Iranian and Minority Languages at Home and in Diaspora 3110694131, 9783110694130

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Iranian and Minority Languages at Home and in Diaspora

The Companions of Iranian Languages and Linguistics

Editor Alireza Korangy

Volume 1

Iranian and Minority Languages at Home and in Diaspora Edited by Anousha Sedighi

ISBN 978-3-11-069413-0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-069427-7 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-069431-4 ISSN 2627-0765 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022945747 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements There are many who deserve sincere thanks, who have been most helpful towards the shaping of the current volume from conception to completion. First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Yahya Modarresi, who has been a driving force throughout different stages of this work. He has provided guidance and support in various ways and has graciously written the Foreword for the volume. I would also like to sincerely thank Dr. Donald Stilo. Don’s knowledge and expertise and his overall support has been of great asset towards this project. I would also like to thank the Mouton team, Barbara Karlson and Birgit Sievert for their professional collaboration in the past three years. Finally, I would like to thank the following for their help throughout the project: Dr. Alireza Korangy, Dr. Sima Paribakht, Dr. Saeid Atoofi, Dr. Shahrzad Mahootian, Dr. Hassan Bashirnezhad, Dr. Salih Akin, Dr. Farzad Karimzad, Dr. Rasoul Jafari, Dr. Hadi Mirvahedi, Dr. Mehrdad Farahani, Dr. Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari, and Dr. Hossein Shokouhi.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-202

Foreword Since the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, when linguists such as W. Whitney, F. de Saussure and A. Meillet noted that language is a social possession and a social institution, many linguists started to pay attention to the social aspects of language. After pioneering and seminal works by sociolinguists like W. Labov and J. Fishman in the 1960s, various fields of social studies of language were founded and considered as inextricably entwined with myriad domains of linguistics. However, the asocial viewpoints and theories developed by leading figures of twentieth century linguistics, such as L. Bloomfield, C. Hockett, Z. Harris and N. Chomsky, strongly dominated and mainly focused on the description of the internal structure of language, while social aspects of linguistic investigation remained understudied. A similar approach was dominant in Iran and valuable descriptive research was conducted by Iranian and non-Iranian linguists on Iranian and non-Iranian languages and dialects, while the sociolinguistic studies remained largely marginal. In other words, most of the studies on the languages spoken within the borders of Iran and adjacent areas focused on corpus type languages, and not on the language status or language use. During the last few decades, however, serious studies have emerged, focusing on different areas of the social aspects of language, including urban dialectology, linguistic variation, minority languages, bilingualism, multilingualism, contact linguistics, language attitude, language shift, language maintenance, language loss, language extinction, identity, power, and linguistic consequences of migration and globalization (as two major social processes) in Iran and the neighboring countries. One of the most important linguistic phenomena in the contemporary world is engaging with the minority linguistic communities and a considerable decrease in the number of the world’s languages. The total number of world languages is estimated at around 5000 to 6000: more in some sources. There are various reasons for the rapid decrease in the number of world languages, particularly as pertains to minority and endangered languages. One of the most important consequences of this process is the loss of valuable linguistic and cultural heritage. According to M. Krauss (1992), by the end of the twenty-first century more than 4000 languages will be extinct. Regardless of how realistic this prediction is, the result is nevertheless a significant loss of linguistic and cultural heritage of mankind. Thus, investigation and documentation of minority language communities, both structurally and socially, seems crucial. As a country with considerable linguistic and ethnic diversity, Iran or the Iranian linguistic and cultural territory as a whole, is ideal for sociolinguistic studies. Various linguistic, ethnic, and religious communities such as Muslim, Zoroastrian, Armenian, Mandaic, Assyrian, Jewish, and all their separate sects, have lived together in Iran for centuries, and yet are able to conserve their own languages, religious beliefs and ceremonies, and cultural traditions. The native languages and religions of such communities are certainly the most important influences in sustaining their group solidarity. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-203

VIII 

 Foreword

The study of minority languages in general, and endangered languages more specifically, is of great importance from various linguistic, ethnographic, cultural, social and historical viewpoints. Minority languages with less social prestige, limited use in different social domains (such as mass media, educational system, or even in family), may, gradually lose their social status and their number of native speakers as well, and therefore, can be classified as endangered languages in the long term. Some of the endangered languages such as Mandaic, Vakhi or Tati for instance, that are still spoken within the Iranian linguistic and cultural territory, only have a few thousand native speakers or less. Thus, they are likely to be in danger of extinction by the end of the twenty first century. The present companion, intending to bridge the gap in the study of language status and language use (minority and endangered languages, etc.) within a wider linguistic territory of Iran and the neighboring countries, has several advantages. Firstly, the volume focuses on a particularly important subject, i.e., the Iranian linguistic heritage, both at home and in the diaspora. Secondly, the book covers studies on Iranian languages (like Kurdish, Balochi), along with non-Iranian languages (such as Armenian, Mandaic, Turkmen, and Azeri), that have been spoken in the region for centuries. Moreover, the volume features studies done in recent years and by modern and more reliable experimental and observational methods of data collection, which differ from traditional methods of studying the Iranian languages and endangered and minority languages. A further significant feature of this collection is that it covers excellent studies, which to the best of my knowledge, are mostly conducted by enthusiastic and learned younger generations of Iranian linguists working inside and outside of the cultural and linguistic territories of Iran. The papers in the present book are divided into three main categories, based on their subjects or contents: Iranian minority languages, non-Iranian minority languages, and the Iranian heritage languages in the diaspora. Moreover, the topics of most chapters covered in this volume are Iranian and non-Iranian languages, spoken today within the present borders of Iran. However, some minority languages like Vakhi are studied mostly in diasporic contexts. Thus, the present companion explores multilingualism within Iran and its neighboring countries on the one hand while investigating Iranian heritage languages within the diasporic context of the West on the other. Therefore, the book can be considered an essential reference for scholars and students interested in key fields of language studies, such as sociolinguistics, Iranian languages, minority languages, heritage languages, bilingualism, migration and diaspora studies, and language policy and planning. Yahya Modarresi

Contents Acknowledgements 

 V

Yahya Modarresi Foreword   VII Anousha Sedighi 1 Introduction 

 1

Part I: Iranian Minority Languages Maryam Borjian & Habib Borjian 2 At the Crossroads: Caspian Languages through a Sociolinguistic Lens  Hassan Bashirnezhad 3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

 37

Carina Jahani 4 Balochi: Literary Development, Status and Vitality 

 61

 9

Ehsan Majidifard, Mohammad Mahdi Hajmalek & Saeed Rezaei 5 Attitudes Towards Tati Language Among its Native Speakers in Western Iran   83 Sima Zolfaghari 6 The Bakhtiari Language: Maintenance or Shift? A Diachronic Survey on the Status of Bakhtiari in the City of Masjed Soleiman between 1996–2020   111

Part II: Non-Iranian Minority Languages Hamed Zandi 7 Ebb and Flow of Azeri and Persian in Iran: A Longitudinal Study in the City of Zanjan   177 Tahmine Sheikhi & Faryar Akhlaghi 8 Language Shift and Language Maintenance among Turkmen Speakers  Soheila Ahmadi 9 Language Change and Maintenance among Mandaic Speakers of Iran: A Socio-linguistic Study   231

 205

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Saeed Rezaei & Maryam Farnia 10 Armenian Language and Identity in Iran: The Case of Iranian Armenians of Isfahan   249

Part III: Iranian Heritage Languages in Diaspora Ross Perlin, Daniel Kaufman, Habib Borjian & Husniya Khujamyorova 11 Wakhi in New York: Multilingualism and Language Contact in a Pamiri Diaspora Community   273 Farid Saydee 12 Language Maintenance and Language Shift: A Perspective from the FirstGeneration and Second-Generation Pashto Speakers Living in the United States and Canada   305 Anousha Sedighi 13 Persian as a Diasporic Language in the United States: A Survey of Heritage Persian Learners at College Level   333 Index 

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Anousha Sedighi

1 Introduction The present volume, Iranian and Minority Languages at Home and in Diaspora, is first and foremost, a labor of love. The authors of each chapter care deeply about the vitality and maintenance of the under-represented language they study. As such, diversity and inclusivity lie at the core of this work. The companion is the first attempt to bring together such a large array of under-represented and minoritized languages, whether spoken at home or abroad. The volume, not only sheds light on multilingualism within Iran and its neighboring countries, but also discusses the situation of Iranian heritage languages within the diasporic context of the West. As such, the volume highlights a multitude of angles through which the intricacies of Iranian and minority languages and dialects, wherever spoken, as a cultural and sociolinguistic study can be examined and explored. As an original contribution, the companion tackles a large array of understudied and overlooked issues such as language attitudes, identity, language and literacy practices in formal and informal domains, language policy, multilingualism, language shift and maintenance, among many others. In addition to discussing the existing research, the companion tackles current debates and issues within the field and foregrounds new ideas for the much-needed future research and collaborations in this niche. The scope of languages covered in this volume is vast: firstly, the volume focuses on Iranian minority languages within Iran and its neighboring countries; secondly, it focuses on non-Iranian minority languages in Iran; and lastly, it highlights Iranian heritage languages within the diasporic context of the West. These three categories constitute a rather unconventional combination that made finding a title for the book rather challenging. At first glance, one would assume that the book is focused only on the Iranian languages. However, many minority languages spoken in Iran are not, typologically speaking, non-Iranian. Thus, the book also focuses on non-Iranian minority languages of Iran. At the same time, the focus of the book is not geographically limited to Iran, since it also focuses on the status of Iranian languages within the diasporic context of the West. As such, the scope of languages covered in this volume goes beyond not only the geographical borders, but also typological conventions. What brings these languages together, though, is the fact that they are all under-represented and minoritized languages. Thus, while one might argue that the title of the book may not precisely capture its essence, this title best represents the scope herein. The structure of this Companion is as follows: Part I focuses on Iranian Minority Languages. Iranian languages have been widely studied from a variety of perspectives including typology, language description, and syntax. However, the sociolinguistic aspects of Iranian languages remain widely understudied. This section is intended to shed light on the sociolinguistic aspects of the Iranian minority languages. To that end, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-001

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 Anousha Sedighi

Chapter 2, At the Crossroads: Caspian Languages through a Sociolinguistic Lens, by Maryam Borjian and Habib Borjian focuses on the Caspian family of languages that are spoken by more than five million people in a continuum along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. The chapter tackles a variety of understudied issues such as the presence of Gilaki and Mazandarani in Persian media and cinema, attitudes toward these minority languages within the national context, ethnolinguistic identities as expressed by Caspian writers and poets, Gilaki and Mazandarani Wikipedias as major online platforms to express ethnic identities of younger speakers, and language loss. In Chapter 3, A Socio-linguistic Analysis on the Status and Usage of Mazandarani and Persian, Hassan Bashirnezhad evaluates the social status and usage of Mazandarani and Persian, in various domains within the province of Mazandaran. A total of 1200 participants from five cities in Mazandaran participated in the survey that mainly focused on six domains of family, school, office, street/bazaar, religion, and art/entertainment. Moreover, a total of 240 recorded communications were studied through observation. Bashirnezhad’s research indicates that the highest usage of Mazandarani occurs in the family domain and the usage decreases as the domains become more formal. In the streets and market domain, a series of factors such as the nature of the conversation, social status, age, and gender of the speaker can be determinants in language choice. The formality of the administrative domain leads to relatively higher usage of Persian. In areas such as religion, arts and entertainment, the use of Persian surpasses Mazandarani with the exception of music, which is the only area where the majority of the participants prefer Mazandarani over Persian. Chapter 4 is entitled Balochi: Literary Development, Status and Vitality and is authored by Carina Jahani. The chapter focuses on the literary development, status, and vitality of the Balochi language in Iran and Pakistan. Balochi is unique due to the fact that while spoken in a large number of countries including Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, the Gulf States, Turkmenistan, India, and East Africa, it is not an official language in any of the countries where it is spoken. Jahani draws attention to a variety of issues related to language vitality. Regarding the promotion of the language, she argues that some attention was given to Balochi in British India during colonial times and there has also been more of a movement to read and write Balochi in Pakistan than in Iran. The essay further describes the desire to preserve and promote Balochi among its speakers. It also addresses the long oral literary tradition of Balochi as well as recent attempts towards developing a standard written language. Ehsan Majidifard, Mohammad Mahdi Hajmalek, and Saeed Rezaei in Chapter 5, Attitudes Towards Tati Language Among its Native Speakers in Western Iran, present the sociolinguistic profile of the Tati language in Western Iran. The focus is on the attitudes of Tati native speakers towards the Tati language as their mother tongue. To explore this issue, 188 male and female Tati speakers completed an online question-

1 Introduction 

 3

naire. The participants represent a broad range of geographical areas and were from a broad range of areas. The survey was followed by an interview of 10 participants to further explore how Tati native speakers perceive their mother tongue. Chapter 6 is entitled The Bakhtiari Language: Maintenance or Shift? A Diachronic Survey on the Status of Bakhtiari in the City of Masjed Soleiman between 1996–2020. In this chapter, Sima Zolfaghari revisits her original research conducted in 1996, and provides a diachronic study to investigate the language use of Bakhtiari speakers in Iran. A questionnaire was distributed to 150 women and men between the ages of (under 20) to (above 50) in three educational groups (illiterate, high school diploma, and higher education), in Masjed Soleiman. The result shows that the variety of Bakhtiari used in Masjed Soleiman is not an endangered language, mainly due to the robust attitude of its speakers towards their culture, language, and traditions. The survey includes updated inquiries about the effects of social media on the language choice of Bakhtiari speakers of Masjed Soleiman. Part II of the book focuses on non-Iranian minority languages in Iran. This is a crucial topic because whilst most of the minority languages of Iran come from the Iranian language family, many are typologically speaking, non-Iranian. However, they are spoken by a large number of people in Iran. Moreover, minority religions often practice their own heavily underrepresented minority languages. In order to provide an inclusive picture of the minority languages, it is imperative to shed light on the non-Iranian minority languages as well as the Iranian languages, side by side. To that end, Chapter 7, Ebb and Flow of Azeri and Persian in Iran: A Longitudinal Study in the City of Zanjan, focuses on Azeri. In this chapter, Hamed Zandi discusses the process of language shift from Persian to Azeri in the last millennium. Furthermore, he discusses this recent reversal by exploring the trends from 2008 to 2020 among bilingual university students in Zanjan. The Chapter aims to determine the function and social status of Persian and Azeri in the domains of home, school, friendship, religion, neighborhood, and business transactions. The results indicate a gradual increase in the use of Persian and the decline of Azeri. The chapter also discusses the increasing inclination towards the use of Persian among female students as the harbingers of this change. In Chapter 8, Tahmine Sheikhi and Faryar Akhlaghi explore the Language Shift and Language Maintenance among Turkmen Speakers. The authors study language vitality among the Turkmen ethnolinguistic minority residing in the Golestan province of Iran. The main purpose of this study is to consider the sociolinguistic situation of this variety of Turkmen by using field-study methods and direct observation. The authors focused on the demographic factors of gender and age along with language attitude. The participants consisted of 120 Turkmen speakers from Golestan province. The results reveal that the family domain has the highest percentage of Turkmen usage

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 Anousha Sedighi

and there is a significant difference between the use of Turkmen at home and other domains. However, this rate can vary, depending on certain demographic factors such as age. The participants reported to have a positive attitude towards Turkmen in general, and a negative attitude is rare among them. The findings also indicate that the use of Turkmen among women in different domains is not less than that of men. With respect to age, the data reveals significant differences in the pattern of language use. Chapter 9, Language Change and Maintenance among Mandaic Speakers of Iran: A Sociolinguistic Study, by Soheila Ahmadi studies Mandaic, a highly endangered language spoken by an ethnic minority group in southern Iran, with a few hundred native speakers. This chapter aims to determine how Mandaic language has been maintained and shifted in various domains of use within the Mandaean community of Iran. Ahmadi reports that the native speakers of Mandaic constitute a low percentage of their community, and the majority of the new generation has no effective command of the language. In this field study, questionnaires were used to collect data from a sample group of 100 Mandaeans across four generations. The results show that the frequency of Mandaic speakers is decreasing in all age groups. Persian, the official language of Iran, and Arabic, the most widely spoken language in the region, have impacted the use of Mandaic significantly, to the extent that most of the Mandaic speakers are bilingual or even multilingual. Ahmadi concludes that, since the language use is in decline, the new generation of speakers is likely to be the last. Chapter 10, Armenian Language and Identity in Iran: The Case of Iranian Armenians of Isfahan, by Saeed Rezaei and Maryam Farnia, focuses on Armenians, who are a diasporic ethno-religious minority group residing in different parts of Iran. Isfahan is one of the cities where Armenians have their own community, neighborhood, and church. The authors explore language attitudes and identity among Armenians in the neighborhood of Jolfa. The participants are 94 Armenians from different social and educational backgrounds in Isfahan between the ages of 17 and 71. The results of the questionnaire and interviews along with ethnographic fieldwork reveals that Armenians are strongly attached to their language as their source of identity. The authors also discuss the results from sociolinguistic perspectives, including minority language policy in Iran and the ecology of the Armenian language. Part III of the volume focuses on Iranian heritage languages within the diasporic context of the West. In the current era of migration and globalization, minority and heritage speakers are important resources, yet they are often overlooked. The topic of heritage languages has drawn much attention for other commonly studied languages within the past several decades. However, Iranian heritage languages within the diasporic contexts of the West still require more systematic research.

1 Introduction 

 5

Chapter 11, Wakhi in New York: Multilingualism and Language Contact in a Pamiri Diaspora Community, is authored by Ross Perlin, Daniel Kaufman, Habib Borjian, and Husniya Khujamyorova. The authors report that within just the last few decades, increasing outmigration from the region and new patterns of global mobility have resulted in a small but growing Pamiri community in New York City. The chapter aims to provide a sociolinguistic description of this relatively small and young community within the current universal trend of mass migration from remote rural areas to the big cities. Two sample texts in Wakhi are provided to analyze contact effects and language attrition in New York City. Chapter 12 is entitled Language Maintenance and Language Shift: A Perspective from the First and Second-Generation Pashto Speakers Living in the United States and Canada. In this chapter, Farid Saydee evaluates Pashto language usage among Pashto-speaking immigrants in the United States and Canada through quantitative data analysis. The descriptive analysis of data from the conducted survey of 78 participants indicates that second and third-generation Pashto speakers in the United States and Canada slowly abandon their heritage language in favor of the mainstream language. The study uses the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale of Reversing Language Shift perspective introduced by Fishman (1991) to identify the factors contributing to both language maintenance and language loss. The chapter recommends ways to improve literacy skills among heritage children, and consequently slow down or reverse the language shift. Chapter 13 is entitled Persian as a Diasporic Language in the United States: A Survey of Heritage Persian Learners at College Level, and is addressed by Anousha Sedighi. The United States hosts the largest population of the Iranians outside Iran. There has been a wealth of scholarship on the topic of the Iranian diaspora, mainly focusing on sociological and anthropological aspects, with fewer studies focusing on psychological and linguistic ones. The first part of the chapter provides a transdisciplinary overview of the existing scholarship on the Iranian diaspora in order to familiarize the readers with the highlights of this emerging field. The second part of the chapter provides an original contribution by conducting a study on the college level heritage speakers of Persian in the United States, and tackles a large array of issues such as language attitude, language use and literacy practices, identity and belonging, parental and community attitudes, language policy, and language vitality. The research employs both quantitative and qualitative methods. A survey consisting of a 50-item questionnaire with both multiple-choice and open-ended questions was designed and then completed by 45 heritage speakers of Persian at the college level. The survey was followed up by informal interviews. The findings of this study have important implications for scholars of heritage languages, educators, curriculum developers, and policy makers.

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The diversity of this volume is multifaceted. Firstly, the companion covers a vast array of languages, both Iranian and non-Iranian, some of which are considered endangered. It also covers religious minority languages, which are indeed understudied. The approaches adopted in various chapters are manifestations of an unavoidable linguistic diversity. While some chapters are based on statistics and adopt a quantitative approach, other chapters are more qualitative and empirical. The contributors constitute another source of diversity and inclusivity as they come from various continents and nationalities. Lastly, several chapters specifically study the importance of women in language maintenance. As can been seen by the summary of the chapters, the companion provides new insights into a multitude of sociolinguistic issues including language attitude and identity, language use and literacy practices, multilingualism, language policy, language shift, and language loss for a large array of under-represented languages and dialects. The companion is thus an essential reference for those interested in Iranian languages, minority languages, heritage languages, sociolinguistics, bilingualism, multilingualism, language policy and planning, diaspora, migration studies, and those researching in related fields.

Part I: Iranian Minority Languages

Maryam Borjian & Habib Borjian

2 At the Crossroads: Caspian Languages through a Sociolinguistic Lens Abstract: Gilaki and Mazandarani, as well as Central Caspian, constitute the Caspian family of languages – spoken in a continuum along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea by more than five million people. While these languages have not developed standard written forms, they all enjoy a rich oral literature. This chapter tackles selected topics in Caspian sociolinguistics that remain understudied by scholars. They include a range of issues: the presence of Gilaki and Mazandarani in Persian media and cinema; attitudes toward these minority languages within the national context; ethnolinguistic identities as expressed by Caspian writers and poets; Gilaki and Mazandarani Wikipedias as major online platforms to express ethnic identities of younger speakers; and language loss, not only in absolute terms, but also regarding lexical obsolescence due to a paradigm shift in the era of globalization. We identify contributing factors relating to the coexistence of the Caspian and Persian languages as compared with the situation of other minority languages in contemporary Iran.

1 Introduction Sociolinguistics is the study of language in society. Of the existing approaches within the field, this paper is grounded in the sociology of language, a macro approach to the study of language in society. Also known as the Fishmanian approach – referring to Joshua Fishman (1926–2015), its founding father – it places language within society, not to understand the internal elements of the language (that is, its phonological, morphological, or syntactic features), but rather the external elements of the language and their impact on the speakers (Garcia and Schiffman 2006). Since the late 1990s, we have examined the Caspian languages and have gathered a substantial amount of sociolinguistic data. By drawing on our own sociolinguistic data, we situate the Caspian languages within their geographical context to explore the intersection, and intersectionality, of the Caspian languages with their surrounding social variables, and the implications of such interactions on the languages and their speech communities. With regard to sociolinguistic themes, we examine language from many angles: national context, attitudes, identity, technology, and decline. Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge the extensive comments of Professor Lois Beck on an earlier version of this paper, though she bears no responsibility for the remaining shortcomings. The authors would like to thank Maziar Hashemi for his valuable consultation on modern Caspian music. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-002

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The sociolinguistics of the Caspian languages is probably unique in Iran. It is quite different from the minority language communities in the interior of Iran: the Komisenian speakers in Semnan area, the speakers of the Tatic and the Central Plateau language groups, the speakers of Southwest Iranian languages in the southern provinces of Fars and Kerman. The Caspian-speaking lands have always been confined within the borders of Iran, hence the contrast with the speakers of Azeri, Kurdish, Turkmen, and Balochi, who share their linguistic territories with sizable communities across national borders. Compared with the speakers of Lori and Qashqai, the Caspian peoples are non-tribal.

2 Overview: The Caspian languages As linguistic and ethnographic research in the Caspian region of Iran is still wanting, it is not yet known exactly how many languages are spoken there. Throughout the 20th century, scholars identified only Gilaki and Mazandarani as the languages of the Caspian family,1 and delineated them with the administrative borders of the provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran. In his seminal article, Donald Stilo (2001) proposed that dialects between Tonekabon and Kelardasht (historical Kalarestaq) are transitional between Gilaki and Mazandaranai and should therefore be considered a third separate language group of the Caspian area; these transitional varieties (Tonekaboni and Kelardashti/Kalarestaqi) was subsequently designated as “Central Caspian” (Stilo 2018). Thus, Gilaki, Central Caspian, and Mazandarani constitute the Caspian family of languages – spoken in a near-continuum along the entire southern shore of the Caspian Sea,2 in an area of approximately 35,000 km2, roughly equivalent to Holland’s land area. These languages and language varieties lack standardized written forms. Note that “Central Caspian” is merely a scholarly designation with no popular currency. All speakers of the Caspian languages call their languages gelaki, as discussed below. The Gilaki language is spoken in the province of Gilan. Its speakers, called Gilak, Gilaki, Gilani, or, rather casually, Rashti in Persian, are roughly estimated at three million. Gilan is geographically split by the Sefidrud River into western and eastern parts (locally known as Bie-pas and Bie-pish respectively), each having a distinct dialect. Western Gilaki is centered in the provincial capital of Rasht. Eastern Gilaki is present in Lahijan and environs, which rank second in the province in terms of population size (Stilo 2001). People in the region regard these two dialects to be mutually intelligible, yet their significant differences in phonology and morphosyntax renders a unified orthography a challenging task (see more below, under Language and Technology). 1 Hourcade et al. 1979, Map 5, has also Gilaki–Galeshi, roughly corresponding to East Gilaki. 2 For the concept of dialect-chain continuum in Central Caspian, see H. Borjian forthcoming.

2 At the Crossroads: Caspian Languages through a Sociolinguistic Lens 

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Figure 1: South Caspian region and the Alborz range. Curtesy of USGS Esri; at https://livingatlas. arcgis.com/topoexplorer/index.html (retrieved 17 September 2021).

A third dialect of Gilaki, Galeshi Gilaki or Deylami, is spoken in the southwestern mountains of Gilan (Bazin 2001). Galeshi is poorly known in linguistic terms; its individuality appears to be inspired by the agro-pastoral way of life of its speakers, which differs from that of the paddy-growers and city dwellers in the Sefidrud delta. The Gilaki language is rapidly losing ground in the cities, with its usage dwindling at an alarming rate. The western highlands of the Gilan province are home to the ethnic Talesh people (Asatrian and Borjian 2005), who speak a language of the Tatic type (Stilo 2018); it is only remotely related to the Caspian languages. The Talesh differ from Gilakis in terms of language, economy, culture, and history; hence, we exclude them from this sociolinguistic study of the Caspian peoples. Mazandarani, also known as Tabari, is spoken along the eastern half of the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. Its speakers, roughly four million in number, mostly dwell in the towns and the surrounding villages spread over the littoral plain of Mazandaran, as well as in the foothills and higher valleys of the Alborz Mountain chain. The geographical extent of Mazandarani does not match the current administrative borders of Mazandaran province; it extends from the Chalus River in the west, to the plains of Gorgan in the east. Varieties of Mazandarani are mutually intelligible to various degrees, more so in Mazandaran proper, that is, a series of loose-knit villages spread over the vast plains of Mazandaran, which hosts the major cities of Amol, Babol, Shahi, and Sari. These cities, nearly equal in size, have distinct dialects none of which has gained a formal status. A dialectal continuum also varies along the longitude, lowlands and highlands. Almost every locale has its own subdialect, and nearby settlements may exhibit substantial phonological differences. The lexicon, however, is fairly uniform throughout the domain of Mazandarani (H. Borjian 2004). The districts of Nur and Kojur in the central-western part of Mazandaran province have their distinct dialects

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outside of Mazandarani proper, but are sufficiently close to Mazandarani proper: enough to be linguistically classified as Mazandarani (H. Borjian 2013d, e). Moreover, along the southern frontier of Mazandarani, there exist transition zones with Persian and Tatic (H. Borjian 2012, 2013a, b, c, 2021b). People in the districts of Tonekabon and Kalarestaq (modern Kelardasht), spreading from Ramsar to Chalus, still within the current borders of the Mazandaran province, speak Central Caspian varieties. The languages of Kalarestaq (Kalbasi 1997; Borjian 2010) and Tonekabon (Borjian forthcoming) have only low mutual intelligibility with each other – and with either Gilaki or Mazandarani as well. A recent study demonstrates Tonekaboni is far too closer to Gilaki than it is to Mazandarani (Borjian forthcoming). According to Rabino (1913: 445), Tonekabonis did not identify themselves as either Gilakis or Mazandaranis, although they lived, and still live, within the limits of the province of Mazandaran. In contrast to some Iranian languages on which ample studies exist, the Caspian languages have received insufficient scholarly attention and represent more of a vacuous niche in terms of language/dialect distribution, and sociolinguistics in general.

