each loanword, we will also transcribe each one. Furthermore, the semantic, phonetic, and syntactic changes after transmission to the target language will be analyzed. The goal of this research is to introduce and explain the general process of word Borrowing in Gilaki. Studying the loanwords, we come to this conclusion that Borrowing mostly happens in lexical terms. The lion’s share of the loanwords is used in the everyday life of Gilak people and they rarely experience intensive semantic changes.