The Gilaki Language

461 Pages·2012·1.794 MB·

by  V. S. Rastorgueva, A. A. Kerimova, A. K. Mamedzade, L. A. Pireiko, D. I. Edel’man

ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS
Studia Iranica Upsaliensia
19

The Gilaki Language

V.S. RASTORGUEVA
A.A. KERIMOVA
A.K. MAMEDZADE
L.A. PIREIKO
D.I. EDEL’MAN
English translation editing and expanded content by

Ronald M. Lockwood
Abstract
Rastorgueva, V. S. et al. 2012. The Gilaki Language. English translation editing and ex-
panded content by Ronald M. Lockwood. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Iranica
Upsaliensia 19. viii + 445 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-8419-4.

This is a translation of the original book entitled: Giljanskij Jazyk. It includes an additional
appendix containing an interlinearized version of the Gilaki texts.

Original Abstract
This monograph presents a description of one of the insufficiently explored Iranian languages
widespread in the Northern part of Iran (in the province of Gilan). A description of the pho-
netic and grammatical system of the Gilaki language is given therein. Texts (examples of
conversational language and connected narrative) taken down by Gilaki authors now in the
USSR are the basis of the grammatical analysis.
At the end of the work the Gilaki texts and their translations into Russian are added.

Ronald M. Lockwood, SIL International consultant, Forum Linguistik in Eurasien
e. V., An der Schwemme 4, 79400 Kandern, Germany.

© Ronald M. Lockwood 2012

ISSN 1100-326X
ISBN 978-91-554-8419-4
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-182789 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-182789)

Original title: Giljanskij jazyk by V. S. Rastorgueva, A. A. Kerimova, A. K. Mamedzade, L.
A. Pireiko, and D. I. Edel’man. Editor in Chief: V. S. Rastorgueva, Doctor of Philological
Sciences, Moskva: Izdatel’stvo “Nauka”. 1971. This English edition was undertaken by per-
mission of the authors and the original publishers.

Printed in Sweden by Elanders Sverige AB, 2012

Distributor:
Uppsala University Library
Box 510, SE-751 20 Uppsala
www.uu.se
[email protected]
FOREWORD

Seeing that this book was a significant work on the Gilaki language, some
years ago I sought to have it translated to English. I recognized the high
quality of the research and believed the work to be one of the best of its kind
on the subject. I undertook a complete reformatting and editing of the book
so that it could be made available to the linguistic community.
I decided to also undertake the task of interlinearizing all of the texts in-
cluded in this work. In appendix A you will find the original Gilaki texts
with the free translation immediately below each sentence. This differs from
the original book in which each Gilaki text was followed by a free transla-
tion text. The free translation line is an English translation of the original
Russian free translation. In appendix B you will find an interlinearized ver-
sion of the texts. Three lines are provided; the vernacular divided into mor-
phemes, the corresponding English glosses for the vernacular morphemes
and a free translation line. In appendix B the English free translation has
been revised as necessary to give a more accurate English free translation of
the Gilaki vernacular.
The body of the book has been reformatted to make it easier to read. Sec-
tions and subsections have been added. Example sentences have been for-
matted and listed as numbered examples. Numbered tables and figures have
also been included. Note that for some example sentences no reference is
given. This is because the sentence is not from the texts included in the ap-
pendices.
In the online version of this book, I added extensive linking between the
examples and the texts. The user can click on an example’s reference and be
taken to the text containing that example in appendix A. From appendix A
the user can click to see the corresponding interlinear example in appendix
B. All of the language and gloss data has been color coded.
See: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-182789
I would like to thank the many colleagues who contributed to the transla-
tion and editing of the English version of this book. Also, many thanks are
due to the Russian academy for their checking of the final document.

Ronald M. Lockwood
v

For Michelle, Christopher, Cameron and Andrea

Contents
ListofFiguresandTables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Phonology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 TheSoundSystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1.1 Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1.2 HistoricalRoots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.2 Consonants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.3 TheInfluenceofPersian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 TheAssimilationofVowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 ThePhoneticPhenomenaWhereTwoMorphemesAreCombined 17
2.4 Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3. Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1 Proto-IranianOrigin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.1 Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.2 Numerals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.1.3 MainVerbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.1.4 NamesofthePartsoftheBody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.5 NamesofNaturalPhenomenaandSubstances . . . . . . 27
3.1.6 NamesoftheMainUnitsforMeasuringTime . . . . . . 28
3.1.7 KinshipTerms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.1.8 TheDesignationsofGender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.1.9 DesignationsofColorandVariousQualitativeConditions 31
3.1.10 NamesofAnimals,PlantsandProductsofNourishment 32
3.1.11 Gilaki-PersianComparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2 ArabicOrigin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 TurkicLoanwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4 WordsfromWesternEurope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.5 RussianLoanwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.6 OtherInformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4. WordFormation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1 Stem-Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1.1 Copulative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1.2 Determinative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.2 Affixation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.2.1 Word-FormingSuffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.2.2 Word-FormingPrefixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5. Morphology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.1 Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.1.1 Definiteness-Indefiniteness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.1.1.1 Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.1.1.2 DefiniteandIndefiniteNouns . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.1.2 Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.1.3 Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.1.3.1 Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.1.3.2 Nominative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.1.3.3 Accusative-Dative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.1.3.4 Genitive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.1.3.5 CaseEnclitics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.1.4 “Ezafe”Constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.2 Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.2.1 General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.2.2 DegreesofComparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.2.3 AsAdverbialModifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.3 Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.4 Numerals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.5 Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.5.1 PersonalPronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.5.1.1 PersonalPronouns: Nominative . . . . . . . . . 89
5.5.1.2 PersonalPronouns: Accusative-Dative . . . . . 90
5.5.1.3 PersonalPronouns: Genitive . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.5.1.4 IndirectObjectUsage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.5.1.5 PronominalEnclitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.5.2 DemonstrativePronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.5.2.1 DemonstrativePronouns: Nominative . . . . . . 96
5.5.2.2 DemonstrativePronouns: Accusative-Dative . . 97
5.5.2.3 DemonstrativePronouns: Genitive . . . . . . . 98
5.5.2.4 ShortForms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.5.3 Interrogative-RelativePronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.5.3.1 ki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.5.3.2 či,čə . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.5.3.3 ko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.5.4 AttributivePronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.5.5 TheIndefinitive-NegativePronoun. . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.5.6 Reflexive-AttributivePronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.5.6.1 xu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.5.6.2 xud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110