3 Caspian in the national context Language interacts with various sources of authority in society. One such source is political authority and the ways in which politicians and policy makers utilize language to regulate linguistic behavior in a society towards their agenda. These policies are not formed in a vacuum but are rather derived from ideologies. One such ideology concerns the national/official language of the nation-state. In the early twenty-first century, the majority of nation-states in the world have a monoglossic language policy, in which one language serves as the national and/or official language. The ideologies behind this policy are modernization and nationalization, with a slogan of one nation (territory or land), one people (blood), and one national identity (cultural and linguistic), derived from eighteenth-century German romanticism. Through this monoglossic lens, a nation is perceived as an entity with essential territorial, historical, psychological, and sociocultural communalities, and one language should serve as the national language as a means to bring about national unity. According to critics (Fishman 1969, 1971, 1991; Garcia 2009; May 2001; Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson 1995), a modernist ideology that favors the selection of one language as a prerequisite for the construction of a modern nation-state is inherently biased, unequal, and unjust. It is unjustly detrimental to linguistic diversity because it favors the speakers of one language – over all others (Borjian and Häberl 2016). Like other monoglossic nation-states, Iran has one official/national language, which is Persian, used in all official and formal domains during the past millennium. Other languages of the country are regarded as heritage or minority languages. Most

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minority languages of Iran, including the Caspian languages, are employed only in unofficial domains, such as the family, local markets, folk literature, folk songs, and the local media. In the national media, the presence of Caspian languages has been meager, as explained below. The inception of radio broadcasting in Iran (circa 1940), especially via transistor radio (1960s) afforded hearing minority languages on a wide scale. Particularly Gilakis, whose presence in Tehran has been significant since the era of modernization, were especially successful in presenting their culture in the earlier years of Radio Iran. Ahmad Ashurpur (1917–2007) was among the earlier minority-language singers whose many Gilaki songs, such as Āy Leyli (O Leyli), Gingi jān (Dear Gingi), and Khuruskhān (Cock-crow), gained national recognition. Another Gilaki song, Gol-e  pāmchāl (Primorses), was reclaimed by Ezzat Ruhbakhsh (1908–89) in the 1970s. Called the “Nightingale of Gilan”, Naser Mas’udi (b. 1936) was regularly featured in the 1960s and 70s on radio (up to the Islamic revolution of 1979), including the famous Golhā program (Lewisohn 2008); his golden songs Banafshe gol (The violet flower) and Kurāshim (Kurashim) are still considered national treasures today. Less well known are the Mazandarani songs sung by the celebrity singer Delkash (1925–2004), who is otherwise known as a first-class Persian singer. While some of her songs, such as Robābe jān (Dear Robabe) and Ketkete shalvār (Fancy pants), are fully Mazandarani, others, like Kijā (The girl) and Bānu (The lady), were mixed. Native words and phrases in these songs were highly Persianized to meet the expectations of a general audience. For example, in Bānu the phrases te abru, te ru (corresponding with Persian abru-ye to, ru-ye to, respectively) stand for authentic Mazandarani te befre, te dim, ‘your brows, your face’. In the Persian movies of the 1960s and 70s, there was a “Rashti” comic role personifying a naive male from Rasht, the capital city of Gilan. Such a role was often performed by Ali Miri (1936–2009), who had 115 Persian films to his credit. The language of the Rashti character was Persian with a Gilaki intonation. A classical Persian movie in a Caspian setting was Babr-e Mazandaran (The Tiger of Mazandaran, 1968), starring Emam-Ali Habibi Gudarzi (b. 1931), a gold medalist in the 1956 Olympics and world freestyle wrestling championships (1959–62). One of his idiosyncratic wrestling techniques was lucho, a local Caspian grappling skill acquired in his childhood from a female schoolteacher (Habibi 1965: 49). Non-Persian movies are few in number in Iran, yet some Caspian-language movies have managed to excelled since the 1980s. The first Gilaki language movie is Bashu, the Little Stranger (1986) in the Gilaki language with Persian subtitles, written and directed by Bahram Beyzai. This groundbreaking movie is not only the first major Iranian film to make use of a non-Persian language as the main language – and in a serious context rather than a comic setting – , but it is acclaimed to be one of the best Iranian films of all time (Qukasian 2000). The movie follows Bashu, a darkskinned Arab boy, who flees his native village in Khuzestan during the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988). His journey on a cargo truck brings him to a piedmont village in Gilan,

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where he is found and sheltered by a local young woman named “Nāi” (played by Susan Taslimi) and her young children. The film revolves around two main themes: blackness (Wingham 2015) and language. As neither Nāi nor Bashu are fluent in spoken Persian, they try to teach their native vernaculars (Gilaki and Arabic) to one another. But it is the Persian language that eventually breaks the language barrier and connects Bashu and his belligerent classmates in the local school. The role of Persian as the medium of written communication is depicted in a film sequence in which Nāi dictates a letter in Gilaki to a scribe, who then spontaneously translates it into written Persian and sends it to Nāi’s husband at the war front. This scene clearly illustrates the process of written communication in the Persianate world, regardless of the mother tongue of the sender, or receiver of the message. This successful movie was followed by Abbas Kiarostami’s so-called Koker trilogy: Where Is the Friend’s Home? (1987), Life, and Nothing More (1992), and Through the Olive Trees (1994), which are among his most internationally acclaimed works (Qukasian 1996). These are filmed in a small mud-brick village named Koker, and some of the cast uses the Rudbari dialect of Rostamabad in southern Gilan. There are also lesser-known films in a Caspian setting, or in Caspian languages. One is titled Malak jān (circa 2019), a semi-documentary that makes no reference to any place or language, but which appears to be Tonekaboni, a Central Caspian language. The plot concerns a skirmish among villagers who want to establish the provenance of an elderly woman by analyzing her dialect; for instance, whether she pronounces āv or ow for “water”. Another documentary worth mentioning is Delband (Beloved) (2018), directed by Yaser Talebi, portraying the everyday life of an aged female gālesh (cowherd) in the piedmont thickets of Mazandaran. Shepherding her forty heads of cattle, Delband hikes across the rugged landscape, hauls bundles of wood, and nimbly climbs trees, depicting the industriousness and strong-mindedness for which Caspian women are nationally known.

4 Language attitudes “Why is it that one minority group assimilates and its language dies, while another maintains its linguistic and cultural identity?” This question was posed by David Bradley (2002: 1), who perceives attitudes toward language to be the key factor in maintaining it. Language attitudes can be positive, negative, or neutral. They encompass the attitudes of the speakers of a majority language towards the speakers of a language of a minority group (a positive or a negative ascribed linguistic identity). They also include the attitudes of the speakers of the minority language towards the language they speak (which could be a positive or a negative image). Speakers of Persian have often held negative attitudes towards the country’s ethnic minorities, the Caspian-speech communities included. This statement holds

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true especially in the capital city of Tehran, whose residents, on the whole, are relatively recent immigrants from all parts of Iran. The Gilakis, commonly referred to as Rashtis, have been particularly fertile grounds for notions about otherness. Such negative attitudes are expressed in jokes, known as Rashti jokes, which ridicule the Persian accent of Gilakis and construct a negative image, for example, of their culinary habits (Bromberger 2011). Rashti women3 are frequently stereotyped as lacking chastity – not a surprising fallacy, since Gilak women pioneered women’s emancipation as early as Iran’s constitutional revolution (1905–1906), and have since been far more socially represented, compared to the average Iranian woman. Another way to detect language attitudes is the way that speakers of a minority language perceive themselves. Since the turn of the century, when we first worked on Caspian languages, we saw either negative attitudes or an attitude of indifference on the part of the speakers (M. Borjian 2005). Only since around 2010 have we observed positive attitudes and sociopolitical interest on the part of these speech communities towards their languages. The erstwhile indifference has given way to concerns that Gilaki and Mazandarani must not be called dialects (supposedly of Persian) but languages in their own right, leading to the notion that they deserve to be taught in school at least as subjects (if not as the language of instruction). In recent years, the first attempts have been made to publish prose in Gilaki and Mazandarani in the form of children’s stories. The recent linguistic awareness of Caspian-language speakers might be related to global trends, but it might also be a reaction against stigmatization in the national media under the Islamic Republic. There has been more than one widespread protest against Caspian languages being insulted in the national media. The serial Pāyetakht (Capital City) on national television was broadcast in 2001 and gained popularity nationwide. Protests on the part of a Mazandarani audience prompted official investigations. In a survey, more than half of Mazandarani interviewees said that their language was insulted (Zardar and Fathinia 2012). The main language of the serial is the Tehrani Persian vernacular with Mazandaranis using local Persian accents and occasional short segments in Mazandarani. There are claims that these ‘provincial’ speakers are stereotyped as naïve, old fashioned, rural, clumsily dressed, rude, and playing predominantly negative roles. An underlying pattern of the series is characterized as “Tehrani provincial other” (Ẕakeri 2021: 270–75). There are instances, however few, of provincial others who refuse to see provinciality as a sign of inferiority. Masih Alinejad is a diasporic Iranian journalist, author, and activist of exceptional vocality who criticizes the authorities. Born in Ghomikola, a small village near the city of Babol in Mazandaran, she is referred to as “Ghomikolai” as a token of stigmatization on national television and in social media outlets. Instead of being shamed, Alinejad uses her birth village as the source of her pride and

3 See also Pakpour 2015. This reference is not consulted by the authors of this article.

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strength. In Instagram and other social media outlets, she introduces her many followers to Ghomikola through her stories of childhood and family photos. Alinejad is a proud speaker of Mazandarani. This positive attitude is evident in her vibrant weekly show named Tablet, broadcast by Voice of America (VOA) Persian since 2015. There, she makes frequent use of her mother tongue, in her otherwise Persian talk-shows, by inserting Mazandarani elements in Persian sentences whenever she needs a right word or phrase, and she leaves them untranslated when the context is transparent. Although this code-switching makes her show amusing, using Mazandarani in an official domain like VOA Persian is a pioneering act which makes Alinejad not only a political and women’s-rights activist, but also a language activist.4

5 Language and identity Language is a primary marker of identity. It has profound influence on one’s mind, thoughts, and life. It is a means through which cultural heritage is obtained and passed on. Of all the languages that a person may speak, the one with most impact on an individual’s identity is the mother tongue, which is regarded as an inescapable part of an individual identity. This tongue is the one in which one is born and grown, the tongue close to one’s heart, the tongue in which one dreams, the tongue that has evolved over time through its interaction with its natural and social surrounding, and the tongue of locally situated wisdom, knowledge, metaphors, and expressions. Mother tongue has entered in UNESCO’s Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (UNESCO 1996), which advocates the right of every linguistic community to speak, teach, standardize, codify, preserve, and promote its language (Borjian and Häberl 2016). All speakers of Caspian languages share a distinct ethnic identity, defined not only by geography but also by history, economy, culture, and folklore, in sharp contrast with Persian speakers on the Iranian Plateau, who used to be called by the people of Caspian people “Arāqi” (H. Borjian 2008c; Bromberger 2011), that is, people of the plateau or interior of Iran.5 By contrast, all Caspian language speakers, that is, Gilakis, Mazandaranis, and the speakers of the transitional languages therein identify themselves as gelak and their languages as gelaki. These two terms correspond exactly to the scholarly term “Caspian” used in this article. Interestingly, there is no equivalent term for “Caspian” in the Persian language; Iranians, in general, are not aware of the language situation in Gilan and Mazandaran, and often use the term shomāli (“northern”) for all Caspian languages and their speakers.

4 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masih_Alinejad. 5 The term Arāqi refers to the former super-province called ʿEraq-e ʿAjam(i) (Persian Iraq) that stretched along the Zagros range from Hamadan to Isfahan, and included Ray in the south of modern Tehran. This super-province corresponds to medieval Jebāl and ancient Media.

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Notwithstanding this shared ethnolinguistic endonym, Gilakis and Mazandaranis have each their specific ethnic identity. Mazandarani speakers, at least those who live in the major cities of Mazandaran, i.e., Mazandaran proper, consider themselves as Mazandarani within the national context. The disagreement between the endonym gelak and the exonym māzandarāni has resulted in a confusion among Mazandarani intellectuals, as to what their native language should properly be called (Zakeri 2020), some criticizing the old generations for misusing the ethnonym gelak for what is actually Mazandarani. The skeptics ignore the fact that a language or ethnic group may have different internal and external names; for instance, Deutsch is the endonym for the language that is also known by the exonym German in English, allemand in French, tedesko in Italian, and nemeckij jazyk in Russian. The Mazandarani language, historically called Tabari, has a literary history of nearly a millennium, which is second to New Persian in terms of age, among the living Iranian languages. It is the only language of the same family besides Persian into which the Koran was translated in pre-modern times (H. Borjian 2009). This written tradition of Mazandarani has been abandoned for centuries (exact dates are unknown). Modern Mazandarani, still called Tabari in literary contexts, is by and large a continuation of the language of the medieval Tabari literature. As to the Koran translations, the ongoing study is yet to establish with which living Caspian variety or varieties they best agree (Borjian 2021a). In modern times, there have been Caspian authors among the Persian literary elite, including the journalist Sayyed Ashrafeddin Hoseyni (penname: Nasim-e Shemal; d. 1934), the fiction writer Mahmud E’temadzade (Behazin; d. 2006), the lexicographer Mohammad Mo’in (d. 1971), the poets Hushang Ebtehaj (Saye) and Karim Amiri Firuzkuhi (d. 1984), and the essayists Parviz Natel Khanlari (d. 1990) and Ahmad Sami’i Gilani. All these authors, whether Gilaki or Mazandarani, wrote strictly in Persian with little trace of their mother tongues. An exception is Nima Yushij (1897–1960), known as the founder of modern Persian poetry, who revolutionized and left a lasting impact on Persian verse. Born and raised in the mountainous village of Yush in western district of Nur in Mazandaran (Borjian 2013d), Nima composed many poems in his native language. These poems, published posthumously, carry specific native themes that are absent in his Persian verse (Naficy 1997: 81–89; H. Borjian 2022). Nima’s sense of his Caspian self has left a presence in later Mazandarani literature, by other authors (H. Borjian 2013e). Regardless of a lack of standardized orthography, sporadic pieces – mostly in verse – of Caspian languages appear in local newspapers and magazines. Since the mid-twentieth century, Gilaki has seen growing literature, mostly poetry. Gilaki speakers were active in modern social upheavals of the twentieth century, and such activism prompted several political poets to produce considerable Gilaki literature. A renowned pioneer is Mirza Hoseyn Khn Kasma’i (1862–1921), who composed patriotic verses in Persian and Gilaki during the Jangali movement in Gilan as will be elaborated on further below. The next generation may be best represented by

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Mohammad-ʿAli Afrashte, who regularly published Gilaki poems in the otherwise Persian satire magazine Chelengar in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Fakhra’i 1979). Mahmud Pyande Langerudi (d. 1998) widely published on Gilaki folklore, and his Gilaki dictionary (1978) is rich in cultural terms. More recently, several local magazines in Gilan print Gilaki pieces regularly. The nationally acclaimed monthly Gilevā (published by Mohammad-Taqi Jaktaji and Hushang ʿAbbasi since 1991) is dedicated to the culture, literature, and language of Gilan, and a section is devoted to Gilaki literature, both verse and prose. The magazine has been a medium to promote hasə she’r (lit. ‘now-poetry’), an avant-garde genre that defies classical Persian prosody in its entirety and aims to express progressive ideas to a generation that is apathetic to the traditional political left. This genre has recently been emulated by several Mazandarani poets. Modern Mazandarani literature was also introduced by the intellectual elite, especially the political activists who were probably aware of the policy of empowerment of minority languages embraced in the earlier years of the Soviet Union. Ehsan Tabari (1917–89), a prominent leader of the Tudeh party, who began publishing his native verses as a young man,6 did not hesitate to glorify the long history of the Mazandarani language, despite his internationalist ideology: pas-e yek ʿomr ke fazl o sharaf-e irāni bud dar qabze-ye forsān-e ‘Arab zendāni, avvalin bār zabān-e tabari da’vi kard ke man-am vāres-e rāh o ravesh-e Sāsāni. Marzbān-nāme az āghāz nabod lafz-e dari, marzbān-i tabari bud mar ān-rā bāni. Maltavi pārsi-ash sāxt be bār-e avval z-ān sepas Sa’d-e Varāvini bār-e sāni. be zabān-e tabari bud ketāb-e Shakare . . .7 After a generation that Persian wisdom and dignity had been in the clasp of Arab ‘equestrians’, Tabari language was first in reclaiming that “I am the path, and of, the Sasanian heritage”. The Book of Marzban was not in Persian at first, but was created by a Tabari chieftain. It was translated into Persian first by [Mohammad b. Ghazi] of Miletus, then, the second time, by Sa’d of Varavin. The book of Shakare was in the Tabari language . . .

Since the 1990s, collections of poems published in the Mazandarani language have been on the rise (H. Borjian 2005; H. Borjian and M. Borjian 2008b). The essayist Hoseyn Samadi (using the penname Bamun-e Tapuri), who resides in Germany and has been collecting publications about Mazandaran on the website tabarestan.info, has

6 E.g., “Sevā’i”, Majalle-ye Mardom 2(11), 1946, apud Afshar 1955, p. 84, under “Savādkuhi”. 7 Donyā 3(3), 1978: 59.

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published a long sociopolitical prose essay in Mazandarani in both Persian and Latin scripts (Tapuri 2001), probably the first adaption of the Latin alphabet on Mazandarani. Within Mazandaran, attempts have been made at the grassroots level to raise awareness about the importance of the Mazandarani language and its vast contributions to preserving the culture and the identity of its speakers. A notable figure was Fakhreddin Surtiji (1931–2013) who presided over an informal circle of poets in the city of Sari. His collection, Lālehā-ye khiāl (The Tulips of Dreams; 2011), includes a chapter devoted to his poems in Mazandarani. Another notable member of the circle is Rezaqoli Mohammadi Kordkheyli, an acclaimed poet at a provincial level (H. Borjian and M. Borjian 2008b). His Armun-e del (“Aspiration of the hearth” 2018) consists of 154 Mazandarani couplets with themes involving the forgotten past, love, dreams, and hope – alongside spiritual and social issues. An active private institution in the capital of Mazandaran is Markaz-e Sārishenāsi (Center for the study of [the city of] Sari), a center that devotes its activities to the promotion of the Mazandarani language and culture since 2007. Its founder Hoseyn Eslami Saravi, in an interview with the local press, on the occasion of UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day, remarked: We are all Iranians. Iran is like a Persian carpet that has so many beautiful flowers, which are the many languages spoken in Iran. Mazandarani is one of these flowers, and it is our responsibility to cherish and safeguard this centuries-old treasure. Our culture is alive today, mainly because of our language. Our language is our identity, our identification card, just like a birth certificate, and we should protect it. If our language dies, we will die (Eslami 2017).

To confirm that his words were not taken as unpatriotic, he continued: Throughout history, Mazandaran has been proud to be part of Iran, regardless of strong or weak central governments. We are proud of being both Iranian and Mazandarani, both at the same time, for the two are not mutually exclusive (Eslami 2017).

6 Language and technology: The Internet Although globalization has been blamed for its negative impact on world languages and cultures, its positive features have equally been considered by sociolinguists (Harrison 2007; Kaufman 2017). One of these positive outcomes is the rise of modern electronic technology and the flow of information across geographical and national borders, which was not possible prior to globalization. The rise of new technological outlets, especially the internet, has provided new platforms for speakers of minority languages to broadcast in their own languages. Gilaki and Mazandarani have made their presence in social media, including Instagram, Facebook, and Telegram, among other outlets. This development merits methodological research by linguists interested in social media and rates further discussion in separate research. We limit our

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focus here to the Gilaki and Mazandarani Wikipedias, which we have been monitoring since 2009. Their relatively high ranking among the 300-odd Wikipedias portray a new sociolinguistic awareness among the speakers of Caspian languages. Soon after the launching of non-English Wikipedias in 2001, Persian joined and was followed by other languages of the Iranian family. These languages include not only Tajik, Pashto, Ossetic, and Kurdish, which had already recognized orthographies and secured official positions at various levels, but also Zazaki, Gilaki, and Mazandarani, which are essentially dialect continua with no standard forms. Some of these Wikipedias have grown considerably, to the extent that the Kurdish Wikipedia has split into Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Sorani Wikipedias, each having sizable articles. Not every language was allowed to join Wikipedia, an example being Balochi, an official language in Pakistan’s Baluchistan, which was denied admission by the administrators of Wikipedia more than once. Gilaki and Māzandarāni were admitted to Wikipedia in 2007. Gilaki in particular had a striking head start. By 2011, it claimed nearly 6,000 articles and thus ranked 119th among the languages having Wikipedias – this is a remarkably high ranking given that the official languages of Europe and Asia alone approach one hundred in number. The performance of the Gilaki Wikipedia has stagnated for almost a decade (Figure 2): its entries as of July 2020 total just slightly above 6,000; removal of weak articles being one reason. Consequently, its ranking has dropped to 173rd among the 310 languages having Wikipedias in 2020. Mazandarani lagged far beyond Gilaki at the beginning but rapidly expanded around 2012, after which it has grown only slightly. In July 2020, it had more than 13,000 articles and ranked 137th. Still, most of the articles in these two Wikipedias are “stub,” consisting of a few sentences hastily translated from parallel articles in the Persian Wikipedia. These entries have little merit in propagating knowledge, which is the ultimate goal of Wikipedias. The main purpose of the contributors to the Gilaki and Mazandarani Wikipedias, it seems, is establishing identity for these minority languages. More interesting than the articles themselves are the discussions in the background, “Talk” pages, dedicated to free communication among users and administrators of each Wikipedia. Most participants in the Gilaki and Mazandarani Wikipedias are college and high school students who aspire to make their mother tongue recognized as a language independent of Persian. This development is surprising, at least for the speakers of Gilaki and Mazandarani, who had otherwise expressed little interest in the fate of their vernaculars vis-à-vis the sweeping power of Persian not so long ago. These Wikipedia users attempt to construct standard languages, and they engage in ongoing dialogues about problems in building a standard script, grammar, and vocabulary and about their success in doing so. The Mazandarani Wikipedia began with short articles mostly in the Latin script, which was developed gradually as users were exposed to new graphemes beyond the English keyboard. The letters ç and ş for instance were copied from Turkish, followed by introducing a tricolored flag for Mazandaran that resembled that of the Azerbaijan

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Republic (without a good reason). The Latin script did not survive long, and it was eventually replaced by a Persian-based orthography. This change led to a new venue for discourse about which variety of Mazandarani should be employed as standard. The three administrators of the Mazandarani Wikipedia apparently agreed on Baboli, Babol being one of four large urban centers of Mazandaran. Saravi speakers, who also had high stakes in developing the Wikipedia, were in dispute about Baboli. As it turned out, the target of standardization remained unachieved as of 2020 – by the few but enthusiastic regular users of the Mazandarani Wikipedia. Gilaki Wikipedia demonstrates the problem of orthography far more plainly. Two differing dialect types, Eastern and Western, have been subject to debate in Talk pages among the users. Rashti users are critical of the sole administrator of Gilaki Wikipedia who favored the dialect of Lahijan, which, as mentioned above, differs grammatically from the dialect of Rasht. Mazandarani and Gilaki Wikipedias prompted the first attempts in modern times to write these languages in prose and to standardize their orthographies in a discourse among hundreds of educated speakers – a movement that was unimaginable before the rise of the internet.

No. of Articles

1,000,000

100,000

Persian Sorani Kurdish Mazandarani Gilaki

10,000

1,000 Time 2009–2020 Figure 2: Number of articles in selected Wikipedias (The graph is prepared by the authors).

7 Language thinning and obsolescence Recent studies (Amuzade 2002; Shahidi 2008; Zandi et al. 2012; Bashirnezhad 2018) point to one conclusion: Caspian languages, whether Mazandarani, Tonekaboni (Central Caspian), or Gilaki, are losing ground to Persian, more so among the educated

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classes, urban dwellers, young people, and women. In pure linguistic terms, Donald Stilo, concluding his salient reference article on Gilaki, states: More recently, however, due to both the economic importance of the Caspian [Sea] and Gilan’s proximity to Tehran, Gilaki has been undergoing a massive, indelible Persian imprint: heavy influx of vocabulary (e.g., Pers. pəsər, duxtər, damad, negah kudən have replaced the native rey, kor, zama, fəndərəstən), significant syntactic interference (e.g., ezafe), changes in vowel pronunciation, and even morpheme borrowings. One thus gets the erroneous impression that Gilaki is merely a dialect of Persian. Yet it is a mixed language, and is becoming even more mixed. Virtual one-to-one correspondences between Gilaki and Persian are commonplace, and often unavoidable (Stilo 2001).

Language weakening is not felt as much in phonology and morphosyntax as it is in vocabulary (Shahidi 2008; H. Borjian 2019a). The reason for this lexical obsolescence is simple: Caspian languages developed for centuries in predominantly rural societies, but with the interruptive force of modernism, within several decades, especially the urban varieties have rapidly been losing their terminology pertaining to material culture, domestic economy, architecture, clothing, culinary art, kinship, time reckoning, topography, wilderness, and flora, as well as idioms and expressions (M. Borjian 2004; Borjian and Borjian 2005, 2006, 2007a,b, 2008a,b; Shokri, Jahani, and Barani 2013). This trend is not unexpected, for it is unlikely that a city dweller would need items at home, in school, in the office, on the street or in the marketplace that were essential in the lives of their ancestors. The continual thinning process of characteristic Caspian vocabularies has made many native speakers unable to perceive their mother tongue as anything other than a dialect of Persian (H. Borjian 2006, 2019a). An example of the loss of vocabulary through loss of culture is the Caspian calendar. Caspian people are perhaps unique in the Iranian-speaking world for keeping the pre-Islamic calendar uninterrupted: that is until lately. The Caspian year, locally called Tabari or Deylami,8 consists of twelve months, thirty days each, plus five days of epact (petak), which conclude the year after une-mā, the last month in the Tabari calendar corresponding to Scorpio (Table 1).9 The absence of leap years in the Caspian calendar has led to the divergence of approximately four months between Caspian and Iran’s national calendar. Table 1 is a comparative list of the names of the month throughout the Caspian region; much of the data were gathered in the second half of the twentieth century, when the terminology was not entirely forgotten. Recently, Gilaki and Mazandarani Wikipedias attempted to revitalize the Caspian calendar. Two major festivals were observed in the Caspian calendar. One was Tirəmā-sizdə (corresponding to the otherwise extinct national Tiragan), held on the eve of the thirteenth day of the month of Tirəmā. It involved the gathering of the extended family, 8 Historical Deylam corresponds to the highlands of Gilan. 9 However, the New Year celebration is the nationwide Nowruz, observed at the spring equinox. The festivity of Nowruz Bal (with obscure origins) is performed in Gilan on the eve of Nowruz (Hasanpur 2006).

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eating varieties of fruits and confectionery especially prepared for this night, telling tales, and singing songs. The chief characteristic of this festival was a kind of trick-ortreat called lāləshish. Covering their faces and pretending to be without speech (lāl), groups of boys would go from house to house, gently strike the residents with sticks (shish), and ask for treats such as dried fruit and sweets (Kia 1947: 247–250; Purkarim 1968; Purkarim n.d.: 65–84; Jahangiri 1988: 185–86; H. Borjian 2005, 2013d, 2013e, 2019). Tirəmā-sizdə is on the verge of disappearing even in the collective memory of the Caspian people. The other major festivity connected with the Caspian calendar, Mərdə-ayd, Nurzəmā-ə bis-shesh,10 or Bis-shish-ə ayd,11 was held on the first day of the epact or petak (see above). In our research in 2002 in Mazandaran’s district of Espivard, located between Sari and Shahi, the festival was still, but barely, remembered by village elders. The rites of this celebration included paying visits to the cemetery, offering food to the deceased, preparing special dishes and sweets (peshtezik and shastek), and reciting songs of Katuli and Amiri (H. Borjian and M. Borjian 2008) specific to the event. This festival corresponds with the date and rites of the ancient festival of Fravardagan, which was aimed at welcoming the souls (faravashis) of departed ancestors into the house and treating them with rites of hospitality.

8 Level of endangerment Will Caspian languages survive? Amuzade (2002), a native linguist, anticipated that Mazandarani would be dead “within a couple of decades.” This statement, impressionistic as it is, raises the question of language vitality. Various schemes quantify the scale of language endangerment.12 The scheme put forth by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat)13 has been tested on hundreds of languages throughout the world, and we employ it here to measure the levels of endangerment in the four known Caspian languages: Gilaki, Mazandarani, and the Central Caspian languages of Tonekabon and Kalarestaq. The level of endangerment is calculated based on four categories: Intergenerational Transmission, Absolute Speaker Number, Speaker Trends, and Domains of Use, as listed in Table 2. Each language is assigned a score of 0–5 (Safe–Critically endangered) for each of the four categories. In computing the total score for each language, Intergenerational Transmission receives an importance

10 Kia 1947, 249–250; Jahangiri 1988: 187 (Kandalus); Allame 1949: 109–110 (Lrijn uplands). 11 The name bis-shish-ə ayd reveals its original date, i.e., the 26th of the Persian month of Esfand in the national calendar. 12 Inter alia, see Crystal 2000: 19–21; Austin and Sallabank 2011: 40–43. 13 University of Hawaii 2012; www.endangeredlanguages.com.

arke-mā day-mā vahmane-mā fardine-mā norze-mā kerche-mā xere-mā tire-mā mellāle-mā earvine-mā mire-mā une-mā

siā-mā deyə/dier-mā varfənə-mā esfəndār-mā noruz-mā kurchə-mā aryə-mā tirə-mā mordâl-mā shərir-mā amir-mā avəl-mā

14 Payande 1996: 143–148; Purhadi 2006: 36–52. 15 Tahbz 1963: 77–78. 16 Purkarim 1968. 17 Jahangiri 1988: 184. 18 Humand 1988: 10. 19 Purkarim n.d.: 66. 20 H. Borjian 2005. 21 Gudarzi 2003. 22 Also aydə-mā, espinjənə-mā.

Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces Aries Taurus Gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio

Yush15

Gilan14

Table 1: Comparative Caspian Calendar.

sia-mā dia-mā vahman-mā nərze-mā fərdin-mā karche-mā hare-mā tire-mā mordāl-mā šarvari-mā mir-mā une-mā

Sama16 arkə/siā-mā deynə-mā vahnə-mā fardinə-mā nurzə-mā kurch-mā xarə-mā tirə-mā mərdālə-mā sharvinə/tansurə-mā mirə-mā unə-mā

Kandelus17 arkə-mā de-mā vahmənə-mā n/a fədinə-mā kərchə-mā harə-mā tirə-mā məllārə-mā sharvinə-mā mirə-mā unə-mā

Amol18 arkə-mā de-mā vahmanə-mā sālə-mā siā-mā kərchə-mā hara-mā tirə-mā mərdālə-mā sharvər-mā mirə-mā unə-mā

Elasht19 arkə-mā de-mā vamanə-mā noruzə-mā22 siā-mā kərchə-mā harə-mā tirə-mā mərdālə-mā sharvarə-mā merə-mā unə-mā

Espivard20

ārəkə-mā deə-mā kāləkpaj-mā nusāl-mā sā-mā kārchə-mā harə-mā tirə-mā mərdāl-mā sharvar-mā miron-mā onə-mā

Parvar21

24   Maryam Borjian & Habib Borjian

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factor of 2. Hence, the score for each language is divided by a maximum of 25 points to arrive at a percentage point (Table 3).23 Gilaki and Mazandarani fare similarly in all categories. Without having exact data, we may say with certainty that each of the two languages, having well over two million speakers, stands far above the threshold of a hundred thousand minimum speakers, which ranks a language as Safe (Table 2). The endangerment levels for other categories are not as clear-cut, as the index fails to account for an important trend observed for the Caspian languages. Many children, especially in urban settings, disdain their mother tongue for most of their early childhood and adolescence years. Yet many of them begin to speak it in various capacities in adulthood, particularly when engaged in the local economy. Consequently, for the category of Intergenerational Transmission, we ascribed the score 1.5, the average between levels 1  and 2. Likewise, the remaining two categories lead to a somewhat subjective ranking for widely spoken languages such as Gilaki and Mazandarani. For “Domains of use of the language” and “Trends in speaker number,” the score of 2.5, midway between 2 and 3, is selected. Accordingly, for both Gilaki and Mazandarani we arrive at the total of 8 points (Table 3); a number that is out of a maximum of 25 points, or 32 percent, which falls into the level of 21–40 percent for threatened languages. It should be added that ELCat, as well as other language enlargement indexes, are insensitive about the concepts of language thinning and obsolescence described above for Gilaki and Mazandarani. The Central Caspian languages are somewhat different in terms of language endangerment. Tonekaboni is spoken in a densely populated river delta in the city of Shahsavr and environs, with a population of 99,190 (according to the decennial census of 2016). Tonekaboni receives the score of 1 (Vulnerable) in terms of the total number of speakers, while in other categories it may be safe to assume it equals those of Gilaki and Mazandarani. Subsequently, Tonekaboni receives a higher endangerment score (36%), but still remains in the threatened level. Kalarestaqi is radically different. It is chiefly spoken in the district of Kelardasht, which also hosts a sizable number of Kurdish speakers. The district’s population in the latest census was 23,648. Despite the fact that Iranian national censuses do not report on languages, one may assume that the number includes many non-natives, mostly from Tehran, who have summer houses in Kelardasht. Gentrification by vacationers may explain the category of “Trends”, which has received the score of 3 (Table 3). The endangerment level that approximates Kalarestaqi is calculated at 50 percent, which falls squarely within 41–60, assigned for endangered languages. Higher levels of endangerment defined by ELCat are critically endangered (61–80 percent) and severely endangered (81–100 percent).

23 See University of Hawaii 2012; Lee and Van Way 2016.

10–99

1–9

A small percentage of the community speaks the language, and numbers of speakers are decreasing very rapidly.

