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Abstract
Farvi, also known as Farrokhi, is an Iranian language spoken in the village of Farvi in Khur district of Kavir desert in central Iran. It shares features with other languages in Kavir region such as Khuri, Irāji and Garmayi. This paper describes synchronic and historical phonology and the grammar of Farvi based on data collected in Farvi village during April 2019. The study of historical phonology and morphological evidence show that though basically Northwestern, Farvi shares some features with Southwestern Iranian languages so that, like Kurdish and Balochi, it is separated from the other Northwestern Iranian languages. In later changes, Farvi shows some areal features that put it alongside Southeastern languages such as Northern Bashgardi and Balochi.
Notes
1 I prefer to use “language” for non-oficial New Iranian languages mostly known as Iranian dialects, instead of the conventional and more commom term of “dialect.”
2 Windfuhr, Central Dialects, Classification of the central dialects; Lecoq, “Le dialectes du centre de l’Iran,” 314.
3 Frye, “Report on a Trip to Iran.”
4 Kiā, “Yāddāšti darbāra-ye guyeš-e Farvigi.”
5 Kiā, Vāženāma-ye šast-o-haft guyeš-e Irāni.
6 Borjian, “Farvi Dialect.”
7 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur.”
8 As there is a distinction between â ([ɑ] in IPA and corresponding to Persian conventional ā) versus ā ([æ:] in IPA which is a long æ), I prefer to use â instead of conventional ā even for Persian words.
9 Basically gā but with a suffix or enclitic: gāv, e.g. ya gāvī “a cow.”
10 Cf. Rudbāri (a variety of northern Bashgardi) in southern Kerman: rieht-/riez- “to pour” (tr.), pieš “before, front,” sueht-/suez- “to burn” (tr.), kueh “mountain”; see Motallebi, “Rudbāri Dialect,” 35–40.
11 Borjian, “Dialect of Khur,” 81.
12 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 81.
13 Korn, “Balochi and the Concept,” 56.
14 Since many of the words are found passim in references, I will reference using page number only when it seems necessary.
15 Pireyko, Talyšsko-Russkij Slovar, 88; Yazdani, Sāxtār-e dasturi va vāženāme-ye Gazi, 386; Taheri, Guyeš-e Lori Boirahmadi, 218; and Eqtedari, Farhang-e Lārestani, 361. For the etymology and New Eastern Iranian cognates see Steblin-Kamenskiy, Etimologicheskiy Slovar Wakhanskogo yazika, 165.
16 Mackenzie, “Notes on the Transcription of Pahlavi,” 26, note 29.
17 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 91–2.
18 Korn, Toward a Historical Grammar of Balochi, 104, 135; MacKenzie, “Origin of Kurdish,” 73.
19 Cf. Asatrian, “Iranian Notes III,” 322; on the second part cf. Bakhtiari åxūn, Meymai âhūn.
20 Yarshater, Grammar of Southern Tati Dialects, 70.
21 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 92.
22 Borjian, “Farvi Dialect.”
23 Cf. Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 92.
24 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 93.
25 Cf. Paul, “Position of Zazaki,” 170, note 29.
26 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 93.
27 Ibid.
28 Borjian, “Farvi Dialect.”
29 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 95.
30 Ibid., 92.
31 MacKenzie, “Origin of Kurdish,” 70.
32 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 81.
33 Special construction for this verb is that the present form is also conjugated ergatively like the past form. This is also found in some other Central dialects. Cf. Jarquyai: yon jinjiyon nūn-oš gue “this woman wants food” (the author’s fieldwork data), Jowshaqani: vačiun-e man palåu šu=agī “my children want pilaf” (Borjian, “The Dialect of Jowshaqan,” 108).
34 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 82.
35 The pronoun is exactly pronounced as a nasalized open o ([ɔ] in IPA) that may be recorded as -ã. I prefer to use -õ instead of -ã. The same is true for the first singular ending (see below).
36 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 83.
37 Cf. Mackenzie, “Origin of Kurdish,” 83.
38 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 82.
39 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 85.
40 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 84.
41 Windfuhr, “Central Dialects,” verbal morphology; it is from the older *at- and appears as ed- in Ashtiani and Amora’i, e.g. ed-gīro “he takes,” ed-ām “I say”; as to- in Kahaki, e.g. to-vāje “he says,” and as et- in Khansari, e.g. et-kuš-ān “I kill.”
42 MacKenzie, Kurdish Dialect Studies, I, 87.
43 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 84.
44 Borjian, “Dialect of Jowshaqan,” 105.
45 Normally “to have” is expressed by a combination of an enclitic pronoun and the verb “to be,” e.g. tiahrũ komi-ad ha “do you have someone (a relative) in Tehran” (literally: “is there anyone in Tehran for you”), ya niangī-am bī “we had a hen” (literally: “there was a hen for us”).
46 Windfuhr, “Central Dialects,” ergative.
47 Fathi Borujeni, Guyeš-e Meyma’i, 109, 111.
48 Borjian has documented the suffix as -e in Khuri, though the form -eh can be seen in the past stem: gōfe-/gōfehâ- “be woven,” h interpreted by him as an epenthesis -h-.
49 Paul, “Position of Zazaki,” 170, note 29. Paul believes that Khuri hezūn is from older *ezwān- and initial h- seems to be prothetic not etymological. As there is no similar example for addition of initial h- in Farvi, I think hezūn is more probably from OP hazāna-.
50 Taheri, Guyeš-e Lori Boirahmadi, 151.
51 See Korn, Toward a Historical Grammar, 163; Skjærvø, “Baškardi”; Skjærvø, “Languages of Southern Iran,” 365. Cf. Balochi pārīg “last year,” pahlūg “ribs,” bandīk “thread”; Northern Bashgardi bāhūg “arm,” nueg “new,” sāg “shadow”; Kumzāri starg “star,” häymaγ “firewood.”
52 Borjian, “The Dialect of Khur,” 95.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Esfandiar Taheri
Esfandiar Taheri is Assistant Professor of Iranian languages of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Isfahan, Iran. He holds a PhD in Ancient Iranian languages (Tehran, 2006) and has publications on New Iranian languages, especially of the Bakhtiari, Boirahmadi, and central Iranian languages including two books on Bakhtiari dialect of Kuhrang (Tehran 2010), Lori dialect of Boirahmad (Tehran 2016), and a project on documentation of Jowshaqani, a central Iranian languages (SOAS, 2017). Currently his research interests focus on the documentation and description of endangered Iranian languages especially in central Iran.