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The Tāti Dialect of Kajal
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
Kajali is a Tāti dialect spoken in at least two, and possibly more, villages in Khalkhāl, the south-eastern province of Persian Āzarbāijān. Kajal, the main village where this dialect is spoken, lies in Kāghaz-konān, the southwestern district of Khalkhāl, and has a population of over 400 persons, who live mainly by cultivating cereals (particularly wheat and barley), growing fruit, and keeping a small number of farm animals. Most of the Kajali men go to Tālesh, the Caspian province east of Khalkhāl, during the winter to work, and return for the summer.
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- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 1960 , pp. 275 - 286
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1960
References
1 A. A. Karang, however, in a short article ‘Khalkhāli, yek lahje az Āzari’, Jahān-e Akhlāq (Tabriz), 1335 [1956], 82 ff.Google Scholar (the offprints bear the date 1334), mentions three more villages where, he thinks, Kajali is ‘well known’.
2 ‘The dialect of Shāhrud (Khalkhāl)’, BSOAS, XXII, 1, 1959, 52 ff.Google Scholar
3 By Shāhrudi here is meant only the dialects of Shāl and Kulur, so far studied. I shall use Shāh, for Shāhrudi and Kaj. for Kajali, S. Tāt. for Tāti dialects spoken to the south of Qazvin, i.e. Tākestāni, Čāli, Eštehardi, Sagz-ābādi, and Ebrāhim-ābādi, and Tāl. for Tāleši.
1 On the marked predilection of Kaj. for the h sound see below.
2 See Yarshater, , op. cit., 60.Google Scholar
3 cf., e.g., Kaj. dada ‘father’, nana ‘mother’, berālëg ‘brother’, howlig ‘sister’, with Shāh, pe, mā, bərā, xāv; gəla, an enumerator, is not used in Kaj.; azi ‘I’ (beside az) is a Kaj. peculiarity.
4 a- and ā- are the most frequently used preverbs in both dialects, as well as in S. Tāt. and Tāl.; cf. Miller, B. V., Talïšskiy yazïk, Moscow, 1953, 135 ff.Google Scholar, and Yarshater, , op. cit., 61.Google Scholar
5 My conclusions are based on limited texts. Much of the short time at my disposal was spent in eliciting examples to clarify the distinction of gender in the dialect. Therefore, it is with due reservation that I present this grammatical sketch.
1 This variation may be a matter of personal preference. Karang, op. cit., has ghüjd (γüžd), maghu, ghanšar, against my gužd ‘meat’, māgow ‘cow’, gonšār ‘before, earlier’. In Tāti of Tākestān, likewise, some speakers use [γ] for g in a number of words, e.g. moγo bešem ‘I want to go’.
2 y and w glides are heard whenever i and u are followed by another vowel, since the dialect does not tolerate hiatus: amieyron (-iyey-) ‘you have come’, cuār (-uwā-) ‘four’.
3 As I have given all the words in my texts where [I] occurs, I shall write i for [I] henceforth. Further investigation may prove [I] to be a separate phoneme.
4 Where it has been possible to observe such variation I write ë, which indicates ‘e or ō’.
5 Probably under the influence of tō ‘thou’.
1 o and e
, therefore, may be treated as variants of the normal ow and ey.
2 cf. Yarshater, , op. cit., 56 ff.Google Scholar
3 We may have another instance of this rhotacism in zāron obl. pl. of zā ‘son’ ( < *zāta-). However, since r is also used as an intervocalic intrusive glide, this may be doubted (cf., e.g., injā-r-im ‘I am here’).
4 ruj ‘day’ alternates with ruž in Jabaruti's dialect (a Tāleši influence?). His uncle had ruž only.
1 In these endings, as well as in concord of nouns with their numerals, Kaj. agrees almost entirely with Čāli.
2 However, not all words ending in -a are Fem.; cf. suka'la ‘rooster’, xaso'ra ‘wife's father’ (xasori(g) ‘wife's mother’); but note that in these examples -a, unlike the Fem, ending, is stressed.
1 In compound tenses the auxiliary shows the gender.
2 cf. the irregular pairs: beše ‘he went’, bešō ‘she went’; bebe/bebiā ‘he/she was’; further of. came-rā i quc-i este ‘I have a ram’, came-rā i pas-i-a estā ‘I have a sheep’.
3 In this verb r is often syllabic: Imp. bāk(e)r(e)n!, Pret. Sg. 1. bākerim (NPers. equivalent kašidan).
4 The suffix -i serves as the indefinite article. It is attached to the noun, which may be preceded by i ‘one’: sar-i ‘a head’, i dast-i-a ‘a hand (F)’.
