Bakhtiari dialect (), also called Bakhtiari Luri, is a variety of the Luri language spoken by the Bakhtiari people in the central Zagros Mountains and southwestern Iran. It belongs to the Southwestern Iranian branch and is closely related to Persian.
Luri has three main varieties: Northern Luri, Bakhtiari and Southern Luri. Bakhtiari is linguistically intermediate between the other two. Erik Anonby treats the three as distinct languages within a continuum, although many sources still describe Bakhtiari as a "dialect".
In the traditional division of the Lurs into the "Greater Lurs" (Lor-e bozorg) and the "Lesser Lurs" (Lor-e kuček), the Bakhtiari belong, together with the Southern Luri-speaking groups, to the Greater Lurs.
Classification Bakhtiari is very closely related to the Boyer-Ahmadi, Kohgiluyeh and Mamasani varieties to the south. Together with the Luri varieties to the west and north, these form the "Perside" southern Zagros group. This group is set apart from the Kurdish varieties of the northern Zagros. Bakhtiari nonetheless shares a number of lexical, morphological and phonological features with Kurdish. Examples include: the words piā 'man', korr 'boy', bard 'stone' and mul 'neck'; the so-called "Zagros d": the lenition or loss of d between vowels.
Taken together, the Luri varieties form a continuum between Kurdish and the Southwestern Iranian varieties of Fars province, including Persian. Bakhtiari sits in the middle of this continuum. Even so, it is not mutually intelligible with the varieties at either end, such as Khorramabadi in the north and Mamasani in the south.
The word for 'finger' illustrates the continuum: kilīk in Northern Luri; kilīj in Haft Lang Bakhtiari; kilīč in Boyer-Ahmadi; tīlū in Mamasani. Under Persian influence, the Chahar Lang varieties of Bakhtiari have angulī, and the Bakhtiari of Masjed Soleyman has angušt.
Views on origin Donald Stilo describes the modern Southwestern Iranian languages, including Persian and Luri-Bakhtiari, as derived directly from Old Persian through Middle Persian. Colin MacKinnon gives a more specific account. In his view, all Luri dialects closely resemble standard Persian. They probably developed from a stage of Persian similar to that of Early New Persian texts written in Arabic script. The only typically Luri feature not found in Early New Persian is the inchoative marker, and even this occurs in Judeo-Persian texts.
The Bakhtiari writer Mohsen Farsani, in his introduction to the collected poems of 'Molla Zolfali Bakhtiari', describes the dialect as close to Pahlavi. He attributes its conservatism to the mountainous terrain, which in his view limited mixing with Turkic and Arabic.
Geographic distribution and speakers Bakhtiari is spoken mainly in Khuzestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari and eastern Lorestan. Anonby estimates its speakers at over one million. Another estimate puts the figure at about 1,270,000.
The Bakhtiari tribe is one of the two largest tribes in Iran; the other is the Qashqai. In the 1970s the Bakhtiari numbered about 600,000, of whom roughly one third were nomadic. Settled Bakhtiari live in towns and villages in Chaharmahal, in the Fereydan district down to Isfahan, and in Khuzestan down to Ahvaz.
The tribal territory (khak-e il-e Bakhtiari) covers roughly 75,000 km2. It stretches from the Dez River, Shushtar and Ramhormoz in the west to Daran and the outskirts of Shahr-e Kord in the east. The boundary between the summer pastures (yeylāq) and winter pastures (garmsir) roughly follows the Bazoft River. As a result, the summer quarters lie in Chaharmahal and the winter quarters in Khuzestan.
Ethnic identity and language use do not always coincide. In Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, the numbers of Luri and Persian speakers are roughly equal. Around Shahr-e Kord, varieties that are structurally closer to Luri than to Persian are spoken by people who identify as ethnically Persian. Ethnic statistics therefore cannot be equated with speaker numbers.
According to an official Iranian report, the Bakhtiari make up about 75 percent of the population of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province. In Isfahan province they made up about 8 percent of the population in 2010. Between 2006 and 2011, about 56.6 percent of migrants leaving Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province moved to Isfahan province. The Bakhtiari are also one of the major ethnic groups of Khuzestan.
