Mazandarani language

Article in other languages:

• لغة_طبرية
• Mazanderaneg
• Мазандерански_език
• Mazenisk
• Masanderanische_Sprache
• Μαζανταρανί_(γλώσσα)
• Mazandarani_language
• Idioma_mazandaraní
• زبان_مازندرانی
• Mazandarani
• Zimanê_mazenderanî
• Mázandaráni_nyelv
• مازرونی_زیوون
• マーザンダラーン語
• Mazandarani_(språk)
• Język_mazanderański
• Мазендеранский_язык
• Mazenderani
• ภาษามาซันดารานี
• Mazenderanki
• 塔巴里语

Mazandarani
Mäzeruni مازِرونی - Mäzeni مازنی Taberi تپری
Spoken in	Iran, province of Mazandaran and parts of the provinces of Tehran, Golestan, Semnan, Khorasan
Region	South coast of the Caspian Sea
Total speakers	3-4.5 million (native speakers)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Northwestern Iranian Caspian Mazandarani
Writing system	Perso-Arabic script
Official status
Official language in	None
Regulated by	Linguistic Faculty of Babol University
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	ira
ISO 639-3	mzn
Areas where Mazandarani is spoken as mother tongue
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Mazandarani (مَزِروني) (also Mazanderani) or Tabari (Also known as: Mazeniki) is an Iranian language of the northwestern branch, spoken mainly in Iran's Mazandaran and Golestan provinces. As a member of the Northwestern branch (the northern branch of Western Iranian), genetically speaking it is rather closely related to Kurdish, Zaza, and Balochi, and more distantly related to Persian, which belongs to the Southwestern branch.

Etymology

The name Mazandarani (and variants of it) derives from the name of the historical region of Mazandaran (Mazerun in Mazandarani), which was part of former Kingdom of Tapuria. People traditionally call their language Gileki, the same as Gilekis do. Gileki consist of two morphemes : Gil + postfix ki. The name Tapuri (or Tabari) which was the name of an ancient language of somewhere in former Tapuria, Nowadays becomes prevalent into youth groups instead of Gileki. However, Gilan and Mazanderan were part of the same state known as Tapuria which its national language was known as Gileki.

History

Among the living Iranian languages, Mazandarani has one of the longest written traditions, from the tenth to the fifteenth century. This status was achieved during the long reign of the independent and semi-independent rulers of Mazandaran in the centuries after the Arab invasion^[1].

The rich literature of this language includes books such as Marzban Nameh (later translated into Persian) and the poetry of Amir Pazevari. The use of Mazandarani, however, has been in decline. Its literary and administrative rank was lost to Persian perhaps long before the ultimate integration of Mazandaran into the national administration in the early seventeenth century.^[2]

The Mazandarani language is closely related to Gilaki and the two languages have similar vocabularies. In 1993, according to Ethnologue, there were more than three million native speakers of Mazandarani, speaking different dialects such as Gorgani, Ghadikolahi and Palani.^[3]

Grammar

Mazanderani is an inflected and gender free language.^[4] It is considered SVO.

Morphology

Suffixes

The list below is a sample list obtained from the Online Mazandarani-Persian dictionary.

Orthography

Perso-Arabic Script

Mazanderani is commonly written in the Perso-Arabic script.^[5]

Romanization

Jahangir Nasr Ashrafi proposed the use of the Latin alphabet for the language in bilingual dictionaries.

Vocabulary

Spoken in a territory sheltered by the high Alborz mountains, Mazandarani preserves many Indo-European old words which are no longer in common use in many other Iranian languages such as Persian. Below, a few common Mazanderani words & their English cognates are listed for sample.

Virtually all speakers of Mazandarani are also fluent in standard Persian.^[6][7][8] Some dialectologists have concluded that the language is converging with Persian.^[9][10]

Influences exerted by Mazanderani

Modern-day of Iran

In Iran, there are many popular companies and products, like Rika (son) or Kija (daughter), which take their name from Mazandarani words.^{[citation needed]}

In non-Iranian languages

There are some Mazanderani loanwords in the Turkmen language.^[11]

Specimen

áme kεrkā šúnnε nεfār-sar. nεfār-sar xεsέnnε. badími nεfār-sar-e čεl-o-ču hamε bapíssεnε. bāútεmε, “vačε jān! injε, kεlum-e pali, mé-vesse έttā kεrk-kεli dεrεs hā́kεn!” vε εm nεmāšun ke pe dar-biārdε, hamun šō badímε bεmúnε sεre piεr o vačε. ande-tumi piεr o vačε bεmúnε sεre, nεmāz kέrdεnε, qεzā xέrdεnε; ba:d εz nεmāz šínε ún-var, sāāt-e čār harkεt kέrdεnε.
Our chickens go onto the nefār and sleep on it. [Once] we noted that the wood of the nefār was all rotten. I told [my son], “Dear child! Here, next to the stable, make me a chicken coop.” In the evening that [my son] was setting the foundation, the father [-in-law] and [his] son came home. As soon as the father and son came home, they would say their prayers, eat something, and then, after the prayers, they would go over there (to the next room); then at four o’clock they would set off.