Used only in a few, very specific, domains such as ceremonies, songs, prayer, proverbs, or certain limited domestic activities.

Number

Trends

Domains

24 Shaded boxes pertain to Gilaki and Mazandarani.

Used mainly just at home and/or with family and may not be the primary language even in these domains for many community members.

Less than half of the community speaks the language, and number of speakers are decreasing at an accelerated pace.

Many of the grandparent generation speak the language, but the younger people generally do not.

4 Severely endangered

Transmission only a few elderly speakers

5 Critically endangered

Table 2: Level of Endangerment defined by ELCat.24

Used mainly just at the home and/or with family but remains the primary language of these domains for many community members.

Only about half of community members speak the language. The number of speakers are decreasing steadily, but not at an accelerated pace.

100–999

Some adults in the community are speakers, but the language is not spoken by children.

3 (Moderately) endangered

Used in some nonofficial domains along with other languages, and remains the primary language used at home for many community members.

A majority of community members speak the language. The number of speakers are gradually decreasing.

1000–9,999

Most adults in the community are speakers, but children generally are not.

2 Threatened

Used in most domains except for official ones such as government, mass media, education, etc.

Most members of the community speak the language. Speakers’ numbers may be decreasing – but very slowly.

10,000–99,999

Most adults and some children are speakers.

1 Vulnerable

Used in most domains, including official ones such as government, mass media, education, etc.

Almost all community members speak the language, and speakers’ numbers are stable, or increasing.

≥ 100,000

All members of the community, including children, speak the language.

0 Safe

26   Maryam Borjian & Habib Borjian

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Table 3: Levels of Endangerment in Caspian Languages. Gilaki or Mazandarani

Tonekaboni

Kalarestaqi

Transmission (x 2)

1.5 x 2 = 3

1.5 x 2 = 3

2.5 x 2 = 5

Number

0

1

2

Trends

2.5

2.5

3

Domains

2.5

2.5

2.5

Total

8

9

12.5

Percent (Total ÷ 25)

32%

36%

50%

Level of Endangerment

Threatened (21–40%)

Threatened (21–40%)

Endangered (41–60%)

9 Peaceful coexistence with Persian? Iran’s ethno-linguistic diversity has led to both political conflict and peaceful coexistence between the regional languages and the nation’s lingua franca, Persian. Most regional languages of Iran are related to Persian by the token of belonging to the larger Iranian language family. Azeri Turkish, the major non-Iranian language spoken in the northwestern part of the country, not only has an Iranian (Tatic) substratum but is also greatly influenced by Persian. In some parts of the country, this linguistic diversity, coupled with religious differences, have led to ethno-political conflict (for example, in the province of Kurdistan). Yet the Caspian languages of Mazandaran and Gilan provinces, at least until recently, had long enjoyed a peaceful coexistence with the national language. But what are reasons for such peaceful coexistence? In answering this question, we will revisit the terms and concepts examined almost two decades ago (M. Borjian 2005) to reflect on their applicability to the case of Caspian languages today. Joshua Fishman (1969) examines language problems in terms of the degree of political and sociocultural integration of the existing ethnolinguistic groups within different nation-states. He divides countries into three categories: (1) the new developing nations (mostly post-colonial) often with “no integrating Great Tradition at the national level,” (2) the old developing nations (such as Near Eastern or East Asian nations) with “one Great Tradition at the national level,” and (3) the intermediate-type nations (such as India and Pakistan), with “several Great Traditions seeking a separate sociopolitical recognition” (Fishman 1969: 122). While in new developing nations the obstacle is achieving and maintaining sociocultural and political integration of all ethnolinguistic groups within the nationstates, in old developing nations integration is already attained on the basis of their common history and long historical past. The main concern in old nations is to imple-

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ment modernization (as was the case in the 20th century) and globalization (as is the case in the 21st century). Unlike the first two categories of nations, the intermediate-type countries must deal with the challenges facing the new and the old developing nation-states. Using Fishman’s three-part classification of nation-states, Iran falls into the category of old developing countries. Iran has more than twenty-five centuries of history, and for most of its history, Persian (Old, Middle, New) has functioned as the standard language of Iran. This lingua franca has coexisted throughout the ages with local vernaculars and regional languages, including the Caspian languages. This co-existence is the result of the political and sociocultural integration of an old country whose various ethnic groups strive to maintain a connection with a common past – and be unified under that shared “Great Tradition,” using Joshua Fishman’s words. He states that in old developing nation-states, ethno-linguistic and political integration is expected because their ancient literatures, legal codes, history, and traditions command admiration and submission. Thus, such nations can withstand much greater linguistic diversity and unrest compared with other types of nation-states. Based on Fishman’s theory, the stable and widespread coexistence of vernaculars, or regional languages, and the national language is “natural” and expected. Therefore, linguistic division alone is not a vital factor to inflame political conflicts (Fishman 1969: 117). In discussing minority languages in Europe, Price (1979) analyzes language conflicts in terms of internal and external factors. He uses a two-part category: (1) languages that belong to a minority group in one country but are a majority language elsewhere, and (2) languages that are not the dominant language in any country. In Price’s view, while both internal and external factors may trigger language conflict in the first category of languages, only internal factors (such as inequality) may lead to linguistic conflict in the second category of languages. In Iran, the impact of external factors, which have promoted linguistic conflict, can easily be detected amongst Turkish-speaking communities. Azeri Turkish, spoken in northwestern Iran, is the official language of neighboring Azerbaijan Republic, and the Turkish language spoken in Turkey is mutually intelligible with Azeri. These countries regularly broadcast radio and television programs for Turkish-speaking minorities abroad. Such programs aim at encouraging speakers to see themselves as part of a transnational Turkish-speaking community. This phenomenon also encourages separatist tendencies, as “ambitious members of minority groups see the opportunity to make careers for themselves by fanning a large potential group into consciousness of its separate identity” (Inglehart and Woodward 1972: 360). In November 1945, the influence of external propaganda, combined with the ambitions of local leaders, led to the emergence of the Azerbaijan People’s Government (Āzarbāyejān milli hökumati) based in Tabriz (the capital city of the Iran’s province of Azerbaijan), declaring Azeri Turkish as its official language. The incident took place under the Soviet occupation of Iranian Azerbaijan during World War II, but the Government did not last more than

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one year as it was abolished after the Red Army was forced to leave the country under international pressure. Gilaki and Mazandarani on the other hand exemplify Price’s second category as they are not the dominant language of any nation-state, nor do their speakers live across national borders. In the absence of external factors, linguistic division itself may not be a sufficiently strong factor to lead to political conflict among speakers of these minority languages of Iran. Let us compare the incident in Azerbaijan with a similar one that took place in Gilan in the aftermath of World War I. The Jangali movement in Gilan (1915–21) was essentially a struggle to preserve the principles of Persian Constitution of 1906. In its last year, when aided by the young Soviet state, the Jangali movement declared, on 5 June 1920, the Soviet Republic of Gilan (or, in some documents, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran; Jomhuri-e shurā’i-e sosiālisti-e Irān) in Rasht (Chaqueri 1995). Yet the movement remained patriotic to Iran in character without any overt regional ambitions or tendency to employ Gilaki as an official language. All publications of the Jangali movement, including the official newspaper Jangal, were in Persian. Religious division is another important factor that can reinforce linguistic cleavages (Inglehart and Woodward 1972). In Iran, religion has played a significant role in regional identity. The Iranian province of Kurdistan, where religious differences (Sunni Islam) coupled with language (Kurdish, with speakers living across national frontiers in Iraq and Turkey) have promoted recurring political conflicts since the mid20th century. By contrast, the neighboring province of Kermanshah, where Kurdish is also the dominant vernacular, but the population is chiefly Shiite, has witnessed a far lower level of ethnic strife compared with other major Iranian Kurdish-speaking centers such as Sanandaj and Mahabad (H. Borjian 2017). By contrast, in the Caspian-speaking provinces of Iran, the dominant religion is Shiism, the official religion of Iran, which serves as another motivation for a peaceful coexistence. Ronald Inglehart and Margaret Woodward (1972) analyze language-based conflicts as a function of group inequality. They state that in almost all bilingual and multilingual societies there tends to be an upper language (a dominant one), and one or more lower languages (subordinate ones). While the upper language represents prestige, power, and a higher status for its speaker, the lower languages signify the opposite. Such linguistic inequality does not always lead to political conflict. Linguistic divisions will lead to political conflict when a dominant language group obtains social, political, and economic power within society and blocks the social mobility of minority-language groups. Based on Inglehart and Woodward’s viewpoint, language conflict has its roots in the unequal economic, political, and social status of language groups. The Caspian provinces rank high among provinces of Iran in terms of economic factors. This position is mainly due to a rich physical environment and an abundance of precipitation, in contrast to the arid plateau covering much of Iran. A quantitative survey conducted in the 1960s contrasts regional variations:

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To speak of regional variations first, there were villages in the south-east [of Iran] where the poorest peasants made 8, 10, or 14 dollars a year, and even the richer cultivators made only five or six times that much per family; at the other extreme, in one atypical village in Mazandaran, a prosperous province below the Caspian Sea, the peasant families average $1037 per year. Average family income, computed from all cases in the 37 villages where the number of families getting a given income was noted, was $516 (38,610 r.) in the prosperous northern provinces of Gilan, Mazanderan, and Azerbaijan (lower if the atypical village were eliminated), but only $47 (3500 r.) for the rest of the country (Keddie 1968: 71–2).

These data suggest that Mazandaran and Gilan were economically far above average on the national scale back then. The same stands true across the Caspian provinces in the early twenty-first century. Migration to Tehran in search of jobs is far more noticeable among the ethno-linguistic minorities such as Lors and Kurds than the speakers of Caspian languages. Consequently, economic inequality may not be considered as a major factor in the sociolinguistic estrangement of Caspian speakers. Another notable factor for language maintenance is the degree of language territorialization. Unlike de-territorialized languages whose speakers have lost, or have been forced to leave their lands, i.e., Western Armenians during the Ottoman Empire, territorialized languages are locally grounded. Sociolinguists (Fishman 1966; Kaufman 2017) understand grounded or locally-situated languages, cultures, or identities as those that have developed organically over time and anchor them to specific geographical places – or territorial boundaries. Grounded languages tend to have a higher chance of language maintenance on the part of their speakers rather than going through the process of language shift, decline, or permanent loss (death). Relating these terms to the Caspian languages, we can say that in the early twentyfirst century most people in Caspian-speech communities live in regions where their ancestors once lived. The Caspian languages, cultures, and identities of their speakers are locally situated. The geographical domains of the Caspian languages have largely remained within the boundaries that had surrounded their speakers over the past centuries. In the recent decades, however, there have been changes in terms of the administrative boundaries of the province of Mazandaran. A Mazandarani-speaking eastern part of the province has been integrated into the newly founded province of Golestan (historically known as Gorgan). In the south of the Mazandaran province, the mountainous regions of Firuzkuh and Damavand were carved out and became part of the province of Tehran. Speakers of the Mazandarani language who now live in these otherwise carved out regions no longer enjoy their historical linguistic and cultural groundedness. This de-territorization may decrease the chances of language maintenance in the years to come. This problem has not been left entirely unnoticed by some Caspian speakers. In the district of Shahmirzad, which now belongs to the Semnan province (a southern neighbor of Mazandaran), the inhabitants speak a Mazandarani dialect. The townspeople have recently filed an official appeal on the grounds of “culture and language” for their district to join the province of Mazandaran (Borjian 2019b).

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Regardless of some recent, and relatively minor, protests on the part of the speakers of Caspian languages due to their negatively constructed image by the nationally broadcasted media (see above), there has not been any major conflict as a consequence of ethno-linguistic division. In other words, linguistic division has not led to “nationism” or a desire for political separation on the part of the speakers of the Caspian languages. The absence of external factors, the presence of economic self-sufficiency, and a relatively high degree of linguistic and cultural groundedness may have served as notable factors for peaceful co-existence – relative to Turkish and Kurdish – of the Caspian vernaculars and the national standard. The “peaceful co-existence” thesis was a conclusion that we made a decade and half ago when we first examined (M. Borjian 2005) the reasons for a linguistic harmony (or a lack of linguistic conflict) in the Caspian region of Iran. A question that may emerge now is whether this argument is valid in the backdrop of our increasingly globalized world. Our answer to this question is surely negative, for many things have changed both in the country and world over since. The most notable change has been the rise of the information technology, which has led to the enormous flows of information across borders (geographical, social, linguistic, and cultural). Social media have provided new platforms for speakers of minority languages, including those of the Caspian, to broadcast themselves and share their ideas, ideals, and likes and dislikes with one another without the intervention of the authorities. Thanks to these new platforms, today, unlike the 20th century, we have now access to innumerable posted video-clips, songs, films, and texts in Caspian languages posted by their speakers in various social media outlets such as Instagram, Telegram, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, to name but a few. Such platforms did not exist in the 20th century. In the absence of such platforms the speakers of Caspian languages had no voice. In addition, such platforms have allowed the speakers of Caspian languages to mobilize themselves, act collectively and voice their concerns – or opposition – against discrimination, particularly as pertains to their negative portrayal as “backward” or “rural”: all constructed in the national media. Such mobility and collectivity are powerful indications that today, unlike the yesteryears, the speakers of the Caspian language can speak on their own behalf, particularly via modern social media.

10 Conclusion Over the past millennium, Persian and the Caspian languages have existed side by side. The sociocultural, economic, and political fabric of the country did not lead to minoritization of these regional languages in Iran prior to the 20th century. With the country’s efforts to modernize and urbanize in the 20th century, Persian began to outpace all other languages in Iran by leaps and bounds. Such a marginalization has

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led to an unequal distribution of power between the speakers of Persian and those all other languages of Iran. Placed atop the country’s linguistic hierarchy, Persian has enjoyed an absolute monopoly over all formal domains: educational settings, national media, governmental agencies and all other formal domains. The introduction of modern media in Persian alone has brought with it many changes to social networks, relationships, and the use of languages throughout Iran. In the Caspian region the process has led to language shift and a decline in the use of the Caspian languages. The onslaught of “globalization” in the turn of the 20th century, regardless of its negative impacts on minority languages, has brought positive changes in favor of minority languages, e.g., the rise of positive attitudes on the part of the speakers of Caspian languages towards their native tongues, efforts by minority language speakers to link their languages to their culture and their identity, and more. Given all these promising efforts, it is not easy to predict the future of the Caspian languages. Some questions remain. With the fundamental changes that have taken place in the country and the world, would the Caspian languages remain vibrant in the years to come? Languages exist to meet their speakers’ needs. The real question becomes whether Caspian languages can keep up with the new needs of its speaker today, particularly its younger generation, who is educated and technology savvy, progressive, and in search of social and economic mobility: only to be answered by time.

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Borjian, Habib. 2006. Māzandarāni: zabān yā guyesh? [Māzandarāni: language or dialect?]. Irānshenāsi 18(1). 43–49. Borjian, Habib. 2008a. The Extinct Language of Gurgan: Its Sources and Origins. Journal of the American Oriental Society 128(4). 681–707. Borjian, Habib. 2008b. The Komisenian Dialect of Aftar. Archiv Orientální 76(3). 379–416. Borjian, Habib. 2008c. Two Mazandarani Texts from the Nineteenth Century. Studia Iranica 37(1). 7–50 Borjian, Habib. 2009. Motun-e tabari, Tehran. Mirās-e maktub. Borjian, Habib, 2010. Kalārestāq and Kelārdasht. Encyclopædia Iranica 15(4). 367–373. Borjian, Habib, 2012. The Dialects of Velātru and Gachsar: The Upper Karaj Valley in the CaspianPersian Transition Zone. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22(2). 227–63. Borjian, Habib. 2013a. The Tabaroid Dialects of South-Central Alborz. Acta Orientalia 66(4). 427–41. Borjian, Habib. 2013b. Perso-Tabaric Dialects in the Language Transition Zone Bordering Mazandaran. Studia Iranica 42(2). 195–225. Borjian, Habib. 2013c. Is there Continuity between Persian and Caspian? Linguistic Relationships in South-Central Alborz. New Haven: American Oriental Society. Borjian, Habib. 2013d. Yushij: A Caspian Dialect of the Central Alborz. Persica 24. 127–153. Borjian, Habib. 2013e. The Caspian Dialect of Kujūr in The Central Alborz. Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 51. 237–248. Borjian, Habib. 2017. Kermanshah i. Geography. Encyclopædia Iranica 16(3). 315–319 Borjian, Habib. 2018. The Caspian Dialect of Māhā, Studia Iranica 47(2). 273–90. Borjian, Habib. 2019a. The Mazandarani Dialect of Kalijān Rostāq. Iranian Studies 52(3–4). 551–573. Borjian, Habib. 2019b. The Caspian dialect of Šahmirzād. Journal of the American Oriental Society 139. 361–79. Borjian, Habib. 2021a. “Tahavvolāt-e tārikhi-e zabān-e tabari” [The historical evolution of the Tabari language]. Pazhuheshhā-ye zabāni–adabi-e Qafqāz o Kāspian / Literary and Linguistic Studies of the Caucasus and Caspian 2(1). 13–35. Borjian, Habib. 2021b. Essays on Three Iranic Language Groups: Taleqani, Biabanaki, Komisenian. New Haven: American Oriental Society. Borjian, Habib 2022. “Nimā Yušij iii. The Ṭabari poems. Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. http://dx.doi. org/10.1163/2330-4804_EIRO_COM_363895 (accessed 17 March 2022) Borjian, Habib. forthcoming. The Caspian language of Tonekābon, Studia Iranica. Borjian, Habib & Maryam Borjian 2008. Amir Pāzvāri. Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition. www. iranicaonline.org (accessed 7 April 2008). Borjian, Maryam. 2004. Ashʿār-e māzandarāni-e Āqā Mir [The Mazandaranai poems of Aqa Mir]. Irānshenāsi 14(3). 634–644. Borjian, Maryam. 2005. Bilingualism in Mazandaran: Peaceful Coexistence with Persian. In Zeena Zakharia & Tammy Aronstein (eds.), Languages, Communities & Education: A Volume of Graduate Student Research, 65–74. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Borjian, Maryam & Habib Borjian 2005. Se dobeyti-e Māzandarāni [Three Mazandarani folk poems]. In Sirus Nasrollah-zade & ʿAskar Bahrami (eds.), Yasht-e Farzānegi, 427–434. Tehran: Hermes. Borjian, Maryam & Habib Borjian 2006. The Story of Rostam and the White Demon in Māzandarāni. Nāme-ye Irān-e Bāstān 5(1–2). 107–116. Borjian, Maryam & Habib Borjian 2007a. Marriage Rites in South Caspian Villages: Ethnographic and Linguistic Materials from Mazandaran. Archiv Orientální 75(2). 191–214. Borjian, Maryam & Habib Borjian 2007b. Ethno-Linguistic Materials from Rural Mazandaran: Mysterious Memories of a Woman. Iran and the Caucasus 11(2). 226–254. Borjian, Maryam & Habib Borjian 2008a. The Last Galesh Herdsman: Ethno-Linguistic Materials from South Caspian Rainforests. Iranian Studies 41(3). 365–402.

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Talha, Sirus. 1963. Yush: dar owzāʿ o ahvāl-e tabiʿi o ejtemāʿi o eqtesādi o farhangi-e zādgāh-e Nimā Yushij [Yush: geography, society, economy and culture of the birthplace of Nima Yushij]. Tehran: Revayat. Tapuri, Bamun. 2001. Sarbushā sarku [Open admonition]. Hamburg: Tabarestan. Wingham, Zavier. 2015. Blackness on the Iranian Periphery: Ethnicity, Language, and Nation in Bashu, the Little Stranger. Ajam Media Collective. 23 September 2015. https://ajammc. com/2015/09/23/blackness-on-the-iranian-periphery/ (accessed 21 November 2020). Zakeri, Mohammad-Saleh. 2020. Cherā māzandarānihā zabān-e xwod-rā gilaki mināmand? [Why do Mazandaranis call their language Gilaki?] Pazhuheshhā-ye zabāni-adabi-e Qafqāz o Kāspian / Literary and Linguistic Studies of the Caucasus and Caspian 1(3). 33–64. Zakeri, Mohammad-Saleh. 2021. Zabānshenāsi-e māzandarāni: haft goftār darbāre-ye zabān-e māzandarāni [Mazandarani linguistics: seven essays on the Mazandarani language]. Tehran: Mirmah. Zandi, Bahram, Belqeys Rowshan & Sara Nasiri-Alamuti 2012. Jāygāh o kārbord-e zabān-e fārsi o guyesh-e tonekāboni dar shahr-e Tonekābon [The status and application of the Persian language and the Tonekaboni dialect in the city of Tonekabon]. Zabān o zabānshenāsi 7. 41–55. Zardar, Zarrin & Mohammad Fatḥinia 2012. Nahve-ye bāznamāi-e aqvām-e irāni dar majmuʿehā-ye porbinande-ye televizioni [Recasting the Iranian peoples in popular TV series]. Majalle-ye motāleʿāt-e farhang–ertebātāt 14(no. 24). 41–62. University of Hawaii, Mānoa. 2012. About the Catalogue of the Endangered Languages. The Linguist List. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7vQLUpU_2qcVEVqNzFKWFA2cUk/view (accessed 8 August 2020).

Hassan Bashirnezhad

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects Abstract: The present research intends to evaluate the social status and usage of Mazandarani and Persian in various domains in Mazandaran (hereto forth Mazandaran) Province. In this study, the Fishman’s (1966) domain analysis method was used, and the usage of two languages have been investigated depending on the situation, topic, and interlocutors in six domains of family, school, office, street and bazaar, religion, and art/entertainment. This has been done by using questionnaires, interviews and observations. 1200 participants from five cities in Mazandaran and in three age groups and two gender groups responded to the questionnaires. Also, the researcher recorded 240 communication situations by direct observation. Data analysis indicates that the relatively highest application of Mazandarani is related to the family domain, and its usage decreases as the domains become more formal. In school where Persian language is often compulsory Persian prevails over Mazandarani. In the streets and market domain, the speech situation or social status, age, and gender of the speaker can be determinants in language choice. The formality of the administrative domain, leads to relatively higher application of Persian. In areas such as religion, arts and entertainment, defined based on subject, application of Persian surpasses Mazandarani. In the domain of music, the majority prefer Mazandarani to Persian.

1 Introduction Mazandaran extends from east to west in the form of a narrow strip on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and covers an area of about 23831 square kilometers, about 1.4 percent of the total area of Iran. It borders with the Caspian Sea in the north, Tehran, Alborz and Semnan provinces in the south, and Gilan and Golestan provinces in the west and east, respectively. Mazandaran has 22 counties, 57 cities, 57 districts, and 3645 villages. According to a 2016 census, the population of Mazandaran province is 3,283,577. The relative density of the province is 135 people per square kilometer, one of the densest regions in Iran. Mazandaran has a rich antiquity and has had different names throughout its history. The main tribes in the distant past were “Amards”, “Tapurs”, “Caspians”, and “Hyrcanians”; and the former name of this land, “Tapuristan” is derived from the name of the “Tapur”. Later, with the invasion of Arabs from 633 to 654 AD, “Tapuristan” was renamed to “Tabaristan” and until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries this name continued to represent a region that almost corresponds to the current boundaries of Mazandaran. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-003

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 Hassan Bashirnezhad

People living in Mazandaran province have been speaking Mazandarani (formerly Tabari) for centuries. In terms of genetic relationships, Mazandarani belongs to the Indo- European family of languages family, and further to the Indo-Iranian branch: it is a sub-branch of Northwestern Iranian languages. For many years, it has been the language of a native people living in the northern regions of Iran, beyond the borders of the present Mazandaran, and like other local languages and dialects of Iran, due to its historical background and genetic connection with the Persian language, it has retained a valuable treasure of words, expressions, and proverbs that have lost their usage or have been forgotten in modern Persian. It is one of the few indigenous languages of Iran that has had a significant production of literature in the first centuries after Islam (Natel Khanlari, 1994: 299). Of the living Iranian languages, Mazandarani boasts the longest written tradition, roughly matching that of New Persian (Borjian, 2004:3). In recent years, however, Mazandarani has undergone changes, due to the influence of political, social, economic and cultural factors. Overtime, it is believed by some, that the speed and scope of these changes will become even more significant due to non-linguistic factors like social and cultural changes. Basically, the changes that took place in Mazandarani can be divided into two categories. The first are lexical and structural changes, considered normal in the process of language development. As a result of changes in lifestyles, the obsolescence of traditional methods, tools of life, and the emergence of new phenomena and methods of doing things, the abandonment of old professions, the expansion of urbanization, Persian language teaching and literacy, advancements in the arena of mass media and its modes of communication, and other social and cultural factors, many of the original and indigenous words and expressions of Mazandarani have either vanished, or are in the process of doing so. The alienation of the present generation from the original words of this language is quite obvious, and those who are somewhat acquainted with these words still opt for using Persian ones that are equivalent in meaning in conversation. This kind of lexical borrowing can’t credit filling communication gaps, but rather due to the higher prestige and credit of Persian words versus native Mazandarani words. In addition, in many cases, in Mazandarani speech, the structural patterns of the Persian replace the structural patterns of Mazandarani. Speakers generally use the Persian pattern of noun + adjective phrase in Mazandarani in their general inclination to imitate Persian grammar; they put the prepositions before the noun, while Mazandarani is a post-positional language. In general, all these issues, hand in hand, have accelerated the development of Mazandarani and its homogeneity with Persian. The second category of changes, more prominent indeed, includes the changes in the social status of Mazandarani and its domains of usage. For some time now, learning Persian by children has become common in Mazandarani families, and this phenomenon is observed even in middle or lower middle-class families – and

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

 39

among villagers and mountain dwellers. As a result, in many families, Persian, along with Mazandarani, is now the language of communication between family members, while in the not-so-distant past, Mazandarani was the only language of communication between family members in the region. The prevalence of bilingualism is not limited to the family sphere, and in other domains, such as public places, schools and government institutions, we are witnessing the increasing use of Persian, especially among younger people. Therefore, Persian, by gradually entering the domains that were once considered to be the absolute domain of Mazandarani, now poses an existential threat to Mazandarani. This study seeks to identify the social status of the Mazandarani language in the region – and its future prospects – by examining its usage in various domains, and gauging the attitudes and views of its speakers towards this language. This study examines the status of the use of Mazandarani in different domains, and the percentage of people, in each age group, who have acquired Mazandarani as their mother tongue. It also determines what impact factors age, gender, urbanization, and education have on the use of Mazandarani and Persian in varied domains. Finally, the study will offer a hypothetically determinative paradigm as to the future of Mazandarani.

2 Review of literature 2.1 Studies on language shift in the world In general, the study of traditional dialectology in the nineteenth, and first half of the twentieth century, provided the basis for the emergence of social studies of language. Subsequently, research by socio-linguists has shown that in addition to geographical factors, social factors also determine linguistic changes in a language community. Since the 1960s, William Labov, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, has presented his research in a scientific way, addressing many of the practical and methodological problems associated with social factors of language. He found that those linguistic features that are less valid are more common in the linguistic behavior of the lower classes. The same studies found that social factors, in addition to creating linguistic changes, can lead to the elimination of a language from a bilingual society, and its replacement by a more formal language. Fishman’s 1966 collection of studies on mother tongue adherence among immigrant groups in the United States, conducted by domain analysis, was one of the first studies on language shift or language death. Susan Gal’s (1978, 1979) studies in the Oberwart bilingual region of eastern Austria voice the same concern on language extinction. Nancy Dorian also reported in 1981 cases of language shift in progress in East Sutherland area of Northern Scotland (Fasold, 1984).

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 Hassan Bashirnezhad

2.2 Studies on language shift in Iran In the last two decades, a number of studies have been conducted on language contact and language shift in Iran. Most of this research has been focused on the relationship between local dialects and languages of Iran and Persian as the official language of Iran; and their competition in various fields of application. Of these studies, Zolfaghari’s (1997) study on the Bakhtiari dialect of Masjed Soleiman, Bashirnezhad’s (2000) research on the status and usage of Mazandarani and Persian in Amol, and Rezapour’s (2000) investigation on code-switching among Persian-Mazandarani bilinguals in Amol, are considered the pioneer studies. We can also refer to Shahbakhsh’s (2000) research on Baluchi language, the study by Mashayekh (2002) on the use of Persian and Gilaki in two different age groups in Rasht, and Alai’s (2004) research on social- cultural barriers of using Persian as the language of education in Moghan city. In addition, Imani (2004) studied the use and status of Azeri and Persian languages among Azeri-Persian bilinguals living in Qom, and Safai (2004) investigated the use of Persian among bilingual students in Marand. Furthermore, Ebrahimi’s (2004) study on code-switching among Kurdish-Persian bilinguals in Gilan-e-Gharb, Ranjbar’s (2005) study on the status of bilingualism among high school students in Kermanshah, Sheikhi’s (2006) work on code-switching between Turkmen-Persian bilinguals in Gonbad-e Kavous, and the study of Vasoo Joybari (2007) on intergenerational differences in the use of Mazandarani words in the city of Joybar, are among some of the more successful studies to date. Other studies are those of Bani-Shoraka (2005) on language selection and code-switching in the Azeri language community in Tehran, and Shahmoradi (2014) who examined the position and use of Persian and Turkish in the Galougah. Borjian (2005) has investigated the Bilingualism in Mazandaran and peaceful coexistence of Mazandarani with Persian. In general, the sociolinguistic studies on Iranian regional languages show that the local languages of Iran, in contact with the Persian language, gradually lose their position and domain of application in favor of the Persian language (Bashirnezhad, 2007b).

3 Methodology The present study has adopted the domain analysis method introduced by Fishman (1966) whereby language use is measured in terms of setting, subject, and interlocutors. In this study, language use has been investigated in 6 different domains – family, school, office, street, religion, art- amusement: questionnaires, interviews, and observation were tools used to collect the data in those domains. 1200 subjects from five cities in Mazandaran province (Amol, Sari, Nur, Ramsar and Behshahr) and twelve rural areas in three age groups (14–18 years, 30–40 years, and over 50 years old) responded to the questionnaire. Respondents were randomly selected in equal numbers, from two gender groups, and two urban and rural communities. Also, based on the observation,

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

 41

240 communication situations in the city of Amol were recorded. Susan Gal’s (1979) model was used in preparing the questionnaire – and determining the domains.

4 Results of data analysis 4.1 Language use in various domains Considering that age of individuals is one of the more important and influential factors in the selection and use of language, and considering that language change usually occurs generationally, age was a special focus as goes language use and attitudes, in each said domain. Meanwhile, the impact of other factors such as gender, urbanization, and education were examined concordantly. To study the use of Mazandarani, four domains of family, school, city and administrative area were considered, which are typically determined by the interlocutors or location. The two domains of religion and art / entertainment were considered as independent domains that behoove issues such as religious customs on the one hand, and poetry, music, and song on the other hand.

