“The extinct dialect of Tajrish: Caspian or Persian?”

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/187471611X600413

Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 246-271 brill.nl/jps

The Extinct Dialect of Tajrish: Caspian or Persian?

Habib BorjianEncyclopaedia Iranica

AbstractOnce spoken in the Alborz foothills north of Tehran, the vernacular of Shemirān and its admin-istrative center Tajrish was greatly influenced by the Caspian languages spoken northward across the Alborz range, in its valleys and in the Caspian littoral. This study of Tajrishi draws on the texts collected by Valentin Zhukovskii in the 1880s as well as two recent documentations of smaller size. It reveals that Tajrishi and the adjoining vernaculars constitute the southernmost part of the Caspian-Persian linguistic transition zone in Central Alborz.

KeywordsPersian varieties, Caspian dialects, Central Alborz, Mazandarani, Iranian languages

Before Tehran expanded into a mega-metropolis in the southern foothills of Alborz, absorbing scores of surrounding rural settlements and solidifying into its present shape, the capital city of Iran was situated in a linguistically diversi-fied region. The piedmont villages and hamlets to its north, collectively known as Shemirān, are now within the municipal boundaries of the capital. Having been subjected in the last few decades to an intensive wave of building con-struction and an enormous influx of population, Shemirān has completely lost its original socioeconomic character. The same is true of the local dialects, which have gone extinct in favor of the ubiquitous colloquial Persian. The residents of the modern neighborhoods of Shemirān are generally unaware of the dialects which were spoken there one or two generations ago.

The dialects of Shemirān are interesting in that they were transitional dia-lects between Persian, spoken to the south, and the Caspian dialect continuum spoken within and across the Alborz range.1 The Caspian blend thickens as

1 Caspian can be divided into three language groups: Gilaki in the west, Central Caspian in the middle, and Māzandarāni (Maz.) in the east. The term Central Caspian, coined by Donald Stilo, embraces the dialect continuum within the Tonekābon and Kalārdasht districts of the central Alborz. On Kalārdashti, see Borjian 2010. The Caspian traits in Tajrishi are chiefly Maz., while many are also found in Central Caspian and Gilaki. My Maz. data comes from my largely

H. Borjian / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 246-271 247

one moves northward across the Towchāl chain into the upper reaches of the Jājrud River, and solidifies into the Caspian linguistic zone as one crosses the next chain northward to the Nur River valley. Shemirān therefore is the south-ernmost region that carries substantial Caspian linguistic elements. Among the old settlements of Shemirān, sufficient linguistic data exists only for its administrative center Tajrish.2

The following study of Tajrishi is based chiefly on the documentation of the Russian scholar Valentin Zhukovskii in the mid-1880s. It consists of several texts in Russian transcription (Zhukovskii, II, 395-98) and a glossary shared with the Jewish dialect of Kāshān (idem, II, 399-432).3 The texts, totaling some 1,100 words, are translations from Persian. They consist of a list of 44 short sentences, a short piece, twelve tales,4 and two quadrants of Caspian type. The texts suggest different informants who spoke varieties the same dialect. Besides Zhukovskii (henceforth VŽ), some materials on Tajrishi can be found in two recent sources. (1) Hoseyn Sāmeʿi (HS) compiled a glossary of 38 verbs and 33 words, plus 6 short sentences, with a commentary on the grammar of the dialect. He collected his data, probably in the 1990s or 2000s, through inter-views with two aged men who no longer used their native dialect in everyday speech. (2) Giti Deyhim (108-10; henceforth GD) lists 15 Tajrishi sentences with Persian translations that generally do not match with the dialect data. No mention of informants or the date of documentation is provided in this work.

Phonology

§1.1. Consonants appear to be similar to those of Persian. Zhukovskii shows /k/ palatalized only before the open front vowel: kyam “little,” while the mid

unpublished documentation, and from Tāhbāz and Jahāngiri, who provide data for the valleys of Nur and Kojur, respectively.

2 I have written a separate article on the Shemirān dialect group, submitted to the festschrift of Prof. Jemshid Giunashvili. My other related articles study the vernaculars of the upper Karaj river valley and the Jājrud valley.

3 In one article, Sādeqi converted Zhukovkii’s texts into Roman letters, and provided a very useful analysis of Zhukovskii’s inconsistencies in documenting the sounds of the dialect; he also commented on the morpho-syntax of Tajrishi, using the data from both Zhukovskii and Sāmeʿi. It appears that Sādeqi was unaware of the Tajrishi glossary compiled by Zhukovskii.

4 The sources of these three texts, as Zhukovskii alludes to in the first volume of his book (xv-xvi), are as follows. Text I: from Peter Lerch, Forschungen über die kurden und die iranischen Nordchaldäer, Saint Petersburg, 1857, 1-4. Text II: the beginning of a Finnish poem, taken from Bacmeistersche Sprachproben (see Christensen). Text III: from Latifa va zarifa, Tehran, 1299/1881; Mirzā Mohammad-Shafiʿ Gashtāsb (Mirza M. Schafi Gachtasb), Majmaʿ al-tamsil/Dictionnaire Mofid Persan-Arabe-Russe-français, Saint Petersburg, 1869.

248 H. Borjian / Journal of Persianate Studies 4 (2011) 246-271

and close front vowels have no such effect: ke/ki “who.” /g/ is not palatalized at all: girye “crying.” In spite of this inconsistency, we may conclude that, like Māzandarāni, the velar plosives were not substantially palatalized before the front vowels, as is the case in Tehrani Persian.

§1.2. Vowel inventory of the dialect is probably as simple as the modern Per-sian /i e a u o â/. It is, however, important to make a note on Zhukovskii’s transcription. As practiced by other contemporary philologists in transcribing dialect materials, Zhukovskii was apparently misled by the traditional rules of transliterating Arabic-based scripts. Thus, he renders the kasra mark some-times as i, following the orthographic rules of classical Persian, and sometimes as e, according to the actual pronunciation he heard from his informants. The same holds true for u vs. o. Moreover, Zhukovskii seems to have normalized his dialect texts to show the long vowels of classical Persian in the words for which he could establish an etymology. He also exaggerated the roundness of the back low vowel â by documenting it as ō. In this study of the Tajrishi dia-lect, we reproduce Zhukovskii’s transcription (in Latin alphabet of course) when we quote from his texts; otherwise, his transcription is slightly altered to match with the other, more realistic documentations at hand.

§1.2.1. A fronted allophone of /u/ appears in VŽ nüs-: nüšt- “write,” HS güni “gunny,” büâ “father.”

§1.3. Diphthongs are probably no different than the Persian /ey/ and /ow/. An allophone of the latter is öu or eu, as in VŽ töu “twist,” xöu “sleep,” köuš “shoe,” löu “lip,” mélek almöut “death angel,” eusen “pregnant” (but nou “new,” četouní “how,” etc.), HS öü “water,” göü “cow,” jöüz “walnut,” šöü “night,” töükon “pan,” öüsi “sleeve,” öüssan “pregnant,” Göügal 5 (toponym for what is now known as the Tajrish bridge). Another diphthong in VŽ materials appears to be /âu/, as ōu (ōve in the ezafa construction) “water,” ōftōu “sun,” etc.; but this may simply be the diphthong /ow/, which is indistinguishable, as explained above, in VŽ transcription from a possible /âw/.

§1.4. Stress. Zhukovskii is the only source that marks the stressed vowel, and he does it for almost every word, both in the texts and in the glossary. How-ever, his stress marks are inconsistent in many cases, e.g. baxūrdém “I ate,” báxūrdī “you ate.” Nevertheless, those words that show consistency suggest that the morphological stress in Tajrishi is no different from that of Tehrani

5 Probably göu “cow” and gal “herd.”


Persian. As such, the stress is phonemic: biyōudán “to bring,” bíyōudan “they brought.”

§1.5. There is a considerable degree of vowel assimilation, particularly in verb morphemes. The durative prefix me-/mi- may take the forms mukumé “it does,” mūxūrī “you are eating,” mōxōm “I want,” némīxōm (neg.). We also see syllable contraction similar to Tehrani Persian in dovi-/devi- vs. doy- “run,” etc. More morphonological traits are explained in §§3.4, 3.8.1, 3.8.2.

