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Abstract
The study of the language of religious minorities in Iran is particularly important for understanding the historical development and typology of Iranian languages. Historical and linguistic evidence substantiates the idea that Zoroastrians and Jews in cities in central and western Iran preserved their former vernacular language, whereas the majority of the population replaced it with Persian in the New Iranian period. This paper focuses on the language of Jews in Hamadan and has two main objectives: first, it examines numerous distinctive features of Judeo-Hamadani; second, it reviews and updates recent research to clarify the language origins, using data from new materials recorded during fieldwork in Hamadan from October 2018 to August 2019, and in Yazd in 2017.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation under Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship for experienced researchers (Grant ID: DEU 1201300 FLF-E).
I am grateful to Tehran’s Jewish Association (Anǰoman-e Kalimiyān-e Tehrān) for their kind support of my fieldwork. The director of the association, Dr. Loghman Neoharai, issued permission for my fieldwork and documentation project. The great Haham, Dr. Younes Hamami Lalehzar, provided me with valuable information about the number of speakers of the language in Hamadan, Yazd and Kerman and introduced me to the community. I also would like to express my gratitude to these native speakers, Mr. Shalom Aruniyan (for Judeo-Yazdi), Mr. Nejat Rasad and Bijan Asef (for Judeo-Hamadani) and Mr. Kohan (for Judeo-Isfahani), who with unfailing patience so willingly shared their knowledge with me.
Finally, I thank the anonymous reviewers and the Iranian Studies editors for their careful reading of this manuscript and their insightful comments and suggestions.
Notes
1 Levy, Comprehensive History, 28.
2 Sarshar, “Hamadān.”
3 Jackson, Persia, 148. For more information on the condition of the Jewish community of Hamadan in the nineteenth century see Yeroushalmi, Jews of Iran, 251–5.
4 At the time of his research between 1969 and 1974.
5 Yarshater, “Jewish Communities,” 457.
6 Sahim, “The Dialect of the Jews of Hamadan,” 173.
7 Alliance School was a Jewish school in Hamadan, founded by the Alliance Israélite Universelle in 1900. In 1977 the number of students at Alliance in Hamadan was 673, with 173 Jews (Netzer, “Alliance Israélite Universelle”). This school was dissolved in 1980, one year after Islamic Revolution.
8 Sarshar, “Hamadān.”
9 Abrahamian, Dialectologie Iranienne.
10 Yarshater, “Jewish Communities.”
11 See Stilo, “Hamadān.”
12 Sahim, “The Dialect of the Jews of Hamadan.”
13 The term Judeo-Median has been used by various scholars and refers to the Jewish dialects that have been spoken in central Iran. For this topic, see Borjian, “What is Judeo-Median?”
14 Stilo, “Hamadān.”
15 Naghzguye Kohan, “Negāhi be.”
16 Borjian, “What Is Judeo-Median.”
17 Stilo, “Hamadān.”
18 I recorded about ten hours of language materials. The collected data contains both isolate sentences and continuous texts. I give ca. seventy examples (fifty specimen sentences and twenty used in the text) in this article. The main informant is Nejat Rasad.
19 Stilo, “Hamadān.”
20 Manichaean Parthian examples are from Durkin-Meisterernst, Dictionary of Manichean Texts.
21 Probably a loanword from Persian.
22 For different opinions on the etymology of this word see Korn, Towards a Historical Grammar, 87, fn. 58.
23 I did not find any examples for its occurrence in postvocalic position in my corpus.
24 For this development see also Korn, Towards a Historical Grammar, 94.
25 This root only occurs with preverb he-, namely he-ništ- “to sit.”
26 This form is used in this sentence: mān če zun-ān key yu “I don’t know when he/she comes.”
27 Stilo, “Hamadān.”
28 A pharyngeal /ħ/.
29 There is another variant for “soap” in Judeo-Hamadani, namely, sābin.
30 In Hebrew פיסטוק.
31 See Garusin, Vāže-nāme-ye Hamedāni, 220.
32 Ibid., 170; and Azkāei, Farhang-e mardom-e Hamadan, 181–2.
33 Sahim, “The Dialect of the Jews of Hamadan.”
34 For more information about this word, see Azkāei, Farhang-e mardom-e Hamadan, 238–9 and Garusin, Vāže-nāme-ye Hamedāni, 222.
35 The Hamadani form of this word is tendur. The change of u to i is a common development in JH. For this topic and further examples, see the section on phonological developments.
36 Garusin, Vāže-nāme-ye Hamedāni, 101.
37 Ibid., 235.
38 For further information on this word and other etymologies, see Garusin, Vāže-nāme-ye Hamedāni, 252 and Azkāei, Farhang-e mardom-e Hamadan, 277–8.