4.1.1 Family domain Examination of the data shows that the highest rate of Mazandarani usage is in the family domain, and as the domains becomes more formal, the rate of Mazandarani application decreases. The rate of first language acquisition in the family varies according to the type of family and the features of individuals in it. In total, about 67% of speakers have acquired Mazandarani as their first language in the family. However, as age decreases, Mazandarani acquisition decreases as well. In the age group of 14 to 18-year-olds, only about 25% of the subjects have reported acquiring Mazandarani as their mother tongue (Table 1). Table 1: The rate of acquiring Persian as the first language in family.

Region

Age

14–18 No.

%

30–40 No.

%

50 + No.

%

Behshahr

59

73.75

15

18.75

3

Sari

64

80

22

27.5

10

Amol

52

65

12

15

5

6.25

Nur

57

71.25

12

15

2

2.5

66

82.5

16

20

2

2.5

298

74.5

77

19.25

22

5.5

Ramsar Total

3.75 12.5

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 Hassan Bashirnezhad

As can be seen, acquiring Persian as the first language in highest in Sari. The reason can perhaps be attributed to the position of Sari as the provincial capital of Mazandaran and its designation as being more urban. The language a person uses to communicate with family members may vary depending on the age of the audience. For example, the data show that 48% of 14–18 year olds speak Mazandarani with their grandparents; in contrast only 38% speak Mazandarani with their parents: with their siblings, only 24.75% (Table 2). Table 2: The rate of spoken Mazandarani in the family domain by audience and age group. Age

14–18

Audience

No.

Parents

152

Children

%

30–40 No.

%

Over 50 No.

%

38

339

84.75

388

97

89

22.25

116

29

275

68.75

126

31.5

315

78.75

381

95.25

99

24.75

281

70.25

364

91

Aunt/uncle

126

31.5

333

83.25

386

96.5

Cousin

102

25.5

113

28.25

279

69.75

Grand parents

192

48

397

99.25

Older brother / sister Younger brother / sister

88

352

4.1.2 School domain After home, i.e., family domain, the school is the second most crucial place of language learning for children. In school, Persian is usually used as the language of instruction and local languages may play different minor roles alongside Persian. For example, in Azeri and Kurdish-speaking regions, the use of local languages trumps the use of Persian in schools, because these languages are often used as a means of communication between students and teachers in school environment instead of Persian. In contrast, in Gilan and Mazandaran, local languages are seldom used in schools, and Persian, in addition to being the language of instruction, is the only means of communication between teachers and students at school. This is based on personal observations and experiences pertaining to this article (Bashirnezhad 2000; Mashayekh 2002). 97% of the students surveyed speak Persian with their teachers in the classroom, and 97.5% speak Persian with the school principal in the school office. Also, 81.25% of students speak Persian to one another in the classroom.

95.75

97.75

studetteacher school yard

studentprincipal school office

 43

81.85

80

75.5

76.25

studentjanitor

90

97

studetteacher class

100

studentstudent school yard

Persian Usage %

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 studentstudent classroom

0

situation -audience

Figure 1: The rate of Persian use in school domain among the age group of 14–18 based on the audience.

As can be seen (Figure 1), in the communicative relationship of teacher and student, the use of language is a function of the situation, and not the student’s mother tongue and his personal preferences. In general, Mazandarani students do not have the right to choose the language of communication, and teachers are not willing to use the local language to communicate with the students. Teachers use Persian in this formal situation to maintain a formal distance with their students. In student-student interactions, the use of language is largely dependent on the situation – and mother tongue of the individuals. In general, out of 60 case observations that examined the use of two languages in the school yards – for both of girl’s and boy’s schools – in Amol, Persian was used in 31 situations, constituting 51.66% of the situations. Also, the findings obtained from the questionnaire on the use of Persian yielded a 56.25% use of Persian. In this regard, the calculation of chi-square (= 0.18), with a significance level of 0.05, and a degree of freedom of 1, shows that this difference is not statistically significant.

4.1.3 Office domain The office domain is somewhat formal and this formality yields a relative increase in the use of Persian. The findings show that 63.91% of the subjects (clients) spoke to office staff in Persian. Also, 77.58% and 73.74% of Mazandarani people used Persian with doctors and their secretaries in the office, respectively (Table 3).

44 

 Hassan Bashirnezhad

Table 3: The rate of Persian and Mazandarani application in the office domain by audience. dominant language

Mazandarani

Persian

Total

Audience

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

Employee

433

36.09

767

63.91

1200

100

Physician

269

22.42

931

77.58

1200

100

Physician’s Secretary

315

26.26

885

73.74

1200

100

In domains where the use of Persian is not obligatory, and people can use Mazandarani to communicate with their audience, Persian is still the dominant language of communication. Of course, the use of language in this domain is not the same among all speakers and varies in different age groups. Below (Table 4) demonstrates the use of Persian, with the audience, in the office domain with each age group. Table 4: The rate of Persian use in the office domain by audience and age group. Audience Age group

Physician Secretary No.

Physician

Employee

%

No.

%

No.

%

14–18

382

95.5

389

97.25

377

94.25

30–40

317

79.25

331

82.75

254

63.5

0ver 50

186

46.5

211

53.75

136

34

Total

885

73.74

931

77.58

767

63.91

In order to verify the results of Mazandarani and Persian usage in the office domain through the questionnaire, there were recorded 60 communication situations between the employees and the clients in the city of Amol. These observations were performed in different public offices of Amol and the subjects were selected equally from the three age groups mentioned in the study. In general, out of 60 communication situations observed in the office domain, in 29 situations (48.33%) Persian was the dominant language. The questionnaire data also showed that the highest rate of Persian use in this domain was related to the youngest age group. In this group Persian has been used for communication in 17 out of 20 situations (85%). As the age increased, the use of Persian in this domain decreased as well. In the group of 30–40 years old, the ratio of Persian to Mazandarani usage was 9 to 11 (45%–55%) – and in the 50-andover group in only 3 out of 20 situations (15%) Persian was the language of communication.

 45

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

4.1.4 Street-market domain The domain of street/market is more extensive than the two domains of school and family as there is far more diversity in the sample group. In this domain, the communication setting, status, age, and gender of interlocutors impacts the choice of language. In more formal situations and in dealing with audiences of higher social status Persian is often used. In cases where the addressee is unfamiliar and not much information is available about them, the speakers prefer to use Persian. For example, 29.49% of people use Persian in dealing with their neighbors and 72.58% of them use Persian in conversations with an unfamiliar young person (Table 5): Table 5: The use of Persian and Mazandarani in street & market domain by audience. Dominant language

Persian

Mazandarani

Total

Audience

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

Their teachers

702

58.49

498

41.51

1200

100

A neighbor

354

29.49

846

70.51

1200

100

A shopkeeper at the city center

541

45.08

659

54.92

1200

100

A young stranger

856

71.33

344

28.67

1200

100

An old stranger

408

33.99

792

66.01

1200

100

A driver

525

43.75

675

56.25

1200

100

The rate of Persian usage in dealing with an unfamiliar young person (71.33%), in comparison with the rate of using Persian in dealing with an unfamiliar elderly person (33.99%) indicates the fact that people in choosing their language, in addition to the social status of the audience, also pay attention to age. Since most Persian speakers are young, subjects try to start a conversation with a young person in Persian, based on the assumption that the young audience is most probably a Persian language speaker. In general, the lowest rate of Persian usage is in dealing with neighbors and elderly strangers (29.49% and 33.99%, respectively) and the highest rate of Persian usage is in dealing with young strangers and teachers (71.33% and 58.49%, respectively). It seems that in this domain, too, the age of the addressee, their social status, and previous familiarity are the determining factors in the use of Persian. Meanwhile, the region where people live is also a factor in the use of Persian and Mazandarani in this domain. The data showed that the use of Persian in street/market domain in Sari is more than other cities, and Ramsar and Nur follow Sari in this regard. The reason for this is, possibly, that Sari is the capital city of Mazandaran, while Ramsar and Nur are coastal cities and tourist destinations. The data (Figure 2) shows the extent of Persian usage in the street/market domain: in contact with different audiences.

46 

 Hassan Bashirnezhad

Persian usage %

100 90

14-18

95.5 89.75

30-40 84.5

83

69.75

70 60

66.25

58.5

50

45.25 38.5

40 30

over 50

77

80

36.25

27.25

24.5 17.75

20

16 10.5

10

7.5

4.5

0

teacher

neighbor

shopkeeper

young stranger

elderly stranger

driver

adressee

Figure 2: The rate of Persian use in street & markets domain by audience and age. Table 6: Percentage of Persian usage in streets and markets domain by audience and city.

City

Audience Driver Elderly stranger

Young stranger

City center shopkeeper

Neighbor

Teacher

Behshahr

44.16

32.49

71.25

47.08

30.41

58.74

Sari

50

36.66

71.25

51.66

33.33

66.66

Amol

29.16

19.58

62.50

32.50

20.41

45.83

Nur

43.33

41.25

76.66

46.66

30.41

60.41

Ramsar

52.08

39.99

74.99

47.50

32.91

60.83

Average

43.75

33.99

71.33

45.08

29.49

58.49

Just as the age of the audience is influential in the use of Persian, and the highest use of Persian is in conversations with young strangers, the age of users can also be decisive in the use of Persian in this domain. The data showed that younger groups use Persian much more than other groups in the domain of street/market. The chart above shows that as we move towards higher age groups, the use of Persian in all cases decreases (Table 6). For example, 89.75% of 14–18-year-old speakers speak to a teacher in Persian in the streets and markets. This figure reaches 58.5% in the 30–40 age group, and 27.25% in the over 50 age group. In communication with other audiences, we can also see a decrease in the use of Persian in older age groups. To ensure the results obtained through the questionnaire, the author observed the use of the two languages by speakers in communicating with a shopkeeper or a

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

 47

taxi driver in the streets and market place in Amol. Out of 60 recorded communication situations in the shops of Amol, in 21 communication situations, Persian was dominant and in other cases Mazandarani was used as the dominant language. Observations showed that Persian usage in this situation was 35%. The survey questionnaire also showed that 32.5% used Persian in this situation. Recorded observations of the language used between the passenger and the driver of a taxi or bus (all of whom were male) showed that in these cases the dominant language was Mazandarani. Out of 60 registered situations of passenger-driver communication, in 17 situations Persian was the dominant language of communication, which comprises 28.33%. It should be noted that the findings of the questionnaire showed that 29.16% of the subjects in this situation used Persian.

4.1.5 Art/entertainment domain Domains explored so far could often be defined by their location and audiences, but domains such as religion, and arts and entertainment are defined by subjects of speech rather than specific locations. Religious, artistic, and entertainment matters are related to the inner interests and desires of individuals. In other domains, the situation or some social, economic, and cultural aspects may pressure individuals to use the official language against their will, while in this domain people have more freedom in choosing the language. The domain of art/entertainment is a more personal field and investigation into this field can give us a more realistic view of how people feel about their native language. Therefore, in this study, the level of people’s interest in using Persian and Mazandarani in arts and entertainment was explored. First, people’s interests in artistic fields such as poetry, fiction, theater, film, and music were examined. The results showed that in some artistic fields such as fiction, and theater and cinema, Persian is dominant; in poetry and music Mazandarani is dominant. The use of the two languages in various artistic fields is shown (Table 7): Table 7: Speakers’ interests in using Persian / Mazandarani in different fields of art. Language

Mazandarani

Persian

Total

Subject

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

poetry

637

53.09

563

46.91

1200

100

fiction

567

47.25

633

52.75

1200

100

theatre

591

49.25

609

50.75

1200

100

movie

525

43.75

675

56.25

1200

100

music

805

67.09

395

32.91

1200

100

48 

 Hassan Bashirnezhad

The subjects’ attitudes about entertainment were also examined. as watching TV and listening to the Radio are popular pastimes, people were asked in which language they would prefer to listen to radio and watch television programs. The level of interest in the two languages for watching television, or listening to radio programs, varied according to the region and the age group of the respondents. In general, 52.41% of the subjects in this domain preferred Persian to Mazandarani. The percentage – and frequency – of people interested in watching or listening to radio and television programs in Persian and Mazandaran in the five cities is cited (Table 8): Table 8: Language of interest in the field of radio and television programs by city. Language of interest

Persian

Mazandarani

Total

City

No.

%

No.

%

Behshahr

102

42.5

138

57.5

240

100

Sari

112

46.66

128

53.34

240

100

Amol

110

45.83

130

54.17

240

100

Nur

135

56.25

105

43.75

240

100

Ramsar

170

70.83

70

29.17

240

100

Total

629

52.41

571

47.59

1200

100

No.

%

The level of interest in Mazandarani programs in the provincial media varies in the cities of Mazandaran. As can be seen, the least interest in listening to, or watching, radio and television programs in Mazandaran was in the western cities of Mazandaran, especially Ramsar (29.17%). The reason for this can be the difference between the Mazandarani dialect used in Mazandaran Radio and Television network (Saravi) as compared to the dialect of the western cities of Mazandaran. It seems that Mazandarani speakers in the western regions of the province were not satisfied with the use of Saravi dialect in the provincial media, and this dissatisfaction has been reported many times by them, and by the radio and television. Although in recent years the provincial radio and television have tried to satisfy the citizens of western Mazandaran by including the western dialects of Mazandarani in radio and television programs, central and eastern dialects still enjoy a higher recognition in Mazandaran.

4.1.6 Religious domain Religion is another unique private domain that is usually defined by subject. One of the uses of language in this domain is performing religious rituals and ceremonies such as saying prayers and funerial ceremonies. In this regard, the predominance seems to be in Persian with 82.5% of all respondents having opted for its use. Often

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

 49

in the formal ceremonies the types of language are determined under official conditions, and it is not possible to accurately discover the inner interests and desires of the participants. As a result, we examine the language of religion in more personal areas and in fact delve into the private lives of individuals. In other words, we want to see in what language people talk to God in divulging their secrets and asking for their needs. The obtained data, by city, is given (Table 9): Table 9: Usage of Persian and Mazandarani in praying and worshiping God.

City

Language

Persian

Mazandarani

Total

No.

%

No.

%

No.

%

Behshahr

115

47.92

125

52.08

Sari

129

53.75

111

46.25

240

100

Amol

92

38.33

148

61.67

240

100

Nur

128

53.33

112

46.67

240

100

Ramsar

129

53.75

11

46.25

240

100

Total

593

49.42

607

50.58

1200

100

240

100

About half of the subjects use Persian for prayer and the other half use Mazandarani. The use of Mazandarani in situations of prayer in Amol is more frequent than in the cities of Sari and Ramsar. This finding is in line with the findings on the use of Mazandarani language in other domains like street/market domain (Cf. Table 6). Studies by linguists and anthropologists such as Gal (1979) have shown that religion is usually the last stronghold of a declining language and therefore Mazandarani was expected to be the dominant language in this domain. Yet, the study of the use of language by the 14–18 age group for worship and prayer shows that the use of language in this domain is somewhat in line with the use of language in other domains: Persian is still the more widely used language (Table 10): Table 10: Persian and Mazandarani in prayer by age.

Age

Language

Persian No.

%

14–18

331

82.75

30–40

160

40

Over 50

102

Total

593

Mazandarani No. 69

%

Total frequency

%

17.25

400

100

240

60

400

100

25.5

298

74.5

400

100

49.42

607

50.58

1200

100

50 

 Hassan Bashirnezhad

According to this data (Table 10), the use of Persian by the 14–18 age sector is more than 3 times its use in the over-50 group – and more than twice its use in the 30–40 age group.

4.2 Speakers’ attitudes Basically, the choice and use of language by individuals is influenced by their linguistic attitudes. Attitude often behoove thoughts, feelings, and ultimately the actions regarding a language. Attitude plays a greater role in situations where people are free to choose their language as in religious and art affairs. On the other hand, how people behave towards a language, and the decisions they make about using a language, can reflect their attitudes and views about the role, importance, and status of that language. Therefore, what we have observed so far about the application of the Mazandarani language in different situations and fields stems from the ideas and beliefs of people about the status, credibility, efficiency, and capability of this language. Direct or indirect methods can be used to measure language attitudes. In a direct way, speakers of a language are explicitly asked what their views and attitudes are about that language: Is their attitude towards that language positive or negative? Do they think that language is ugly or beautiful? Is that language important or insignificant? In examining attitude, two points are important and should be considered: First, the attitude is not an absolute binary concept that is only “positive or negative”. Attitude is a spectrum and continuum which on each end has a positive and a negative, respectively; while some attitudes can be, to some extent, between these two poles. The second point is that in examining attitudes in a direct way individuals may refuse to express their real attitudes in certain circumstances for reasons that are individual based. Therefore, measuring attitudes in an indirect way is preferred to a direct method. In the indirect method, subjects are asked questions real purposes of which may not be clear to them, but the researcher can discover the attitudes of the speakers based on the answers given, and with the help of inferences and logical analysis. In this research, an attempt has been made to indirectly evaluate speakers’ attitudes by asking questions. In these questions, the researcher inquired about whether people consider it necessary to know the Mazandarani language, their opinion about having an independent Mazandarani TV network and teaching this language in schools, and finally whether having a Mazandarani accent while speaking Persian is something they shun. Furthermore, it was enquired of them as to their preference while speaking to their spouses, and whether it is necessary for their children to learn Mazandarani. Finally, their attitudes towards prospects of survival and decline of Mazandarani was queried. The answers to these questions certainly show the inner views and feelings of people towards Mazandarani and the importance they attach to this language.

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

 51

It is natural that if a language has a high importance and application in its community, speakers feel the need to know that language. Therefore, in the section on attitudes, people were first asked: “Do you think it is necessary for you to know the Mazandarani language?” They had to choose “none”, “little” or “much”. Responses varied in different age groups and cities. The percentage – and frequency – of each of these options in the 5 cities are shown (Table 11): Table 11: Respondents’ attitudes about the need to learn Mazandarani (by city).

Region

Necessity to acquire Mazandarani

Behshahr

None No.

%

Little No.

Much

%

No.

%

Total No.

%

8

3.33

64

26.67

168

70

240

100

Sari

16

6.66

46

19.17

178

74.17

240

100

Amol

8

3.33

56

23.33

176

73.33

240

100

Nur

15

6.25

56

23.33

169

70.42

240

100

Ramsar

32

13.33

70

29.17

138

57.5

240

100

Total

79

6.58

292

24.34

829

69.08

1200

100

Although people’s opinions about familiarity with Mazandarani in different cities are somewhat different. Generally speaking, a very promising majority of people in all 5 regions considered knowing Mazandarani “[very] much” necessary (69%). However, this average will be more realistic when it is ascertained that these people exist in equal proportions, in all age groups. In other words, young people, like other age groups, believe in the need to know Mazandarani (Table 12): Table 12: Respondents’ attitudes about the need to learn Mazandarani (by age).

Age

Necessity to acquire Mazandarani

None No.

Little

%

No.

%

Much No.

%

Total No.

%

14–18

49

12.25

131

32.75

220

55

400

100

30–40

21

5.25

100

25

279

69.75

400

100

Over 50

9

2.35

61

15.25

330

82.5

400

100

79

6.58

292

24.34

829

69.08

1200

100

Total

52 

 Hassan Bashirnezhad

It is disheartening to see that the highest percentage of people who consider it very necessary to know Mazandarani belongs to the over-50 age group, and as we progress to the lower age groups, the percentage dwindles (from about 82% to 55%) . Deductively, if this declining trend continues in very young age groups such as children, and only a small a small percentage of people consider it necessary to know Mazandarani, language shift may be unavoidable. To ascertain further respondents were asked, “Is it necessary for your children to acquire Mazandarani as well?” The figures obtained are in line with the figures obtained from the previous question (cf. XYZ) and confirms it (Table 13): Table 13: Respondents’ attitudes about the necessity of passing Mazandarani down to their children (by city).

City

Necessity of passing Mazandarani down to children

None No.

%

Little No.

%

Much No.

%

Total No.

%

Behshahr

28

11.67

99

41.25

113

47.08

240

100

Sari

23

9.58

103

42.92

114

47.5

240

100

Amol

28

11.67

98

40.83

114

47.5

240

100

Nur

28

11.67

94

39.16

118

49.17

240

100

Ramsar Total

47

19.58

90

37.5

103

42.92

240

100

145

12.84

484

40.33

562

46.83

1200

100

In this regard, the attitude of younger age groups can play a decisive role in the fate of the language. In this case, it is worth making a comparison between the attitudes of people in the three age groups (Table 14): Table 14: Respondents’ attitudes about the necessity of passing Mazandarani down to their children by age. Necessity of passing Mazandarani down to children

None No.

Little

Much

%

No.

%

No.

%

Total No.

%

Age 14–18

97

24.25

179

44.75

124

31

400

100

30–40

45

11.25

187

46.75

168

42

400

100

Over 50 Total

12 154

 3

118

29.5

270

67.5

400

100

12.84

484

40.33

562

46.83

1200

100

 53

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

In general, the majority of people either do not see it essential for their children to learn Mazandarani at all, or see little need to do so. On the other hand, in the 14–18 age group only 31% consider learning Mazandarani by their children very necessary, and the rest, i.e., 69%, do not consider it necessary.

4.3 The effect of social factors on language usage and attitude

Persian usage %

As aforementioned, various factors such as place, situation, audience, or even the subject of speech can play a role in choosing and using a language in bilingual communities. Also, some individual characteristics and social factors such as age, education, gender, and urbanization can affect the choice and use of language. In what follows each of these factors and their effects on the selection and use of Persian and/ or Mazandarani in different domains is examined. The age of individuals plays a decisive role in the choice and use of language in a bilingual society. Studies have shown that in a bilingual society young people use the formal and the ‘higher’ regarded language more than adults in various domains and thus play a more decisive role in the process of language shift. Since the introduction of a more formal language into the family sphere is associated with the learning of this language by children, it is natural for speakers of a more formal language in a bilingual society to be the young people in the society. Learning Persian by children in Mazandarani families has become more widespread in recent years, and as a result, it is expected that, as we move to the lower age groups, we have a greater increase in the number of Persian speakers. Our study on the use of Persian in the domain of family 14-18

100

30-40 over 50

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 parents

children

older brother / sister

younger brother / sister Addresse

Figure 3: Persian usage in family domain (by age and addressee).

54 

 Hassan Bashirnezhad

Persian usage %

has shown that in almost all cases, the 14–18 age group uses Persian more than the other two age groups. The data in Figure 3 supports this claim. Sociolinguists have shown that there are differences between the linguistic behavior of women and men, and as a result, some of the variations in language use are due to the gender of speakers. These studies also show that, in general, women are more inclined to use more valid and formal forms of language. For example, Wolfram’s (1969) study in Detroit, USA, showed that the percentage pertaining to emergence of valid features, is higher in the speech of women. In this study, it was assumed that there is a significant difference between the two genders in the use of the two languages (Persian and Mazandarani) and women have a greater tendency to use the more official language (Persian) in different situations and domains. To investigate further, the use of Persian in family domain, in the two gender groups, was examined. 100

male

female

90 80

64.16

70

55.83

60 50

40.33 40

30

33.5

31.33

35.67

29.5

22.16

20 10 0 parents

children

older brother / sister

younger brother / sister Addressee

Figure 4: Persian usage in family domain by gender.

As can be seen, in all cases in the family domain women use Persian more than men do, but since the subjects are from three different age groups, and form almost three different generations, we examine the effect of gender in different age groups. Use of Persian in the family domain in the 14–18 age group shows that girls use Persian more than boys in dealing with different audiences (Figure 4). The chart also shows that the use of Persian is different between the two gender groups; and in all cases in the family domain women use Persian more than men.

 55

Persian usage %

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

100 90

80

73

female

82

75.5

69

70 60

male

86.5

68.5 61

50.5

50 40 30 20 10 0

parents

children

younger brother / sister

older brother / sister Addressee

Figure 5: The use of Persian by 14–18 years in family domain by gender.

But comparing this chart with the next (Figure 5) shows that the difference between women and men in the 14–18 age group is much greater than the difference between women and men in a total of three age groups. In other words, in the younger age group, the role of gender in language use becomes more prominent. Since in a given language community the more educated use more formal styles of language, it is natural that in a bilingual community, educated people use a language that is official and more acceptable for the community, and they are more likely than others to try to pass that language on to their children. Therefore, in this study, an attempt was made to evaluate the role of education in the use of language in various domains. Since in the 50 and over group the number of people with higher levels of literacy is small, and in the of 14–18 age group all students are somewhat equal in terms education, we much investigate this issue in the 30–40 age group and divide them into two groups: people with a diploma or higher and people below diploma . To determine the role of education in the use of language, we examine several domains. First, we examine the use of language by individuals in these two groups in the family domain: The chart above shows that in all cases, in the family domain, people with a high school diploma or higher use Persian more than people without a high school diploma. Only in one case, the difference between the two groups (diploma or higher and below diploma) in the use of Persian is somewhat smaller (about 10%), and that was the use of language to communicate with children. This shows that the transfer of Persian as the first language to the next generation in all educational groups, and social classes – with minor differences – is underway (Figure 6).

Persian usage %

56 

 Hassan Bashirnezhad

below diploma

100 90

diploma or higher

78.7

80 68.15

70

58.33

60 42.59

50 40

30.55

30

20

19.17

13.36

9.59

10 0 parents

children

older brother / sister

younger brother / sister Addressee

Figure 6: Persian usage in the family domain among the of 30–40 age group (by education).

Some linguists have considered urbanization as one of the more impactful factors in the process of language shift. This means that people living in urban areas tend to use a more credited and valid language in a bilingual society than people living in rural areas. It is also possible that urbanites are more likely to pass on a more valid language as a first language to their children than are rural dwellers. As mentioned, the subjects in all three age groups were selected equally from urban and rural areas. Examining the data related to the use of language in each region (urban and rural) separately, can show the effect of urbanization on the use of two languages in different areas. Based on this, we first examine the first language that people learned in childhood in both urban and rural communities. 45.67% of urban dwellers have learned Persian as their first language, while in rural areas that number is far lower (21.67%) (Table 15): Table 15: The Rate of Learning Persian vs. Mazandarani as the first language in urban and rural areas. Mazandarani

Persian %

Total

No.

%

No.

No.

%

Urban area

326

54.33

274

45.67

600

100

Rural area

470

78.33

130

21.67

600

100

Total

796

66.33

404

33.67

1200

100

3 Mazandarani: Current Status and Future Prospects 

 57

Persian usage %

This table shows that the percentage of urban dwellers having learned Persian as their first language is more than double that of rural dwellers. To verify the effect of urbanization on the use of language, this time the use of Persian in the family by urban and rural people in the 14–18 age group is examined. Figure 7 compares the use of Persian in the 14–18 age group – in interaction with various audiences in urban and rural families.

100 90

urban

89.5 85

84

82

rural 71.5

80

61

70 52

60 41.5

50 40 30 20 10 0 parents

children

older brother / sister

younger brother / sister Addressee

Figure 7: Persian usage by 14–18 age group in the family domain in urban and rural areas.

In this diagram it can be seen that in all cases urban residents use Persian more than rural residents and only in one case the difference between the two groups is relatively less (in communication with children). This difference also has a subjectuve aspect and includes the language that the group intends to speak to their children in the future.

5 Conclusion This study examines the selection and application of Persian and Mazandarani languages in various fields and situations – and the attitudes and views of the subjects towards the two languages in the Mazandaran province. This study has been conducted by domain analysis method in 6 domains: family, school, office, street/ market, religion, and art/entertainment. For this purpose, 1200 subjects in equal proportions from 5 cities and 12 villages of Mazandaran province, three age groups, and two gender groups were selected. An overview of the findings on the status and use of two languages in different domains, and the influence of social factors on the use of

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two languages and attitudes of speakers, points to a gradual decline of Mazandarani in the region and its replacement with the Persian language. As the research data shows, the tendency of young people to speak Persian in various domains is more than that of the middle-aged group, and this means that the number of Mazandarani speakers will decrease in the future. On the other hand, young girls are more interested in learning and using Persian than young boys. This can be seen as an increase in the acquisition of Persian by children in the family, because these young girls, as future mothers, have a pivotal role in passing the language on to their children. Of course, research on formality of language, and the role of gender in that regard, has also shown that women are more likely than men to use a more formal manner of speech (Moddarresi 1989: 164). In this situation, it was also observed that women tend to use and learn Persian more than Mazandarani, because Persian is carries more of a social prestige. Also, based on the available findings, the interest of Persian-educated urbanized people in the Persian language has been more than that of illiterate, rural people, and due to the rapid increase in literacy and urbanization, Mazandarani can expect a rapid decline. Another area that plays a decisive role in the use of language, and the formation of language attitude, is the realm of formal education, particularly as pertains to schools. The data show that in the schools of Mazandaran province Persian is the language of instruction in the school environment, and is – in most cases – the only language of teacher-student communication. In this regard, any use of Mazandarani by students is opposed by principals in schools. Continuation of this trend can yield a negative attitude towards Mazandarani by the students, further demeaning the status of Mazandarani for them. As for spheres of religion Mazandarani has little application in the region. However, according to research, especially that of Gal’s (1979), religion is usually considered one of the last strongholds of an eroding language. It seems that the speakers of Mazandarani, due to the formality of Persian, consider it a more suitable medium for performing religious rituals, and addressing God. Finally, this research highlights factors in Mazandaran, in the said domains, that have led to a negative attitude towards Mazandarani among its speakers. As such, a diminishing respect and a lack of a collective will – and devotion – to preserve the language may lead to its demise.

References Alai, Bohlul. 2004. Mabāni-e farhangi-ejtemāi-e kārbord -e zabān-e Fārsi be onvān-e zabān-e āmuzesh dar manātegh-e Tork-zabān [Socio-cultural foundations of the use of Persian as a language of instruction in Turkish-speaking areas]. (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Borjian, Habib. 2004. Mazandarani: Language and people (The state of research). Iran and the Caucasus 8(2). 289–328.