Noun Phrase

§2.0. The noun phrase in Tajrishi is different from the standard modern Per-sian in that the ezāfa construction is weak in modifiers; the third singular personal pronoun u is distinguished from the demonstrative pronoun/adjec-tive un; -rā marks the dative as well as the accusative; and there is a trace of possessive phrases with -rā.

§2.1. Nouns. (1) The plural ending is -(h)â, as in xonahâ “houses” and iâlâ “children.” (2) Indefinite markers are ye(k) “one” (but not Maz. əttə) and the unstressed suffix -i, as in yek kesi “a (certain) person.”

§2.2. Modifiers. The dialect is by and large devoid of the ezāfa marker, as noted by HS, with the examples pul bâlâ “the upper bridge,” namâz šöü “eve-ning prayer,” deraxt jöüz “walnut tree.” He also mentions that the latter phrase may alternate with deraxt-e jöüz and jöüz deraxt. Zhukovskii’s texts, however, split in the use of the ezafa. (1) There are many ezafa-less phrases, such as per siyāh “black feather,” nūn besauxté “burned bread,” zen ū “his wife,” gazō tū “your food,” hakīm šumō kīe “who is your physician?” dil xūdeš “his heart,” nané iyōl “the child’s mother,” dōrū češ “eye medicine,” dil xūdeš “his own heart,” mū sérmun “the hairs of our heads,” azūn numōz “call for prayer,” bíōmū bōlō ser bīmōr “he came to the patient’s bed.” The absence of the ezafa marker has even rendered derxōné’i (397:11)6 “a house gate” as a single word. (2) There are also many phrases with the ezafa construction, such as túxmi sefīdi “a white egg,” iyōli xūdeš “her child.” Note both possibilities in the same sen-tence: bōli rōstam a bōl čápam zūreš bīštére (395:13) “my right arm is stronger than my left arm.”

6 “397:11” stands for “Zhukovskii, II, 397, line 11.” This convention will be used henceforth.


In using the ezafa in modifiers, Zhukovskii’s Tajrishi informants may have been under the influence of the Persian texts they were reproducing in their dialect. It is interesting to note that the informants sometimes avoided the ezafa by rephrasing the sentence: diraxt bálgeš sábze, šōxhōyeš buzúrge (395:16)7 “(a) tree—its leaf is green, its branches are big”; īn murg túkeš tīze, dūmeš kūtō (395:16-17)8 “this bird—its beak is sharp, its tail—short.”

Whatever the case may be, the main point is that there is no evidence in Tajrishi that might suggest the existence of the “reverse ezafa-like connector,” which is a characteristic of Caspian languages.

§2.3. Adpositions. In this respect, Tajrishi sides with Persian in that preposi-tions are the norm, and the only postposition is the accusative marker -râ. The Caspian imprint may be seen in the prepositions mon- (cf. Maz. postposition -mion) and vase, which have been passed on to Tehrani Persian, as well as the dative function of -râ.

§2.3.1. Prepositions include a(z) “from,” bar “on,” be “to,” mon “in,” ru “on,” vâ “with,” vase “for.” Examples:

dumōg mūm dīm deré (395:11) “the nose is on the face”bášu mūn xūné (397:12-13) “he went into the house”vasé’i duxtéri reštī mīōrem (398:6) “I bring it for the Rashti girl”pešīmōn vōbú, vasé či men pūli siyōrū hōnégtam (397:20-21) “he was regretful: ‘why

didn’t I take the copper coins?’ ”vâs man tarif mikerd (GD) “he would relate [it] to me”pōrī be duō ’i bōrūn méšun (396:7) “a group was going to pray for rain”vō tū kōr dōré (397:12) “he has business with you”

§2.3.2. The postposition -(r)â marks the direct object categorically, e.g. löušō mōxōm mōč kūném (395:23-24) “I want to kiss her lips,” ūn püsérrō mōxō (395:26) “she wants that boy.” It also marks the indirect object in several instances:

ūn püsérrō báge (395:26) “that he tell the boy”ūrū pūli siyōh hōmdan (397:19; i.e. u-ro . . .) “they are giving him copper coins”her dútō zénū hōde (397:27) “give [it] to both women (zen-â)”

7 Translated from the Persian deraxt barg-e sabz o šāxahā-ye gonda dārad.8 Translation of in morγ nok-e tiz o dom-e kutāh dārad.


§2.3.3. The only other postposition is -de “in,” which occurs only once in the available texts: köušem pōmde dánabū (396:27) “my shoe was not on my foot.” Its redundancy with the preverb da- of the locative verb (§3.6.2) makes this postposition very unlikely to be genuine to the dialect.

§2.4. Pronouns. Personal pronouns have three basic forms, as shown in Table 1. Demonstrative pronouns are in/ina “this,” un/una “that.”

§2.4.1. Unlike the colloquial Persian of Tehran, Tajrishi differentiated between (1) the third singular personal pronoun u and (2) the demonstrative pronoun/adjective un:

(1) ū hōlō nōxūše (395:5) “he is unwell now” ū der hōgītán ikrōh dōšt (397:19) “he was uncertain in taking” šouhéreš ūrū mōxō (395:4) “her husband likes her”(2) dílam ūn püsérrō mōxō (395:26) “I like that boy”

However, in the following example, ūná (úna?) appears to be a personal pro-noun in the accusative: iyōlū hōdō ūná (397:29-30; i.e. iâl-ro hâdâ . . .) “he gave the child to her”; cf. ono yâdam dare (HS) “I recall that.” But see the next section.

§2.4.2. The forms ménū “I,” ūna “that,” īná “this” occur in the following.

(1) ménū dílam/čéšmem dard mukuné (396:4, 397:4) “my stomach/eye is in pain”

(2) ménū pōrsōl dendūnum dard méket (397:5) “last year my tooth ached”(3) čīzī ki betére ūna nébōše (396:21) “something that there is nothing worse

than”(4) hīč čīzī betére ūna nédīam (396:21-22) “I didn’t see anything worse than

that”(5) pīš ez īná xydō ’i de būm (397:14-15) “before this I was the lord of the village”

In the first two examples ménū is the first person singular pronoun, but its position in the sentence is not clear. The sentences can be taken as similar to the Persian form man del-am dard mikonad, in which the personal pronoun is used redundantly (men-ro dil-am “I, my stomach”). But the fact that the form of the personal pronoun (cf. máno in Table 1) suggests an object status leads us to assume it is a relic of the old form of expressing the possessive with -rā, e.g. in Classical Persian: marā dandān dard mēkard “I had a toothache,” lit. “to me the tooth was aching.”


The situation is different in the sentences (3) to (5). Here una and ina act as alternate forms of the demonstratives un and in, respectively.9 This is highly probable since similar forms appear in other dialects of Shemirān in the vicin-ity of Tajrish.10

§2.4.3. Enclitics function as possessives, as they do in Persian; this trait sepa-rates Tajrishi from Caspian dialects, which have only freestanding possessive pronouns. Examples:

xūéret dámxufe (395:9) “your sister sleeps”duxtéreš pīšeš niste (395:5) “her daughter is sitting next to her”yâleš ke bazâ’i (GD) “when her child was born”yâdam dare (HS) “I remember” (cf. Maz. me yâd dare)

§2.4.4. One specifically Caspian usage of the third singular enclitic in Tajrishi is that it designates a group of relatives, as in HS Hâj Hâdi-šon, which can roughly be translated as “the familsy of Haj Hadi.” This is expressed in collo-quial Persian as Hâj Hâdi (o) inhâ. The -šon suffix is related to the noun plural marker in the Central Caspian language group.

Table 1Personal Pronouns

Subject Object Possessive

Sg. 1 man máno -m2 to tóro -t3 u úro -š

Pl. 1 mâ ? -mon2 šomâ ? -ton3 ? ? -šon

9 Sādeqi surmises that the -a in una might be a shortened form of az “from.” This is unten-able on the ground that a(z) appears only as a preposition in Tajrishi. If there is a preposition az in sentences (4) and (5), it should be the ending vowel in betére, i.e. beter e(z).

