The Yazgulyam language (also Yazgulami, Yazgulyami, Iazgulem, Yazgulam, Yazgulyamskiy, Jazguljamskij, Qzgulqmski
tg, yazgulomi) is a member of the Southeastern subgroup of the
Iranian languages, spoken by around 9,000 people along the
Yazgulyam River
The Yazghulom ( tg, Язғулом ''Yazghulom'') is a river in Vanj district, western Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan. It is a right tributary of the Panj (upper Oxus). The river is long and has a basin area of .[Gorno-Badakhshan
Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region,, abbr. / is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area, but only two perce ...]
,
Tajikistan. Together with
Shugni, it is classified in a Shugni-Yazgulami subgroup of the
areal group of Pamir languages. Virtually all speakers are bilingual in the
Tajik language.
The Yazgulyam people are an exception among the speakers of Pamir languages in that they do not adhere to
Ismailism.
Dialects
The Yazgulami language consists of two dialects: one of these is spoken higher in the mountains, the other lower. The differences are not significant and are limited to the vocabulary. Differences in the vocabulary are also detectable between the languages used in different villages in the lower mountains. The extinct
Vanji language
The Vanji language, also spelt Vanchi and Vanži, is an extinct Iranian language, one of the areal group of Pamir languages. It was spoken in the Vanj River valley in what is now the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan.
In the 19th ...
(also Vanži) is closely related to Yazgulami. Other languages spoken in the Pamirs differ greatly from the Yazgulami language. The disparities are the largest in the vocabulary.
History
The language was first recorded by Russian traveller G. Arandarenko in 1889, listing 34 Yazgulami words recorded in 1882. The language was described in greater detail by French linguist
Robert Gauthiot Robert Edmond Gauthiot (13 June 1876, Paris – 11 September 1916, Paris) was a French Orientalist, linguist and explorer. Born in Paris, he became, in 1909, a member of the Société Asiatique and met Paul Pelliot. Together, they translated the S ...
in ''Notes sur le yazggoulami, dialecte iranien des Confins du Pamir'' (1916).
In 1954 the Yazgulami living on the mountain slopes were resettled, about 20% of them forcibly, to the
Vakhsh valley, where they live dispersed among the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Russians and other ethnic groups.
Phonology
The phonology of the Yazgulyam language differs from the basic "Shugni-Roshani" type in its system of
dorsal consonants: in addition to the velar and uvular stops ''g, k, q'' and fricatives ''x̌, γ̌, x, γ,'', Yazgulami has a palatalised and a labialised series, transcribed as ''ḱ, ǵ'' (palatalised velars), ''k° g° x̌°'' (labialised velars, there is no labialised velar voiced fricative) and ''q° x° γ°'' (labialised uvulars). A significant number of labialised consonants etymologically correspond to Proto-Iranian ''*Cv'' or ''*Cu'', e.g. ''x̌°arg'' < ''*hvaharā-'' "sister", while others are unrelated to Proto-Iranian ''v'', e.g. ''sk°on'' < ''skana-'' "puppy".
This threefold system of articulation of dorsals has been compared typologically to the three reconstructed rows of dorsals in the
Proto-Indo-European language.
Morphology
In the past tense, Yazgulyam has
tripartite
Tripartite means composed of or split into three parts, or refers to three parties. Specifically, it may also refer to any of the following:
* 3 (number)
* Tripartite language
* Tripartite motto
* Tripartite System in British education
* Triparti ...
marking—one of the very few languages in the world to have it at all. This means that the subject of an
intransitive sentence is treated differently from both the subject and the object of a
transitive sentence.
[ Dixon, R.M.W. (1994). ''Ergativity''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 40.]
Literature
*Ėdel’man, D.I. ''Jazguljamskij jazyk''. Moskva: Nauka, 1966.
*Ėdel’man, D.I. ''Jazguljamsko-russkij slovar’''. Moskva: Nauka, 1971.
*
Zarubin, I.I. Two Yazghulāmī Texts. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 1936, vol. 8, no. 2/3, p. 875-881.
*Payne, John, "Pamir languages" in: Rüdiger Schmitt (ed.), ''Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum'', 417–444. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1989.
References
External links
Eki.ee/books/redbook/yazgulamis/shtml
Grierson G. A. Ishkashmi, Zebaki, and Yazghulami, an account of three Eranian dialects. (1920)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yazgulyam Language
Pamir languages
Eastern Iranian languages
Languages of Tajikistan
Endangered Iranian languages