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Borjian, Maryam. 2005. Bilingualism in Mazandaran: Peaceful Coexistence with Persian, Languages, Communities, and Education 65. 65–73 Bani-Shoraka, Helena. 2005. Language choice and code-switching in the Azerbaijani community in Tehran. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Bashirnezhad, Hassan. 2007a. Zabānhā-ye mahalli-e Irān va durnamā-ye āyandeh [Local languages of Iran and the future prospects]. Journal of Language and Linguistics (Linguistics Society of Iran) 3(1). 115–127. Bashirnezhad, Hassan. 2000. Barrasi-e kārbord va jāygāh-e Fārsi va Māzandarāni dar Āmol. [A study on the use and status of Mazandarani and Persian in Amol]. (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Bashirnezhad, Hassan. 2007b. Māzandarāni: Kārbord, jāygāh-e ejtemāi, va negaresh-e guyeshvarān dar Māzandarān. [Mazandarani: Usage, Social Status and Speakers’ Attitudes in Mazandaran]. (Ph.D. Dissertation). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Crawford, James. 1998. Endangered native American languages: what is to be done, and why? [Online].http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/brj.htm. Dorian, Nancy. 1999. Western language ideologies and small- language prospect. In Lenore Grenoble & Lindsay Whaley (eds.), Endangered Languages, 3–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ebrahimi, Lotfollah. 2004. Ta’sir-e zabān-e ghāleb bar padideh-e ramzgardāni dar dozabānehā-ye Kordi-Fārsi.[Impact of dominant language on code-switching phenomenon among Kurdish/ Persian bilinguals]. (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Fasold, Ralph. 1984. The sociolinguistics of society. Oxford: Blackwell. Gal, Susan. 1979. Language shift: social determinants of linguistic change in bilingual Austria. New York: Academic Press. Imani, Mahmoud. 2004. Barrasi-e jāygāh va kārbord-e Torki va Fārsi dar miyān-e guyeshvarān-e shahr-e Qom. [Study on the Status and Application of Turkish and Persian languages among speakers in Qom]. (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Mashayekh, Tahereh. 2002. Barrasi-e kārbord-e Fārsi va Gilaki dar shahr-e Rasht. [An investigation on the application of Persian and Guilaki in Rasht]. (Master thesis). Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran. Moddarresi, Yahya. 1989. Darāmadi bar jāme’eshenāsi-e zabān. [An Introduction to sociology of language]. Tehran: Institute for Cultural Research and Studies. Natel Khanlari, Parviz. 1994. Zabānshenāsi va zabān-e Fārsi. [Linguistics and the Persian language]. Tehran: Tous. Ranjbar, Katayun. 2005. Barrasi-e vaz’iyyat-e dozabānegi dar miyān-e dāneshāmuzān-e dabirestāni-e sāken-e ostān-e Kermānshāh. [The study of bilingualism among high school students living in Kermanshah Province]. (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Rezapour, Ebrahim. 2000. Ramzgardāni az manzar-e kalāmi va janbehā-ye kārbordshenākhti. [Code-switching from discursive and pragmatic aspects]. (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Safai, Ismaiel. 2004. Barrasi-e negaresh-e dāneshāmuzān-e duzabāne dar shahr-e Marand. [Investigation of attitude of bilingual students in Marand]. (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Shahbakhsh, Azim. 2000. A case study of Baloch language; an L1 changing to an L2? [Online]

Shahmoradi, Ahmad. 2014. Barrasi-e jāygāh va kārbord-e Fārsi va Torki dar Galugāh [Study on the usage and status of Persian and Turkish in Galugah] (Master thesis). Islamic Azad University (Sari Branch), Sari, Iran.

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Sheikhi, Tahmineh. 2006. Barrasi-e padideh-e ramzgardāni dar miyān-e dozabānehā-ye Torkmani-Fārsi [An investigation of code-switching phenomenon among bilinguals of TurkmaniPersian] (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran. Vasoo Joybari, Khadijeh. 2007. Barrasi-e tafāvot-e beyn-e nasli dar kārbord-e vajehā-ye Māzandarāni-e joybāri [Intergenerational differences in the usage of Mazandarani words in Joybar] (Master thesis). Al-Zahra University, Tehran, Iran. Wolfram, Walter.1969. A Sociolinguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech, Washington D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. Zolfaghari, Sima. 1997. Guyesh-e Bakhtiāri: Baghā yā zavāl? [Bakhtiari dialect: survival or decline?] (Master thesis). Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran.

Carina Jahani

4 Balochi: Literary Development, Status and Vitality Abstract: Balochi is spoken in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, the Gulf States, Turkmenistan, India and East Africa by at least 10 million people. Balochi is not an official language in any of these countries. Some attention was given to Balochi in British India during colonial times, and there has also been more of a movement to read and write Balochi in Pakistan than in Iran, where any use of regional languages in written form has been a suspect activity ever since the days of the Pahlavi monarchy. For this reason, as well as because of the lower level of education in Pakistan than in Iran, Balochi has remained stronger in Pakistan than in Iran. In today’s Iran, many Baloch parents speak Persian rather than Balochi to their children. The purpose of this article is to discuss the status and vitality of Balochi, mainly in Iran and Pakistan, and to describe the desire to preserve and promote Balochi among its speakers. Balochi as a language with a long oral literary tradition, as well as recent attempts towards developing a standard written language will also be addressed.

1 Introduction Balochi is an Indo-Iranian language, classified by most linguists as a Northwestern Iranian language closely related to Kurdish,1 although it is spoken in the southeastern corner of the Iranian linguistic area.2 Balochi is spoken in southwestern Pakistan, in Balochistan Province, by smaller populations in Punjab and Sindh, and by a large number of people in Karachi. It is also spoken in southeastern Iran, in Sistan and Baluchestan Province as well as by scattered communities throughout southern and northeastern Iran, e.g. in Hormozgan, Fars, Khorasan and Golestan Provinces. There are also a considerable number of Balochi

1 This section is mainly based on Jahani and Korn (2009: 634–638), Jahani (2013: 154–158) and Jahani (2019: 19–24). 2 The division of Western Iranian languages into a Northwestern and a Southwestern branch has in latter years been questioned by Ludwig Paul and Agnes Korn. See, e.g., Paul (2003) and Korn (2005: 229–230). Acknowledgements: Sincere thanks to Mousa Mahmoudzahi, Taj Baloch, Nagoman, Mehlab Naseer, Noroz Hayat, Shah Ibn Sheen and Homayoon Mobaraki for valuable comments on an earlier version of this article as well as for providing information about present linguistic and literary activities in Balochistan. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-004

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speakers in Afghanistan, the Gulf States (particularly Oman and the United Arab Emirates), Turkmenistan, India and East Africa (see Figure 1). It is difficult to estimate the total number of Balochi speakers, since there are no official statistics on people’s first language in the countries where it is spoken. However, informal estimates suggest that there are at least 10 million Balochi speakers, and that there are several million more who identify themselves as Baloch but speak another language as their first language.

Figure 1: The Balochi language area with its broad dialect divisions (map courtesy of Christian Rammer).

Balochi can be divided into three main dialect blocks: Western, Southern and Eastern Balochi. This is, however, only a broad division, and there are many sub-dialects within each of these three blocks. There are also dialects that cannot readily be placed within any of the dialect blocks, such as the one spoken in Iranian Sarawan and the variants known under the name of Koroshi (see Figure 1). Western Balochi is spoken in the northern Balochi-speaking parts of Iran, in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and in the northwestern Balochi-speaking parts of Pakistan. Southern Balochi is spoken in the southern Balochi-speaking parts of Iran and Pakistan, as well as by a majority of the Balochi speakers in Karachi, the Gulf States

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and East Africa. Eastern Balochi is spoken in the northeastern Balochi-speaking parts of Pakistan. We must also keep in mind that a more complete dialect picture for Balochi has yet to be drawn. Information about dialect variation in Eastern Balochi is especially scarce, mainly due to the lack of recent linguistic studies devoted to Eastern Balochi. It is, of course, hard to state anything conclusive concerning mutual intelligibility between the different dialects until comprehensive studies on the subject are carried out. My own observations, however, suggest that there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Western and Southern Balochi, but that there are a few grammatical constructions that may cause misunderstandings. I have also found that the dialect spoken in Iranian Sarawan is hard for other Balochi speakers to understand, since it has incorporated a number of Persian features (see Jahani 2005: 158–160). The same applies to Koroshi Balochi. The dialect spoken in Karachi may also be somewhat difficult to understand, particularly by Baloch from countries other than Pakistan, since it is rather heavily influenced by Urdu. It also seems that Eastern Balochi at least initially is somewhat difficult for speakers of Western and Southern Balochi to understand and vice versa. The fact that Balochi is spoken in different countries and is therefore influenced by different official and neighbouring languages, particularly when it comes to the lexicon, further restricts mutual intelligibility between different dialects.

2 The literary heritage Acquiring literacy in Balochistan before the modern era consisted of traditional Islamic madrasa-education.3 The languages studied within this framework were Arabic, the language of religion and science, and Persian, the language of a long and elevated literary tradition. The Baloch Khans of Kalat used Persian as the administrative language, “as was customary down to the 19th century throughout south and central Asia and beyond” (Spooner 2012: 320). There were, however, at the court in Kalat poets who composed their poems in Balochi. One of the most well-known of these poets was Jām Durrak, the court poet of the most famous ruler of the Khanate of Kalat, Mīr Nasīr Khān I (r. 1748–1795) (Elfenbein 1990: 257–273; Baluch 1984: 54–84). There were also madrasa-educated mullahs who composed poetry, mainly in Southern Balochi. This poetic heritage was largely transmitted orally until some of it was written down and published in recent years. Among the poets who composed in Southern Balochi, the two brothers Mullā Fāzul Rind and Mullā Qāsum Rind from Mand in Eastern (Pakistani) Balochistan can be mentioned (see Baluch 1984: 369–419). There were also mullah-poets from Western (Iranian) Balochistan who composed in 3 This section is to a great extent based on Badalkhan and Jahani (2017).

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Southern Balochi, e.g., Mullā Ibrāhīm (see Baluch 1984: 442–449) and Mullā Abdullāh Rawānbud Pīshinī. Mast Tawkalī (see Baluch 1984: 220–276), Raḥmalī Marī4 and Jwānsāl Bugṭi are among the most famous poets who composed in Eastern Balochi. In contrast to the poets composing in Southern Balochi, they were not formally educated. Another important part of the literary heritage is the anonymous classical oral poetry. This poetic treasure is mainly epic in nature and consists of historical, heroic and romantic ballads, which have been orally transmitted for centuries by generations of bards and were actively performed until a few decades ago. Although there are still bards, Badalkhan (2000–2003) considers the future of this genre rather dismal. Traditional festivities and cultural events when these ballads were performed are now more and more being replaced by other pastimes. Folktales, legends, fables and other kinds of traditional storytelling also belong to the literary heritage of the Baloch. Most of the professional storytellers who entertain a male audience are men belonging to lower castes in the Baloch society, but also women can perform, mainly in domestic settings (Badalkhan 1999: 85). Nourzaei (2017: 77) refers to weddings, circumcision ceremonies, religious festivals and other social gatherings as important occasions for formal storytelling. She (ibid.: 79–87) studies the present state of storytelling in three different regions of Western (Iranian) Balochistan and finds that oral narration is still a living art in the coastal area, whereas among the Baloch in Sistan there is a gradual shift to other pastimes, such as reading or watching TV, and among the Koroshi Baloch living in northwestern Fars Province and associated with the Qashqai (Nourzaei et al.: 2015: 22) there is a tendency to prefer Qashqai or Persian for oral narration. Also for Eastern (Pakistani) Balochistan, Badalkhan (2003: 233) vividly describes the importance of storytelling in the Balochi culture in the past, just to find that “now, alas, people of all ages and of both sexes are stuck to television sets [. . .] and since these networks mostly telecast their programs in Hindi, which when spoken is very similar to Urdu, people have no difficulty in understanding them.” Other popular genres are riddles, proverbs, puns and songs. There are different types of songs for different occasions in life and there are also a number of traditional instruments, such as the soróz (a bowed string instrument), the damburag (a kind of lute) and the nal (a kind of flute), that accompany recitation of poems and singing (Badalkhan 2009). The Balochi language thus has a long tradition of oral literature. Part of this oral heritage, both prose and poetry, as narrated in Eastern Balochi, was collected and published in the British colonial era by M. Longworth Dames (1891, 1907). There are

4 The name Mari is often spelled Marri in English, even though there is no gemination of the /r/ in Balochi.

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also more recent collections of classical poetry and traditional storytelling from different regions where Balochi is spoken, published in or outside of Balochistan.5

3 Written literature and readership Written literature has developed very differently west and east of the Goldsmid Line, the border that divides Balochistan between Iran and Pakistan (see Mojtahed-Zadeh 2006: 200–203). In Iran, literary development has been almost non-existent until very recently, and even now attempts at promoting Balochi as a written language are viewed with great suspicion by the central government in Tehran. In Pakistan, on the other hand, modern written literature, both poetry and prose, started to emerge in the early 1950s, and there is a considerable amount of book publication taking place in Pakistan nowadays. There is also a certain amount of publication in Oman and the UAE.6 Readership of written literature in Balochi has, however, remained low. There are several reasons for this. Spooner (2012: 320–321) argues that there is “a historical expectation that writing should be in Persian or Urdu, rather than Balochi”.7 This may be true, but there are also other more compelling reasons for the meagre interest in reading and writing Balochi. The main reason is probably the fact that Balochi is mainly a language associated with traditional domains, e.g., a home and community language, as well as the language used in traditional work situations, such as husbandry and farming. In the more prestigious domains, e.g., education, administration and modern work environments, the national language is predominant. There is thus little opportunity for advancement in society associated with being able to read and write Balochi, something which also Spooner (2013: 142) notes as a reason for the weak interest in reading and writing the language. Primary education in Balochi was, in fact, launched in Balochi-speaking areas of Balochistan Province in Pakistan around 1990,8 but for many reasons this experiment was not successful. Some of the reasons for the failure of the education programme were the lack of an established written standard form of Balochi on which the cultural elite could agree (see, e.g., Farrell 2000: 28), a fear that the speakers of Balochi and 5 For references, see, e.g., Badalkhan and Jahani (2017). 6 For more information on Balochi written literature, magazines, and literary societies, the reader is referred to, e.g., Jahani (1989), Elfenbein (1990), Dashtyari (2003) and Badalkhan and Jahani (2017). 7 Spooner (2012:321) also argues that there are specific issues in the Arabic script that cause reading problems. It is, however, unclear exactly what he means when he discusses “serial combinations of letters” and “established pen-strokes”. 8 Farrell (2000: 24) writes that this happened in 1991, whereas Nagoman (personal communication, 15 March 2021) holds that it must have started already in 1990, during the time of Akbar Bugti’s provincial government.

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Brahui would be seen as two different peoples (ibid.: 25), the somewhat lukewarm reception of education in Balochi from the parents, who were more keen for their children to learn good Urdu and English in order to be able to advance in society (Spooner 2013: 142), and the fact that Akbar Bugti’s provincial government in Balochistan (1989–1990) was dissolved after 1.5 years in office and was therefore unable to pursue the programme of mother language education.9 A significant problem for reading Balochi is thus the lack of a standard written language, which basically means that each writer is free to use his or her own dialect and individually preferred orthography when he/she writes, even though some editing of the texts normally occurs before publication. Nevertheless there are normally many spelling inconsistencies even in a single book by a single author. Furthermore, the literary language is often ‘an art for the learned’ insomuch that the writers oftentimes load their texts with archaic words from the classical poetry and/or with neologisms that are hard for the common reader to understand. The main reason why only a limited number of Baloch are learning to read and write Balochi is, of course, the educational system of the countries where the language is spoken. Although it has for a long time been possible to study Balochi in higher education in Pakistan, and recently such an opportunity, although on a limited scale, has been introduced in Iran as well, Balochi is not used in primary education in either country.10 It is therefore mainly out of personal interest that people read and write Balochi. Introducing Balochi as a medium of instruction in primary and secondary education would surely increase the number of readers and would also speed up the process of language standardisation.

4 Language and identity Spooner (1989: 599) finds that the Balochi language is one of the crucial features that provides a common identity to the various tribes that use Balochi as their common language. He (2012: 326) argues that at least in the past “language was a central component” in the accepted behaviour among the Baloch, but that possibly “this function of the language belongs to a particular historical phase of the developing relationship between the Baloch and their neighbors” (ibid.: 328). There are, in fact, nowadays many who identify as Baloch without speaking Balochi. This applies particularly to those who live outside Balochistan proper, e.g. in Sindh and Punjab Provinces in

9 Personal communication, Nagoman, 15 March 2021. 10 There have, however, from the early 1980s onwards been some attempts at developing Baloch as a written language and a language of primary education in Afghanistan, but there is hardly any information at all about the outcome of these attempts (see also Spooner 2012).

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Pakistan, in Khorasan, Golestan, Hormozgan, Kerman and Fars Provinces in Iran, as well as in the Gulf States and East Africa (Jahani 2013: 154). Due to the low status attached to Balochi by a large number of its speakers, there are actually many parents who don’t see any value in transmitting Balochi to their children. Rather, they prefer them to learn the national language as early as possible in order to be well prepared for school. This is particularly evident in Iran, where many people choose to speak Persian to their children, to some extent as a sign of modernity and progress. This may have its roots in the repressive language policy in this country from the time of the Pahlavi dynasty onwards, a policy that has caused a certain stigma to be attached to speaking Balochi and other regional languages. Shahbakhsh (2011) finds that “the language policy prevalent between 1925 and 1979 was  [. . .] that of strict uniformity. There was to be one nation with one language, namely Persian. Other Iranian languages spoken within the borders of Iran were regarded as local dialects of Persian.”11 In Iran, not only Balochi, but also most other regional languages are heavily threatened. Language loss has progressed further in less rural and remote parts of Iran, such as Gilan and Mazandaran Provinces, than in Balochistan. One of the main factors behind this language loss is, of course, education. Since there is no room for regional languages in the educational system, the pursuit of education compels speakers of regional languages to operate in the national language Persian, at least in formal language domains (education, administration, government employments etc.). This will in the long run cause a marginalisation of regional languages throughout the whole of Iran as more and more people become well-educated. Another important factor that has strengthened the impact of Persian is the electrification of the country, including Balochistan (Jahani 2005: 158), which has introduced television as a new pastime. When I was discussing this issue with a number Baloch families in Iran, they expressed their frustration with the fact that their children spend several hours every day at school in a Persian speaking environment, and when they come home they also spend most of their free time in front of a “Persian speaking” TV-set. At the same time, though, the parents were often observed to speak Persian with their children. There are, however, some recent signs of an interest in preserving their mother tongue among well-educated Baloch in Iran. Many have expressed an interest in learning to read and write Balochi and to take part in online courses that are offered within the framework of the Balochi Language Project at Uppsala University (see below). In Pakistan, however, Balochi is still being transmitted to the next generation in a large number of families. Farrell (2000: 20) argues that “at present it is partly lack

11 See also Hosseinbor (2000: 150) and Mojab and Hassanpour (1995: 231–232) who, like Shahbakhsh, describe the repressive policy of the Pahlavi monarchs against regional languages in Iran.

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of education that is ensuring the strength of Balochi”, something which is, of course, not desirable to perpetuate. Farrell (ibid.) also notes that the process of language shift is “already underway” among the Baloch who live in Karachi. It seems that language preservation or loss among the Baloch who live outside Balochistan proper also follows the pattern of integration and education or isolation and lack of education. In Oman and East Africa, integration and education seems to be the predominant pattern, with language loss as a result, whereas in Turkmenistan isolation, lack of education and language retention is the most common pattern. The Baloch presence on the Arabian Peninsula dates back at least some 300 years, but probably much longer (see also Shahmorad Dadkarim Gullamrasul 2019: 151). The first wave of Baloch immigrants were recruited to the Omani army and later more waves have followed (Ameeri 2003: 237). Ameeri (ibid.: 240–241) states that “the Baloch who came to the Gulf in the first half of the 18th century have completely lost their language and cultural identity”,12 and also that there is a language shift over three generations, presumably among those who have arrived later, where “the older generation mainly speaks Balochi and broken Arabic. The second generation is bilingual whilst the third speaks Arabic only.” At the same time, though, he notes that not all Baloch in the Gulf have abandoned their language and that “a considerable amount of Baloch in the Gulf are fervently devoted to the development of their language” (ibid.: 242). Exactly when the Baloch started arriving in East Africa is not known, but from the beginning of the 19th century there is evidence of their presence on Zanzibar and the East Coast of Africa, which was under Omani rule at the time (Lodhi 2000: 91; see also Shahmorad Dadkarim Gullamrasul 2019: 145). In the early days, the Baloch were mainly mercenaries, and later on they have engaged in, e.g., “trade, mechanized agriculture, transportation, and skilled professions” (Lodhi 2013: 127). Lodhi (ibid.: 128, 130) reports that the Baloch in East Africa have been integrated into mainstream society with the result that they have given up their Balochi language and culture for Swahili, but that nowadays some rejuvenation of the language has taken place with the arrival of newcomers, mainly from Western (Iranian) Balochistan. Lodhi (2000: 94) also notes that “the scholarly contribution of the Baloch to the Swahili language and literature is considerable.” If there is a strong tendency of language-switching among the Baloch on the Arabian Peninsula and in East Africa, the Baloch who migrated to Turkmenistan have retained their language to a much higher degree. The Baloch started to migrate northwards into Turkmenistan from Afghanistan and Iran in the late 19th century to escape drought and famine. They were then joined by more immigrants until the late 1920s (Axenov 2000: 71, Moskhalo 2000: 97–98). The last census carried out in Turkmenistan in 1989, before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, shows that almost 97% of the

12 This information has, however, been contested in other sources. See, e.g., Jahani (2014: 296, fn. 114).

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Baloch in Turkmenistan consider Balochi to be their mother tongue (Axenov 2006: 19). Axenov (ibid.: 23–24, 27) reports that a majority of children, at least in the 1990s when he did his his fieldwork in Turkmenistan, had no knowledge of Turkmen prior to going to school, and that this situation, in combination with the poor socio-economic conditions of the Baloch, has led to “poor school attendance and drop-outs during the early years of schooling.” The picture that emerges is that at least until recently, integration of the Baloch into mainstream society and socio-economic advancement has gone hand in hand with weakening of the Balochi language and a gradual language shift. Only in areas where the level of education and integration has been lower has Balochi been retained as a vigorous language which is also transmitted to the next generation. Spooner (2012: 332) thus argues that “the future of Balochi is now uncertain because of the increasing rate of social change, especially in Iran and Pakistan”, particularly because of the “shifting function of literacy [. . .] in the modern world” (Spooner 2013: 138). However Spooner (2013: 142) also notes that “Balochi-medium schooling has been included in the nationalist agenda”. He (Spooner 2012: 321) furthermore concludes that “if socio-political identity continues to rise among the Baloch, as it has over the past generation or so,” the use of Balochi “in electronic media will increase and a standard form of the language will emerge.” Spooner (2013: 138) therefore finds that it is too soon to tell if Balochi “will become fully standardized and strengthened or fragmented and weakened”. Farrell (2000:28) also holds that “if the language is not strengthened by use in education and other formal domains, then it looks as though the surrounding official languages will eat away at the Balochi language by encroaching on ever more domains of use.” The picture may not be as dismal as the one painted by Farrell and partly also by Spooner. As I write this article two decades after Farrell published his article and slightly less than a decade after Spooner published his, I can testify to the fact that there are an increasing number of young and well-educated Baloch both in Pakistan and Iran who take an interest in preserving and promoting their language, in many cases combined with political aspirations of self-determination or a greater degree of autonomy in Balochistan.

5 The fatherland, the mother tongue There are many examples in modern Balochi literature of love for the fatherland and the mother tongue. In this section, references to fatherland and mother tongue in two literary pieces will be discussed. These pieces are Órmárhah 2030á13 (Ormarah 13 In this article, Balochi book and story titles are written in the Balochi Latin script presented in Jahani (2019).

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year 2030), written by Ghaws Bahar and published in his collection of short stories Karkénk (Oyster) and Haw Máti, Tai Bacch Kóhestáná ent (Yes, Dear Mother, Your Son is Back in the Mountains), written by Noroz Hayat and published online in Balochistan Times.14 Both authors are from Eastern (Pakistani) Balochistan. I will also refer to discussions about Balochi on International Mother Language Day, 21 February 2021. Ghaws Bahar’s piece (Bahar 2003) is a short story located in the town Ormarah, situated on the coast in Eastern (Pakistani) Balochistan. It is narrated in the third person by an omniscient narrator. The main character of the story, Balach who is an old Baloch nationalist bears testimony to a changed society. In the beginning of the story he is sitting and watching the sea. He sees people dressed in different kinds of non-Balochi wear, even shorts and skirts, which are not appropriate items of clothing in the Balochi culture. Balach is a very lonely man since all his contemporaries and friends are dead by now. But the most heavy burden on his heart is that nobody in Ormarah speaks Balochi any longer. The whole culture of the Baloch is also being forgotten and all the old values have been exchanged for new and “modern” ones. Balach thinks about how he had already in his days as an active politician foreseen this development and warned his fellow Baloch that their language, culture, dress and moral values would be lost in the near future if they did not take measures to protect and preserve them. Nobody, however, had taken him seriously at that time. Then all of a sudden, as he is sitting at the beach in deep thought he hears somebody speaking to him in Balochi. When he turns around to see who it is, he finds that it is a beggar. The next day Balach’s death is announced from the mosque, in Urdu rather than in Balochi.15 In Noroz Hayat’s piece (Hayat 2020) we meet a person who lives in exile but whose longing for the homeland grows stronger day by day. It is never stated in the story that this person is a Baloch and that his homeland is Balochistan. However, the names of places and persons in the story make it clear that the homeland referred to is Balochistan. Also this story is narrated in the third person by an omniscient narrator, who informs the reader that the protagonist had left his homeland long ago, in search for better living conditions in a big city, but that he was constantly missing his homeland in the mountains. As long as he lived in the city he would make his way back home every now and then. Even if there was poverty and destitution at home it was still his homeland. But he felt that neither the people at home nor the Government had shown any concern for the language. Again, although not stated overtly, this language is Balochi. Already

14 For publication details, see References below. 15 An English translation of this short story by Noroz Hayat and Carina Jahani was published online in Balochistan Times on 12 November 2021. For publication details, see References below.

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at that time he felt detached from his fatherland, his language, his traditional clothes and other features of his culture. Now that he is living in exile and far away from home all of a sudden the longing for the fatherland gets the upper hand. He wants to speak his own language and wear his own clothes again. So he takes the decision that it is about time to return home, and he does so without notifying anybody. Once back, he finds that a lot has changed, but that “the breeze at dawn, the sunset, the duststorms, the moonlight, the scorching heat, the season of the date harvest from the earliest dates to ripen to the very end of the season, and the moist smell after the first rain of the year were all exactly like they used to be” (Hayat 2021: 3). There is, however, no comment about whether the language is still spoken at home or not. During the process of writing this article, on 21 February 2021, International Mother Language Day, a number of discussions and gatherings were organised to highlight the potential loss of the Balochi language. Accusations were made against the central governments for being the agents behind the loss of language that is taking place and that both Iran and Pakistan carry out a “linguistic, cultural, and ethnic genocide” against the Baloch.16 On the other hand, it was also stated that it is the responsibility of the Baloch to protect and give value to their language in order to keep it alive.17 An hour-long discussion about the status and prospects and problems for the survival of the Balochi language was also held with the participation of Manzoor Bismil, Taj Baloch, Asger Baloch and Keyya Baloch and posted on YouTube.18 In an introductory speech Nagoman refers to the struggle of the Bengalis for linguistic rights that eventually led to the proclamation of International Mother Language Day by UNESCO in 1999. He introduces the question how a people can protect and develop their language in a situation where they have not yet acquired political independence, the question that the participants then go on to discuss. They stress the importance of the mother tongue, the Balochi language, for the Balochi identity and that trying to become someone else by changing the language will create a huge void in a human being because he or she can never truly change identity. They also discuss the need for a standardised written Balochi language in order for it to reach a sustainable status, and they stress the need to produce good literature for both adults and children in this standard language. In this context, the standard language suggested by the Balochi Language Project at Uppsala University (see below) is discussed as a potential way forward. The importance of encouraging transmission of Balochi to the next generation and of raising its status in the minds of the speakers is also discussed. 16 https://balochwarna.com/2021/02/21/international-mother-language-day-iran-and-pakistan-aredestroying-our-languages-hyrbyair-marri/ Speaker: Hyrbyair Marri (Retrieved 22 February 2021). 17 http://sada-e-balochistan.com/archives/4711 Speaker: M. Irfan Baloch (Retrieved 22 February 2021). 18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA234iDgjkk (Retrieved 22 February 2021).

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Another discussion on the same topic was held by Balochistan Affairs TV, with the participation of Qambar Malik Baloch, Nagoman and Khurshid Ahmad Baloch.19 Nagoman argues in his opening speech that if you take a language from a person, he or she will no longer be a person. He further discusses the complications that arise when a child has to learn reading and writing skills in a language he or she is not familiar with. When this is the case the child has to learn the new language at the same time as he/she acquires these skills, something which complicates the learning process. Nagoman holds that it is a human right to get primary education in a language that the child already knows. Khurshid Ahmad Baloch also holds that a person’s identity is created already from birth by means of the mother language and that it is only in the mother language that a person can fully express his or her feelings. The importance of a standard written language in the present era in order for Balochi to make its way into being employed in the education system and to become a strong literary language is also discussed, as well as how such a standard language can be developed either by promoting one dialect or by combining elements from different dialects as the standard. Khurshid Ahmad Baloch also points to the importance of paying attention to the classical literature in the standard language. Nagoman discusses the problem of promoting a standard language if there is no official support and no use of the language in education, but notes that it is still possible to promote Balochi if there is a consensus on the standard language among various cultural institutions and political parties. He also stresses the importance of taking advantage of modern technology in the standardisation process. At the end of the programme he refers to the Latin and Arabic scripts suggested by the Balochi Language Project at Uppsala University (see below) as well as to the script that is usually referred to as the Sayad Hashmi system as the two script systems that seem to have the most potential as a standard script for Balochi. There are, furthermore, on YouTube a number of speeches delivered on International Mother Language Day 2021 at events organised by among others, the Sayad Hashmi Reference Library, Karachi,20 the Lyari Literature Festival21 and BSO

19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt3MJSGckn4 (Retrieved 22 February 2021). Khurshid Ahmad Baloch is the name written in the video, but in the programme this participant is introduced as Khurshid Karim Baloch. 20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grlVn5LTN2g Speaker Ramzan Bamari. (Retrieved 12 March 2021). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH0Chc_l2BE Speaker Kaleem Lashari. (Retrieved 24 February 2021). 21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcongDwkStQ Speaker Ishaque Khamosh. (Retrieved 24 February 2021). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYYBX-_AzbM Speaker Raheem Mehr. (Retrieved 24 February 2021). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zcLIs_KxH8 Speaker Naz Barakzai. (Retrieved 24 February 2021).

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(Pajjar)22 in Eastern Balochistan, as well as by the Chabahar Balochi Literary Society in Western Balochistan.23 This shows that there is a concern for the Balochi language in both Pakistan and Iran, and the fact that there are not only male but also female speakers at these events is of great significance in the previously strictly male-dominated Baloch society. Likewise, in several WhatsApp and Facebook discussion groups, the issue of language loss is discussed as a serious issue that needs to be addressed urgently. How it is to be addressed, however, is not totally clear from these discussions. Several of my personal friends as well as other people engaged in the discussion of language loss in various discussion forums bear witness to the fact that many parents choose not to transfer Balochi to their children but rather to speak Urdu, Persian or Arabic with them. This is often seen as a sign of sophistication and urbanisation as against speaking Balochi, something they perceive to be a sign of “rural and backward behaviour”. A rise in status of Balochi, particularly in the mind of the speakers, is thus an urgent step towards ensuring that the language will be transferred to coming generations. A measure that will definitely raise the status of Balochi is if it develops as a written language with a written literature. It is important to note that if we look at the whole picture, there are two main parties being blamed by those who address the issue of language loss. One party is the central governments of the countries where Balochi is spoken, who take no measures to ensure that Balochi is being developed as a written language and used in primary and secondary education. The other party is the speakers themselves who are ready to give up their language for the national language in order to advance in society and who see giving up their mother tongue as a sign of modernity and sophistication. Noroz Hayat captures this well in his story by ascribing to the protagonist the reflection that “the language had been neglected for centuries, and the sons of the Mountains had not done such a great job of saving it either. Even worse, the Government had done what it could to eradicate it” (Hayat 2021: 2–3).

