Map of Caspian Languages in Iran and Azerbaijan

Semnani (سمنی زفون, Semani zefön) is one of the local languages of the Semnan 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 ...

. Despite the common misconception that Semnani is a

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 ...

dialect, the language belongs to the Northwestern branch of the

Western 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. Languages The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southwestern languages, rather than a ge ...

. Like other Caspian languages, it bears some resemblance to the Old Iranian

Median language The Median language (also Medean or Medic) was the language of the Medes. It is an Old Iranian language and classified as belonging to the Northwestern Iranian subfamily, which includes many other languages such as Old Azeri, Gilaki, Mazandara ...

and was influenced by

Parthian Parthian may be: Historical * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery skill famously employed by ...

in a later process.

Phonology

Consonants

(Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.

Allophones In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...

are in parentheses.)

Grammar

Syntax

Subjects in Semnani must have gender agreement with the verb in their immediate clause.

Notes

Bibliography

Pierre Lecoq. 1989. "Les dialectes caspiens et les dialectes du nord-ouest de l'Iran," ''Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum''. Ed. Rüdiger Schmitt. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Pages 296-314. Northwestern Iranian languages Caspian languages {{Iran-stub th:กลุ่มภาษาเซมมานี