10 In the following examples, from Hesārak, Dulāb, and Sulqān (GD, 113-17), ina is used as the demonstrative as well as third person pronoun: ina daftare mâ bu “this was our notebook”; ina bičâre dare (the locative verb does not seem to belong here) “he is desperate”; ina pulaki bo “he was venal.”


§2.5. The Reflexive is formed by the base xod- suffixed by the enclitics. It is used in the texts as the possessive with an emphatic sense: ke ovōz xúdemū ez dūr béšnofem (397:8-9) “that I hear my own voice from afar”; rūzī be zéni xūdeš báguf (396:13) “one day he said to his (own) wife.”

§2.6. Adverbs. An interesting adverb is dervâ “outside,” in xudō dervō nisté (397:12) “God is sitting outside.”11 See §5.5.1 for typology.

The preverb dar (§3.4) may also be treated as an adverb, for example in ūrū der ket (397:30) “he threw her out.”

Verb Phrase

§3.0. The Māzandarāni elements in Tajrishi are found mainly in its verb sys-tem. The following list summarizes the affinities Tajrishi verbs share with Māzandarāni, on the one hand, and Persian, on the other.

• The preverbs are Caspian.• There is one set of personal endings, as opposed to two or three sets in

Māzandarāni.• Formations built on the present stem, namely the imperative and the

present indicative and subjunctive, are Persian; no Māzandarāni-like gemination of the nasal consonants exist in the personal endings of the present indicative forms.

• The imperfect is also Persian, in that the durative marker is mi-, as opposed to its absence in Māzandarāni.

• The past tense forms, however, are by and large Māzandarāni: the present perfect merges with the preterit, which stem is always accompanied by the perfective prefix, as do the past participle and the infinitive.

• “Be” and “become” are generally non-Perside, and the locative verb acts as auxiliary in the progressive tenses.

§3.1. Stems. Tajrishi verbs show a binary system of the present and past stems, including regularized past stems, as in modern Persian. Lexically, the stems are a mixture of Persian and Caspian, but unlike Māzandarāni, Tajrishi has no more than a pair of stems for verbs such as “go.” An overlapping of

11 Translated from the Persian sentence xodâ birun nešasta. Sādeqi interprets dervâ as bâ dar (dam-e dar) “with (at) the door.”


isoglosses is marked by the three distinct roots by which the verb “become” is expressed (§3.6.3).

§3.1.1. The correspondence between present and past stems is generally simi-lar to Persian. A “regular” past stem is obtained by suffixing to the present stem the marker -i- (corresponding to Pers. -id ), as in (present stem: past stem) ged-: gedi- “become.” This class of the past stems makes 17 out of 71 verb stems listed in Glossary below. There are three past stems formed with -ess-, namely doness- “know,” toness- “can,” xâss- “want”; these are Middle West Ira-nian formations, thereby shared between Persian and Caspian.

Moreover, some past stems also show the suffix -â: -ftâ- “fall” and issâ- “stand,” which are found also in Persian; and da-kâšt-/kârâ- “sow.” The second-ary formation in -â is characteristic neither of Persian nor Caspian but of the Median-Parthian dialect groups (cf. Parthian -ād ), such as those of Semnāni and Central dialect groups.

§3.1.2. The causative present stem is formed by adding -un- to the intransitive present stem; the causative past stem is then obtained by adding an additional -d-. For instance, the intransitive jomb-: jombi- “squirm” results in the caus-ative jombun-: jombund- “shake.” Other examples of the causative stems attest to the invariability of the aforementioned rule: čelun-: čelund- “squeeze,” čerun-: čerund- “graze,” -rsun-: -rsund- “deliver,” var-gerdun-: gerdund- “return.” Note the obvious difference between Tajrishi and Māzandarāni in the forma-tion of causative past stems: while Tajrishi, like colloquial Persian, uses -d-, a shortened form of the historical -īd-, Māzandarāni incorporates -i-, which is the same morpheme that forms the regular past stems from the present stems.

§3.1.3. A stem never appears without a prefix, both in the verb forms (§3.5) and verbal nouns (§3.8). For this reason the initial sound of some of the stems is not deducible. In fact, in the Glossary, we had to reconstruct some of the stems with the initial consonant clusters that do not occur in the dialect oth-erwise. For instance, the present stem listed as -spor- “entrust” could be either espor- or sepor- if the modal prefixes and consequent syllable contraction did not occur. Other such stems are -ft-: (e)ftâ- “fall,” rbin-: rbi- “cut,” -rfess-: -rfessi- “send,” -rfuš-: -rfuxt- “sell,” -rsun-: -rsund- “deliver,” -škâf-: -škâft- “unstitch,” -škan-: -škest- “break,” -šnof-: -šnoft- “hear.” In engan-: engess- “throw” the initial vowel was added by comparison with the neighboring Caspian dialects.


§3.2. Preverbs are da(r)-, hâ-, ve-, var- vâ-:

da(r)-: ~-ø-: bu- “be in,” ~-â(y)-: âmo- “come in,” ~-band-: best- “close; tie,” ~-kâr-: kâšt-/kârâ- “sow,” ~-kon-: ked-/ket- “throw out,” ~-š-: šu- “go in,” ~-xof-: xoft- “sleep”;

hâ-: ~-d-: dâ- “give,” ~-gir-: (g)it- “seize”;ve-: gir-: ~- (g)it- “pick up,” ~-jur- “search”;vâ-: ~-bu “become,” ~-iss-: issâ- “stand,” ~-xur-: xurd- “drink”;var-: ~-ged-: gedi- (intr.) “return,” ~-gerdun-: gerdund- (tr.) “return.”

§3.2.2. Preverbs have two functions. (1) Lexically, they may expand or specify the stem, as in xur-: xurd- “eat” vs. vâ-~ “drink”; hâ-gir-: git- “seize” vs. ve-~ “pick up”; bu- “be,” da-~ “be in,” vâ-~ “become.” (2) Morphologically, pre-verbs replace the modal prefix be- (§3.3.1). For dar functioning as adverb, see §2.6.

§3.3. Modal Affixes

§3.3.1. In the absence of the preverbs, be- (ba-, bi-) marks the positive of the imperative and present subjunctive, as in Persian, but also the preterit, as well as the verbal nouns, as in Māzandarāni. Be- is not added to the verbs “be,” “become,” “have,” “want,” and often “do.”

§3.3.2. The durative marker me- and its variants mi-, mo-, mâ-, m- mark the present indicative and the imperfect, e.g. hâ-m-d-e “he gives,” hâ-m-dâ “he gave.” The verbs “be” and “have” need no durative prefix.

§3.3.3. The negative marker na- (ne-, ni-) precludes the modal prefix ba-, precedes me-, and succeeds preverbs: na-kerd-am “I did not,” né-mī-mīr-e “he doesn’t die,” da-ná-bōš-e “there may not be,” hō-ná-m-d-am “I don’t give.”

§3.4. Personal endings. There is only a single set of personal endings for all tenses, while the third person singular becomes zero in the past. As shown in Table, 2, three morphonological variants can be identified from the material at hand; the form of the ending depends on the terminal sound of the stem. This makes Tajrishi comparable to the Central Caspian dialects of Kalārdasht and Tonekābon. Here are the examples and exceptions.

§3.4.1. For the stems ending in a vowel other than i we have these examples: hōmdō-m “I was giving” (cf. hōmd-am “I give”); HS biyâmo-m, -y, -ø, -ym, -yn, -n


“I came, etc.”; and VŽ mōxō’im “we want.”12 For the copulas we have rizō-y-em “I am content,” with the glide y inserted between the noun and the ending.

§3.4.2. Stems terminating in i have these examples: HS baxeri-am, -ey, -ø, -eym, -eyn, -an “I bought, etc.”; nedi-ey “you saw not.” VŽ shows the ending -ey as -ei, eym as -a’īm, and eyn as -a’īn, with the examples bérbī-am, -ei, -ø, -a’īm, -a’īn, -an “that I severed, etc.”; bátersī-am, -ei “I, you feared,” bébūsī-am, -ei “I, you kissed,” báresī-ei “you arrived.”

