ORIENTALIA SUECANA 2020. Vol. 69: 57–67. UPPSALA UNIVERSITY Research article Chams Bernard* A newly discovered Persian variety: the case of “Zoroastrian Persian” To Rostom Schayegh https://doi.org/10.33063/di a!"2111# Abstract: Using a corpus of contemporary Yazdi Zoroastrian oral literature, this article demonstrates that the Persian dialect found in many Zoroastrian songs is different from both Standard Persian and lo- cal (Yazdi) Persian !t is argued that Zoroastrian oral literature in "e# Persian preser$es the features of a Persian dialect previously spo%en or used by Zoroastrians On the basis of phonological and mor- phosyntactic comparison, this article shows that it is li%ely that this variety of Persian was in'uenced by (a$runi, the traditional language of the Zoroastrians of !ran Keywords: Zoroastrianism, oral literature, poetry, New Persian dialectology, Gavruni 1 Introduction a) There are currently around 3 , Zoroastrians living in !ran. #any of them %&etween ', and (), ) live in *a+d and ,erman,( which are traditionally the two main Zoroastrian cities o$ !ran. #any, however, have emigrated to Tehran since the (-th century, and signi.cant communities can &e $ound in di/erent cities, such as Shiraz, and, mostly since the (-0 s, abroad" !ranian Zoroastrians in *azd and ,erman spoke Gavruni, an !ranian language 2uite removed $rom Persian %there is no mutual intelligi&ility)3 nowadays, only *azdi Zoroastrians speak Gavruni" !ranian Zoroastrian oral poetry and literature has not yet &een thoroughly studied, and it has even &een deemed non-e5istent in the past"6 *et it e5ists, and is &oth in Gavruni and in Persian. &) To illustrate this literature, ! present here a 2uatrain, sung &y #orvårid4e 8osro and recorded &y Kuroš Ni1nåm:3 araxčin sar-e Rostem katun-on (bis) rox-oš må ġad-oš serv-e ravun-on del-om mixå ke didår-oš vevina xodå dunå ke če parsax miyun-on The hat on Rostam’s head is of linen, <is $ace is %li1e) the moon and his stature a slender cypress, 1 ! have ta1en this num&er from this we&site: h=p:>>linguistics"&er1eley"edu>?dari>inde5"html, accessed on the 66nd of @ugust 6 (', which is unfortunately no longer online" 2 ABvery endeavour was used to o&tain stories o$ true Ga&ri origin, &ut ! fear that only samples o$ the common Per4 sian stoc1 were provided3 and Ga&ri poetry, or verse, appears to &e non4e5istent"C %Dorimer (-(E: F6))" 3 Gor contemporary varieties ! systematically use H7I to indicate JKL>JK:L %usually transcri&ed &y !ranists as HMI or I o$ @r4 آHaI), HMI represents Ja:L in contemporary varieties and transcri&es the word4internal ale$ or word initial H chaic and Nlassical Persian" ! than1 @gnes ,orn for suggesting this transcription" HOI is used to transcri&e the JPL sound" $ni ersi%ei% Leiden' Leiden Universi%( Cen%re for Linguis%i+s (L$C&-' E!mail: +./.a.s./ernard0hum.leidenuni .nl 1pen 2++ess. 3*/lished /( %he 4epar%men% of &inguis%i+s and 3hilology' $ppsala $ni ersi%(. 5his 6or7 is li+ensed under %he Crea%i e Commons Attri/*%ion 4.0 In%erna%ional ,CC B9 4.0- li+ense. C:2;< B.=>2=4 2 >.?&9 48<C1V.=.4 3.=<82> V2=8.59 #y heart wants to see his apparition, #ay God 1now how many parasangs are &etween %us)" c) @lthough it is clearly Persian %the voca&ulary is entirely Persian, as are its syntax and ver&al mor4 phology), the language o$ this 2uatrain shows notable di/erences when compared with &oth Standard Persian and *azdi Persian. Qy studying this text and many others, ! hereby present the conclusion that a number of the Persian songs and poems traditionally sung and recited &y the Zoroastrians of *azd are dialectally di/erent $rom Standard Persian %SP), Nlassical Persian %Nl" Pers.), and *a+di Per4 sian %*P)"F Qy Standard Persian is meant Standard Tehråni Persian, the variety of Persian that most $oreign learners learn, and that is used in most contemporary movies and songs. Qy Nlassical Persian is meant Persian as it was wri=en &etween the (6th and ('th century &y canonical authors in the Per4 sianate world, such as Ni+Mmi ArR+S" Phylogenetically, one can consider them as two di/erent vari4 eties, and not the continuation of each other" They might thus have had separate speci.c contacts with various dialects o$ Persian, and influenced them di/erently" ! would also li1e to mention that, when they casually speak Persian, Gavruni spea1ers speak ei4 ther *azdi or Standard Persian, with li=le to no influence $rom Gavruni" For simplicity, this variant o$ Persian will &e called Zoroastrian Persian %ZP)" !t is unclear whether ZP was a separate dialect of Persian, strongly influenced &y Gavruni, or whether it was the literary register in which Persian poetry was traditionally composed" This article aims to systematically