Aimaq dialect

Aimaq
Native to	Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan
Native speakers	650,000 (1993)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Southwestern Iranian Persian Aimaq
Writing system	Persian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aiq
Glottolog	aima1241[2]

Aimaq (Persian: آیماقی‎‎) is a dialect of the Persian language spoken west of the Hazarajat (or Hazarastan), in central northwest Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and Tajikistan. It is the dominant ethnolect of Persian spoken by the Aymāq people. It is very close to the Khorasani and Dari dialects.^[3] The Aimaq people are thought to have a 5-15% literacy rate.^[4]

Dialects

Subdialects of Aimaq include:

• Chinghizi
• Firozkohi
• Jamshidi (also known as: Jamshedi, Djamchidi, Yemchidi, or Dzhemshid)
• Maliki
• Mizmast
• Taimani
• Taimuri (also known as: Teimuri, Timuri, or Taimouri)
• Zainal
• Zohri (also known as: Zuri)

Phonology

Phonetically, as one of the eastern Persian dialects, Aimaq dialect resembles a formal or classical form of Persian (Farsi).

Vowels:

• The "majhul" vowels ē / ī and ō / ū are still kept separate, whereas in Iranian Persian they are merged as ī and ū respectively. For instance, the identically written words شیر 'lion' and 'milk' are in Iranian Persian both pronounced [šīr], but in Aimaq [šēr] for 'lion' and [šīr] for 'milk'. The long vowel in زود 'quick' and زور 'strong' is realized as [ū] in Iranian Persian, in contrast, these words are pronounced as [zūd] and [zōr] respectively by Aimaq speakers.
• The diphthongs of early Classical Persian aw (as ow in Engl. cow) and ay (as i in English ice) have in Aimaq become [ow] (as in Engl. low) and [ej] (as in Engl. day). Dari, on the other hand, is more archaic, e.g. نوروز 'Persian New Year' is realized as [nowrūz] in Iranian, and [nawrōz] in Aimaq, and نخیر 'no' is uttered as [naχejr] in Iranian, and as [naχajr] in Aimaq.
• The high short vowels [i] and [u] tend to be lowered in Iranian Persian to [e] and [o].
• /æ/ and /e/ are in Aimaq kept separate in word-final positions, unlike Iranian Persian, where /æ/ has [e] as a word-final allophone.

Consonants:

• Aimaq still retains the (classical) bilabial pronunciation [w] of the labial consonant و, which is realized as a voiced labiodental fricative [v] in Iranian Persian. [v] is found in Aimaq as an allophone of f before voiced consonants.
• The voiced uvular stop /ɢ/ (ق) and voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ (غ) are still kept separate in Aimaq. They have coincided in Iranian Persian (probably under the influence of Turkic languages like Azeri and Turkmen).^[5]

References

Footnotes

1. Aimaq at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Aimaq". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. "Aimaq". World Culture Encyclopedia. everyculture.com. Retrieved 14 August 2009.
4. "Aimaq". Ethnologue. 2009. Retrieved 14 August 2009.
5. A. Pisowicz, Origins of the New and Middle Persian phonological systems (Cracow 1985), p. 112-114, 117.

Notations

• Clifton, John M. (ed.) (2005) Studies in languages of Tajikistan North Eurasia Group, SIL International, St Petersburg, Russia, OCLC 122939499