N.B.: Identical forms result for the present second sg. and preterit third sg.: médev-ī “you run,” médovī-ø “he was running.”

Table 2Personal Endings

after consonants postvocalic after i

Sg. 1 -am -m -am2 -i -y -ey3 -e (present), zero (past)

Pl. 1 -im -ym -eym2 -in -yn -eyn3 -an -n -an

§3.4.3. The imperative forms are usually without an ending for the singular, as bizâr “put!” bérbin “cut!” dáband “shut!” The ending -e appears in bárfise “send!” and hâde “give!” (cf. the plural hâdin! ). Note also the irregular form béšu “go!” which technically employs a -u ending.

§3.5. Tenses

§3.5.1. There are five simple forms: imperative, present indicative, present subjunctive, preterit, and imperfect, as shown in Table 3. The present perfect has only a weak presence in the dialect. Of the periphrastic tenses, the pluper-fect exists, but no past subjunctive or perfect subjunctive occur in the texts. Progressive formations occur only in HS’s material; they employ the locative verb as the auxiliary. Table 3 summarizes all forms.

12 Note HS me-š-am I go, daram mi-š-om I am going, me-šo-m I went, dabom mi-šo-am I was going. These discrepancies in the endings in HS’s data occur despite his efforts to establish pho-netic rules for the endings.


§3.5.2. The present perfect is represented but very weakly in the available data. Let us first look at the following sentences drawn from Zhukovskii’s texts.

(1) čī báxūrdī? (396:2)13 “what did you eat?”(2) gazō tū čī bū? (396:36)14 “what was your food?”(3) pešīmōn vōbú, vasé či men pūli siyōrū hōnégtem (397:20-21)15 “he was regret-

ful: ‘why did I not take the copper coins?’ ”(4) bíōurdan (395-97, ten times)16 “they have brought”(5) duxtéreš pīšeš nesté (395:5) “her daughter is sitting by her”(6) xudō dervō nesté vō tū kōr dōré (397:12)17 “God is sitting outside [and] has

business with you”(7) šiš rūze püsér bázōye (395:4-5) “it is six days (since) she has given birth to

a boy”(8) češm tū bedūxtē’ī be men (396:20) “you have sewn your eye upon me”(9) báfahmī, ke xö:u bedīé (397:20) “he realized that he had dreamed”

In the first four sentences the original Persian present perfect is translated into the preterit, exactly the same way Māzandarāni speakers relay Persian into their language. In (5) and (6) the Persian nešasté is rendered as Tajrishi nesté; both words can be treated as the past participle in a substantive sentence. In the last three examples, the Tajrishi informant has adopted the Persian present perfect; its structure is different from Persian only in the modal prefix be-. It is therefore likely that the informant has been under the influence of Persian.

Aside from the examples above, HS states (31) that the present perfect can be distinguished from the preterit only in the third singular forms, and gives the example baxeri-e “he has bought” vs. baxeri-ø “he bought.”18 Moreover, we find hâdâye “he has given” in GD’s materials.

The data on the present perfect further reinforces our conviction about the position of Tajrishi within the Caspian-Persian dialect continuum in verb morphology. Tajrishi remains loyal to Māzandarāni in its lack of a formal present perfect. In this system the preterit forms may be understood also as the present perfect, should the context allow such an interpretation. We may also make a diachronic observation: in the course of well over a century since Zhukovskii’s documentation, the present perfect has been introduced into

13 For Pers. če xorda’i? “what have you eaten?”14 Pers. gazā-ye šomā če buda ast? “what has been your food?”15 Pers. pašimān šod ke čerā pul-e siāh-rā nagerefte “he was regretful why had he not taken the

copper coins.”16 For the Pers. āvarda-and “they have brought,” an introductory formula in telling

anecdotes. 17 Pers. xodā birun nešasta bā to kār dārad.18 But we find in his data nediyey “you haven’t seen” (30), apparently a preterit form.


Tajrishi via Tehrani Persian, but this happened only in the third person singular.

§3.5.3. The pluperfect is formed by the past participle (see §3.8.2) of the main verb followed by the past tense of “be”: biâma bom “I was coming,” depixta bom “I had twisted,” bezâye bu “she had born.”

§3.5.4. The progressive formation is not found in Zhukovskii’s data, but HS provides examples in which the locative verb (§3.6.2) functions as the auxil-iary: dar-am mi-šom “I am going,” dab-om mi-šo-am “I was going,” dabom miziam “I was beating.”

Table 3Verb Forms (1st person singular)

without preverbsee

with preverbgive

Imperative bé-in hâ-dePresent subjunctive bé-in-am hâ-d-amPresent indicative mé-in-am hâ-m-d-amPresent progressive daram meinam daram hâmdamPreterit bé-di-am *hâ-dâ-mImperfect mé-di-am hâ-m-dâ-mPast progressive dabom mediam *dabom hâmdâmPluperfect be-di-a bom hâ-dâ-y-e bomInfinitive bedián hâdian

§3.6. Be and Become. These verbs are built on the stems tabularized below. The negative is formed with ní-, as in nian “they are not,” denian “there are not.” See Table 4 for conjugations.

be be in become

present zero dar- ged-, vâ-beš-subjunctive bâš- da-bâš- ged-past bu-/bo- da-bo- gedi-, vâ-bo-

§3.6.1. The substantive verb consists of the present stem zero, the past stem bo-, and the subjunctive stem bâš-. “Be” functions as the auxiliary verb in the pluperfect (§3.5.3).


§3.6.2. The locative verb daboan employs the substantive verb prefixed with da(r)-. It is used as auxiliary in the progressive tenses (§3.5.4). The difference between the verbs “be” and “be in” is evident in the following examples: egér duhūneš xūni gurg bū, mōč mīkerdém (395:24) “[even] if her mouth were [smeared with] wolf ’s blood, I [still] would kiss”; egér mōr der angúšti ū dábū, mītam (395:25) “if a snake were on her finger, I would catch [it].” Other examples include:

present indicative: dumōg mūm dīm deré (395:11) “the nose is on the face”present subjunctive: bōyéd yek nefér mektabdōr rūi zemín danábōše (396:10-11)

“there shouldn’t be one schoolmaster on earth”; čīzī ke bedtére ūna nébōše (396:21) “something that there is nothing worse than”

past: sangu tīx xéilī dabú (396:25) “there were many stones and thorns”; köušem pōmde19 dánabū (396:27) “my shoe was not on my foot.”

Table 4To be (in)

present past

Sg. 1 (dar)-am (da-)bom2 (dar)-i (da-)boy3 (dar)-e (da-)bo

Pl. 1 (dar)-im (da-)boym2 (dar)-in (da-)boyn3 (dar)-an (da-)bon

§3.6.3. “Become” is expressed by three verbs.

(1) gedian is used most frequently, as shown in the examples below.

present subjunctivenasībi men gedé duxtéri reští (398:8) “may a Rashti girl be mine!”

present indicativekurbūn megedám “I become sacrificed”mū sérmūn bulénd mégede (395:12) “our head hair gets long”mustejōb mégede (396:9-10) “it becomes fulfilled”kubō ’i mīxekī ōbī námgede (397:35) “the clove pink gown is not possibly (or

‘doesn’t get’) blue”mehebbét ez dílam xōlī námgede (397:36) “from my heart affection will not go

away”

19 For the postposition -de, see §2.3.3.


preteritxalōs gedīám (397:5) “I was relieved”sōkít gedī (397:27-28) “she became silent”

imperfectköušem sūlōx megedī (396:27) “my shoe would become punctured”mustejōb megerdī (396:10) “it would become fulfilled”mariz/xob megediyan (GD) “they would become sick/well”

(2) vâboan, attested only in the past third person singular, employs the past stem of the verb “be” plus the preverb vâ-. Examples: bōz katxudō vōbū (397:17) “he became the village headman again”; gozī xōtïr jam vōbū (397:27) “the judge became confident”; tamom (v)âbo (HS) “it is finished.” Without a prefix, it occurs in the compounds pō būm/bū “I/he stood up,” which shows the fusing of “be” and “become”—a feature common to many Iranian languages.