de4 scri&e the speci.cities o$ ZP as reali+ed in these songs and poems. To do so, ! will compare it with di/erent Persian varieties, sporadically also with Barly New Persian %BNP), casting light on many $ea4 tures of Persian dialectology, as well as with Gavruni %Gav")") The study will consider phonological, le5ical, morphological and syntactic $eatures $ound in the te5ts of our corpora. The corpora contain songs in &oth Gavruni and Persian, the proportion &eing roughly three 2uar4 ters in Persian and one 2uarter in Gavruni: among those in Persian, roughly three 2uarters are in a Persian dialect that deviates $rom the Standard" #ost of the te5ts in SP are poems $rom the canonical Persian poets, mainly <M$ez %(Fth century)" !$ we e5tend this to all Zoroastrian literary productions, including modern creations %outside o$ the corpora), the proportion o$ Standard Persian songs is much higher, since no song or poem in any other Persian dialect than SP is produced &y the Zoroas4 trian community any longer" ! aim to show here that these texts indicate that Zoroastrians used to speak a speci.c variety o$ Persian. Nowadays, Zoroastrians in !ran speak the Persian dialect of their hometown, and Standard Persian, &ut do not have a Persian dialect of their own. d) Poetic creation in non-standard Persian among Zoroastrians has seemingly &een dead since the end o$ the %Zoroastrian) &ardic tradition, probably at the end o$ the 6 th century, since all new Zoroastrian poetical production, as $ar as ! am aware, has &een done either in Gavruni or in Standard Persian. That is, all the literary and linguistic $eatures that Zoroastrian poets resorted to no longer seem accessi&le to contemporary Zoroastrian poets. @ part of the corpus used here was recorded &y Kuroš Ni1nåm $rom the (-- s onwards: it is a large corpus, mainly comprising interviews with Gavruni speakers, in Gavruni" ! selected it &ecause it offers a rather large range o$ te5ts $rom spea1ers o$ many Gavruni dialects. Another part ! recorded during my .eldwor1 in Uecember 6 ()" These corpora pertain to the Zoroastrians o$ *azd, and no recorded song or poem is available to us in ,ermåni Gavruni" ! #y sources for *P are informants from *a+d and di/erent videos a&out or in *P, as no accurate and comprehen4 sive description o$ the dialect has &een pu&lished to this day, to my 1nowledge" " ! will also mention Proto4Gavruni, the reconstructed Gavruni language preceding dialectalisation" ORIENTALIA SUECANA 2020. Vol. 69. 5# C:2;< B.=>2=4 2 >.?&9 48<C1V.=.4 3.=<82> V2=8.59 @s of now, ! have (E recorded reciters %() women and one man) among whom are eight maVor ones, namely those who provided more than three short songs or more than one long traditional te5t, or a long traditional song" 2 Phonolo#y 2$1 Archais%s and a&&arent archais%s a) ZP retains word4.nal 4aW, unli1e *P and SP 4a# X 4e#, &ut li1e Gav", $or e5ample: banda Yslave; %SP, *P bande), burida Ycut %past tense); %SP, *P boride), bača Ychild; %SP, *P bačče), dåšta-im Ywe have had; %SP dåšte-im), etc. This is a very widespread $eature o$ ZP, with very $ew e5ceptions %tåze-ye Y$resh4 BZ; instead o$ Ztåza-ye, $or example), and it usually is the .rst element that ma1es ZP data stand out $rom other Persian texts. ! will not consider a te5t that does not contain any 4aW to &e ZP3 conversely a $ew non-ZP te5ts in my corpus also show this $eature %&ut no other ZP $eatures)" The retention o$ this $eature is interesting, as it can hardly &e ascri&ed to contact with other Per4 sian varieties, since all 1nown Persian dialects o$ the region show the sound change 4aW X 4eW" This change happened gradually &etween the (Eth and ('th centuries:E it concerns Standard Persian &ut not peripheral Persian varieties %such as Uari and Taji1i, and some 8oråsånian varieties), and does not occur in most !ranian languages. !n *a+d, the @$ghans 1eep the 4aW, &ut their presence in *a+d is too recent %late 6 th [ early 6(st century) to have had any influence on the current corpus. Nontact with Gavruni could &e a cause of this retention. &) ZP occasionally retains u $or SP, *P o \ Nl" Pers. ŭ: gul YTower; %SP, *P gol),0 burida Ycut %past tense); \ Nl" Pers. burrīda %SP, *P boride), muråd Ywish; \ Nl" Pers. mur!d \ Ara&ic mur!d %SP, *P moråd, Gav" mrɔd), gu#an Yto say; %SP, *P goftan) \ Nl" Pers. gu#an" The JuL variant is 2uite rare, and can only &e $ound sporadically in the recordings o$ $our reciters. The wordsgol YTower; and bolbol Ynightingale; are very common in the te5ts, yet we .nd JgulL %$rom two di/erent reciters: #orvårid4e 8osro and Qånu Rašid Tavak1ol): #orvårid4e 8osro has J&ul&olL and Piru+a Nåmd7r has J&ul&]lL" The pronunciation JmurKdL only occurs once in the corpus.