Semnani (سمنی زفون, Semani zefön) (known also as Komisenian languages) is one of the local languages of the Semnan province of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. Despite the common misconception that Semnani is a Persian dialect, the language belongs to the Northwestern branch of the

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

. Like other

Caspian languages The Caspian languages are a branch of Northwestern Iranian languages spoken in northern Iran and south-eastern Azerbaijan, south of the Caspian Sea. They are unique in that they share certain typological features with Kartvelian languages ...

, it bears some resemblance to the Old Iranian

Median language Median (also Medean or Medic) is an extinct Iranian language which was spoken by the now extinct ancient Medes. It belongs to the Northwestern branch of the Iranian language family, which includes many other much more recently attested and dif ...

and was influenced by Parthian 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 one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosi ...

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