Harzandi or Harzani ( Tati: ) is a dialect of the Tati language, spoken in the northern regions of the

East Azarbaijan East Azerbaijan Province ( fa, استان آذربایجان شرقی ''Āzarbāijān-e Sharqi''; az-Arab, شرقی آذربایجان اوستانی) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is located in Iranian Azerbaijan, bordering Armenia, ...

province of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. It is strictly an oral language, and a descendant of the

Old Azeri language Old Azeri (also spelled Adhari, Azeri or Azari) is the extinct Iranian language that was once spoken in the northwestern Iranian historic region of Azerbaijan (Iranian Azerbaijan) before the Turkification of the region. Some linguists believe th ...

that has long been extinct as a result of the diffusion of

Turkish Turkish may refer to: *a Turkic language spoken by the Turks * of or about Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities and mi ...

in the area.Karimzadeh, J. 1994: "The Verbal Constructions in Azari (Harzani Dialect)." Master's thesis, Tarbiat Modarres University.

General Information

Harzani Tati is considered an endangered language with a little less than 30,000 speakers in present day. Harzani
at ''Ethnologue'' (17th Edition, 2014)] Its speakers principally reside in the Harzandat-e Gharbi Rural District, rural district of Harzand, particularly in the village known as Galin Qayah. Harzani is also present in the neighboring villages of Babratein and Dash Harzand. As of now, Harzani has not been formally recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and thus receives no government support. Harzani
at ''Languages of the World (LLOW)''

Language Features

Like other languages and dialects of the Iranian language family, Harzani follows a

subject–object–verb Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...

(SOV) word order. It has nine vowels, and shares a consonant inventory with

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

. It further exhibits a

split-ergative In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergati ...

case system: its present tense is structured to follow nominative-accusative patterning, while its past tense follows ergative-absolutive. One characteristic that distinguishes Harzani from related

Northwestern Iranian languages The Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranic languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC) and Median language, Median. Languages The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southwestern languages, ...

is its change from an intervocalic /d/ to an /r/. It also has a tendency to lengthen its vowels. For instance, it has the closed vowel /oe/.

Nouns and Pronouns

Nouns and pronouns in Harzani do not reflect

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

, but they do express

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...

. Nouns, in particular, encode two cases:

direct Direct may refer to: Mathematics * Directed set, in order theory * Direct limit of (pre), sheaves * Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces Computing * Direct access (disambiguation), a ...

and

oblique case In grammar, an oblique (abbreviated ; from la, casus obliquus) or objective case (abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case, and sometimes, the vocative. A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role exc ...

, the first of which is not rendered morphologically, but the second is by attaching a suffix. Meanwhile, personal pronouns have three cases: direct, oblique, and

possessive A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict owne ...

Verbs

Verbs in Harzani are inflected for present tense and past tense. Information concerning person and number is reflected in suffixes that attach to these two verb stems. Modal and aspectual information is expressed using prefixes.

Numeral System

Part of Harzani's counting system is as follows:
at Eugene Chan's Catalog of the World's Numeral Systems

General Information

Language Features

Nouns and Pronouns

Verbs

Numeral System

Sample Words

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Categories