6 Present linguistic and literary activities Even if there is a certain amount of internal criticism among the Baloch themselves for not taking sufficient measures to develop their language, it must be pointed out

22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri3oGCURmPo Speaker Shama Ishaque. (Retrieved 24 February 2021). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zcLIs_KxH8 Speaker Naz Barakzai. (Retrieved 24 February 2021). 23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev3BBOJ5FeU Speaker Rafeeq Rachar. (Retrieved 23 February 2021). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4czmpTVdTZs Speaker Tariq Houth. (Retrieved 23 February 2021).

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that there are a great number of laudable linguistic and literary activities taking place in Balochistan. Most of these are carried out on a totally voluntary basis and with little or no financial support. The Balochi Academy in Quetta, founded in 1961 (Jahani 1989: 28), however, does receive some financial support from the Pakistani Government and is active in book publication as well as in arranging literary and cultural activities. Among its most valuable recent publications can be mentioned a compilation of Gul Khan Nasir’s collected Balochi poetry (Nasir 2014), a Balochi-Balochi dictionary by Jan Muhammad Dashti (Dashti 2015, 20172), a collection of Balochi folktales by Shay Ragaam (Ragaam 2015), a two-volume compilation of Balochi poetry by Jan Muhammad Dashti (Dashti 2017) and a Balochi-English dictionary by Naseer Dashti (Dashti 2019). The Sayad Hashmi Reference Library in Karachi, founded by the late Saba Dashtyari, is an important institution, which, according to its website sees as its goal to “preserve all the published and unpublished materials on Baloch, Balochi and Balochistan for the future generations”.24 In Iran, the Iranshahr branch of the Iranology Foundation25 is the main institution to engage in Balochi linguistic and literary activities. When it comes to higher education, Balochi is on the curriculum at the University of Balochistan, Quetta, and the University of Turbat, both in Pakistan. It is possible to major in Balochi for BA, MA and MPhil degrees in the Pakistani system of higher education. It is also possible to choose Balochi as a subject in several colleges in Pakistani Balochistan. A short course in Balochi was recently introduced as an optional subject at the University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, as well as at the Velayat University of Iranshahr, both in Iran. There is also an increasing number of Ph.D. theses written on Balochi both in Iran and in Pakistan. In Iran the main focus is on linguistics and sociolinguistics, whereas in Pakistan literary studies are more common. The main reason for this is to be seen in the fact that there is very little literature published in Balochi and very few readers of Balochi in Iran. There has also so far been little interest in studying the Balochi oral literary heritage, particularly in Iran. There are a number of websites that publish regularly in Balochi. Among the most important ones are Balochistan Times (see also below),26 Baask,27 and The Balochistan Post.28 Balochistan Times founded by Taj Baloch, Sajid Hussain and Sameer Mehrab in 2015, states as its goal to tell Balochistan’s untold and forbidden stories. It publishes in both English and Balochi, and it has a special section on literature, where literary pieces written in English and Balochi by Baloch writers, as well as translations into English of Balochi literature are published. The Baask website aims to be a non-political forum for promoting the Balochi language, literature and culture. One of 24 https://www.shrlibrary.org/en/ (Retrieved 16 March 2021). 25 https://en.iranology.ir/ (Retrieved 25 November 2021). 26 https://balochistantimes.com/ (Retrieved 18 March 2021). 27 http://baask.com/diwwan/ (Retrieved 18 March 2021). 28 https://www.tbpbalochi.com/ (Retrieved 18 March 2021).

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the most active writers on this webpage, who is also its administrator, is Zahida Raees Raji from Karachi. The Balochistan Post is of a more political character and publishes news from Balochistan and the rest of the world in English, Balochi, Brahui and Urdu. A recent initiative to give the Baloch a voice has been taken by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO)29 by launching an online magazine in Balochi mainly aimed for readers and writers in Western (Iranian) Balochistan.30 There is a certain number of periodicals published in Balochi more or less regularly, all in Pakistan. Among the more well-known ones are Máhták Balóchi from Quetta, Máhták Balóchi Zend from Noshke, Máhták Sechkán from Gwádar, Gedár from Pasni and Estin from Turbat. There are several reasons why many periodicals appear sporadically or are discontinued, among others the unstable political situation in Pakistani Balochistan. Many cultural and literary activists have been abducted or have had to flee the country. Another problem is often how to finance publication.31 There is to my knowledge no publication of periodicals in Balochi in Iran at present. There are a number of publishing houses throughout Eastern Balochistan as well as in Karachi which regularly publish books in Balochi. Radio broadcasts in Balochi are still ongoing both from Zahedan and Quetta, but radio has very much lost its attraction as a medium of mass communication. Instead, TV is a much more popular medium. There are, however, no regular TV broadcasts in Balochi in Iran. Only occasionally a cultural programme where some Balochi is spoken is shown on the local TV channel in Western Balochistan. In Eastern Balochistan, on the other hand, there are TV programmes in Balochi broadcast on a daily basis. There are also a number of privately owned radio and TV channels broadcasting in Balochi and a considerable amount of Balochi literary and cultural programmes posted on YouTube. Among Baloch filmmakers Hanif Sharif in Germany and Homayoon Mobaraki in Sweden can be mentioned.

7 The Balochi Language Project: An attempt at creating a standard written language Ever since the mid-20th century, there have been attempts to create a unified orthography for Balochi. The development of written Balochi has mainly taken place in Pakistan, where there have been advocates of both Arabic and Latin scripts. Most literature, of course, has been written in Arabic script, but even here diverging systems have been used. Different writers and language developers have advocated different

29 https://unpo.org/ (Retrieved 18 March 2021). 30 https://braanz.news/ (Retrieved 25 November 2021). 31 For more details, see Dashtyari (2003).

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orthographic systems, and some of the more productive writers have also developed their individual writing systems over time. Even in a single book it often happens that the orthography is inconsistent, which is not surprising in a non-standardised language where no spelling rules have been defined. Jahani (1989) studies the representation of different dialects in a number of Balochi publications from 1951 to 1988. She also presents and discusses a number of different orthographic systems for Balochi suggested by various writers. Among these systems, the suggestion made by Sayad Hashmi32 (Jahani 1989: 137) has received the most adherents. There are, however, a number of “morphophonemic writings” (ibid.) in the Sayad Hashmi system that have proven difficult to master for the ordinary writer (see also Farrell 2000: 29). Sayad Hashmi did not propose a dialect base for the standard language, but as a speaker of Southern Balochi, his own and his followers’ writings are mainly in the Southern dialect. In an attempt to simplify and unify previous orthography proposals and to establish a dialect basis for the written language, an initiative was taken by Uppsala University in 2013 to host the Balochi Language Project at the Department of Linguistics and Philology of this university.33 At the outset of this project, an orthography conference was held in 2014 with representatives from Balochistan proper, i.e. the Balochi Academy and the University of Balochistan, both located in Quetta, Pakistan, as well as the Iranology Foundation, Iranshahr, Iran. A number of Baloch writers were also present in these discussions. The first conference was followed by a grammar conference in 2016. On the basis of the discussions in these two conferences, a dialect basis for the standard written Balochi language was suggested, as well as a Latin and Arabic bi-script orthography. Among the first co-workers on the Balochi Language Project, Salim Ismail (Siddik Azat) and Aziz Dadiar can be mentioned. Both are renowned writers from Eastern and Western Balochistan respectively and are now living in Sweden. Later the project was joined by Mousa Mahmoudzahi, Velayat University, Iranshahr, Iran, Sabir Badalkhan, Naples University, Italy, and a number of younger Baloch writers and linguists, among others Taj Baloch, Mehlab Naseer, Sajid Hussain and Nagoman. As this article is being written, Hamid Ali Baloch, Balochistan University, Quetta, is planning to join the project as well. A number of books have been published in the suggested script both in book-form and as downloadable PDFs online. Some of these books are particularly aimed at children. In addition to the PDFs, the children’s books are available online as audio-

32 In Jahani (1989) his name is spelled Sayyid Hāshimī. However, the spelling Sayad Hashmi is more common 33 https://www.lingfil.uu.se/forskning/the-balochi-language-project/ (Retrieved 12 March 2021).

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books, and one of them, Chokkán Gón Pásé (A Time With the Children) (Jahani and Baloch 2016), is also available as an app for Android phones34 and iPhones.35 In 2018 Mousa Mahmoudzahi and Sajid Hussain started working on an online Balochi-English dictionary, which was launched online in 2019.36 After the untimely death of Sajid Hussain in 2020, Nagoman is continuing the work on the dictionary. Also in 2019, A Grammar of Modern Standard Balochi37 (Jahani 2019) was published and two years after the publication it has been downloaded more than 2800 times. About 1000 copies of the book have also been distributed. As this article is being written, a number of books in the suggested standard are being prepared for publication, among which are a historical novel and a number of collections of modern short stories, one of them with English translations. In 2020, the Balochi Language Project also started a course to teach reading and writing Balochi online. A good number of people joined, both from Balochistan proper, mainly from Iran and from different Western countries. Some of the participants are now preparing to start their own online courses. One of the online magazines mentioned above, Balochistan Times, adopted the orthographic system proposed by the Balochi Language Project in the spring of 2020. In an interview with Sajid Hussain, the founder of the magazine, carried out by Hammal Haider in February 2020, Sajid endorsed this orthographic system. This was the last recording of Sajid’s voice, shortly before his death, and the interview was posted on YouTube on 1 May 2020,38 when Sajid’s dead body had recently been found and identified.39 Sajid Hussain was also the main source of encouragement to the present author during the writing of A Grammar of Modern Standard Balochi. His death left a huge void among all his friends and colleagues at the Balochi Language Project. In March 2018, on an initiative taken by Sajid Hussain, the present author recorded a short video urging the Baloch to “speak Balochi, read Balochi, write Balochi”.40 This video was in the same month followed by two other videos with the same message, one by Nagoman,41 and one by Karima Baloch.42 If the Balochi language is to have a future alongside other vigorous languages in the modern world, speaking, reading 34 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.balochifolktales.androidapp (Retrieved 12 March 2021). 35 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/balochi-folktales/id1517386297 (Retrieved 20 March 2021). 36 https://www.webonary.org/balochidictionary/ (Retrieved 12 March 2021). 37 http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1372275/FULLTEXT01.pdf (Retrieved 12 March 2021). 38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Troo9srFxMY The language of this interview is Balochi. (Retrieved 10 May 2020). 39 https://rsf.org/en/news/missing-pakistani-journalists-body-found-sweden (Retrieved 20 March 2021). 40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll-4XfkHb04 (Retrieved 27 November 2021). 41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMbbptxS2vM (Retrieved 27 November 2021). 42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf28zoHdQrI (Retrieved 27 November 2021).

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and writing Balochi is a must. Reading and writing Balochi are, furthermore, for most Baloch skills that must be acquired. The only way of reversing language shift in Balochistan seems to be that educated Baloch take on the challenge and are willing to accept a standardised written language and to invest time and energy to master this language with its particular grammatical and orthographic rules.

8 Conclusions The Balochi language has been spoken for centuries and has produced a rich literature, both in oral and written form. Ballads have been sung by the bards and stories have been told by the storytellers since time immemorial. This language and its literature is not only part of the collective memory of the Baloch, but also part of the cultural heritage that belongs to all mankind. It is therefore an urgent task to codify this cultural heritage before it is forgotten. Today just as the Baloch society is at a crossroads between traditionalism and modernity, so the Balochi language finds itself at a crossroads between development and entering into new domains of use or weakening and finally extinction. It is hard to predict what will happen, but there are many signs of hope on the horizon. There is a strong awakening among many Baloch about the need for them to preserve and promote their language and they are searching for tools to do so. In order for Balochi to remain a vigorous language, it needs to develop a written standard and become a language of education, at least in Iran and Pakistan. This is, of course, nothing that the central governments will concede to without the Baloch demanding it. There are thus two sides of the coin in the struggle for the survival of the Balochi language. The first side is to what extent the Baloch are ready to devote themselves to their language, to invest their time and start reading and writing Balochi and to unite around a written standard language. The Baloch will also need to demand linguistic rights, including mother tongue education in state schools. This will most probably go hand in hand with demands for a greater level of political selfdetermination. The other side of the coin is that the central governments of the countries where Balochi is spoken must be prepared to give linguistic rights to the Baloch. If the central governments are not ready to take the demands of the Baloch into consideration, there may be an escalation in violence and conflict in Balochistan, where there is already a considerable amount of political and socio-economic instability. The coming decades will be decisive for the survival of the Balochi language.

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Hosseinbor, Mohammad Hassan. 2000. Iran and Its Nationalities: The Case of Baluch Nationalism. Karachi: Pakistani Adab Publications. Jahani, Carina. 1989. Standardization and Orthography in the Balochi Language. (Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 1). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Jahani, Carina (ed.). 2000. Language in Society – Eight Sociolinguistic Essys on Balochi. (Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 3). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Jahani, Carina. 2005. State Control and Its Impact on Language in Balochistan. In Annika Rabo & Bo Utas (eds.), The Role of the State in West Asia, 151–163. (Transactions of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul 14). Stockholm: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. Jahani, Carina. 2013. The Balochi Language and Languages in Iranian Balochistan. The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 4(2). 153–167. Jahani, Carina. 2014. The Baloch as an Ethnic Group in the Persian Gulf Region. In Lawrence G. Potter (ed.), The Persian Gulf in Modern Times: People, Ports, and History, 267–297. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jahani, Carina. 2019. A Grammar of Modern Standard Balochi. (Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 36). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Jahani, Carina & Agnes Korn (eds.). 2003. The Baloch and Their Neighbours. Ethnic and Linguistic Contacts in Balochistan in Historical and Modern Times. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Jahani, Carina & Agnes Korn. 2009. Balochi. In Gernot Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages, 634–692. London and New York: Routledge. Jaháni, Káriná & Aziz Balóch. 2016. Chokkán Gón Pásé. Online at: https://www.diva-portal.org/ smash/get/diva2:922803/FULLTEXT01.pdf (Retrieved 28 November 2021) Korn, Agnes. 2005. Towards a Historical Grammar of Balochi. Studies in Balochi Historical Phonology and Vocabulary. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Lodhi, Abdulaziz Y. 2000. A Note on the Baloch in East Africa. In Carina Jahani (ed.), Language in Society – Eight Sociolinguistic Essys on Balochi, 91–95. (Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 3). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Lodhi, Abdulaziz Y. 2013. The Baluchi of East Africa: Dynamics of Assimilation and Integration. Journal of the Middle East and Africa 4(2). 127–134. Mojab, Shahrzad & Amir Hassanpour. 1995. The Politics of Nationality and Ethnic Diversity. In Saeed Rahnema & Sohrab Behdad (eds.), Iran After the Revolution, 229–250. London & New York: I. B. Tauris. Mojtahed-Zadeh, Pirouz. 2006. Boundary Politics and International Boundaries of Iran. Boca Raton, Florida: Universal Publishers. Moshkalo, Vyacheslav. 2000. Language and Culture of the Baloch in Turkmenistan. In: Carina Jahani (ed.) Language in Society – Eight Sociolinguistic Essys on Balochi, 97–103. (Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 3). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Nasir, Mir Gul Khan [Naṣīr, Mīr Gul Khān]. 2014. Tir Gála Kárit. Balóchi Shayri Daptar (Kolliát). Quetta: Balochi Academy. Nourzaei, Maryam. 2017. Participant Reference in Three Balochi Dialects. Male and Female Narrations of Folktales and Biographical Tales. (Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 31). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Online at: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1069126/ FULLTEXT01.pdf (Retrieved 8 September 2020). Nourzaei, Maryam, Carina Jahani, Erik Anonby & Abbas Ali Ahangar. 2015. Koroshi. A Corpus-based Grammatical Description. (Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 13). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Online at: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:810250/FULLTEXT01.pdf (Retrieved 8 September 2020). Paul, Ludwig. 2003. The Position of Balochi among Western Iranian Languages: The Verbal System. In Carina Jahani & Agnes Korn (eds.), The Baloch and Their Neighbours. Ethnic and Linguistic Contacts in Balochistan in Historical and Modern Times, 61–71. Wiesbaden: Reichert.

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Ragaam, Shay [Ragām, Šay]. 2015. Bádsháh Hodáwand Wat At. Quetta: Balochi Academy. Shahbakhsh, Azim. 2011. A Case Study of Balochi Language. Online at: https://balochilinguist. wordpress.com/2011/02/27/a-case-study-of-balochi-language/ (Retrieved 25 November 2021). Shahmorad Dadkarim Gullamrasul. 2019. The Balochs of East & Central Africa. Sine loco. Spooner, Brian. 1989. Baluchistan I: Geography, History, and Ethnography. Encyclopaedia Iranica 3. 598–632. Also online at: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/baluchistan-i (Retrieved 5 February 2021). Spooner, Brian. 2012. Balochi: Towards a Biography of the Language. In Harold F. Schiffman (ed.), Language Policy and Language Conflict in Afghanistan and Its Neighbors: The Changing Politics of Language Choice, 319–336. Leiden & Boston: Brill. Spooner, Brian. 2013. The Baloch in Islamic Civilization, Western Ethnography, and World History. The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 4(2). 135–151.

Ehsan Majidifard, Mohammad Mahdi Hajmalek & Saeed Rezaei

5 Attitudes Towards Tati Language Among its Native Speakers in Western Iran

Abstract: This chapter presents the sociolinguistic profile of Tati language in Western Iran. In order to do so, at the first stage previous studies on language attitude with a specific focus on minority languages in Iran are reviewed. Thereafter, we offer an overview of the research on Tati language by both local and international scholars. Following this historical review, the rest of this chapter will deal with Tati in Western Iran. The main focus is on the attitudes of Tati native speakers towards Tati language as their mother tongue. To explore this issue, 188 male and female Tati speakers completed an online questionnaire. These voluntary participants were from a broad range of locales where Tati native speakers inhabit, including southern Qazvin and Eshtehard, Takestan, Esfarvarin, Zanjan, Boein Zahra, Sagz Abad, Vafs, Khalkhal, Klowr, Kejal, Danesfahan, Asalem, and Tarom. Futher to that, 10 participants were interviewed to further explore how Tati native speakers perceive their mother tongue. This chapter closes by discussing the findings from a sociolinguistic perspective and the importance of research on minority and endangered languages is also highlighted. Finally, some suggestions for future research in this regard are provided. Sagzabad and Ebrahimabad, known as Sezgowa and Bermowa among its inhabitants, are two villages of Boluk-e Zahra. These two villages, 4–5 kms away from each other, are situated in the north eastern mountains of Ramand . . . . Contrary to other villages in Boluk-e Zahra whose people speak Azerbaijani Turkish, in these two villages people speak with an accent known as Tati among its inhabitants. Tat Neshin-haye Boluk-e Zahra (The Tati Inhabitants of Boluk-e Zahra) by Jalal Al-e Ahmad, 1958, p. 17.

1 Introduction Studies on attitudes towards language in the field of sociolinguistics have been going on for decades, and they have contributed an immense deal of insight to understanding the mechanisms of language, power, and politics in communal life of contemporary societies. Findings from such studies, especially the ones with a focus on minority languages, are currently serving a new role by propelling discussions of social justice and linguistic human rights. Language death, language genocide and suppression, marginalized identities, the right to form, adopt, or maintain a linguistic identity are among the key focuses of sociolinguistic studies in a world where multilingualism is no longer an exception but rather the norm (Wardhaugh and Fuller 2015). Attitude studies are by nature political endeavors as attitudes towards languages or dialects

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are in fact attitudes towards their users or uses (Holmes 2013). Therefore, language attitude studies are significant so long as the social identities and ethnolinguistic vitality of minority groups are of concern. Minority communities and speakers of minority languages are inevitably involved in attitude studies from two perspectives. First, the dominant language is more often than not the unsurmountable candidate for the “standard” dialect, associated with higher prestige, social status, and economic prosperity as a result of unbalanced patterns of power distribution leading to the marginalization of minority groups (Ryan, Hewstone, and Giles 1984; Lippi-Green 2011). Secondly, minority groups are constantly dealing with sometimes disarrayed, or even competing, feelings of solidarity and integration, urging them into life and death decisions on a regular basis. A chain of all these considerations determine whether a minority group persists to exist or simply relinquishes its current form of being in favor of a larger, more powerful, and probably more convenient, social identity. One of the numerous minority groups lending themselves to attitude studies is an ethnic minority. This is particularly of interest in nations where a variety of linguistic minorities coexist in a shared political and social ecology such as Iran. Iran is a geographically vast, ethnically diverse, and linguistically vibrant cocktail. In one instance, the Descriptive Dictionary of Linguistic Varieties in Iran (Kalbasi 2009), comprises 211 entries, a witness to the aforementioned diversity in the Iranian linguistic milieu. Tati, the minority language of focus in this chapter, is classified as an endangered language (UNESCO’s “Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger” project) facing threats of extinction or submersion into the dominant linguistic imperialism of Persian in Iran. Endangered languages are particularly interesting subjects for attitude research since they can benefit from such studies. In fact, one of the few tools available to sociolinguists for enhancing the existence or endurance of endangered languages is the ethnographic effort to apprehend and appreciate their social, political, and hence, attitudinal properties. Featuring a number of subgroup varieties, Tati is one of the most important branches of North-Western Iranian (NWI) languages rooted in the ancient Median (Stilo 1981 2018). Although a number of studies have explored this Iranian minority language from a geo-historical (e.g., Abdoli 2001; Stilo 1981) and lexico-syntactic (e.g., Asadi, Bagheri Hariry, and Kiyani 2014) perspectives, very scant investigations have been made into the sociolinguistic life of this language (Stilo 1981, for an exception). Given the significance of attitude studies in sketching the current status and life expectancy of endangered languages, the present mixed-methods study set out to probe into the attitudes of Tati native speakers in western Iran towards their mother tongue and the ways in which these attitudes are affecting their language, social identity, and solidarity by posing the following research questions: 1. What is the general attitude of Tati native speakers in western Iran towards Tati as their mother tongue? 2. What is the social status of Tati language among its native speakers?

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3. How is the vitality and use of Tati language in the daily lives of its native speakers? 4. How is Tati language treated and supported by the government – and its native speakers? Before responding to these research questions, a comprehensive review of literature on attitude research and minority languages, especially Tati, in Iran is presented.

2 Background 2.1 Attitude in sociolinguistics Attitude studies in sociolinguistics have obviously evolved dramatically in purpose, application, methodology, and scope since Agheyisi and Fishman (1970: 137) outlined their potential in topics such as “language choice in multilingual societies, differential allocation of codes, dialect differences and mutual intelligibility”— and called for felicitous attention to the possibilities they offer. Now, attitude studies are inherent components of many qualitative ethnographic or quantitative survey-based research endeavors in the field. Agheyisi and Fishman sketched three main categories of attitude studies: studies pertaining to a) language-oriented or language-directed attitudes, b) community-wide stereotyped impressions toward particular language varieties, and c) the implementation of different types of language attitude: a triad model where any combination of the three mutually unexclusive components seems plausible. A variety of methodologies and data collection techniques have been employed to fulfill the purpose of these studies, among which some have proven to be more popular; this includes questionnaires (e.g., Davari Ardakani 2007; Belmihoub 2018; Darabide 2010; González-Riañoa, Hevia-Artimea, and Fernández-Costales 2013; Hawkey 2018; Rezaei, Latifi, and Nematzadeh 2017), interviews (e.g., Mirhosseini and Abazari 2016), matched-guise techniques (e.g., Mirshahidi 2016), and on fewer occasions commitment measure (e.g., Fishman 1968). In any discussion of language attitudes, we need to elucidate our position on two topics: first of all, what is meant by language attitude and, subsequently, in what ways attitude studies matter. Attitude studies in language were popularized around the middle of the last century by pioneer works such as Gardner and Lambert (1959), but it was only decades later that they managed to establish themselves in sociolinguistics as the very field itself was still burgeoning in the mid-twentieth century. The aggregate of opinions prior to the twenty-first century denote that attitude was traditionally circumscribed to include three, cognitive, affective, and behavioral components, with different models offering their own terminological version of the same framework (e.g., Agheyisi and Fishman 1970; Baker 1992; Edwards 1982; Fasold 1984; Mantle-Bromley 1995). Later postulations of the concept, including Adegbija (2000),

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have also tried to append a social-constructivist element to definitions of attitude and have stressed its evaluative nature as well as its covert and fluid dimensions. What is missing in these early definitions of attitude is probably its societal and political nature which are being incrementally highlighted in a poststructuralist world of contradictory and sometimes conflicting identities, especially when it comes to minority groups exposed to power practices of a larger political constituent. Brought under spotlight in the present study, these are viewed as sources of language survival and maintenance on one hand, and marginalization and (the likely) death or genocide of a language on the other. The answer to the second part of this discussion (i.e., the significance of attitude studies) also arises from the definition offered earlier. Simply put, attitudes are what individuals know, how they feel, and what they are ready to do in regard with their native language or any language they have come into contact with. Therefore, knowing the language attitudes of native speakers of minority languages enhances and calibrates our predictions of what will happen to a critically endangered language by looking at what its speakers, or members of adjunct language communities, are prepared, willing, or determined to do to save that species. In short, attitude studies help us know and document the current status of a language variety and formulate estimates of its ethnolinguistic vitality in a broader context of social justice framework.

2.2 Attitude studies and minority languages in Iran The ethnic, cultural, religious, and, most of all, linguistic diversity present in the Iranian context, with its long and versatile past, and probably an ambitious future ahead, has made it a “paradise for sociolinguistic research” (Mirvahedi 2019: 1). Gholami (2020: 347) reports a total number of 86 Iranian languages and dialects currently spoken in this diverse linguistic context while many of them are facing threats of extinction “in the near future”. This context, however, does not merely seem to conveniently lend itself to sociolinguistic research, but also urges for less-ventured outlooks of the kind. While political and social changes have been relatively rapid during the last century in Iran, what all these otherwise non-compatible, and sometimes hostile, eras have shared seems to be a marginalization of minority languages. Minoritizing and dialectalizing linguistic varieties in favor of the normative hegemony of Persian in Iran, as an instrument of national unification, has affected and continues to affect the ethnolinguistic attitudes and societal dynamics of the nation (Mirvahedi 2019). Ghafar Samar, Navidnia, and Mehrani (2010) implicate modernization, urbanization, monolingual educational system, mass media, and globalization as factors contributing to, and boosting, dialect leveling, a process which is eroding the distinctions between local and ethnic dialects in Iran. In order to form a more lucid picture of the sociolinguistic context in which Tati, as not only a minority lan-

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guage but also an endangered one, is being discussed, it seems auspiciously fair to review the attitude studies conducted in Iran. Azerbaijani Turkish (Azeri), along with Kurdish, probably enjoy better recognition when compared with other minority languages in Iran and have comprised a considerable portion of sociolinguistic studies conducted on minority languages in the Iranian context. However, the absolute number of these research efforts is still trivial considering the fact that Azerbaijani Turkish and Kurdish, as native languages, account for almost one third of the population in Iran (Simons and Fenning 2020). Therefore, it seems fit to begin our review by focusing on these two languages. In one survey research, Rezaei, Latifi, and Nematzadeh (2017) focused on Azeri by eliciting the attitudes of 400 Azeri-Persian minority bilinguals in Iran and concluded that native Azeri speakers showed very positive attitudes towards their mother tongue despite the external pressures from the dominant Persian speaker majority. The study showed that although Azeri speakers take pride in their native language and tend to use the language abundantly on a daily basis, they demand enhancement of “institutional support through instructional programmes, media, and linguistic landscape” (Rezaei, Latifi, and Nematzadeh 2017: 9). In another research on Azerbaijani Turkish, Jafari (2019) focused on family language management exercised by Azeri speaking parents in the Ardebil province in Iran. Jafari found that most Azeri native speakers in Ardebil, regardless of their socioeconomic status, rated their proficiency in their mother tongue as mediocre since they were mostly less competent in reading and writing in Azeri for the obvious reason that formal educational policies in Iran only allow for the monopoly of Persian. Furthermore, Ardebili parents did not really welcome the idea of planning for non-state education of Azeri literacy skills for their children. Jafari also observed that Azeri speakers demonstrated ambivalent attitudes towards their mother tongue as they praised Azeri and at the same time credited Persian as the more prestigious linguistic variety. In another survey study conducted on Azerbaijani Turkish, Mirhosseini and Abazari (2016) investigated the attitudes of bilingual Persian-Azeri speakers in Tabriz, a major Azeri speaking city in Iran, towards their native language. It was revealed that despite Azeri speakers’ positive emotional attitudes towards their mother tongue, they demonstrated “hesitation and reservations in approving of its use in some domains of language use, education and new media in particular” (Mirhosseini and Abazari 2016: 373). They concluded that even the rather safe status of well-established minority languages like Azeri should not be taken for granted and called for further investigation into the topic. Building his argument by summoning facts and findings from 13 Azeri speaking families in Tabriz, Mirvahedi (2020) demonstrated how family language policies interact with social structures of power to influence the linguistic behavior of minority groups. Mirvahedi and Jafari (2018) also focused on family language policies among Azerbaijani Turkish-speaking families in Zanjan. Their results indicated a decline in

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the knowledge of the mother tongue among both parents and children as the use of Persian was being promoted at home despite the former generation’s strong attachment to Azerbaijani. However, these pro-official family language policies have been occasionally reported to cause identity confusions and social alienation both from the local, and the Persian-speaking communities (e.g., see Mowlaei Aghbolagha and Alempour Rajabi 2020). Zeinalabedini (2014) investigated the attitudes of Azeri speaking individuals in Tabriz towards the use of their mother tongue in public media. It was concluded that the audience were skeptical of the purity and originality of the Azeri version spoken on the so-called local provincial TV and radio channels, and found it different from their everyday language practices. The results pointed at a tendency to promote Persian rather than the local language in these media, in clear contrast with the very spirit with which they had started. In another media study, Sepehri (2010: 236) showed that many Azeri native speakers in Ardebil were skeptical of the local radio channel and complained about the abundance of Persian programs on the channel, as well as what they called “lack of respect for indigenous culture and language”. Mirvahedi (2016) also demonstrated the dissatisfaction of Azeri speaking locals with their little choice afforded them in the linguistic landscape of their city, largely under the control of the official language of the country. When it comes to Kurdish as another dominant minority language in western Iran, Sheykholislami (2012) delved into the nation-wide language policies of both pre- and post-revolution Iran and has concluded that negative political attitudes towards multilingualism, restriction of non-Persian languages, and promotion of Persian as the unifying national language have endured the 1979 revolution and continue to dominate the official language policies in Iran with minor modifications. In another study, although Rezaei and Bahrami (2019) found positive attitudes in Kurdish minority groups in Ilam towards their native language, mixed results were obtained regarding the social status of Kurdish in Iran. A couple of studies have compared the attitudes towards a number of language varieties in Iran. In one example, Modirkhamene (2014) investigated the attitude of several ethno-linguistic groups in Iran, including Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, and Persian speakers towards bilingualism in general, and found positive attitudes in this regard. It was also revealed that this positive tendency varied in degree among different layers of society. Mirshahidi (2016) utilized a verbal-guise technique to elicit the attitude of native Persian speakers from the capital city Tehran towards accented Persian of Arabic, Gilaki, Azeri and Mazandarani – all among minority languages in Iran. Mirshahidi concluded that accented Persian could actually evoke negative attitudes towards certain minority groups and affected people’s evaluation of the speaker’s social and educational level. Similarly, Saeli (2018) investigated attitudes towards accented Persian by focusing on the four varieties of Tehrani, Azeri, Isfahani, and Gilaki using questionnaires. It was concluded that “the varieties that were regarded as ‘nonstandard’ (e.g., Azeri) were mainly associated with higher solidarity but lower

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status” (Saeli 2018: 252; emphasis in original). Saeli also showed that gender, age, and education level did have a significant effect on people’s ratings of minority languages and their stereotyping behavior. A number of studies have also focused on Iranians’ attitudes towards Persian. For instance, Davari Ardakani and Moghani (2016) probed the attitudes of Persian speakers towards their mother tongue from a language planning perspective. They found a positive correlation between age and education level on one hand, and a positive attitude on the other. The findings shed light on the role of attitude in language planning. In another study, Darabide (2010), focusing on the young-adult students of Hormozgan, pointed at their positive attitudes towards the official language of Iran. Other studies, although with fewer frequencies, have targeted other minority languages in Iran. For example, Rezaei and Farnia (2016), as well as Rezaei and Tadayyon (2018) investigated the attitudes of Armenian minorities in Isfahan, as both an ethnic and a religious minority, towards their language, and the status they ascribed to it. The series of studies highlighted high levels of positive attitude and commitment among Armenians towards their native language, despite the marginal presence of the language in the linguistic landscape of the city, which denoted a lack of institutional support of the language. Elhambakhsh and Allami (2017: 8) scrutinized the diglossic situation of Zoroastrian Dari, an ethnolect used by an ethnic and religious minority in Iran. It was indicated that although the Zoroastrians expressed “strong desire for the retention and use of their mother tongue”, their use of this language was largely limited to “intergroup and informal face-to-face communication” with traces of “dissatisfaction or shame” in speaking their language in front of outsiders. These reservations were mostly attributed to respect for outsiders who did not understand their language, or the convenience of using Persian as the language in which they had received formal education. Mirhosseini (2015: 154) focused on Mazandarani in north of Iran and indicated that the actual linguistic behavior of the locals was mostly “in favor of the official national language” despite their “very positive emotional attitudes towards their local language”, a phenomenon that Mirhosseini aptly called a “loving-but-not-living linguistic culture”. The aggregate of these findings in the Iranian context points at the importance of attitude studies, especially when it comes to minority languages. In sum, most have found positive attitude of minority groups towards their language struggling with confining forces of the dominant language or stereotyping behavior of its speakers. Furthermore, many studies have revealed contested and equivocal attitudes of minority groups in Iran towards their native languages as they find themselves in constant social, economic, political, and occasionally ideological competitions between their mother tongue and the dominant Persian language. In the next sections of this review, we will direct our attention to Tati and its corresponding studies in Iran.