+ Areas of Bakhtiari settlement (ethnic) Province Counties and districts Khuzestan Masjed Soleyman, Izeh, Lali, Andika, Haftkel, Bagh-e Malek, Ramhormoz, Dezpart, Gotvand, Shushtar, Dezful, Ahvaz and others Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Most of the province, including Kuhrang (Chelgerd) and Ardal Lorestan Aligudarz, Dorud, Azna Isfahan Fereydan, Daran, Chadegan, Buin Miandasht; in recent decades also Shahin Shahr, Baharestan, Fuladshahr and Isfahan itself Markazi Khomeyn, Shazand Bushehr Jam, Asaluyeh
Varieties The Bakhtiari tribe is divided into two sections, the Haft Lang and the Chahar Lang. Their speech varieties also differ. One of the earliest scholarly studies of Bakhtiari, by Valentin Zhukovsky (1922–1923), deals with these two varieties.
According to Anonby, the main Bakhtiari dialect areas are centred on the following towns and their surroundings: Masjed Soleyman Aligudarz Dorud Chelgerd–Kuhrang Izeh Haftgel
MacKinnon classes the varieties spoken in settled communities of Khuzestan, such as Ramhormoz and Masjed Soleyman, as forms of Greater Luri (Southern Luri in the broad sense).
Ramhormozi The Ramhormozi (Romzi) variety is spoken in Ramhormoz and most of the surrounding villages. Many people in the area belong to Chahar Lang Bakhtiari clans.
Phonology Bakhtiari shows many of the sound changes typical of Southwestern Iranian. For example, Old Iranian initial *w- became b (bēd 'willow'), and initial *y- became j (jūwa 'shirt'). The most distinctive features are listed below.
Consonants Postvocalic d: After a vowel, d becomes a voiced fricative, approximately . In Bakhtiari this sound is apical, not dental. In some positions d is lost entirely; for example duhdar 'daughter, girl' becomes du(w)ar. After consonants, d remains a plain stop. Intervocalic m > w: Among the Luri varieties, this change is characteristic of Bakhtiari. Examples: dūwā 'son-in-law, bridegroom', dūwan 'skirt', jūwa 'dress, shirt'. v and b > w: Where Persian has intervocalic , Bakhtiari has . Intervocalic b also becomes w. An example is wast 'fell'. š > s in personal suffixes: Bakhtiari has -es and -esūn for Persian -eš and -ešūn. The same change appears in īsā 'you (pl.)' and angust 'finger'. Initial x > h: Examples are hār 'thorn' and hōna 'house'. The change is not general; xāstan 'to want' and xārdan 'to eat', for example, keep x. ft and xt > hd: Examples are rahd 'went', guhd 'said' and suhd 'burnt'. Geminates: rr and ll tend to become hr and hl, as in buhr 'break (intransitive)'. ž: is contrastive in Bakhtiari but is the rarest consonant phoneme. Examples: lūža 'evading', žāž 'cheap'. γ and q: Initial usually merges with . Elsewhere the two remain distinct: rōγan 'oil' but čaqū 'knife'. Velar nasal: In some words n before g is pronounced as a velar nasal , as in dang 'sound, voice'.
Vowels Diphthong au: Bakhtiari merged the sequences ab and āb into the diphthong au. Examples: šau 'night', lau 'lip', aftau 'sun'. Nasalization: Final n is deleted, and the preceding vowel is strongly nasalized, as in duhũ: 'mouth'. ā before nasals: ā is raised to ō or ū before n and m. Examples are hōna/hūna 'house' and šōm 'dinner'. The plural suffix -ūn shows the same change. ū > ī: Before certain dental consonants ū became ī. Examples: hīn 'blood', pil 'money', mī 'hair'. Prothesis: Initial consonant clusters take a prothetic vowel, as in espīd 'white' versus Persian sefid. The same pattern is found in Early New Persian texts.
Grammar Nouns Plural. Bakhtiari has three plural markers: -ā for inanimates, as in māl-ā 'tents, houses'; -ūn for humans; -gal for humans. Animals may take any of the three. According to Windfuhr, -gal carries a collective sense.
