The Historical Relationship of Southern Dari Texts with Modern Dialects of Khuzestan

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Urmia University

10.22055/jrp.2021.38149.1054

Abstract

The present paper deals with the dialectal relationship of southern Dari texts with modern dialects of Khuzestan. “Southern” here refers to the manuscripts written in Arabic-Persian (Qurʼān-i Quds) and Jewish scripts, in the southern territory of Early New Persian (ENP), i.e. from Khuzestan to Sistan, until the end of the 6th century AH. It seems that, compared to Khorassani texts, the southern varietis are typologically more related to Middle Persian, which means they have preserved more morphological, phonological and lexical items from Pahlavi language. Considering the fact that a number of Early Judaeo-Persian texts - as the main evidence of southern ENP – are attributed to Khuzestan, this investigation into their relationship with modern dialects of the region might shed light on the language status of Khuzestan in that era. The etymological evidence from Shushtari, Dezfuli, Bakhtiari and Feyli Luri dialects, found and studied by the author, on the one hand proves the existence of the southern dialect of ENP; and on the other hand confirms the geographical origins of the southern texts.

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