The Tati language (Tati: , Tâti Zobun)A Grammar of Southern Tati Dialects, Ehsan Yarshater, Median Dialect Studies I. The Hague and Paris, Mouton and Co., 1969. is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken by the Tat people of Iran which is closely related to languages such as Talysh, Zaza, Mazandarani and Gilaki. Tati consists of many sub-dialects and its dialects are spoken in sparsely distributed small pockets in northern and northwestern Iran.Stilo, D. L. 1994. Phonological systems in contact in Iran and Transcaucasia. In Persian studies in North America: Studies in Honor of Mohammad Ali Jazayery By Muhammed Ali Jaza'iri, Mehdi Marashi, Mohammad Ali: Festschrift Jazayery, Published by Ibex Publishers, Inc., p. 90. , Tati shares common isogloss and many characteristic words with Talysh and Zaza that are not found in other Iranian languages. Tati, similar to Zaza, has a two-gender, case and ergative system. The language is also referred to as Southern Tati and is considered the present-day Azari, reflecting its affinity with Old Azeri.
The Tati dialects are usually divided into three main clusters consisting of the northern, central and southern clusters. The northern cluster is spoken in the area near the Azerbaijan and Turkey border, the central cluster is spoken in northwestern Iran and the southern cluster is spoken in farther south provinces such as Zanjan, Qazvin and Markazi. The Kilit dialect of the language was spoken outside of present-day Iran, in Azerbaijan.
Old Azeri
Some sources use the term Old Azeri to refer to the Tati language as it was spoken in the region before the spread of Turkic languages, and is now only spoken by different rural communities in Iranian Azerbaijan (such as villages in Harzanabad area, villages around Khalkhal and Ardabil), and also in Zanjan and Qazvin provinces.Paul, Ludwig (1998a). The position of Zazaki among West Iranian languages. In Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference of Iranian Studies, 11-15.09.1995, Cambridge, Nicholas Sims-Williams (ed.), 163-176. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Andrew Dalby, Dictionary of Languages: the definitive reference to more than 400 languages, Columbia University Press, 2004, pg 496."Azari, the Old Iranian Language of Azerbaijan," Encyclopædia Iranica, op. cit., Vol. III/2, 1987 by E. Yarshater. External link: Alongside with Tati dialects, Old Azeri is known to have strong affinities with Talysh and Zaza language. Tati, Zaza and Talysh are considered to be descendants of old Azeri. Harzandi dialect that thought to be descendant of the Old Azeri language was positioned between the Talysh and Zaza.
Tati language structure In any language, roots and verb affixes constitute the most basic and important components of a language. The root is an element included in all the words of a lexical family and carries the basic meaning of those lexical items. A verb affix is an element added to the root to form a new meaning. In many new Iranian languages, verb affixes have been left almost unnoticed, and it will be possible, by the act of deriving roots, to clear up most of their structural and semantic ambiguities. Unlike the root, verb affixes can be easily identified and described. In many languages, verb affixes act as the base of verb formation and are often derived from a limited number of roots. Tati, Talysh, Mazandarani and Gilaki languages belong to North-western Iranian languages currently spoken along the coast of Caspian Sea. These languages which enjoy many old linguistic elements have not been duly studied from a linguistic perspective.Verb Roots and Affixes in Tâti, Tâleshi and Gilaki Dialects, Jahandust Sabzalipoor
In the field of phonetics Tati is similar to the rest of the north-western Iranian languages: it is distinguished by the persistence of Iranian *z, *s, *y-, * v- against the south-western d, h, j-, b-; development < * j, against the south-west z, and the preservation of intervocalic and postvocalic *r and even, for a number of dialects, development rhotacism.
Gender in Tati language In the field of morphology, Tati is less analytical in structure than the south-western Iranian languages. Having lost the ancient foundations of classes and verb, tati preserved case (two case: direct, or subjective, and oblique). It has a grammatical gender feature in many dialects and exhibits two genders (masculine and feminine)Vardanian, A. (2016). Grammatical gender in New Azari dialects of Šāhrūd. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 79(3), 503 511. similar to the Zaza language.
As a rare linguistic feature among all Northwestern Iranian languages, Tati dialects, along with Zaza, Semnani and Sangsari languages gender agreement occur on verbs. Third-person pronoun take different inflections for masculine and feminine subjects in Zaza, Semnani and Sangsari. As a quite unique linguistic feature among Northwestern Iranian languages, in some Tati dialects and Zaza, the second-person pronoun takes different inflections for masculine and feminine subjects.
Ergative in Tati language Tati is, similar to the Zaza language of the same linguistic branch, an ergative language, i.e. "with transitive verbs the subject/agent of the verb is expressed by the direct case in the present tenses, but by the oblique in the past tenses, whereas the direct object/patient in the present tenses is expressed by the oblique, but by the direct in the past".Iranica entry on Eshtehārdi, one of Tati dialectsKhalkhali is one of the Tati dialects spoken in Shahrood and Xorsh-rostam districts of Khalkhal. Khalkhali Tati is distinguished from other dialects producing ergative structures, because of the adherence of verb to semantic object, in number, person and specially in gender. Meanwhile, according to some evidence in this dialect, apart from past transitive verbs, some intransitive verbs are influenced by the ergative structure.Ergative in Tāti Dialect of Khalkhāl, Jahandust Sabzalipoor
Phonology Consonants The phonology is based on the Southern Tati dialects: LabialDental/AlveolarPalatalVelarUvularGlottalNasalPlosive/Affricatevoiceless()voicedFricativevoiceless, ()voiced()()Approximant() Trill
The following sounds // may allophonically range to the sounds .