(3) The stem š-, which otherwise signifies “go” in Tajrishi, but corresponds to the Persian stem šow- “become.” The two examples in Zhukovskii’s glossary occur both with and without the preverb vâ-: mēšam “I become,” xūb vōmbešé (for Pers. xub mišavad ) “it gets well.” The concurrence of the preverb vâ- and the modal prefixes me- and be-, anomalous as it is, attests to the mixed nature of Tajrishi in verb conjugation.

§3.7. Modals include the invariable boyed “must,” as well as the verbs ton-: toness- “can,” xâ-: xâss- “want.” Example: iyōl sīnéšū námīxō bésofe (395:10) “the child doesn’t want to suck her breast.”

§3.8. Verbal nouns

§3.8.1. The infinitive is the past stem affixed with ba- and -an, as in b-engess-an “to throw,” ba-xeri-an “to buy,” ba/be-šo-an “to go.” The stems in -â change to -i- in the infinitive: hâdian (from the past stem dâ-) “to give,” beftian “to fall,” vâysian “to stand.”

§3.8.2. The past participle (p.p.) is formed by the past stem suffixed with -a/-e, and is normally prefixed, e.g. dabessa “tied,” be/ba-šo-a “gone,” biâma “come” (irreg.; from past stem âmo-), gitta “seized” (no prefix). The stems in â may show alteration: hâdia (from past stem dâ-) “given,” but befta (not *beftia) “fallen,” vâysa/isse (not *vâysia) “stood”; cf. the pattern in the infinitive (§3.8.1).

The past participle is the invariable component of the pluperfect (§3.5.3), and is also used as adjective, e.g. nun besuxte “burned bread.” Note the


variation of the terminal vowel in different usages of the p.p.: VŽ béftōya būm “I had fallen” ~ HS befta (p.p.); VŽ isse bu “he had stood” ~ HS vâysa (p.p.); HS baxerie “he has bought”20 ~ HS baxeria (p.p.); VŽ nesté “sat, sitting” ~ HS banessa “id.” We could probably explain this variation if we knew the stress patterns.

Diachronics

§4.0. Historical-comparative phonology attests to the Southwest Iranian posi-tion of Tajrishi.

§4.1. Perside traits are evident in the Old and Middle Iranian strata: Old Ira-nian *dz > /d/ in dun- “know”; *θr > /s/ in püser “son”; *dw- > /d/ in der “door,” diger “other” (< *dvitīya-kara-, cf. Middle Persian didīgar); *y- > /j/ in jâ “place”;21 *-č-, *j- > /z/ in ruz “day,” suz- “burn,” sâz- “make,” riz- “pour,” tiz “sharp,” numâz “prayer”; zen “woman,” zan-: zi- “hit.”

The toponym Tajriš, local pronunciation Tejriš, itself appears to be carrying the Northwest Iranian trait of *-č- > j. It may be derived from *tacara- “palace” (cf. Pers. tazar/tajar “palace”),22 or else *tēj “swift, sharp” or the root *tač “to flow, run,” a common Iranian appellation for the mountainous rivers such as the stream crossing Tajrish. The toponym appears as Tajrešt in the oldest known historical source that cites it (Rāvandi, 112).

§4.2. In the context of the sound changes after the Middle Iranian period, Tajrishi sides with Persian as well: *w- > /b/ or /g/: bâd “wind,” bârun “rain,” bâzâr “market,” bed “bad,” balg “leaf,” bišter “more,” buzurg “big,” bidâr “awake,” bimâr “ill,” band- “tie,” gurg “wolf,” gunâh “sin,” -gzešt- “pass.” Only in the present stem in- “see” may we suspect a reduced form of the non-Perside vin-, but this might as well be a secondary development from bin-, similar to the process shown in §4.5.2.

§4.3. Within the New West Iranian period, Tajrishi, like Persian, shows stabil-ity of the consonantal clusters that are usually reduced in the New Northwest Iranian dialects:

20 For this, see §3.5.2.21 yâ in one instance (396:25) is probably a typographic error.22 See Moʿin, ed., 472; Bartholomae, 629-30.


* xr in xar- “buy”;* xt in duxter “daughter,” pixt- “twist,” suxt- “burn,” sâxt “build,” rixt- “pour,”

duxt- “sew,” -rfuxt- “sell”;* xm in tuxm “egg”;* ft in -škâft- “unstitch,” -šnoft- “hear,” xoft- “sleep,” ( go)ft- “say,” -ft- “fall”; an

exception is git- “seize”;* fr is metathesized in -rfess- “send,” -rfuš- “sell”; only in the preverb hâ- (< *frā-)

do we see the reflex of *fr- > /h/.

§4.4. Postvocalic stops (Old Iranian *t *p *k > /d b g/): (1) The dental conso-nant is preserved in bidâr “awake,” bâd “wind,” bed “bad,” xod- “self,” but is lost in the originally trisyllabic berâr “brother,” in the verb stems bu- “be” šu- “go,” zi- “hit,” and in the past-tense formant -i-. (2) Labials have turned into high vowels, as demonstrated in the examples in §§1.3. (3) -g- remains (HS ruqan “ghee”), but loosens in verb stems, as in the Persian of Tehran: bigzâr “put!” bizâšta (p.p.), mītam (i.e. mí-git-am; cf. the negative honegtam) “I would grab”; but not in bégzeštam “I passed.”

§4.5. Regional traits. (1) *t is voiced in clusters (only in GD’s documenta-tion): mefde “it is falling,” dâšd- “have,” begzešd “it passed.” (2) Initial labials become /v-/ in vâ (Pahlavi apāk > abāg > Pers. bâ) “with,” vase “for,” vor-: vord- (in GD; otherwise bor-: bord- < *bara-: *bŗta-) “carry,” but not in band-: best- “tie.” (3) /r/ is lost in the *rd cluster: ked- “do,” ged- (< gard-), âu(r)d- “bring,” but not elsewhere.

§4.6. Vowels. (1) *āN > /uN/ (in VŽ), otherwise /oN/, a characteristic of Central Caspian dialects. (2) Fronting of the higher back vowels is complete in zi- “hit,” partial in püser, and nonexistent in mu “hair” and dur “far.” (3) Old Iranian *-aka-, via Middle West Iranian -ak/-ag, yields both /-a/ and /-e/. Most likely a lax central vowel in the terminal position and elsewhere has skipped the attention of the collectors.

Lexis

§5.1. Perside lexemes surly dominate: xuer (HS xu(w)âr) “sister” (cf. Maz. xâxər), zen “woman” (Maz. zenâ), girye “cry” (Maz. bərmə), murq “hen” (Maz. kərg), diraxt “tree” (Maz. dâr), xune “house” (Maz. səre, Central Dialects ki(d)a), bozorg “big” (Maz. gat), adisa “sneeze” (also reported by VŽ for Judeo-Kashani; cf. Maz. ašnufə), biâ “come!” (cf. Maz. beru, Central Dialects bur), g- “say” (also Caspian; see Borjian 2008), -ft- “fall” (Maz. da-kaf-), dov- “run”


(Maz. təj-), izâr- “put” (but also n-, which is shared with Maz.), püser “son, boy” (as in Caspian and Pers. ≠ pur in Northwest Iranian).

§5.2. Māzandarāni/Caspian lexical items include sine “breast” (instead of pestān), vase “for” (also in Tehrani Persian), engan-: engess- “throw” (cf. engən-: engu- in Medieval Tabari texts; see Borjian 2009a, 99). Note also the past stem zi- “hit,” with the back vowel (= Maz. ≠ Cent. Caspian and Pers.); š- “go” (as in Central Caspian ≠ Maz. bur-). Interestingly, Tajrishi differentiates between “hand” (dass) and “arm” (bâl ), as in Caspian, but not between “foot” and “leg” ( pâ).

§5.3. Local words shared with the dialects of Lower Jājrud are iâl/yâl “child,” büâ “father,” jöuz “walnut,” kelâ “oven,” while nane/a “mother” is shared with Tehrani Persian; probably also pâr “group, some” (in VŽ; cf. HS pâr-i-š “a part of it”), četouní “how,” vezgak “frog.”