The marker -gal/-yal/-al has been retained in Bakhtiari for many animate and human nouns. Examples: sayal 'dogs', kur-gal or kur-yal 'boys', bačal or bača-yal 'children'. The same marker occurs in Southern Luri, in some Kurdish varieties and in Davani. After loss of final n, -ūn appears as -ow/-ū, as in gusendow 'sheep (pl.)'. Further examples include boz-gal 'goats', zan-gal 'women', piā-yal 'men', homsā-yal 'neighbours', dā-yal 'mothers' and mivā 'fruits'.
Other nominal markers. Definite object: marked by -a, or -na after vowels, as in alī-n-a '(to) Ali'. Indefinite: marked by -ē, as in ya kār-ē 'a task'. Topicalizer and endearment: -ak, as in yār-ak-um 'my (dear) friend' and dā-k-e pīr-um 'my old mother'. The same marker serves as a vocative, as in dūst-ak! 'O friend!'. Demarcative suffix: MacKinnon gives -ekū as the demarcative suffix in Bakhtiari.
Pronouns Independent personal pronouns Bakhtiari Transliteration English mo I to you (sg.) hū / ū he, she, it; that īmā we īsā you (pl.) hūnū / yūnū those / these (= they) As in other Luri varieties, the third person is expressed by demonstratives.
Personal suffixes (possessive and object): -om, -et, -es, -emū(n), -etū(n), -esū(n). The paradigm for tavar 'axe' is tavar-om 'my axe', tavar-et, tavar-es, tavar-emū, tavar-etū, tavar-esū. After a vowel, only the consonant of the suffix appears, as in dā-m 'my mother' and dā-sū 'their mother'.
The suffixes have several functions: possessor, as in dast-um 'my hand'; direct and indirect object; object of prepositions, as in sī-t 'for you' and wur-s 'on it'.
Demonstratives: ī 'this' and ū 'that' occur both independently and before nouns, as in ī piā 'this man' and ū bard 'that stone'. yō and hō occur only independently.
Prepositions The most frequent prepositions are: Bakhtiari Meaning wā with, to we/bi to wur on, in(to) sī for, to ze from men in cī like
Verbs The verbal system is typically West Iranian. Verbs are built on three stems: present, past and perfect.
Personal endings. The present-tense endings are -om, -ī, -e, -īm, -īn and -en.
Prefixes. ī- (or e-): imperfective aspect; negative n-ī-. be-: subjunctive; negative na-. be- and ma-: positive and negative imperative. Under Persian influence, mī- is increasingly replacing ī- and e-.
Present. Bakhtiari distinguishes two presents: the general present: present stem + ending, with no prefix, used for general and habitual action; the progressive present: with the prefix ī-. The table shows xardan 'to eat' (present stem xor): Person General present Progressive present English 1sg xorom ī-xorom I eat / am eating 2sg xorī ī-xorī you eat 3sg xore ī-xore he/she eats 1pl xorīm ī-xorīm we eat 2pl xorīn ī-xorīn you (pl.) eat 3pl xoren ī-xoren they eat
Subjunctive. The subjunctive is formed with be-, as in be-ravom '(that) I go'. In speech the prefix is sometimes dropped: rom, rī.
Simple past. Past stem + ending; the 3rd person singular has no ending. The 3rd singular past may take the prefix be-, as in be-kard 'he did (it)'.
In the three verbs 'went', 'said' and 'took', ft becomes hd: rahd, guhd and girihd. This change, together with the loss of intervocalic d, produces characteristic contracted forms, such as rahd-um bī → rɛ̄-m bī 'I had gone'.
Past imperfective. Formed with ī- before the past stem, as in the verse ī-fruhd / ī-xerīd-um '(she) would sell / I would buy'. A construction with honī + simple past, as in honī davnīdom 'I was running', has also been reported in speech.
Present perfect. Formed from the past + -e, the 3rd singular of 'to be'. Bakhtiari English xard-om-e I have eaten xard-iy-e you have eaten xard-e he/she has eaten xard-im-e we have eaten xard-in-e you (pl.) have eaten xard-en-e they have eaten