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2.3 Tati as a minority language in Iran Tati belongs to the North Western Iranian (NWI) language families mainly associated with Northwest Iran, sporadically found in regions south of Aras River (the northwestern border of the country) extending to more central areas (Dabirmoghaddam 2013; Stilo 2018; Yarshater 1969). In fact, it is described as a collection of “Iranian dialects spoken in northwestern Persia (excepting Persian and Kurdish), in areas where the vernacular is mostly Azeri Turkish” (Yarshater 1969: 17). Yarshater (1988) mentions Tati as the most significant remnant of Aḏarī (Azeri), the native language of Azerbaijan before the spread of Turkish. It is commented that “despite its continued decline over the centuries, Aḏarī has not died out and its descendants are found as modern dialects, mostly called Tati, sharing a wide range of phonological and grammatical features” (Yarshater 1988: 238–245). Stilo (2018: 659) also categorizes Tati as a member of Tatic languages including Tati, Talyshi (Taleshi), and Tatoid. Tati is sporadically, and discontinuously, found over a rather broad area in northwest Iran, ranging from Aras River in the utmost north to the more central areas of western Iran including Qazvin, Saveh, and Arak (Stilo 2018: 661–663). One well-known historical perspective asserts that after the invasion of Turks from the north eastern borders of Iran, the regions which did not yield to the language of invaders and hence left a strip of separated Iranian language islands, formed one language family comprising a diversity of dialects. Tati is reportedly a Turkish word used by Turks to refer to these groups who did not speak the language of this new sovereign. PourMohammadi Amlashi (2002) suggested that Tati was originally used by invaders as a rather humiliating title for non-Turks, but in the Safavid era (r. 1501–1722) it underwent a semantic extension and was used to describe all Iranians to distinguish them from Turk soldiers (Ghezelbash). The Persian Encyclopedia of Gholamhossein Mosaheb (1953) testifies to mentions of the word Tati in historical inscriptions, as early as eighth century. Russian orientalist Vladimir Minorsky in the encyclopedia of Islam, published between 1913 and 1936, and as one of the earliest sources with a scientific mention of the term, also credits Turks in north west Iran for the nomination of the word Tati, connoting anything other than Turks – or in fact foreigners. This view lingers on to the later historical accounts of the term and its origins including that of Yarshater (1969). Northwest Tati is a descendent of the Median language in contrast with Persian as a descendent of Old Persian (D. Stilo, personal communication, September 2021), hence, displaying significant historical detachment from Persian and related languages. It covers a large variety of regions and encompasses numerous dialects associated with at least five distinct areas including parts of Qazvin and Eshtehard, Zanjan and Xo’in, Khalkhal and Tarom, Harzand and Dizmar, and finally, Rudbar and Alamut. Yarshater lists several dialects associated with Tati including Chali, Takestani, Eshtehardi, Xiaraji, Ebrahim-abadi, Sagz-abadi, Danesfani, and Esfarvarini.

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This disparity, along with a lack of accurate formal statistics of all these sporadic dialects and varieties, has made scientific estimates of Tati native speaker population, as well as the status of this language very challenging. Stilo (1981) reports “the heaviest concentration of Tati speakers” in Khalkhal (present-day Ardebil province), Upper Tarom (in Zanjan province), and around Qazvin based on his pioneer fieldworks on Northwestern Tati; and provides an estimate of 250,000 to 300,000 speakers in 1981 in total. As a more recent instance of available information, Abdoli (2001) reports the population of approximately 60,000 Tati speakers in Takestan as the largest community of Tati speakers in Iran. Hedayat (2015) testifies to a downsize in Tati speakers due to several reasons including migration, presence of non-native students and workers, inter-ethnic marriages, etc. Ethnologue reports a total population of 8,000 Tati speakers in Gilan and Qazvin provinces based on the United Nations Statistics Division (2011), and 387,000 speakers of Southern Tati (synonymous with Takestani in Ethnologue) in 2017 in Qazvin, Takestan, Markazi, Zanjan, and Saveh. Even based on this scant data, it is certain that Tati language with all its varieties is facing threats of endangerment to some degree. The UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (Moseley 2010) cites Tati as one of the 25 endangered languages in Iran with a severity of “definitely endangered” on a five-degree scale of “vulnerable”, “definitely endangered”, “severely endangered”, “critically endangered”, and “extinct”. The Atlas seems to see Tati as a language of the Talesh region in Iran and associates it with Takestani (as well as Azeri). Atlas of the Languages of Iran (Anonby and Taheri-Ardali 2015–2020) lists Tati, Northern Tati, Central Tati, Western Tati, and Southern Tati under the linguistic umbrella of Tatic languages. The information in both of these Atlases seems to be underdeveloped and important data including estimates of the population of the speakers is still missing. Nevertheless, a number of researchers including Izadifar (2017) confidently report the language as endangered.

2.4 Studies on Tati So far, it has been explicated that the study of language attitudes in case of minority languages is a worthwhile endeavor as it enhances an understanding of societal, political, and ideological mechanisms with which a minority language might tend to survive and flourish or, conversely, get dissolved and go extinct. These concepts are, in turn, associated with discussions of social justice and human linguistic rights. Hence, in this section, a review of previous research on the topic will be offered to furnish the context for the present study. This narrative will be narrowed down to studies in the ecology of Iranian languages – particularly Tati. A number of studies have been conducted on Tati from geo-historical and lexico-syntactic perspectives. Yarshater (1969) is one of the pioneers to benefit from a

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scientific methodology to study the syntactic properties of Tati and its varieties. Following Yarshater, classic fieldworks of Stilo (1981) tried to shed light on Tati. More recently, Stilo (2018) has densely aggregated our understanding of Tati so far. A number of other studies have focused on Tati following these major contributions. For example, Asadi, Bagheri Hariry, and Kiyani (2014) investigated the phonetic and phonological properties of Kajal Tati in Khalkhal, Ardebil province. While Sabzalipour (2013) studied ergative structures in Tati with a reference to Taleshi and Gilaki languages, Sabzalipour (2017) conducted toponymical studies in Khalkhali Tati. Izadifar (2017) studied the influence of language contact on morpho-syntactic changes of Rudbari Tati in Gilan province while Rasekh Mahand and Izadifar (2011) studied definiteness and object- marking in Tati compared with Taleshi and Balouchi. Taherkhani and Ourang (2013) targeted derivational morphemes in Tati and Lari and compared them to Persian. Taherkani (2019) also conducted a study on motion predicates in southern Tati (associated with Takestan, Qazvin). Paul (2011) described Taleshi, a closely related language to Tati and a variety of Tatic languages, in a comparative-dialectological study. Rasekh Mahand (2009), in another study, had a typological look at enclitics in Tati, while Sabzalipur and Izadifar (2015) studied the case-marking system in Tati dialect of Khalkhal. Noori and Zarei (2018) focused on the social status, domains of use, and speakers’ attitudes of Karingani, a minority language with 21,000 native speakers in the East Azerbaijan province of Iran. The findings from Noori and Zarei can be of interest to the present study as Karingani has been frequently associated with Tati (Noori and Zarei 2018; Yarshater 1988). Their study showed that the use of Karingani was actually shrinking to very intimate domains such as family interactions despite its speakers’ expression of positive attitudes towards it. Noori and Zarei concluded that with the increasingly widespread urbanization, Karingani could possibly not be able to resist being dissolved in either Azeri or Persian, languages associated with higher social status and better economics in the region. As it is evident in the brief overview of the literature cited above, the majority of Tati studies, so far, have focused on the formal and typological aspects of the language and very few have undertaken a sociolinguistic approach towards this minority language. In the next section, a survey research conducted in Tati speaking regions of western Iran is presented.

3 Methodology This chapter draws on data from a mixed-methods study including questionnaires and interviews along with online ethnographic observation in social media and networks of Tati native speakers. The main objective was to juxtapose the findings from the questionnaire and the interview – mostly from the ideological and

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attitudinal perspectives regarding Tati – and online observation of Tati webpages and social media networks (Telegram and WhatsApp groups, as well as Instagram pages) to observe what practices they follow with regard to Tati as their mother language.

3.1 Participants and data collection locations The final participants of the present study included 188 Tati native speakers (male=143; female=34; unannounced=11) living in Tati speaking cities and towns of western Iran including Eshtehard, Esfarvarin, Takestan, Zanjan, Boein Zahra, Ghazvin, Sagz Abad, Vafs, Khalkhal, Klowr, Kejal, Lord, Danesfahan, Asalem, Tarom and Shanderman. As Stilo (2018: 664) divides Northwest Tati into Northern Tati (Kalasuri, Khoynarudi, etc.), Central Tati (Taromi, Hezarrudi, Kalasari, etc.), and Southern Tati (Chali, Takestani, Sagzabadi, etc.), it can be discerned that the participants of the present study belonged to the Central and Southern varieties.

3.2 Instruments There are several data collection tools and methods for researching language identity among which questionnaire, interview, narrative inquiry, ethnography, and diary keeping are the most frequently used (Rezaei, 2017). In the present research, questionnaire and semi-structured interview were used. Below both of these data collection tools are introduced.

3.2.1 Language attitude questionnaire The main data collection tool in this research was a reliable and valid language attitude questionnaire previously used in the literature (Majidifard, 2019; Rezaei and Farnia, 2016; Rezaei, Latifi and Nematzadeh, 2017). The questionnaire was recently piloted, revised, and validated by Majidifard (2019) to explore the attitudes of minority groups in North Khorasan. The questionnaire (See appendix A) utilized in the present research had 23 items comprising four main components, namely 1) General attitudes towards Tati, 2) Social status of Tati language, 3) Vitality of Tati language in daily lives of its speakers, and finally 4) Institutional support for Tati language. The questionnaire was devised based on a 5-point Likert scale and its overall reliability was estimated at 0.87; the reliability indexes for its subscales, as presented in Table 1, were 0.76, 0.75, 0.72, 0.70 and 0.87, which are all at acceptable levels given the length of each subscale.

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Table 1: The reliability of the questionnaire and its subcomponents. Components

Number of Items

Components Reliability

General attitudes towards Tati

6

0.73

Social Status of Tati

5

0.75

Vitality of Tati

5

0.72

Institutional Support

7

0.70

23 

0.87

Total

3.2.2 Interview To back up and triangulate the quantitative data, 10 participants from the questionnaire phase were requested to voluntarily participate in a semi-structured interview. The interview sessions were held on the telephone, using WhatsApp, or via video calls. The questions pivoted on a number of areas, including their general attitudes towards Tati, domain of use (e.g., family, school, etc.), social status, language ecology and contact, family language policy, media, and its vitality and survival (See Appendix B for the complete list of interview questions).

3.3 Data collection procedure For the preliminary data collection phase, the Tati language attitude questionnaire was shared online via social media networks and the Tati native speakers were requested to complete the survey. The sampling and recruitment procedure was mainly based on the participants’ own interest and voluntariness. However, a combination of stratified random sampling – and snowball sampling – was also executed in spotting the locations and the required participants. Since it was intended to collect data from the native speakers of western Tati, the main cities, towns and villages with Tati native speakers were targeted. As said above, the participants were requested to complete the survey online on a voluntary basis so that more reliable data would be collected.

4 Data analysis and results 4.1 Questionnaire results Descriptive statistics obtained from the survey showed that among the initial 202 only 188 of the completed questionnaires did not have any missing values and were

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included in the final analysis. Among these participants, 34 were female, 143 were male, and 11 had not revealed their gender; hence, they were excluded from the gender-based part of the data analysis. As for their age, the participants were grouped into 5 age decades including 10–20 (N = 3, 1.6%), 21–30 (N = 32, 17%), 31–40 (N = 68, 36.2%), 41–50 (N = 66, 35.1%), and above 50 years of age (N = 19, 10.1%). These two pieces of information show that the majority of the participants were male and belonged to the age group of 30 to 50. Table 2 provides a summary of the participants’ basic demographic information. Table 2: Descriptive statistics of participants’ basic demographic information. Gender Male N

%

143 76.1

Age Female

10–20

21–30

N

%

N %

N

34

18.1

3

32 17

1.6

%

31–40 N

%

68 36.2

40–50 N

%

66 35.1

Above 50 N

%

19 10.1

The descriptive statistics from the total questionnaire showed that the total mean for the whole of the responses to the questionnaire items was 4.07 which shows that the responses were skewed more towards an overall positive attitude (Total M = 4.07; SD = 0.52), and the minimum and maximum score given to each item were 1.25 and 4.95 respectively. The descriptive statistics for the results from the questionnaire completed by the 188 Tati native speakers are presented in Table 3. This table shows the main components of the questionnaire, the items pertinent to each of these components, and the mean and standard deviation of the responses to each item. Overall, by looking at the means, it can be inferred that Tati native speakers had positive attitudes towards their mother tongue as the means for each item is above 3. However, as can be seen the means for the majority of the items in the last part of the questionnaire – items 17 to 23 which pertained to the institutional support for Tati language – were below 3 and these show that the participants had contradicting views, and did not share a unanimous point of view regarding the support provided for the maintenance and promotion of Tati language. In total, item 2 and 23 respectively received the most and the least positive responses from the Tati native speaker respondents to the questionnaire. To further explore the role of gender in Tati native speakers’ overall perception of their mother tongue, the overall mean and standard deviation of male (N = 143) and female (N = 34) respondents were checked. The results showed that the overall mean for male participants (M = 4.11, SD = 0.49) was higher than that of female ones (M = 3.84, SD = 0.56), therefore, confirming the more positive attitude among males in comparison to the female native speakers of Tati. In order to make sure if the difference between male and female participants was statistically significant, an independent samples t-test was run. The results showed that t(175) = -2.77, p = 0.006,

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Table 3: Questionnaire Data Responses: Mean and Standard Deviation.

General Attitudes towards Tati

Social Status of Tati Language

Vitality of Tati Language

Institutional Supports for Tati Language

Item

Item Mean

Item SD

Overall Mean

Overall SD

1

I have the motivation for learning Tati language.

4.78

.56

4.71

0.41

2

I think Tati is part of our Iranian cultural heritage.

4.91

.32

3

I think Tati language is beautiful and nice to the ear.

4.54

.72

4

I am worried about the disappearance of Tati language.

4.70

.71

5

I feel good for being able to speak Tati.

4.76

.59

6

In the future, I like my children to be able to speak Tati.

4.58

.76

7

I think Speaking Tati in Iran will bring prestige and respect for its speakers.

3.95

1.06

3.91

0.73

8

I think Persian native speakers like Tati language and respect it.

3.71

.97

9

Speaking with a Tati accent is an honor for me.

4.07

1.05

10 If I become a writer in the future, I prefer to write in Tati language.

3.95

1.08

11 I prefer to choose my children’s names from Tati words.

3.86

.99

12 In social media (such as Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram), I use Tati words.

3.90

1.07

4.26

0.66

13 I speak Tati with my Tat friends.

4.65

.73

14 For me speaking Tati is easier than speaking Persian.

3.87

1.28

15 I like to speak Tati with my family members.

4.63

.69

16 I prefer to tell stories and sing lullabies in Tati for my children.

4.25

.94

17 I prefer(ed) to speak Tati at school.

3.90

1.14

3.42

0.73

18 I like my children to be taught Tati along with Persian at school.

3.58

1.26

19 In the past few years, Tati has been used and given more attention in (national) media such as TV.

4.12

1.08

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Table 3 (continued) Item

Item Mean

Item SD

20 In Tat regions, Tati words have been used for naming streets and other private and governmental places.

3.21

1.25

21 In my opinion, the government is supporting Tati language and its music.

3.64

1.26

22 I prefer Tati mass media networks (such as TV/Radio programs, Telegram groups, etc.) to the ones in Farsi.

3.22

1.40

23 In my opinion, social media has had a positive impact on the survival of Tati language.

2.27

1.19

Overall Mean

Overall SD

confirming the statistical difference between males and females and the overall more positive attitude of male participants towards Tati as their mother tongue. More statistical tests – in the form of mean, standard deviations, and t-tests – were also employed to see if male and female respondents differed in the four different subscales of the questionnaire. The results revealed that male and female respondents were not statistically different regarding their general attitude (t(175) = -1.29; p = 0.19), as well as their perception of the prestige and social status of Tati in the dominant Persian-speaking context (t(175) = -1.81; p = 0.71). However, male participants had significantly more positive attitudes in regards to the vitality of Tati (t(175) = -2.98 p = 0.01) and the institutional support it gets from the government, i.e., t(175) = -2.54 p = 0.01. After having checked the difference between male and female participants, the probable significant difference among age groups was also investigated. In order to see if the responses from the five age groups, viz 10–20, 21–30, 31–40, 41–50, and above 50, were significantly different, a one-way ANOVA was run. The results indicated that the participants from these age groups did not differ in their perceptions (p = 0.34). However, to check if age made a difference in the four subscales of the questionnaire, four sets of one-way ANOVA were separately run. The results showed that the participants from different age groups did not have significantly different views in regard to their general attitudes towards Tati (p = 0.65), the prestige and social status of Tati (p = 0.66), and its vitality in the Iranian Persian dominant context (p = 0.64). However, the participants from different age groups had differing views regarding the institutional support that the government provided for Tati (p = 0.008). In order to see which age group was significantly different, a post-hoc test was run, and its results showed that the second age group (i.e., 21–30) had a significantly different view from the fourth (p = 0.041) and fifth (p = 0.040) age groups (i.e., 41–50, and above-50 age groups) regarding the institutional support from the government.

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4.2 Interview results While the data obtained through the questionnaire gave interesting and valuable quantitative information about the Tati native speakers of Western Iran, the interview data further furnished the researchers with the what, how, and why of the issues in the questionnaire. The interview with 10 Tati native speakers were conducted in Persian and then transcribed and thematically analyzed iteratively by the three researchers to discern a unanimous and dominant set of themes prevalent in the data. Thematic analysis pointed at the saliency of the three interrelated themes. Below, each of these themes is introduced and discussed, backed up by references to the respective interview extracts from the data.

4.2.1 Tati language community: An island dominated by contact languages One dominant theme repeatedly emerging in our interview data pertained to the impact of other contact languages competing in the Tati speaking regions. In other words, Tati community – although more densely situated in some villages and towns in western Iran – is like an island when compared to their neighboring dominant and official languages, especially Persian and Azerbaijani Turkish. Given that Tati language is in the vicinity of these more dominant languages, less solidarity is observed among Tati native speakers. Furthermore, they feel they are on the periphery as they do not have the social, political and cultural edge over the dominant languages in the region. For example, one of the interviewees said that: Tati native speakers have been scattered. They have not been in the center. That’s why they have a small and weak community . . . .Being dispersed and on the periphery has weakened them . . . . They have been in remote and impoverished regions.

This shows that Tati native speakers make up small sporadic communities in need of more cohesion, solidarity, and communication if they desire to form a wider and denser language community. The impact that contact languages, including Persian and Azerbaijani Turkish, can have on Tati is unavoidable. When Tati native speakers converse with speakers of other languages, they have to switch to the more powerful language and this will in turn lead to convergence, lexical borrowing, or code mixing. What makes the case of Tati as a minority language even more complicated is the fact that the more dominant language is not always Persian, the sole nation-wide language. Rather, Tati constantly finds itself in competition for status with other languages too. The hegemony of contact languages in Tati regions has also impacted the generativity, acceptability, and prestige of Tati. The results from our interviews also confirm that in-group members need to maximize their attachment and allegiance to establish a more solid social and language identity. The solidarity among Tati native speakers is further threatened by the mass migration of Tati native speakers to bigger cities.

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4.2.2 Migration Migration and urbanization are two other interrelated factors that have affected the vitality of Tati language. In other words, one major reason for Tati language to lose its vitality, and use, is the movement of Tati native speakers from their homelands to bigger towns and cities including Tehran, Qazvin, Zanjan, Ardebil, and Rasht. Larger towns and cities attract these people for various reasons including social and economic mobility. Many Tati native speakers are increasingly choosing to migrate to urban areas in search of jobs and better living conditions. This, in turn, affects how younger generations are coming into contact with their native language. One of the participants said that: That our generation teaches Tati to their children depends on the situation. What I see at present is that many are migrating to cities . . . .The kids have to learn Persian before Tati because they want to grow up there and communicate with others there. But if they remain in their villages, they will speak Tati.

Migration has also affected Tati native speakers’ perceptions of their mother tongue. For instance, many of the participants believed that once they leave their villages and move to bigger towns and cities, they no longer need to know Tati as it does not possess the social status required for social and economic mobility. Most believed that their children should know Persian as the language of communication and Tati would be of less value to – and prestige for – them. Many Tati speakers demonstrated mixed feelings in this regard as they theoretically championed the idea of speaking Tati with their children but did not report much practical effort in actually using Tati. For example, one of the interviewees said that: Parents want their children to speak unaccented Persian because they consider Persian more prestigious. Parents know that the world is not limited to Shahrood in Khalkhal region. Tomorrow, these children want to leave this region. Instead of knowing Tati as their mother tongue, let them know Persian. They say Tati will not be of any use to them.

The two examples above further substantiate that Persian is enjoying a higher level of prestige for Tati native speakers when compared to Tati. Following the ubiquitous presence of other competing contact languages in Tati speaking regions, and the migration of Tati speakers to other regions where there is less, if any need to use Tati, there is a great concern – as also seen in the participants’ interviews – that the newer generations are using Tati to a lesser degree. In this case, the future generation may totally succumb to language shift to Persian, or other languages. Migration also accelerates language loss or decimation once the tie between children and their parents, and grandparents, is broken. Research in other contexts shows that life in diaspora – either in the form of internal or external exile – minimizes contact with ancestral homeland and this gradually disconnects individuals from their background. Based on interviews and more online searches in social media, some supplementary and affective means for remedying Tati speakers’ severance from their heritage language and identity can be identified. These strategies are offered as suggestions to revitalize

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Tati and safeguard it from going further through the endangerment continuum – or going extinct. In other words, Tati native speakers should become aware of the role and importance of their language as the source of their heritage and identity. Below, this is discussed with reference to the role of media and other institutional support.

4.2.3 Tati language awareness, media, and other institutional support One of the dominant themes in both the questionnaire and interview data was related to the role of government and state media in promoting Tati language. The results of our online ethnographic observation on social media, especially Instagram, Telegram, and WhatsApp, showed that with the surge of these media outlets more people from the same or similar ethnic and language backgrounds are creating online spaces to showcase their presence, form networks, and maintain their solidarity. These online communities have reignited the importance of heritage language. Examples include sharing poems in Tati language or writing and chatting in Tati in these online platforms. These data provide compelling evidence in the hope for the maintenance of Tati, at least in the online world. Whereas so many Tati native speakers and language activists, such as poets and writers, are concerned about the future of Tati language, the presence of online spaces have motivated Tati native speakers to write in Tati in their daily communications. Although migration and competing contact languages were mentioned above as factors expediting the negligence and attrition of mother tongues, social media has shaped and constructed a safe and generative space in which minority languages can revive themselves. UNESCO has also emphasized the role of social media in revitalizing minority and endangered languages. Several interviewees also confirmed this by referring to the role of social media. For example, one of the interviewees said that: In the past few years, I have seen that so many (online) groups and channels have been created and Tati speakers share their poems in them and talk about Tati. People have become more aware . . . . Tati people have started writing books.

The same interviewee said that: Fortunately, poets have recently started writing poems in Tati and social networks are very useful . . . Tati poems are circulated there.

However, the interviewees were not satisfied with the media coverage on national TV and Radio. They believed that Tati people are not commonly presented in the media. Almost all the interviewees were worried about the future of their language as they believed that new generations have been less concerned about their heritage language. Most contended that so many words from Persian and Azerbaijani Turkish have been borrowed and extensively used by the Tati native speakers. One of the interviewees, for instance, said that:

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I think Tati people are gradually speaking Persian. For instance, many words in Tati are not used anymore. We had a word for shoe but we don’t use that word anymore. Nobody uses the word Galesh.

In order to revive and promote Tati in Tati speaking regions, some measures should be taken. For instance, more cultural events need to be held for the promotion of Tati. Our online observation on social media showed the existence of some active Tati communities in Takestan who hold events, especially poetry reading sessions, where Tati poets recite their poems. Documentaries and films can also record their language and show its significance to the future generations. Moreover, local language activists should more seriously take this matter into consideration if they desire their language to continue to survive and get less affected by other competing contact languages. They should not only inform non-Tatis of the origin and value of their language but also their own fellow Tati native speakers. Following this, one of the most important actions that needs to take place is organization of some volunteer communities to teach Tati to the new generation, either at schools or as part of their extracurricular activities. Surprisingly, the results of our interviews showed that almost none of the interviewees had any sociohistorical or linguistic information about the provenance of Tati language. It is true that there is not much documented information, research, and data on the Tati native speakers of western Iran, especially from sociolinguistic and anthropological-linguistic perspectives; however, the participants showed little momentum to delve into the very scant information that exists. Many of the interviewees, even the educated ones, had no valid and reliable information about the origin of Tati, and only relied on anecdotes they had heard from their elders.

5 Conclusion The results from this survey research on the Tati speakers of western Iran showed that they generally demonstrate strongly positive attitudes towards their mother tongue. However, this positive attitude remained at the level of perception for the majority of Tati speakers as they revealed, in the interviews, that although they value and admire their mother tongue, their children are not as willing to learn and speak this language. These mixed findings, with relevance to perception and practice, highlight that even though Tati native speakers are fond of their heritage language, they do not have the same enthusiasm in their practices. This finding can also be supported by the data from the last part of the questionnaire which confirmed the insufficient provision of institutional support from the government. The results from the interview also showed that Tati native speakers are skeptical of government’s stated zeal and determination to promote the status of Tati and to introduce this language to both its new generation of native speakers, and Iranians from other language communities.

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The second and third part of the questionnaire were related to the social status and vitality of Tati language. Similar to the findings from their general attitudes towards Tati, in these two parts they showed strongly positive attitudes towards the social status and vitality of their mother tongue. In other words, the results indicated that they see Tati language enjoying a respectable level of social status among its native speakers, and they prefer to use Tati in their daily language occasions, not only in their face-to-face interactions, but also on social media. One of the interesting points found in interviews was the role of social media and other social events organized by Tati people. There are several Tati speaking communities on Telegram, Instagram and WhatsApp, which incidentally provided the current researchers with a rich source for recruiting the potential participants for this research. They mostly communicate in Tati in these groups and also introduce and share information on Tati community events. Although social media was previously mentioned as a threat to language revival, new findings confirm the importance of social media on the revival and survival of endangered languages. Social events organized either online or in person can bolster the role of Tati as an invaluable source for the maintenance of Tati speakers’ collective identity. As also shown in the interview data, organizing poetry sessions, competitions, movie screening sessions, cultural events, music festivals, and religious gatherings can consolidate the role of Tati and its heritage among its native speakers. Similar minority and endangered languages have been revived through activities of the kind, i.e., Ayapa Zoque language, one of the critically endangered languages in Mexico, was supported by similar language revitalization strategies.

6 Suggestions for future research This chapter is among the pioneering sociolinguistic studies on Tati language in western Iran. The researchers capitalized on survey data, from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, to address the research questions of the present study. Future research requires more longitudinal and qualitative in-depth investigations to further probe into the attitudes of Tati native speakers regarding Tati language as their heritage language. The present research highlighted a mismatch between minorities’ perception and practice concerning their heritage language use and prestige. Therefore, future studies should focus more on Tati speaking families’ linguistic practices, as these are more revealing about the vitality of minority languages. Following this gap in the literature, future studies can also focus on the family language policies of Tati speaking households, from different social and economic echelon of their society, to see how these factors can facilitate, or impede the survival of Tati language. Few studies in Iran, if any, have focused on the representation of minority languages in social media. There is a growing need to look at the role of social media in

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promoting these minority languages. Online ethnographic observation can be conducted on these language minorities’ websites and networks to explore what actions they are taking to keep their language, ethnicity, and consequently their identity alive. Researchers can also look into the discursive strategies employed by these social communities to showcase their ethnic and linguistic group identity. The role of semiotic tools in such websites can also be explored. The role of social media and online platforms in encouraging the new generation of these minority languages to take interest in their mother tongue can also be investigated. On a more practical side, researchers can explore how online events and educational materials can create a here-and-now space for the people who live far away from their homeland, and how such online spaces can refashion a language learning sanctuary for the interested heritage language learners.