39 Azkāei, Farhang-e mardom-e Hamadan, 82.
40 Ibid., 83.
41 Ibid., 119.
42 Garusin, Vāže-nāme-ye Hamedāni, 138.
43 See Windfuhr, “Central Dialects,” Table 29.
44 Gholami, “Pronominal Clitics,” 113.
45 Windfuhr, “Isoglosses: A Sketch,” 462.
46 See Korn, “Western Iranian Pronominal Clitics,” 162–3.
47 Stilo, “Hamadān.”
48 Stilo, “Isfahan.”
49 Stilo, “Hamadān.”
50 For the languages that have a similar present stem structure see Gippert, “Zur dialektalen Stellung des Zazaki,” 92.
51 For this topic, see Korn, “A Partial Tree of Central Iranian”; and Korn, “Isoglosses and Subdivisions of Iranian.”
52 Yarshater, “Azerbaijan”; Borjian, “Median Succumbs to Persian”; Borjian, “Kashan”; Borjian, “Isfahan”; Stilo, “Isfahan.”
53 Borjian, “What is Judeo-Median,” 129.
54 Stilo, “Hamadān.”
55 Borjian, “Judeo-Iranian Languages.”
56 Gindin, “Yazd”; and Netzer, “Studies in the Spoken,” 20.
57 Personal communication with Mr. Mashallah Kohan, a community member in Yazd.
58 In 2017, I undertook a fieldwork trip to Yazd in order to document Judeo-Yazdi. The Yazdi examples are from my collected data during that fieldwork.
59 For this topic, see Netzer, “Hamadan.”
60 Borjian, “What Is Judeo-Median,” 131.
61 Ivanow, “The Gabri Dialect,” 77, See the table Southern Group.
62 Stilo, “Isfahan.”
63 Korn, “A Partial Tree of Central Iranian,” 414.
64 Stilo, “Isfahan.”
65 I gave a talk about “Establishing the genetic relationship between Zoroastrian Dari (Behdini) and Judeo-Yazdi” at ZAS in Berlin in 20 October 2018 and discussed the genetic similarities between these languages.
66 Abrahamian, Dialectologie Iranienne.
67 For dialectology of Bābā Ṭāher Quatrains, see Gholami, “Guyeš-šenāsi-ye aš‘ār-e bābātāher.”
68 Tafazzoli, “Fahlavīyāt.”
69 Tafazzoli, “Fahlaviyāt.”
70 ʿAyn al-Qożāt Hamadāni, Nāmehā, II, 168, 173, 176, 371, 411, 444.
71 Ibid., I, 330; and see Afšār, “Fahlavi.”
72 Ibid., I, 314.
73 Ibid., II, 82.
74 This bayt is called also Owrāma.
75 Ṣādeqi, “Fahlaviyāt-e.”
76 Alternatively ruǰ.
77 Written veym.
78 A bayt of Bondār Rāzi, see ʿAyn al-Qożāt Hamadāni, Nāmehā, II, 82 (71st letter).
79 Written ruḥ.
80 The reading of te-re is uncertain. Written nr. Sadeqi (“Fahlaviyāt-e”) does not read it.
81 Both the reading and translation of this verse are uncertain.
82 Written tbw. For this verse, see ʿAyn al-Qożāt Hamadāni, Nāmehā, II, 176 (81st letter).
83 Siyā vāšāme means “bad fate, bad luck.”
84 Uncertain. Written v’.
85 The rhythm of this part is problematic. Both reading and translation is uncertain. For the verse, see ʿAyn al-Qożāt Hamadāni, Nāmehā, II, 374 (100th letter).
86 Suggested by Ṣādeqi, “Fahlaviyāt-e,” 16, written n’ dm brw unlikely nādem boru “go regretful!”
87 ʿAyn al-Qożāt Hamadāni, Nāmehā, II, 444.
88 Unlikely a plural of zāreǰ “partridge.” The shape of a palm tree is long, opposed to the wide shape of barberries as a shrub, and it is probable that the poet means that “you hit it to the palm tree and berberis with ears.”
89 The meaning of this part is completely uncertain.
90 Ibid., I, 314, 330, 370. For more discussion, see Ṣādeqi, “Fahlaviyāt-e,” 16–17.
91 Korn, “Isoglosses,” 262.
92 Sarshar, “Hamadān viii: Jewish community.”
93 Examples from Azkāei, Farhang-e mardom-e Hamadān, 280.
94 Ibid., 271.
95 In JH vābidan, Example from ibid., 272.
96 Examples from ibid., 61.
97 For further discussion on the suffix -imān see Gholami, “Guyeš.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Saloumeh Gholami
Saloumeh Gholami is Professor of Minority Languages in the Middle East at the Goethe University of Frankfurt.