5 Occasional irregularity occurs, e.g. hōrdan agi beba(r) ‘take (and) carry the child’.
6 A destination seems always to be expressed in the direct case: ame šav miāyām šōma ka ‘in the evening we come to your house’ (cf. key-ku ‘from the house’), pašarā beše ša r ‘the day after to-morrow go to town’; cf. also ciya pāš [sic] bomeyim deh ‘after that we came to town’ (Karang, , op. cit., 91).Google Scholar
1 azi is peculiar to Kaj. It varies freely with az and both are attested in many examples, e.g. azi nāxošim ‘I am ill’, az har sāl nāxoš mibašem ‘I become ill every year’.
2 tō is the regular form; once I have noted tü (text II); atö is based on the following exx.: aman tō hic vinde? aman atō vinda ni, a(m) vinde ‘Have you ever seen me? I have not seen you (but) him I have seen’, xeyli vaxte atō-m vinda ni ‘I have not seen you for a long time’.
3 Note that the verb gah-/gahast- ‘to want, have to’ takes an obl. or encl. pron. as its agent, e.g. avon megaha bešinde bāzār ‘they want to go to the market’ (lit., it is necessary for them …).
4 When suffixed to a word ending in a consonant these pronouns are preceded by a connective -e-.
5 Of other pronominal forms the following were noted: im ‘this (M)’, ima ‘this (F)’, injim, obl. injime ‘this, this one’, aja ‘that, that one’ (see the texts).
1 In all tenses b(e)- is dropped when the verb has a preverb.
2 I have a curious form in my notes, pason ābāst ‘tether the sheep!’, which I find difficult to explain.
3 cf. kera in Shāh. and S. Tāl.; in Asālemi kora bamam ‘I am coming (immediately)’, korəm ome ‘I am (in the process of) coming’ (cf. Yarshater, , op. cit., 60).Google Scholar
4 -i under the palatalizing effect of -j?
5 The stress is lost if the Subj. is used in a conditional sense.
6 In the 3rd Sg. the copula coalesces with the suffix -ā. More often the Subjunctive is used for the Conditional.
1 cf. the Pres. Indic, of Tākestāni, where m(e)- is regularly treated as above: ā-n-xārem ‘I drink’ (Čali ā-mi-xōrōm), o-n-gorem(e) ‘I lift’. Unfortunately I have no example of any Kaj. Pres. Indic, with a preverb, to decide if this rule holds good there too.
2 Professor Henning suggests that this ending may derive from the MPers. passive past in -ihist.
3 im kāleg-a rām biār nia ‘this cat (F) is not apt to be tamed’.
1 An attempt has been made to separate the morphemes by a hyphen, except when merging of sounds has obscured morpheme boundaries, or in case of doubt.
2 cf. dō-š-an, non-an below.
3 I take h- to be an intrusive glide, cf. (h)ara-gir-em, be-(h)ā, aja-(h)a below.
4 Also owjian (Imperative owjan, owžan, Pret, ow'ja, ow'ža) ‘to cast dung to dry it for fuel’ (<. *jan-); cf. owjian above (Imperative ‘owji, Pret, ow'ji) ‘to pick (rice) clean’ (< *či-).
5 Lit., ‘give grass to’
6 Lit., ‘milk its milk’.
7 Lit., ‘top of the milk’.
8 Lit., ‘when you came back’.
9 Lit., ‘wolf’.
1 Lit., ‘take butter’.
2 Wide sashes, usually of wool.
3 Lit., ‘to throw down the bed’.
4 i.e. to get the kernel, when the walnut is still green.
5 Lit., ‘to open the skin’.
6 An earthenware jar used for churning milk by rocking it, v. Yarshater, , op. cit., 63.Google Scholar
7 Ribbon vermicelli made with wheat flour, cf. Tākestāni banjia ‘reshte’.
8 For fuel.
9 For versions in related dialects, see Gr. ir. Ph., 1, 2, 376 ff., and Yarshater, , op. cit., 67.Google Scholar
10 i.e. ce-im ‘that this’?
11 iš-a fem, to *iš ‘one’? Cf. ia fem, of i ‘one’; Tākestāni iš ve iš ne-ve, NPers. equivalent yeki bud yeki nabud.
12 Elsewhere bia was regularly given for ‘she was’.
13 afandi is also used in Asālem for divines.
1 Lit., ‘weeps’.
2 -ra in tü-yra is difficult to account for.
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