| Aimaq dialect | |
|---|---|
| گویش ایماقی | |
 Aimaqi written in the
Perso-Arabic script in
Nastaliq style. | |
| Native to | Afghanistan, Iran, and Tajikistan |
| Ethnicity | Aimaq |
Native speakers | 1.9 million (2017–2019) [1] |
| Persian alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
aiq |
| Glottolog |
aima1241 |
Aimaq or Aimaqi ( Persian: ایماقی, romanized: Aimāqi) is the dominant eastern Persian ethnolect spoken by the Aimaq people in central northwest Afghanistan (west of the Hazarajat) and eastern Iran. It is close to the Dari varieties of Persian. [2] The Aimaq people are thought to have a 5–15% literacy rate. [1]
Dialects
Subdialects of Aimaq dialect include:
- Changezi
- Firozkohi
- Jamshidi
- Maliki
- Mizmast
- Taimani
- Timuri
- Zainal
- Zohri (also known as Zuri)
Phonology
Phonetically, as one of the eastern Persian dialects, the Aimaq dialect resembles a formal or classical form of Persian.
Vowels:
- The "majhul" vowels ē / ī and ō / ū are still kept separate, whereas in western Persian they are merged as ī and ū respectively. For instance, the identically written words شیر 'lion' and 'milk' are in western 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 western 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 western Persian to [e] and [o].
- /æ/[ clarification needed] and /e/ are in Aimaq kept separate in word-final positions, unlike western 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 western 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 western Persian (probably under the influence of Turkic languages like Azeri and Turkmen). [3]
See also
References
Footnotes
- ^
a
b
Aimaq dialect at
Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ "Aimaq". World Culture Encyclopedia. everyculture.com. Retrieved 14 August 2009.
- ^ 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
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