Vowels FrontCentralBackCloseMid()~Open The vowel sound for /e/ is recognized as two sounds , and allophonically as .
In the Chali dialect, the /o/ phoneme is only realized as a diphthong , whereas in Takestani, it is only recognized as ranging from .
Dialects Tati has four main dialects: South of Qazvin province (Tākestāni, Eshtehārdi, Chāli, Dānesfāni, Esfarvarini, Ebrāhim-ābādi, Sagz-ābādi) Ardabil province (Khalkhāli) Alborz mountains range (Damāvandi). This dialect was, probably, used to be spoken around the northern part of Tehran City. North Khorasan province (Khorāsāni)
Other Tati dialects are Vafsi, Lohudji, Parsi, Dagli (Khizi) Harzandi, Kho'ini, and Kiliti Eshtehardi.
Harzandi Tati
The Harzandi dialect is spoken in the area near the Azerbaijan and Turkey border. Its speakers principally reside in the rural district of Harzand, particularly in the village known as Galin Qayah/Kohriz. Harzani is also spoken in the neighboring villages of Babratein and Dash Harzand.Karimzadeh, J. 1994: "The Verbal Constructions in Azari (Harzani Dialect)." Master’s thesis, Tarbiat Modarres University. Thus, it is one of the northwesternmost Tati dialects. The Harzandi dialect shares significant linguistic affinity (genetic relationship and structural similarity) and many characteristic words with Zaza and thus it is considered a transitional dialect between Tati and Zaza.Stilo, D. (1971) A Grammar of Vafsi-Tati: An Application of a Transformational Computer Model, Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan. p. 12. Harzandi, in addition to its linguistic proximity to Zaza, is also spoken in an area geographically closer to where Zaza is spoken, compared to other Tati dialects.
The dialect is considered an endangered language with a little less than 30,000 speakers in present dayHarzani at Ethnologue (17th Edition, 2014)] and as of now, Harzandi has not been formally recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and thus receives no government support.Harzani at Languages of the World (LLOW)
Similar to other languages and dialects of the Iranian language family, Harzani follows a subject–object–verb (SOV) word order. It has nine vowels, and shares a consonant inventory with Persian. It further exhibits a split-ergative case system: its present tense is structured to follow nominative-accusative patterning, while its past tense follows ergative-absolutive. One characteristic that distinguishes Harzani from related Northwestern Iranian languages is its change from an intervocalic /d/ to an /r/. It also has a tendency to lengthen its vowels. For instance, it has the closed vowel /oe/.
Nouns and pronouns in Harzani do not reflect grammatical gender, but they do express case. Nouns, in particular, encode two cases: direct and oblique case, the first of which is not rendered morphologically, but the second is by attaching a suffix. Meanwhile, personal pronouns have three cases: direct, oblique, and possessive. Verbs in Harzani are inflected for present tense and past tense. Information concerning person and number is reflected in suffixes that attach to these two verb stems. Modal and aspectual information is expressed using prefixes.
Hazarrudi Tati The Hazarrudi dialect is spoken in the Hazarrud village and surrounding area in Tarom County of Zanjan province. It distinguishes two numbers (singular and plural), two cases, direct and oblique, and two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, in nouns as well as in the third person singular of pronouns and verbs. Nouns are unmarked for the masculine singular and marked for an unstressed -a for the femnine singular and marked with the unstressed -e for the direct plural and -ân for oblique plural. There are various ways to form passive and causative voices in Hazarrudi. The passive stem is formed by adding -i, -est and -ax to the verb stem and the causative is formed by adding -amen and -en to the stem.Lecoq, Pierre (1989). "Les Dialectes Caspiens Et Les Dialectes Du Nord-ouest De L'iran". In Schmitt, Rüdiger (ed.). Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum (in French). Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. 301-303 .
Vafsi Tati Vafsi is a dialect of Tati language spoken in the Vafs village and surrounding area in the Markazi province of Iran. The dialects of the Tafresh region share many features with the Central Plateau dialects; however, their lexical inventory has many items in common with the Talysh subgroup.
Vafsi has six short vowel phonemes, five long vowel phonemes and two nasal vowel phonemes. The consonant inventory is basically the same as in Persian. Nouns are inflected for gender (masculine, feminine), number (singular, plural) and case (direct, oblique).
The oblique case marks the possessor (preceding the head noun), the definite direct object, nouns governed by a preposition, and the subject of transitive verbs in the past tense. Personal pronouns are inflected for number (singular, plural) and case (direct, oblique). tA set of enclitic pronouns is used to indicate the agent of transitive verbs in the past tenses.
There are two demonstrative pronouns: one for near deixis, one for remote deixis. The use of the Persian ezafe construction is spreading; however, there is also a native possessive construction, consisting of the possessor (unmarked or marked by the oblique case) preceding the head noun.