ERIK ANONBY CARLETON UNIVERSITY AND UPPSALA UNIVERSITY HASSAN MOHEBBI BAHMANI MINAB AZAD UNIVERSITY SHIPWRECKED AND LANDLOCKED: KHOLOSI, AN INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGE IN SOUTH-WEST IRAN RÉSUMÉ Cet article présente un premier compte du kholosi, une langue parlée dans deux villages situés dans les montagnes Zagros dans l’ouest de la province d’Hormozgan, qui à son tour se trouve en Iran du sud-ouest. Après un survol de la distribution des langues dans la région, nous relatons la « découverte » et la documentation initiale de la langue kholosi. Une description de la situation linguistique est accompagnée des observations sur les origines et l’histoire de la communauté linguistique, réputée naufragée avant de s’installer dans son emplacement actuel dans les montagnes. Nous pourvoyons alors un échantillon de vocabulaire et un aperçu d’éléments sélectionnés de la structure de cette langue. Sur la base des comparaisons aux langues iraniennes environnantes ainsi que les langues indo-aryennes dans la grande région, nous démontrons que le kholosi est en fait une langue indo-aryenne qui a absorbé des traits des langues iraniennes avoisinantes en raison du contact intense et de longue date. Comme le kholosi présente des traits de chacune des langues indo- aryennes dans les données comparatives, sa position au sein de l’indo-aryen reste incertaine. L’article conclut avec des réflexions à l’importance – et à l’urgence – de la documentation linguistique dans le contexte iranien. Mots-clés : documentation linguistique, langues de l’Iran, langues indo-aryennes, Kholosi, Hormozgan, contact linguistique ABSTRACT This paper presents a first account of Kholosi, a language spoken in two villages in the Zagros Mountains of western Hormozgan Province in south-west Iran. After 3 CAHIER DE STUDIA IRANICA XX, 2014, p. 3-xxx. 2 E. ANONBY & H. MOHEBBI BAHMANI providing an overview of language distribution in the region, we recount the “discovery” and initial documentation of the Kholosi language. A description of the language situation is accompanied by observations relating to the origins and history of the language community, reputedly shipwrecked in past centuries before settling in its present location in the mountains. We then provide a sample of vocabulary and an overview of selected elements of the language’s structure. Through comparisons with the surrounding Southwestern Iranian languages as well as Indo-Aryan languages in the wider region, we conclude that Kholosi is in fact an Indo-Aryan language that has absorbed features of surrounding Iranian languages through long- standing and intense contact. Since it shows disparate similarities to each of the four Indo-Aryan languages used in the comparisons, its position within Indo-Aryan remains unclear. The article concludes with reflections on the importance – and urgency – of language documentation in the Iranian context. Keywords: language documentation, languages of Iran, Indo-Aryan languages, Kholosi, Hormozgan Province, language contact * * * I. INTRODUCTION1 In Iran, a land characterized by great linguistic diversity, the Iranian, Turkic and Semitic language blocs converge and overlap, with a constellation of important consequences in each direction (Csató, Isaksson and Jahani 2005). 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 5th International Conference on Iranian Linguistics in Bamberg, Germany, 23-25 August, 2013. Our contribution has been made possible through research-related functions of the first author’s position at Carleton University and the Uppsala University research project UFV-PA 2010/2580. We would like to thank the many people who, through their detailed and insightful comments, have greatly strengthened this paper, and in particular Salman Ahmadi, Christina van der Wal Anonby, Joan Baart, Bernard Comrie, Geoffrey Haig, Bruno Herin, Agnes Korn, Abdulaziz Lodhi and Ali Rashidi. The volume editors and two anonymous referees have also made an important contribution through their thoughtful evaluation and criticism of the manuscript. Phonological transcriptions are indicated with italics, and phonetic transcriptions appear between square brackets. Most of the symbols used in transcriptions are based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). There are, however, several phonological conventions drawn from area studies. The macron over a vowel symbol (e.g., ā, ē, ī) indicates length. The diacritic h, which in IPA marks aspiration, is also used here to indicate breathy articulation. The symbol for the voiced palatal implosive ʄ [ʄ] is distinct from f [f]. Other phonological symbols which require explanation, along with their IPA equivalents, are as follows: č [͡tʃ], ġ [ʁ], ḥ [ħ], j [d͡ ʒ], š [ʃ] and x [χ]. KHOLOSI, AN INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGE IN SOUTH-WEST