§5.4. Some general Northwest Iranian lexical items are: dim “face”; the pre-verbs dar-, hâ-, etc.

§5.5. Isolated items:

(1) dervâ “outside,” cf. Maz. diryâ (Kandelusi, Yushi dirgâ) “id.” (< dur-gāh “far place” is suggested by Kiā, 145).

(2) xušâr “pressure” (Zhukovskii, 413): if not an error, it bears the highly unusual change of the initial sound f > x.

(3) Tajrishi sof-: sofi- “suck” is also found in the Komisenian dialects around Semnān: Aftari saf-: safâ-, Sangesari vō-sef-: seft-. It may further be compared with the South Tati dialects of Sagzābād and Ebrāhimābād -spet-; the Pamir dialects of Yazgolami spaf-: spaft-, Ishkashmi spof-: spofəd, Shughni sipāft-: sipīft-, Roshni sipāf-: sipēft-;23 Yidgha šuv-, fšauv-: fvsuvd-; Maz. čəf-: čəft- “id.” In the above data we roughly find the differentiation of Perside s- vs. general Iranian sp-; this suggests an original root beginning with *su- (as is the case with “dog”: proto-Indo-European (PIE) *k’uon- > Avestan span-, Median spaka-, Parthian `spg, Aftari espa ≠ Old Pers. *saka- > Pers. sag, Maz. sak). Nevertheless, because we find no related words for “suck” beyond the

23 Morgenstierne, 74, surmises the root *us-paf- for the Shughni group.


abovementioned Iranian stems (cf. PIE root *seuk-, *suk- and *seug-, *sug- in Pokorny, 912-13), we cannot assume an Indo-Iranian or PIE etymon for the Tajrishi sof-: sofi- “suck”. Yet, given the geographic breadth of its likely cog-nates (which goes far and wide to the East Iranian languages of the Pamirs), we may posit a common Iranian root for this word.

The various forms cited above, with their irregularities, and all with sibi-lants (affricate in Maz.) and labials, probably express onomatopoeic renditions of the act of sucking. Conceivably, some of the forms have dissimilation of labials.24

(4) xof- “sleep” is a unique present stem among West Iranian languages; they all use the inchoative stem (e.g. Pers. xofs- < *hwap-s-). The Tajrishi present stem therefore may have derived from the past stem xoft- by analogy with other verbs in which the present and past stems differ only in a final /-t/.

(5) xūtū “throw!” listed only in Zhukovskii’s glossary (while béngan is there as well) is surprising. If not an error, it can be compared with the verb xus-: xost- “throw” in Central Dialects and similar forms in Tatic and Kurdish. But all these languages show a present stem ending in the inchoative /s/.

(6) -šin-: ness-/šind- “sit.” The present stem is no more than the formal Persian nešin- contracted (minšine “he sits”), exactly as it is pronounced in Tehrani col-loquial. The past stem šind-, only attested in GD mišind “he would sit,” is also a contraction (cf. Tajiki dialect šišt-), but the stem formant /d/ is odd among West Iranian dialects, which have the basic forms: nešast-, as in Pers., and ništ-, as in Central Dialects, Kurdish, and Baluchi. Therefore, šind- must have been shaped in analogy with other past stems in /-nd/. Finally, the past stem ness- has parallels in the Komisenian dialects around Semnān (for which, see Chris-tensen, 64, 119, 162).

Conclusion

The genetic investigation above (§4) establishes a solid Perside pedigree for the dialect of Tajrish. This is confirmed by the morpho-syntax of nouns (§2), in which Tajrishi shows no divergence from the Perside group, despite minor variation with respect to modern standard Persian. It is in verb morphology (§3) that we do find in Tajrishi a massive Caspian overlay, imposed on the dialect by means of age-old socio-economic ties with the districts to its north

24 I owe this remark to Prof. Martin Schwartz in a personal communication.


in the Alborz chain. The same reason stands behind the presence of Caspian words in the dialect of Tajrish (§5). We may thus characterize Tajrishi and other Shemirāni dialects as Persian with a significant Caspian imprint.

Surprisingly enough, we find no trace of a Northwest Iranian substratum in the dialect of Tajrish,25 nor do we find it in the scanty material available to us about the other extinct vernaculars of Shemirān. The latter was historically a northern district of the city of Rey, from which survives a substantial amount of linguistic data in the form of fahlavi poems (Tafazzoli; Borjian 2009b, 27-50), and this places the area of Rey squarely within the realm of Northwest Iranian languages. Vernaculars of this type still survive in the provinces adjoin-ing Tehran: to the west the Tati dialects in Qazvin, to the east the Komisenian dialects of Semnān, and to the south the Central Plateau dialects, as well as Māzandarāni to the north. It is on the grounds of this areal pattern that one expects a Northwest Iranian language underlay in the speeches of Shemirān, but all one can find in these is a fairly superficial morphological layer absorbed from the Caspian dialects. This situation can only attest to an early persianiza-tion of Rey and its adjoining settlements.

Glossary of Verbs

ø-: bu- be—číe what is it? kíe who is it? rizōyem I am content, be če kōrī what are you doing? tendurustán they are well, etc.—bū, bōšéd that it be, nébōše (neg.), būm I was, bū he was + HS dabâš be! ø-am, -ey, -e, -im, -in, -an I am, etc., ni-an they aren’t, bom, boy, bo, boym, boyn, bon, I was, etc.; GD bo/bu was || da(r)-~ be in, exist—déram I am in, derī you are in, deré he is in, déran they are in; danábōše that it be not, dábūm I was in, dabū/dábū there was, dánabū (neg.), dábūn they were in + HS daboan to be in; daram, deri, dare, derim, derin, daran I am in, . . .; (de-)ni-am, -ey, -e, -im, -in, -an (neg.); yâdam dare I recall; GD ketâb koje dare where is the book? || (vâ-)~ (past stem only) become—vōbū/vōbú it became, pō būm/bū I, he stood up + HS (vâ)bu it became (see also §3.6)

â(y)-: âmo- come—bíyō that he come, mīōyem I come, bíyōmu he came + HS26 biyâmo-m, -y, -ø, -ym, -yn, -n I came, etc., biyâma (p.p.) || der-~ enter—dérōmu he came in

âr-: âu(r)d- bring—bíyōr! biyōudán to bring, bíyōudan they brought, biyōrda būm I had brought

25 Features such as the past-stem formant -âd- in one verb only (§3.1.1) and a few words common to Northwest Iranian languages (§5.4) are insufficient to establish a Northwestern background for Tajrishi.

26 HS describes biâm- as present stem, which is incorrect.


arz- cost mérze it costsband-: best- || da-~ close; tie—dáband! dábandam that I tie, dábestam I tied,

dábesta būm I had tied + HS dabend! dabess-am, -i, -ø , -im, -n, -an I closed, etc., dabessa (p.p.)

bor-/vor-: bord-/vord- carry—bábur! nábure that he carry not, mú-bur-em, -īn, -en I, you, they carry, múburden they were carrying, báburda būm I had car-ried + GD bavor! bavordan they carried (see §4.5.2)

bus-: busi- kiss—bébūsī-am, -ei, -ø I, you, he kissedček-: čeki- drip—méčeke it drips, báčekī it drippedčelun-: čelund- squeeze—báčelūnem that I squeeze, méčelūndem I was squeezingčerun-: čerund- graze—méčerūnem I graze, báčerūndem I grazedčeš-: češi- taste—méčešem I taste, báčešīam I tastedčin-: či- cut; pick—mīčīnam I pick, béčīam I picked + HS bečia (p.p.)d-: dâ- give (auxiliary)—dō he gave, pas dō he gave back || hâ-~ give—hōde!

