Aimaq or Aimaqi ( fa, ایماقی, Aimāqi) is the dominant eastern
Persian ethnolect
An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that mark speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, di ...
spoken by the
Aimaq people
The Aimaq ( fa, ایماق, Aimāq) or Chahar Aimaq (), also transliterated as Aimagh, Aimak and Aymaq, are a collection of Sunni and mostly Persian-speaking nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. They live mostly in the central and western highlands ...
in central northwest
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
(west of the
Hazarajat
Hazaristan ( fa, هزارستان, Hazāristān), or Hazarajat ( fa, هزارهجات, Hazārajāt) is a mostly mountainous region in the central highlands of Afghanistan, among the Koh-i-Baba mountains in the western extremities of the ...
) and eastern
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 close to the
Dari
Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī ...
varieties of Persian. The Aimaq people are thought to have a 5–15% literacy rate.
Dialects
Subdialects of Aimaq dialect include:
* Changezi
* Firozkohi
* Jamshidi or Jamshedi (also known as Djamchidi, Yemchidi, or Dzhemshid)
* Maliki
* Mizmast
* Taimani
* Timuri or Taimuri
* Zainal
* Zohri (also known as Zuri)
Phonology
Phonetically, as one of the eastern Persian dialects, the Aimaq dialect resembles a formal or classical form of
Persian.
Vowels:
* The "majhul" vowels ''ē'' / ''ī'' and ''ō'' / ''ū'' are still kept separate, whereas in
western Persian
Iranian Persian, Western Persian or Western Farsi, natively simply known as Persian (, ), refers to the varieties of the modern Persian language spoken in Iran and by minorities in neighboring countries, as well as by Iranian communities th ...
they are merged as ''ī'' and ''ū'' respectively. For instance, the identically written words شیر 'lion' and 'milk' are in western Persian both pronounced
īr but in Aimaq
ērfor 'lion' and
īrfor 'milk'. The long vowel in زود 'quick' and زور 'strong' is realized as
in western Persian, in contrast, these words are pronounced as
ūdand
ōrrespectively by Aimaq speakers.
* The
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s of early Classical Persian ''aw'' (as ''ow'' in Engl. ''cow'') and ''ay'' (as ''i'' in English ''ice'') have in Aimaq become (as in Engl. ''low'') and (as in Engl. ''day''). Dari, on the other hand, is more archaic, e.g. نوروز 'Persian New Year' is realized as in Iranian, and in Aimaq, and نخیر 'no' is uttered as in Iranian, and as in Aimaq.
* The high short vowels
and
tend to be lowered in western Persian to
and
* and are in Aimaq kept separate in word-final positions, unlike western Persian, where has as a word-final allophone.
Consonants:
* Aimaq still retains the (classical) bilabial pronunciation of the labial consonant و, which is realized as a
voiced labiodental fricative
The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v.
The sound is similar to ...
in western Persian. is found in Aimaq as an allophone of ''f'' before voiced consonants.
* The
voiced uvular stop
The voiced uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G\.
is a rare sound, even ...
(ق) and
voiced velar fricative
The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...
(غ) are still kept separate in Aimaq. They have coincided in western Persian (probably under the influence of Turkic languages like
Azeri
Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most nume ...
and
Turkmen).
[A. Pisowicz, ''Origins of the New and Middle Persian phonological systems'' (Cracow 1985), p. 112-114, 117.]
See also
*
Hazaragi dialect
Hazaragi ( fa, , Həzārəgī; haz, , links=no, Āzərəgī) is an eastern dialect of Persian that is spoken by the Hazara people, primarily in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, as well as other Hazara-populated areas of Afghanist ...
References
Footnotes
Notations
*Clifton, John M. (ed.) (2005) ''Studies in languages of Tajikistan'' North Eurasia Group, SIL International, St Petersburg, Russia
OCLC 122939499
Eastern Persian dialects in Afghanistan
Languages of Iran
Languages of Tajikistan
{{ie-lang-stub