IRAN 3 Hormozgan Province of south-western Iran is no exception to this pattern of diversity of languages and interaction among them. There, the Southwestern division of Iranian is represented by the numerous Bandari dialects of the coast such as the old dialect of Bandar Abbas (Fathi 2001/1380, Sāyebāni 1997/1377, Pelevin 2002, 2010), Minābi (Skjærvø 1975, Mohebbi Bahmani 2006) and Keshmi (Anonby forthcoming) and, in the northern extension of the province (see Figure 1 below), by inland dialects which pattern with Persian varieties of Kerman Province (Skjærvø 1975, p. 113). Other Southwestern Iranian languages are found in the mountainous regions of Hormozgan: Lārestāni (or Achomi), best known from its Lāri variety in Fars Province (Mann 1909; Eqtedāri 1955/1334, 2005/1384; Kamioka & Yamada 1979; Skjærvø 1989), extends with the Zagros mountains into western areas of Hormozgan; in the eastern mountains, toward Baluchistan Province, two distinctive dialect groups, Molki Gāl and Marzi Gāl – often grouped together in the literature as “Bashkardi” – are found (Gershevitch 1985, Mohebbi Bahmani field notes 2005, Voskanian & Boyajian-Sureniants 2007). Finally, the Lāraki dialect of Kumzāri, a language classified as Southwestern (Skjærvø 1989, p. 364) but with many basic Semitic structures (van der Wal Anonby 2013, Bayshak 2002), is spoken in a single village on Lārak Island in the Strait of Hormuz (Anonby & Yousefian 2011). Overview of language distribution in Hormozgan Province, south-west Iran: Fig. 1 2 E. ANONBY & H. MOHEBBI BAHMANI The Northwestern Iranian language Balochi is represented in Hormozgan by two different varieties: Southern Balochi dialects, transitional to Bandari, extending from the border of Baluchistan all the way to the outskirts of Minab; and Koroshi, first reported from camel herders of Fars Province (Windfuhr 1989, p. 248; Salami 2005/1383) but also spoken in Hormozgan in villages between Minab and Bandar Abbas (Nourzaei et al. forthcoming). The Semitic language Arabic is likewise represented by two different dialect types: Gulf Arabic, spoken for the most part in villages along the western coast of Hormozgan Province; and Shihhi Arabic, native to the Musandam Peninsula of Arabia (van der Wal Anonby & Anonby forthcoming) but spoken on Lārak Island alongside Kumzari (Anonby & Yousefian 2011, p. 43-44). The influence of Arabic on the Iranian languages of coastal Hormozgan has in many cases been direct and intense: for example, both Keshmi (Bandari) and Lāraki (Kumzāri) contain emphatic (i.e., pharyngeal and/or pharyngealized) consonants (Anonby 2011b; Anonby & Yousefian 2011, p. 151; Anonby forthcoming). Until now, the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-Iranian languages has not figured prominently in accounts of the linguistic landscape of Iran (for examples, see “Kholosi in comparative perspective” below), and none have documented these languages in Hormozgan Province. But crucially, this situation may not reflect facts of language distribution; rather, it appears to be due to incomplete documentation. In the present article, we relate the “discovery” and first documentation of Kholosi, an apparently Indo-Aryan language spoken in two villages in the Zagros Mountains of western Hormozgan Province. A description of the language situation is accompanied by observations on the origins and history of the language community. We then provide a sample of vocabulary and an overview of selected elements of the language’s structure. Data from Kholosi show structures which are typical of Southwestern Iranian languages in general, and some which are similar to specific features of the neighbouring Southwestern languages in Hormozgan Province. However, there are numerous structures, including a large proportion of basic vocabulary and important phonological features, which are unfamiliar from the Southwestern branch of Iranian. An examination of selected Indo- Aryan languages, initiated based on speakers’ own stories of their origins in India, reveals that most differences from Iranian languages can in fact be related to structures in the Indo-Aryan family, even though Kholosi is hundreds of kilometers away from any other known Indo-Aryan language. Weighing these data against a typology of language contact and the little that is known about the history of the language community, we suggest that KHOLOSI, AN INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGE IN SOUTH-WEST IRAN 3 Kholosi is an Indo-Aryan language that has absorbed features of surrounding Southwestern Iranian languages through long-standing and intense contact. II. THE KHOLOSI LANGUAGE: DISCOVERY AND DOCUMENTATION Little documentation exists for the languages of western Hormozgan Province. Early linguists travelling in south-western Iran (Zhukovskij, Mann, Gershevitch) documented dialects in