(from Maryam Borjian and Habib Borjian, “Ethno-Linguistic Materials from Rural Mazandaran [: Mysterious Memories of a Woman],” Iran and the Caucasus 11/2, 2007, pp. 226–254.)

mosalmunun! mέrε šabgir varέnnε āx, mέrε bā kamεr-e haftir varέnnε mέrε bavέrdεnε Tεrkεmun-e dam Tεrkεmun kāfεr o gεlilε be-ra:m Moslems! They are carrying me at the crack of dawn. O, they are taking me away with a pistol on the[ir] waist. They took me to the vicinity of the Turkmen [tribes]. Turkmen [are] unbelievers and the bullet [is] ruthless. gεtε, ašun xō badimā mεn še Ali-rε sio dasmāl davέsso še gali-rε age xā́nnε bā́urεn ámi badi-rε bázεne xεrusεk šέme gali-rε volvol sar-e dār gέnε εy zāri-zāri me gol dāš báio sarbāz-e Sāri He would say, Last night I dreamed my Ali. He [had] wrapped a black kerchief [round] his throat. If it is their intention is malignant about us, May croup-cough attack your throat! The nightingale on the tree constantly bemoans (?) My dear brother drafted in Sāri. Quatrains sang by Sabura Azizi, transcribed and translated by Habib Borjian; Ref. Habib Borjian and Maryam Borjian, “Mysterious Memories of a Woman: Ethno-Linguistic Materials from Rural Mazandaran,” Iran and the Caucasus 11/2, 2007.

See also

• Comparison Table of Iranian languages
• Mazandarani people

References

1. ^ Windfuhr 1989
2. ^ M. Borjian 2005
3. ^ Ethnologue report for language code:mzn
4. ^ Fakhr-Rohani
5. ^ http://www.language-keyboard.com/resource/indo-euro/mazanderani.htm
6. ^ M. Borjian 2005
7. ^ Kalbasi 2004
8. ^ M. Borjian, 2005:66
9. ^ M. Borjian 2005
10. ^ Habib Borjian (2006) "Mazandarani: language or dialect" Iranshenasi 18/1, 2006, pp. 43-49.
11. ^ Nasri-Ashrafi 2005, v. 5, p. 5

Bibliography

In dates given below, A.P. denotes the Iranian calendar, the solar calendar (365 days per year) which is official in Iran and Afghanistan.

Works consulted

• Borjian, Maryam. 2005. Bilingualism in Mazandaran: Peaceful Coexistence With Persian. Language, Communities and Education. Languages, Communities & Education: A Volume of Graduate Student Research. New York: Society for International Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. pp. 65–73.
• Fakhr-Rohani, Muhammad-Reza. no date. She means only her 'husband': politeness strategies amongst Mazanderani-speaking rural women. 2 pp.
• Kalbāsi, Iran. 2004/1383 A.P. Gozašte-ye Naqli dar Lahjehā va Guyešhā-ye Irāni. Guyeššenāsi [Dialectology], 1(2):66-89. (journal of the Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature)
• Nasri-Ashrafi, Jahangir-e (ed.). Farhang-e vāžegān-e Tabarī [A Dictionary of Tabari]. 5 v., 2882 pp. Tehran: Eḥyā’-ketāb”: 2002/1381 A.P. A comparative glossary containing lexical units from almost all major urban and rural centers of the region of the three provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, and Golestan. Reviewed in Iran and the Caucasus, 2006, 10(2). Volume 4 contains a Persian-Mazandarani index of approximately 190 pp. Volume 5 includes a grammar of the Mazandarani language.
• Windfuhr, G. L. 1989. New Iranian languages: Overview. In Rüdiger Schmitt, ed., Compendium linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: L. Reichert. pp. 246-249.

Further reading

• Borjian, Habib. 2006. The Oldest Known Texts in New Tabari: The Collection of Aleksander Chodzko. Archiv Orientálni 74(2):153–171.
• ______________. 2006. A Mazandarani account of the Babi Incident at Shaikh Tabarsi. Iranian Studies 39(3):381–400.
• ______________. 2006. Textual sources for the study of Tabari language. I. Olddocuments. Guyesh-shenâsi 4.
• ______________. 2008. Tabarica II: Some Mazandarani Verbs. Iran and the Caucasus 12(1):73–82.
• ______________. Two Mazandarani Texts from the Nineteenth Century. Studia Iranica 37(1):7–50.
• Borjian, Habib, and Maryam Borjian. 2007. Ethno-Linguistic Materials from Rural Mazandaran: Mysterious Memories of a Woman. Iran and the Caucasus 11(2):226–254.
• Borjian, Habib, and Maryam Borjian. 2008. The Last Galesh Herdsman: Ethno-Linguistic Materials from South Caspian Rainforests. Iranian Studies 41(3):365–402.
• Le Coq, P. 1989. Les dialects Caspiens et les dialects du nord-ouest de l'Iran. In Rüdiger Schmitt (ed.), Compendium linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: L. Reichert. pp. 296–312.
• Nawata, Tetsuo. 1984. Māzandarāni. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. Series: Asian and African Grammatical Manual; 17. 45 + iii pp.
• Shokri, Giti. 1990. Verb Structure in Sāri dialect. Farhang, 6:217–231. Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies.
• _________. 1995/1374 A.P. Sārī Dialect. Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies.
• Shokri, Giti. 2006. Ramsarī Dialect. Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies.
• Yoshie, Satoko. 1996. Sārī Dialect. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. Series: Iranian Studies; 10.

External links

Mazandarani language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Society for Iranian Linguistics. Among other services, archives PDFs of articles from linguistics journals, including those written in Persian.
• Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran.
• Ethnologue Report for Mazandarani
• Audio recordings available for Mazandarani
• Dictionary of Mazandarani, with translations into Saravi, Baboli, and Amoli dialects

Questions for article: habib borjian and maryam borjian, “mysterious memories, mazandarani language, mazandarani language