Mazanderani language

The name Mazanderani (and variants of it) derives from the name of the historical region of Mazandaran (Mazerun in Mazanderani), which was part of former Kingdom of Tapuria. People traditionally call their language Gilaki, similar as Gilaks do.[12]

Gilaki 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 Gilaki. However, Gilan and Mazanderan were part of the same state known as Tapuria which its national language was known as Gilaki.

Among the living Iranian languages, Mazanderani 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.[13]

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 Mazanderani, 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.[14]

The Mazanderani 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 Mazanderani.[15]

The dialects of Mazanderani are Saravi, Amoli, Baboli, Ghaemshahri, Chaloosi, Nuri, Shahsavari, Ghasrani, Shahmirzadi, Damavandi, Firoozkoohi, Astarabadi and Katouli.

Furthermore, an extinct variety, Gorgani, was documented back to the 14th and 15th centuries, from writings of the Horufi movement.[16]

Mazandaranis in Iran

Mazanderani is an inflected and genderless language.[17] It is SOV, but in some tenses it may be SVO, depending on dialects however.[18][19]

Mazanderani is commonly written in the Perso-Arabic script.[22] However, many use roman alphabets, for example in SMS messages.

Spoken in a territory sheltered by the high Alborz mountains, Mazanderani preserves many ancient Indo-European words no longer in common use in modern Iranian languages such as Persian. Listed below are a few common Mazanderani words of archaic, Indo-European provenance with Vedic cognates.

Mazandarani is rich in synonyms,some such nouns also retaining the gender they possessed in Indo-European times : for instance the words Miš, Gal, Gerz all have the meaning of mouse, although they are not all of the same gender. While many Indo-Iranian languages use a masculine noun taking such related forms as Muš or Muska or Mušk, in Mazandarani the most commonly used name for the mouse is the feminine noun Gal.

Another example is cow, as most important symbol animal in Indo-European culture, in Mazanderani there are more than 1000 recognized words used for different states of cow, table below is specimen of vocabulary. Even contests hold for knowledge of these words.

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.)

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

• Borjian, Habib (2006). "The Oldest Known Texts in New Tabari: The Collection of Aleksander Chodzko". Archiv Orientální. 74 (2): 153–171.
• ______________. 2006. A Mazanderani 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 Mazanderani Verbs. Iran and the Caucasus 12(1):73–82.
• ______________. Two Mazanderani Texts from the Nineteenth Century. Studia Iranica 37(1):7–50.
• Borjian, Habib; Borjian, Maryam (2007). "Ethno-Linguistic Materials from Rural Mazandaran: Mysterious Memories of a Woman". Iran and the Caucasus. 11 (2): 226–254. doi:10.1163/157338407X265469.
• Borjian, Habib; Borjian, Maryam (2008). "The Last Galesh Herdsman: Ethno-Linguistic Materials from South Caspian Rainforests". Iranian Studies. 41 (3): 365–402. doi:10.1080/00210860801981336.
• 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.

Mazanderani 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.
• Audio recordings available for Mazanderani
• Dictionary of Mazanderani, with translations into Saravi, Baboli, and Amoli dialects