hōdīn! hōdam that I give, hōmd-am, -an I, they give, hōnámdam I don’t give; hōdō he gave, hōnédōn they didn’t give, hōmdōm I was giving + HS hâde! hâ-m-d-e he gives, hâ-m-dâ he gave, hâdia (p.p.), hâdian to give; GD hâde! hâdâye he has given

dâr-: dâšt- have—dōr-é, -īm he has, we have, nédōr-e, -en he has not, they have not, dōšt he had, nédōštend they had not + GD dâšd-am, -ø I, he had

don-: doness- know—mēdūnam I know, mēdōnīn (mēdunīn?) you know + HS medonam I know, medonessam I knew

dov-: dovi-/doy- run—médovem I run, médevī you run, médewe he runs, médovī-ø he was running + GD ba-doy-am I ran, me-doy-em we used to run

duz-: duxt- sew—mēdūzam I sew, bedūxtē’ī you have sewn (see §3.5.2)engan-: engess- throw—béngan! + HS27 bengessa (p.p.) (see §5.2)fahm-: fahmi(d )- understand—béfahmī-am, -ø I, he understood, fahmīdé

(p.p.)ft-: (e)ftâ/o- fall—méftem I fall, béftōya būm I had fallen + HS befta (p.p.), beft-

ian to fall; HS befto it fell; GD mefde it is fallingg-: (go)ft- say—bégīn! báge that he say, mégem I say, mīgī you say, megé he says,

mé/mī-gen they say, bá/bé-guft he said, báguftan they said, mīguft he was say-ing + HS namegam I don’t say, (ba)gofta (p.p.); GD migov 28 he would say

ged-: gedi- become—gedé that it become, megedám I become, mégede it becomes, námgede (neg.), gedīám I became, gedī she became, mege(r)dī it would become + HS namgede it becomes not, gedia (p.p.), gedian to become;

27 No present stem is stated by HS.28 Probably migof t, with voicing of the last sound due to the succeeding word.


GD mariz/xob megediyan they would become sick/well || var-~ return29—vargerd! var-me-gerd-ám I return, var-gerdī-ám I returned, var-me-gerdī-ám I was returning, var-gerdīá būm I had returned + HS varged! varged-am, -i, -e, -im, -in, -an I return, etc., vargedia (p.p.)

gerdun-: gerdund- || var-~ give back—várgerdūn! vármegerdūnam I restore, vargerdūndam I returned

gir-: (g)it- get (mostly auxiliary)—bégīram that I get, mītam (i.e. mí-it-am) I would grab—auxiliary in xabár gi ask! ~ mīgīrem I ask, ~ git-ám, -ø, -án I, he, they asked, ~ mīt-am, ī, -án I, you, they would ask, ~ mīgít he would ask, ~ gíta būm I had asked + HS begir! beget, begid he got, va’da gittam I invited, begta (p.p.) || hâ-~ seize—hōgitán to seize, hōnégtem I didn’t take, hōgit he confiscated, hōgita bū he had confiscated + HS hâgir! hâgte, hâgid he got, hâgta (p.p.) || ve-~ pick up—HS vegir! vegta (p.p.)

gzešt- pass—bégzešhtam I passed + GD begzešd it passedhišt- put—béhištam I putin-: di- see—bein (i.e. beyn)! béinam that I see, méinam, mīnam (i.e. mí-in-am)

I see, mīnī you see, bédīam I saw, nédīam I didn’t see, bédī he saw, médīam I was seeing, xö:u bedīé he has dreamed + HS ben! (probably been! ) mine (probably mīne) he sees, bedia (p.p.), nediyey you haven’t seen [= you didn’t see]; GD bedi he saw

iss-: issâ- stand—ísse bū he had stood || vâ-~ stand (up)—HS vâysâ/vâssâ! vây-sian to stand, vâysa (p.p.)

izâr-: izâšt- put—HS bizâr! nizâr! 30 bizâšta (p.p.) (see §4.4.3)jomb-: jombi- move, fidget, squirm—bájumbīam I movedjombun-: jombund- shake—méjumbūnam I shake, bájumbūndam I shookjur- || ve-~ search—vé-m-jūr-am I findkâr-: kâšt-/kârâ- || da-~ sow—dákōr! dákōram that I sow, dákōštam I sowed +

HS dak(k)âr! de-na-m-kârâ-m I don’t sow, dak(k)âšta (p.p.)ken-: kend- dig—bákan! bákendem I pulled out, bákend he took off + GD

bakend he picked (fruits)keš-: keši- pull—HS bak(e)š! bakešia (p.p.)kon-: ked-/ket- do (and auxiliary)—kun! nékun! kunīd! mōč kuném that I kiss,

nigōh kunám that I look; kun-ám, -é, -īm, -én that I, he, we, they do, bákunīm that we do; múkunam, mīkunem I do, múkunī you do, nigōh mukunī you look, adisá mīkuné he sneezes, xandá/giryé mīkuné he is smil-ing/crying, dard mukuné it pains, námīkune it doesn’t—ket, kerd he did, benō ket he began, ōdét kérdam I got used to; mekét he was doing, mōč

29 For this verb, VŽ var-gerd-: gerdi- corresponds to HS var-ged-: gedi-.30 Corrected for nizar.


mīkedém I would kiss, nigōh mekét he was looking, dard mekét it pained, mašk mekért he was practicing, mīkedén they were doing; kedé bū it had done—kunendé (present participle), kedén to do + HS (no prefix be-) mokoni you do, namkonam I do not, töu-kon (present participle) pan, keda (p.p.); GD ferâr ked he ran away, peydâ nakerdam I didn’t find, mikerd he would do || der-~—der-ket he threw out, drew out, led out

lis-: lišt- lick—bélīs! bélištam I lickedmir-: mord- die—mīmīram I die, némīmīre he doesn’t die + HS, GD bamord

he diedmon-: mond-/mund- stay—bámūnd he stayed + HS bamon! bamonda (p.p.);

GD nimum I didn’t stay (?)*n-: nâ- put—češmōyešū be-hem nō (397:21) he closed his eyesnüs-: nüšt- write—bénü:s! bénü:sam that I write, bénüštam I wrote + HS benus!

benušta (p.p.)per-: peri- fly, jump—bápper! mé-per-am, -e I fly, he jumps, bá-perī-am I flied

+ HS bapperia (p.p.)pič-: pixt- || de- wrap, twist—dépīč! démpīčem I twist, dé-pīxt-am, -ø I, he

enfolded, démpīxtam I was wrapping, dépīxta būm I had twistedrbin-: rbi- cut—bérbin! mí-rbin-am I cut, bé-rbī-am, -ei, -ø, -a’īm, -a’īn, -an

that I severed, etc., bérbīa būm I had cutres-: resi- reach; arrive—bérasīm that we reach, mérs-em, -ī I, you arrive,

báresī-ei, -ø you, he arrived + HS bares! baresia (p.p.); GD barsiye it has ripened

rfess-: rfessi- send—bárfise! bárfissam that I send, mérfiss-am, -ī I, you send + HS barfessia (p.p.)

rfuš-: -rfuxt- sell—bérfūš! bérfūšam that I sell, mírfušam I sell, bérfuxtam I sold + HS berfuxta (p.p.)

riz-: rixt- pour—bérīz! bérīxtam I spilledrsun-: -rsund- deliver—bársūn! mérsūnam I deliver, bársūndam I delivered,

mérsūndam I was delivering, bársūnda būm I had deliveredrun- drive—bárūn! mērūnam I drivesâz-: sâxt- make—básōz! mēsōzam I makesof-: sofi- suck31—bésofe that he suck, bésofīam I sucked (see §5.5.3)spor-: spord- entrust—béspur! béspurdam I deligatedsuz-: suxt- burn—mīsūze it burns, besūxté (p.p.)š-: šu- go—béšu! rōh béšu walk! bešú (i.e. be-š-u; irreg.) that he go, mēš-em, -īm

I, we go, mīšú (irreg.) he goes, yōd-am méšu (lit. my memory goes) I’ll for-get; bešú he went, bášu-ø, -n he, they went, méšu-ø, -n he, they would go, bášua būm I had gone + HS bešu! me-š-am I go, daram mi-š-om I am going,

31 For this gloss Zhukovskii also has bémak “suck!” which is obviously a loanword.


me-šo-m I went, dabom mi-šo-am I was going,32 be/ba-šoa (p.p.), ba/be-šoan to go; GD bašum I went, bašu he went, bešo az das it went out of [my] hand, namišun they wouldn’t go || ~ become (see §3.6.3.3) || der-~ go in—der-šu he went through (Russ. proxodit’ )

