2013 Articles

Perso-Tabaric Dialects in the Language Transition Zone Bordering Mazanderan

Borjian, Habib

The Tabari (or Mazanderani) language, spoken in the province of Mazanderan south of the Caspian Sea, is bound by Persian in the south and east. The transition zones between the two languages lay in the valleys and foothills of the Alborz range that separates Mazanderan from Tehran, Semnān, and Gorgān provinces. Within this zone we find a range of hybrid dialects that can be divided into two groups: Tabari dialects influenced by Persian and vise versa. This study includes the latter group, i.e. Persian varieties carrying various amounts of Tabari mix. The linguistic data is derived from nearly fifty localities surrounding Mazanderan, mostly from the south-central Alborz adjoining Tehran on the north, for which more material is on hand. The main objective is to show how the Persian dialects converge to Tabari in the morphosyntax of the noun and verb phrases. An attempt is also made to correlate the morphosyntax with the areal distribution of selected lexical items.