šin-: ness-/šind- sit—mīšīne he sits, báness he sat, ménessam I used to sit, nesté (p.p.) + HS banessa (p.p.); GD mišind he would sit (see §5.5.6)

škâf-: škâft- unstitch—béškōf ! béškōftam I unstitchedškan-: škest- break—béškan! béškene that he break, béškestam I brokešnof-: šnoft- hear—béšnofem that I hear, námešnefe he doesn’t hear, béšnoft he

heard, námīšnuft he wasn’t hearingterk-: terki- burst—méterkam I explode, báterkīam I explodedters-: tersi- fear—báters! métersam I fear, bátersī-am, -ei, -ø I, you, he feared,

bátersīa būm I had fearedton-: toness- can—métōnam I can, námītūne he cannot + HS battonessa (p.p.)tou-: toui- (tow-: towi-) twist—bátouiam I twisted [it]xâ-: xâss- want—mō-xō-m, -ø, -’im I, he, we want(s), némīxōm I don’t want,

námīxō he doesn’t want, xōss-em, -ø I, he wanted, xōstend they wanted, mīxoss he would want + HS xâssa (p.p.)

xand-: xandi- smile—méxandam I smile, báxandī-am, -ø I, he smiledxar-: xari- buy—méxaram I buy, báxrīam I bought, bāxrīa bū he had bought +

HS baxer! mexeram I buy, baxeri-am, -ey, -ø, -eym, -eyn, -an I bought, etc., baxerie he has bought, baxeria (p.p.), baxerian to buy

xof-: xoft- || da-~ sleep—dáxuf ! dámxuf-am, -e I , it sleep(s), dáxuftam I slept, dāmxuftam I used to sleep, dáxufta būm I had slept + HS daxof ! daxofta (p.p.) (see §5.5.4)

xon-: xund- read—GD baxondim we read, mo/mi-xund he would readxur-: xurd- eat (and auxiliary)—mūxūrī you eat, gūl mūxūrám I am being

tricked, baxūrdém I ate, báxūrdī you ate, námxūrdī you weren’t eating, gussé báxūrt he sorrowed, báxūrda būm I had eaten || vâ-~ drink—vōmxūre he drinks

xut-? throw—xūtū! (see §5.5.5)zâ(y)-: zây- bear—mēzōm I bear, bázōy-am, -e that I, she bear, bázōye she has

born, bázōye bū she had born + GD yâl bezâ’i (transitive) she gave birth to a child, yâl-eš ke bazâ’i (intransitive) when her child was born

zen-: zi- hit (and auxiliary)—bázan! dam/gūl mezenám I utter/trick, bézī-am, -ø I, he hit, bezīán to hit; (auxiliary) töu bézan! ~ mezenám I twist, ~ bezīám I twisted, ~ bézīa būm I had twisted; harf mezenīm we talk, ~ bézīam I talked; sedō bézīam I called + HS mezenam I beat, dabom miziam I was beat-ing, bezia (p.p.)

32 See §3.4.1 for the inconsistency in the endings.


be ø-: bu-be in da(r)-ø-: bu-bear zâ(y)-: zây-become ged-: gedi-; vâ-bu-break -škan-: -škest-bring âr-: âurd-burn suz-: suxt-burst terk-: terki-buy xar-: xari-can ton-: toness-carry bor-/vor : bord-/vord-close da-band-: best-come â(y)-: âmo-cost arz-cut čin-: či-; rbin-: rbi-deliver -rsun-: -rsund-die mir-: mord-dig ken-: kend-do kon-: ked-/ket-drink vâ-xur-: xurd-drip ček-: čeki-drive run-eat xur-: xurd-enter der-â(y)-: âmo-entrust -spor-: -spord-exist da(r)-ø-: bu-expel der-kon-: ket-fall -ft-: -ftâ-fear ters-: tersi-fly per-: peri-give (hâ-)d-: dâ-go š-: šu-go in der-š-: šu-graze čerun-: čerund-have dâr-: dâšt-hear -šnof-: -šnoft-hit zen-: zi-kiss bus-: busi-know don-: doness-

lick lis-: lišt-make sâz-: sâxt-move jomb-: jombi-pass -gzešt-pick up ve-gir-: (g)it-pour riz-: rixt-pull keš-: keši-put n-: nâ-; hišt-; izâr-: izâšt-reach res-: resi-read xon-: xund-return var-ged-: gedi-; var-gerdun-:

gerdund-run dov-: dovi-/doy-say g-: ( go)ft-search ve-jur-see in-: di-seize (hâ-)gir-: (g)it-sell -rfuš-: -rfuxt-send -rfess-: -rfessi-sew duz-: duxt-shake jombun-: jombund-sit šin-: ness-/šind-sleep da-xof-: xoft-smile xand-: xandi-sow da-kâr-: kâšt-/kârâ-squeeze čelun-: čelund-stand (vâ-)iss-: issâ-stay mon-: mond-/mund-suck sof-: sofi-taste češ-: češi-throw engan-: engess-; xut-tie da-band-: best-twist pič-: pixt-; tou-: toui-understand fahm-: fahmi-unstitch -škâf-: -škâft-want xâ-: xâss-wrap pič-: pixt-write nüs-: nüšt-

English-Tajrishi


Abbreviations

GD = G. Deyhim (see References)HS = H. Sāmeʿi (see References)Maz. = Māzandarānip.p. = past participlePers. = modern Persianpl. = pluralsg. = singularVŽ = V. Zhukovskii (see References)a colon (:) separates the present and the past stem of verbs

References

Christian Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strassburg, 1904.H. Borjian, “Tabarica II: Some Mazandarani verbs,” Iran and the Caucasus 12.1 (2008),

pp. 73-82.Idem, Motun-e tabari/Tabari Texts, Tehran, 2009a.Idem, “Yek dobeyti-e pahlavi (a Pahlavi quatrain),” Āyena-ye mirās 6.4 (2009b), ser. no. 43,

pp. 147-52.Idem, “Kalārestāq ii. The Dialect,” Encyclopaedia Iranica XV, New York, 2010, pp. 370-73;

also available at www.iranicaonline.org.Idem, “The Dialects of Velatru and Gachsar,” JRAS, forthcoming.Arthur Christensen, Contribution à la dialectologie iranienne II, Copenhagen, 1935.Giti Deyhim, Khorda-guyeshhā-ye mantaqa-ye Qasrān, Tehran, 2005.ʿAli-Asghar Jahāngiri, Kandelus, Tehran, 1988.Hoseyn Karimān, Qasrān, 2 vols., Tehran, 2006.Sādeq Kiā, Tāj o takht, Tehran, 1969.Mohammad Moʿin, ed., Borhān-e qāteʿ I, Tehran 1951.Georg Morgenstierne, Etymological Vocabulary of the Shughni Group, Wiesbaden, 1974.Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2 vols., Vienna, 1969.Mohammad b. ʿAli Rāvandi, Rāhat al-sodur va āyat al-sorur, ed. M. Eqbāl and M. Minovi,

2nd ed., Tehran, 1958.ʿAli-Ashraf Sādeqi, “Nemunahā-yi az guyesh-e tajrishi az bish-az hashtād sāl-e pish,” Majalla-ye

zabānshenāsi 19.2 (2005), pp. 37-47.Hoseyn Sāmeʿi, “Guyesh-e tajrishi,” Majalla-ye zabānshenāsi 19.2 (2005), pp. 27-36.Donald Stilo, “Gilān x. Languages,” Encyclopaedia Iranica X, New York, 2001, pp. 660-68; also

available at www.iranicaonline.org.Ahmad Tafazzoli, “Fahlaviyāt,” Encyclopaedia Iranica IX, New York, 1999, pp. 158-62.Sirus Tāhbāz, Yush, Tehran, 1963.V.A. Zhukovskii (Zhukovskiy), Materialy dlya izucheniya persidskikh’ narechiy I-II, Petrograd,

1888-1922.

“The extinct dialect of Tajrish: Caspian or Persian?”

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