Appendix A: Tati Language Attitude Questionnaire (Translated Version) Item General Attitudes towards Tati

Social Status of Tati Language

1

I have the motivation for learning Tati language

2

I think Tati is part of our Iranian cultural heritage.

3

I think Tati language is beautiful and nice to the ear.

4

I am worried about the disappearance of Tati language.

5

I feel good for being able to speak Tati.

6

In the future, I like my children to be able to speak Tati.

7

I think Speaking Tati in Iran will bring prestige and respect for its speaker.

8

I think Persian native speakers like Tati language and respect it.

9

Speaking with a Tati accent is an honor for me.

10

If I become a writer in the future, I prefer to write in Tati language.

11

I prefer to choose my children’s names from Tati words.

SA 5

A 4

N 3

D 2

SD 1

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(continued) Item Vitality of Tati Language

Institutional Support for Tati Language

12

In social media (such as Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram) I use Tati words.

13

I speak Tati with my Tat friends.

14

For me speaking Tati is easier than speaking Persian.

15

I like to speak Tati with my family members.

16

I prefer to tell stories and sing lullabies in Tati for my children.

17

I prefer(ed) to speak Tati at school.

18

I like my children to be taught Tati along with Persian at school.

19

In the past few years, Tati has been used and given more attention in (national) media such as TV.

20

In Tat regions, Tati words have been used for naming streets and other private and governmental places.

21

In my opinion, the government is supporting Tati language and its music.

22

I prefer Tati mass media networks (such as TV/ Radio programs, Telegram groups, etc.) to the ones in Faris.

23

In my opinion, social media has had a positive impact on the survival of Tati language.

SA 5

A 4

N 3

D 2

Appendix B: Semi-structured Interview Questions General Attitude

How do you feel about Tati? In your opinion, is Tati an independent language? How is it related to Persian? How did your first exposure to Tati and Persian happen? How do you think being a native speaker of Tati has affected your life so far?

Domains of Use

Which language do you currently use more frequently on a daily basis? Tati, Persian, or another language? In what domains do you usually use Tati and Persian? If you had a choice, which language would you use permanently and why? Which one do you think has more social application? Persian or Tati?

SD 1

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(continued) Social Status

In your opinion, which one has a higher social status? Persian or Tati? Have you ever intentionally concealed your mother tongue and refrain from revealing your being a Tati speaker? In what occasion(s) and why? Have you ever felt you have been deprived of what you deserved or discriminated against by others because you are a Tati speaker? Do you think Persian native speakers or Tats who speak Persian have a better chance of academic, occupational, or social success?

Relationship with Other Languages & Varieties

What language or ethnicity do you think Tati has been under the most influence in your region? Where does Tati come from? What is its historical origin? Except for your own region, what other places do you know where Tati is spoken? Are you familiar with the Tati spoken in eastern regions of Iran? What do you know of them and how are they different from your Tati? How do you feel towards other Tati speakers? Is it any different from your feeling towards speakers of other languages in Iran?

Family Language Policies

What language do you use at home to speak to your family, especially your children and parents? Why? In what language do you prefer your family to speak to you? Why? What language do people in your family prefer to use at home? Have you ever done anything to encourage your family to learn or speak Persian or Tati? What was it? Do you think learning Tati is necessary for your children and next generation? Why? Is it useful too? What language is usually used for education at schools in your region? What language do you prefer for education of your children? Do you think knowing, speaking, and maintaining Tati is a responsibility of its speakers, especially the younger generation, or you think that they must be given the freedom to choose?

Media & Linguistic Landscape

Does Tati have a special script? Have you observed any examples of Tati writings around your town? If yes, what was it? Do you know any television or radio channels, newspapers, magazines, or online media including social media (e.g. telegram and Instagram groups) in Tati? Are there any poems, lyrics, songs, lullabies, or anecdotes in Tati? How familiar are you with them and how often do you use them? Do you know any communities based on Tati (e.g. poetry meetings)? Do you take part in any of them?

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(continued) Predictions of Survival

Are you worried about Tati or do you know anybody who is? Why? Do you think Tati needs help and support? Who is responsible for that? Do you think Tati will continue to live? Why? Do you know anybody who is concerned with helping Tati? What kind of help? If you decided to do something to help Tati, what would it be? Do you think the spread or purity of Tati have reduced in these recent years? Do you think next generations will continue to speak and value Tati? In general, how do your predict the future of Tati?

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Saeli, Hooman. 2018. Tehrani people’s attitudes toward accented Persian: Impact of gender, age, and education level. International Multilingual Research Journal 12(4). 237–254. Sepehri, Mohammad Bagher. 2010. Local radio audiences in Iran: An analysis of Ardebilian people’s trust in and satisfaction with “Sabalan” radio. Journal of Radio & Audio Media 17(2). 236–250. Sheyholislami, Jaffer. 2012. Kurdish in Iran: A case of restricted and controlled tolerance. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 217. 19–47. Simons, Garry & Charles D. Fening. 2020. Ethnologue: Languages of the world. Twenty-third edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com Stilo, Donald L. 1981. The Tati language group in the sociolinguistic context of Northwestern Iran and Transcaucasia. Iranian Studies. 14(3–4). 137–187. Stilo, Donald L. 2018. The Caspian region and south Azerbaijan: Caspian and Tatic. In Geoffrey Haig & Geoffrey Khan (eds.), The languages and linguistics of Western Asia: An areal perspective, 659–824. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Taherkhani, Neda. 2019. A syntactic analysis of motion predicates in Southern Tati (Takestani dialect). Indiana: Purdue University Graduate School dissertation. Taherkhani, Neda & Muhammad Ourang. 2013. A study of derivational morphemes in Lari & Tati as two endangered iranian languages: an analytical contrastive examination with Persian. Journal of American Science 9(11). 38–45. UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. (http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/) Wardhaugh, Ronald & Janet M. Fuller. 2015. An introduction to sociolinguistics. 7th edn. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Yarshater, Ehsan. 1969. A grammar of southern Tati dialect. Paris: The Hague. Yarshater, Ehsan 1988. AZERBAIJAN vii. The Iranian language of Azerbaijan. Iranica, Vol. III, 238–245. https://iranicaonline.org/articles/azerbaijan-vii Zeinalabedini, Asefeh. 2014. The people’s attitude towards the language use in the local media broadcast: A case study of Azerbaijani language in Tabriz. Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 17(4). 5–28.

Sima Zolfaghari

6 The Bakhtiari Language: Maintenance or Shift? A Diachronic Survey on the Status of Bakhtiari in the City of Masjed Soleiman between 1996–2020 Abstract: In 1996 a research was conducted, investigating language choice among Bakhtiari speakers in Iran to see whether Bakhtiari is in danger of shifting to Persian or maintaining its practical status. A questionnaire was distributed to 150 women and men between the ages of (under 20) to (above 50) in three educational groups (illiterate, high school diploma, and higher education), in Masjed Soleiman where over 90% of the population spoke Bakhtiari. I concluded the variety of Bakhtiari used in Masjed Soleiman was not an endangered language, mainly due to the robust attitude of its speakers towards their culture, language, and traditions (Zolfaghari, 1997, 2001, 2003). This chapter presents an updated version of this research, with questions added to the original questionnaire that include inquiries about the effects of new social media on the language choice and usage of Bakhtiari speakers of Masjed Soleiman. I will report the new results of this diachronic research that represents the status of Bakhtiari after 24 years.

1 Introduction In this chapter, the dynamic status of Bakhtiari will be examined in a city that has the biggest population of Bakhtiari speakers in Iran. To understand this, I carried out two fieldwork researchprojects to be able to follow the language choice of the Bakhtiari speakers of this city in a span of 24 years and to see whether they shifted more towards Persian as the national and more prestigious language of the country or whether they preferred to maintain their local language due to their cultural or emotional affinity, as was anticipated in 1996.1

1 I would like to take this opportunity and thank several individuals who have encouraged and helped me throughout the time-consuming process of updating this fieldwork research and writing the present chapter. First and foremost, I would like to thank my friend and colleague Shahrzad Mahootian who always encourages me and gives me the confidence to follow my passions in life and academia. My dear friend and Maestro, Donald Stilo has always acted as the backbone of my scientific life and a major trusted column in my personal adventurous life. Some colleagues and friends in Iran were very helpful in facilitating this long-distance fieldwork. Special thanks go to my old friend, Negar Davari, and her colleague, Amir Akbari Qamsari of Shahid https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-006

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The reason I chose Bakhtiari and this specific city is that as a Bakhtiari, I have many paternal relatives living there and in our family visits to Masjed Soleiman, I got the chance to learn the language very early in my life from my Bakhtiari cousins and also have acquired an intimate knowledge of the city and its cultural and sociolinguistic ambiance. That resulted in my interest in different languages and cultures and later in my life to pursue linguistics in academia, especially from a social and anthropological point of view, hence two M.A. theses and a Ph.D. dissertation on the Bakhtiari language and culture. The research in 1996 was part of my first master’s degree in general linguistics from Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran. In the first two parts of this chapter, I want to give the reader the chance to familiarize themselves with this language and people by presenting them with an overview of these people and their major city of residence, using the knowledge and information that I compiled through more than two decades of study and researching the subject. Therefore, in section 1.1. a relatively thorough introduction of the Bakhtiari people and their history and geography will be presented. In 1.2. I will examine the existing maps that describe the geographical distribution of the Bakhtiaris and a more precise map will be introduced based on my own studies and field observations. In 1.3 a very concise but comprehensive description of the Bakhtiari language will be presented. Section 1.4 explains the sociolinguistic situation of Bakhtiari in Iran followed by section 1.5 that provides information about Masjed Soleiman, the major city of residence for Bakhtiaris and where this fieldwork was done. The second segment of this chapter will focus on the fieldwork data and the tables resulting from the collected data, comparing the two research projects in 1996 and 2020. In 2.1 the research method will be explained followed by section 2.2 where several tables will be presented and analyzed. The chapter will end with some concluding remarks in section 3. It is very important to note here that this study is thoroughly based on observational research in the sense that no special theoretical framework was followed. The main reason for this choice lies in my preference for what I call ‘an organic approach’ towards Iranian studies as a reaction towards the long-standing tradition of imposing

Beheshti University. Due to the Covid-19 situation, I had to carry on the burdensome task of data collection by employing a young group of local students in Masjed Soleiman, and supervise them virtually: Sogol Zolfaghari Hamule, Kian Zarasfand, Delbar Zolfaghari and Parastoo Zolfaghari Hamule spent two whole months, distributing the questionnaires, helping the informants to fill them, if necessary, and then sent the collected ones to Tehran for the data analysis part of the research. I thank Ms. Khodayarian Tehrani deep-heartedly for patiently rendering the information of the questionnaires into analyzable data and tables and for being ever ready to answer my analytical questions. Last but not the least, I would like to thank Anousha Sedighi for inviting me to contribute to this volume and more importantly for being very patient and understanding of my not very punctual collaboration.

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theories and methods of other linguistic and cultural studies on the Iranian field of study. I believe every culture and its linguistic community has its own characteristics that should be studied very closely and from different angles. Only in this way can an organic theoretical framework emerge to explain the phenomenon studied.

1.1 The Bakhtiaris Bakhtiari refers to both the language and the people who historically are the inhabitants of a region of approximately 75,000 km2 in Southwest Iran on both sides of the Zagros mountain range. Their territory used to be called, χak-e bæχtiari ‘The Bakhtiari Soil’ or The Bakhtiari Land as depicted on the maps of some early western travelers or explorers of Iran, such as Sawyer (1894) and Layard (1846), among others. At present, however, the majority of Bakhtiaris live in cities, towns, and villages in five administrative provinces: Khuzestan; Kohgiluyeh-o Boyer-Ahmad; Esfahan; Chahar Mahal-o Bakhtiari and Lorestan. The map presented in Figure 1 shows my attempt to illustrate a more precise image regarding the Bakhtiari-speaking population’s distribution in present-day Iran. It is quite challenging to explore the internet or the existing published sources in the hope to find an exact map, illustrating the Bakhtiari area that has the consensus of all. It seems that the actual reason behind this confusion lies in the opacity in the definition of Bakhtiari people who are usually thought of as belonging to a bigger ethnic group known as the Lors.

Figure 1: The main Bakhtiari area (Courtesy of Google Maps).

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Bakhtiaris belong to the Twelver Shi‘ite2 sect of Islam. According to Ethnologue,3 Bakhtiari was spoken by around 1 million speakers in 2001, of which 35% were monolinguals. One third or one-quarter of this population, according to different sources,4 still follow the nomadic lifestyle of their ancestors, migrating twice a year across the central Zagros mountain range in search of fresh pastures for their herds of sheep and goats and also to escape the unbearable climatic extremes of their winter and summer campsites. The word Bakhtiari consists of three morphemes: Bakht-yar-i /bæχt-yar-i/ ‘fortune-companion- attr. suffix’ > ‘The lucky/ fortunate ones’, but the reason for this appellation is known to no one. There are some legends on the origin of the name (Sardar Asad. 1383:49 but they are not the concern of the present research. What is of importance here is the way Bakhtiaris address their identity themselves. It is common practice to classify the language and the people under a cover term as Lor/ Lori,5 which also includes many people and linguistic communities to the north, south, west and east of the aforementioned Bakhtiari Land. Thus, a Lor can be a Feili tribe member living in the Pishkuh area of Lorestan province, a Bakhtiari living in Chelgerd or Masjed- Soleiman (the two major cities in their summer and winter quarters, respectively, with above ninety percent Bakhtiari inhabitants) or further south, or a Bavi living in Basht village which is located in Kugilu!6 In reality, however, Bakhtiaris do not identify themselves as a Lorestani or a Kugilo-Beiramedi Lor, claiming, among others, that those people have a distorted tongue (zown-e čæp), and emphasize their own distinction from other Lors, as being first a Bakhtiari. When willing to compromise for a relationship with other Lors, they would say: ‘we are a Lor-e Bakhtiari!’. It is true that linguistically, they share a great deal with Kugilo-Beiramedi Lors and to a lesser degree with Lorestanis, as confirmed by Anonby (2003b), but there are enough differences in their lifestyle, language, and customs to be able to distinguish separate cultural and linguistic identities for them.

2 Digard, J. P.1988. “Bakhtiari Tribe, Ethnography”, in Encyclopedia Iranica, vol.3, pp.553–559. 3 (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bqi). 4 Amirahmadian, B.1378/2000. Bakhtari Tribe. Tehran: Dashtestan/ Abtahi, A. 1384/2006. Oil and The Bakhtiaris. Tehran: Chap va Nashre Nazar. http://ashayer.ir/index.aspx?siteid=1&pageid=160. 5 It is also very common to spell this word as Lur/ Luri, but the actual pronunciation of its medial vowel is as in English word door. 6 Here I tend to represent the names of the cities, provinces, and the people as pronounced by natives and locals to prevent the hypercorrection practice of official authorities. These hypercorrections, which are usually an attempt to bring the local names, phonetically and semantically, closer to Persian, can at times destroy all clues to a valid etymology of the word. A very disturbing example is the representation of the place name Shimbār /šimbar/ as Shirin Bahār /širin-bæhar/, based on a false etymology that attempts to reflect the beautiful green scenery of the Shimbār area with the compound Shirin Bahār ‘the sweet spring’!

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1.2 Geographical distribution of the Bakhtiaris To give a clearer image of the present-day distribution of the Bakhtiari, the map below (Figure 2) is drawn based on my own direct observation during fieldwork trips, through consultation with locals and searching the existing websites and information sources on cities and villages in Iran.

Figure 2: Approximate distribution of Bakhtiari (Courtesy of Google Maps).

The shaded area shows the region where Bakhtiaris predominantly live, along with other language speakers such as Persian, Arabic, or a Lori variety; and where Bakhtiari is either spoken by the great majority of the inhabitants, such as in Masjed Soleiman, Chelgerd, Lali, and Izeh, or where there are a large number of Bakhtiari-speaking inhabitants, as in Shahrekord, Ahvaz, Boroujen, and Fouladshahr, or where, at least, Bakhtiari is a familiar language for non-Bakhtiari inhabitants of the indicated city, town or village, such as in Esfahan or Gachsaran. It should be noted that these maps are by no means definitive and they will be modified later and through a more detailed investigation on the ground. They are presented here just to show the lack of precision in the existing available maps on the subject. By comparison with old maps of the Bakhtiari Land, it appears clear that Bakhtiaris no longer live in the exact same area as their ancestors and have changed their habitat through past decades for multiple reasons. Before the discovery of oil in their territory on 26 May 1908, which can be considered as a turning point in their socio-cultural as well as linguistic life, most of the replacement of the Bakhtiari population was due to

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socio-political reasons in the form of either forced migration or group exile dictated by the central government of the time.7 The later moves and replacements, however, have mainly had socio-economic reasons, the most important of which has been the employment in the then so-called Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), and after 1935, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and the emergence of new company towns in the region (Cronin 2004), and hence the settlement of Bakhtiari employees along with their families in these company-built compounds. This situation holds true to this day. To give an example, since 1990 a large number of Bakhtiari workers have moved to Asaluye,8 a formerly small and insignificant city-port by the Persian Gulf, which after the discovery of a major gas resource, actually the largest natural gas field in the world, has developed into an important industrial center and a major recruitment destination in PSEEZ (Pars Special Energy Economic Zone) project. It is worthy of note that, out of the population of some 4,000 to 7,000 of this city, according to different sources, only a couple of hundreds (300–500) are Arabic-Persian speaking locals. The other inhabitants are workers from around the country, and Bakhtiaris comprise a major portion of these newcomers.9 I did not mark Asaluye on the above map (Figure  2) simply because Bakhtiari workers only commute to Asaluye and they generally do not move there permanently with their families, mainly due to the severe hot and dry climate of the area. Apart from this more or less consistent area of Bakhtiari inhabitants, there are also some islands of Bakhtiari communities scattered around the country, as far as the north-east close to the border with Turkmenistan (Figure 3). This latter community is said to consist of exiles from the time of Nader Shah (1698–1747; he reigned from 1736 to 1747). To what extent they have preserved their language is a matter of question and needs to be investigated. Many of Bakhtiaris living in the big cities such as Tehran, Esfahan, and Karaj have started their move rather recently, first during eight years of the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988) and then gradually, after the war, due to the subsequent deterioration of the socio-economic condition of the war-stricken cities. In other words, after the war, some Khuzestani families stayed in the cities where they found shelter during the war, and many more moved to bigger cities to find better universities or socio-cultural opportunities for their children.

7 Perry (1975) and Sardar Asad (2005) among others. 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asaluyeh. 9 To my knowledge, no exact statistics are available online. In my future trips to Iran, I will certainly try to contact the PSEEZ administrative offices for exact statistics.

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Figure 3: The major and minor Bakhtiari areas (Courtesy of Google Maps).

1.3 The Bakhtiari language Bakhtiari is classified as a southwestern Iranian language. Historically, it is geographically adjacent to New Persian, which explains much about the linguistic similarities of the two languages from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives. There are, however, some elements in Bakhtiari that single it out from the other southwestern Iranian languages. In phonology, for example, some of the changes from the Middle Persian to New Persian seem to take a different path in Bakhtiari. An example is a change of intervocalic /✶m/ to /w/, as in āmad > oweid ‘came’. On the other hand, there are also changes within New Persian that did not happen in Bakhtiari, such as the metathesis of -hl > -lχ: Bakhtiari and Middle Persian tahl versus New Persian talχ ‘bitter’ (Windfuhr 1988: 560). In addition, Bakhtiari kinship terminology contains some words that are different from all the other Iranian languages; examples include kiči, ‘father’s sister’ and ɡeu, ‘brother’. There are some words that seem to have gone through no or very little changes from Middle Persian and are inherited by Bakhtiari, such as MP mazɡ> Bakh. mæzɡ ‘brain’, MP spul> Bakh. esbol ‘spleen’ or MP=Bakh anɡust ‘finger’. As for grammar, the passive suffix -ih of Middle Persian did not survive in New Persian but left its trace through metathesis of the -r- and -h- in some Bakhtiari verbs,

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such as χærð̞ən ‘to eat’, χæhrestǝn ‘to be eaten’; or e-der-i-s, ‘you’ll tear it’ and the passive form e-der-eh-e, ‘it will be torn’. Moreover, there are some structures, not productive but frequently used, that represent a more complex syntactic treatment in the language: næ-ɡod-om-et-es? (neg-say. pst-1sg-bp.2sg-bp.3sg) ‘Didn’t I tell you that?’. This involves a sequence of three arguments which is not possible in Persian, i.e.: -om=et=es, that is, a suffix and two enclitics. In the main Bakhtiari speaking regions, some other Iranian and non-Iranian languages are also frequently in use by non-Bakhtiari ethnic groups of the area. In Ahvaz, for example, the central city of Khuzestan province10 with a population of over one million, and as is expected, a multi-ethnic city, approximately 36% of the inhabitants are Arabic speakers. Khuzestani Arabic, as MacKinnon (2014) points out, is ‘of the Persian Gulf type, not fundamentally different from Kuwaiti Arabic’. The Bazar, one of the major business sections of this very old, historic, and now major industrial city, has always been run in the main by the Shushtari, the Behbahani, and the Dezfuli merchants and salespersons. While these groups migrated from their respective towns to Ahvaz centuries ago, many of them have kept their dialects, apparently for sociolinguistic reasons. These three ethnic groups are known by the Bakhtiari, firstly, for their zown-e čæp ‘distorted language’11 and, secondly, for being very cunning and artful traders which in the eyes of a Bakhtiari nomad is not a virtue. To be so concerned about money or materialistic values at the expense of being kind or truthful to people is not considered to be moral and the Bakhtiari culture detests it. Some Turkic nomads also live among the Bakhtiari, some in villages like Khuygan-e Olya,12 and some in semi-pastoral families which are scattered among the nomadic areas. One family of them, whom I met and spoke to in one of my visits to Kuhrang, erects their tent every year in tištærdun, near the Hamule families. There are also some villages in the Fereydan13 region of the Esfahan province that even have Armenian and Georgian speakers. The Georgian or Gorji people, as Iranians call them, live in several villages of Fereydan or Fereydunshar County, but they only have Lori/ Bakhtiari14 neighbors mainly in the two villages of Choqyort15 and Nehza10 Before the large-scale immigration that took place during the 20th century and afterwards, the population of Khuzestan consisted for the most part of two linguistic groups: speakers of Arabic, who lived in the area stretching from the Persian Gulf and the Shatt al-Arab (Šaṭṭ al-ʿArab) river inland to the city of Ahvāz, and speakers of Iranian dialects, who inhabited the area to the northwest and the foothills and mountains of the Zagros range (Mac Kinnon 2014). 11 This is how Bakhtiaris usually express their impression vis-à-vis languages that are similar to theirs, i.e., other Southwestern languages, but which they cannot understand fully. 12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khuygan-e_Olya. 13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fereydan. 14 Because I personally have not been to this area, I cannot define what exactly the Wikipedia page means by Lurish dialects of the area. I will certainly ratify this problem in my future trips to the area. 15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choqyurt.

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tabad16 in Cheshmeh Langan Rural District, in the Central District of Fereydunshahr County,  Esfahan Province. Armenians live mainly in the village of Zarne,17 in  the Yeylaq Rural District, in the  Central District  of  Buin va Miandasht County,  Esfahan Province and also in Khuygan-e Olya. The socio-linguistic situation of these mixed villages seems to be a perfect subject for contact linguists, since, to my knowledge, very few sources are available about the effects of these languages on each other over the centuries of contact. The same is true of the Arabic dialects of Khuzestan and their probable borrowings from the Iranian languages of the area and vice versa. I am particularly curious about the language of a Bakhtiari tribe that, supposedly because of decades of living in Arabic-speaking regions, is called Arab Kamari. The attire of this tribe’s women still has some Bakhtiari touches but mostly resembles the Arabic attire. Working on each one of these languages in relation to Bakhtiari is also a desideratum to be fulfilled in the future. The closest relatives of Bakhtiari, however, continues to be the variety of Kohgiluye-o Boiramadi. Several attempts have been made by scholars to draw a meaningful divide between the languages in the so-called Lori/ Luri continuum. MacKinnon and Amanolahi, believe that the first line should be drawn between Northern Lori and Southern Lori, in the former’s terminology (Mac Kinnon 2011) and Lori-e Bākhtari and Khāvari ‘Western and Eastern Lori’ in the latter’s (Amanollahi 1991:52). They are spoken, respectively, by the Lor-e Kuchak of the Lorestan province and by the Lor-e Bozorg (the Bakhtiari and the Kohgiluye-o Boiramadi). Anonby (2003-b), not quite satisfied by this distinction, suggested a more refined distinction in the continuum because he found it “ . . . important from the viewpoint of structure, lexicon, and inter-intelligibility to make an additional distinction between Baḵtiari and the remaining varieties to the south”. He introduced the three-layered category of Northern Lori, Bakhtiari, and Southern Lori. I can only add that as a native speaker of Bakhtiari, the variety spoken by the Bakhtiari and the Kohgiluye-o Boiramadi can easily be considered as two dialects of the same language, based on the hands-on criterion of mutual intelligibility while the so-called Northern Lori, for a Haft Lang Bakhtiari is as distinct as Persian. For the Char Lang Bakhtiari living in cities and villages closer to Khoramabad in Lorestan, the degree of mutual understanding is probably higher. Within the Bakhtiari itself, the locals would mention two major dialects, Haft Lang and Char Lang, and within the Haft Lang variety, they think that the Mæwri and Bavadi tribes speak another variety. In my field visits, I did not notice major differences within Bavadi. The dialect that struck me as very special, however, was the one that is spoken in a very old and remote village called sær-e aɢa seyed,18 in which the 16 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehzatabad,_Fereydunshahr. 17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarneh,_Isfahan. 18 Sar-e Aqa Seyyed is a village in  Miankuh-e Moguyi Rural District, in the  Central District of Kuhrang County, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 1,360, in 208 families. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sar_Aqa_Seyyed.

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shrine of one the Shi’a Imamzades, Aqa Seid is located. He is among one of the most sacred pirun19 of the Bakhtiari, especially for the Haft Lang. I have some recordings of this variety but unfortunately, I have not yet had the time to work on them. It is worthy of note that I have also heard the mention of a secret language, tošmali, used and spoken only by Toshmals who the local musicians are. To conclude this section, I would like to mention the phenomenon of a rather abrupt and widespread borrowing from English that started almost at the same time of as the appearance of the oil and the British in the Bakhtiari region until approximately the Islamic Revolution of 1979 when the Americans, Hindi20 and other English-speaking employees of the Oil Company and related corporations and organizations were forced to leave the country. This borrowing is very significant because the loan words and expressions are used specifically in this area and not in other parts of Iran. In 1996, while still an M.A. student, I did a relatively thorough research on this subject, and collected a list of about 350 loan words and published them in the linguistic quarterly of The Iranian Academy of Language and Literature (Zolfaghari, 2002). In the next section, parts of this research will be presented in the body of a diachronic sociolinguistic overview of the language.

1.4 The sociolinguistic situation of the Bakhtiari In 1996, as part of my master’s thesis, I started a fieldwork investigation to see whether Bakhtiari, which at that time I was advised to call a dialect, is in danger of extinction, and whether the speakers were shifting to Persian or would maintain their language. This was the first research of its kind to be conducted on the Iranian languages. Therefore, I had no model to follow. With the guidance of the supervisors21 of the project, I devised a questionnaire, containing some 32 open and multiple-choice questions, incorporating all the relevant factors concerning language use in different social domains. Around a hundred and fifty questionnaires were distributed among women and men of five ages and three educational groups22 in the city of Masjed Soleiman, which consists over 90 percent of Bakhtiari speakers. The interviews and collecting 19 pir is the term that Bakhtiaris and some other Iranian peoples use to refer to their sacred figures. In Bakhtiari the word Imāmzade or Emāmzade ‘born by an Imam, descendant of an Imam’ is not used. Every tribe affiliate itself with a pir, the most popular ones include: pir-e boveir; Soltun Bereim; aqa Seid; Bava zeid. To learn more about sacred places in Bakhtiari see Brooks (2002). 20 At that time, apart from Oil Company workers, Hindi doctors were employed to work at very remote villages and towns. 21 Prof. Yahya Modaressi, a prominent Iranian sociolinguist and Prof. M. Dabir Moqaddam, an internationally credited Iranian typologist and linguist. 22 Age groups: 19. Educational groups: illiterate- primary school (Year 6); year 7-high school diploma and university level.

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the data took around six months, and then the results were processed using SPSS software. Some of the results were unexpected and did not support the initial hypothesis of the project, but in general, a decline of 4% per decade of the use of Bakhtiari was calculated. This we considered an optimistic result and we realized that the variety of Bakhtiari used in Masjed Soleiman could not be considered endangered, mainly due to the robust attitude of its speakers towards their culture, language, and traditions (Zolfaghari, 1997, 2001, 2003). As I will explain in the following paragraphs, the results of my MA research, carried out nearly two decades ago, may now be considered to be outdated. Not only have the socio-linguistic factors in favor of their language use not changed during the past two decades, but they have also been intensified by the introduction of new technology and media facilities. As an example, when in 2009 I started to look for online sources on Bakhtiari to consult for my dissertation, I was completely astonished by the number of Bakhtiari or Lori blogs, webpages, and sites propagating the language and the culture, each in its own professional or amateur way. Nowadays, one of the most amusing hobbies of the young Bakhtiaris is producing Humorous text messages, incorporating old and traditional verses and sayings in a modern context, like changing the old complaint of a lover to his beloved for not glancing at him while passing each other on the migration route, by substituting it with his complaint of her not responding to his WhatsApp Emojis or text messages!23 On Facebook, there are hundreds of different Iranian peoples’ pages. I am aware of some 30 different Bakhtiaris alone, almost all of them are trying to promote the language, the music, the history, and the culture in general. Stand-up comedians, short videos, music video clips, documentaries, pop and even rap songs are among all the different contemporary Iranian peoples’ reproductions of their cultural interests. In recent years Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram applications are playing a major role in the virtual communication of the Bakhtiaris and practically replaced Facebook and blogging, simply because they are still not filtered by the government and they can be used without the need of a VPN. Instagram, in particular, is very present in the everyday life of the urban Bakhtiari youth. They use it to publish their own made Humorous Bakhtiari clips, mini-plays, or to showcase their singing and other musical skills. The Bakhtiari youth also play a significant role in updating the traditional or ritualistic songs and music performances for funerals and wedding ceremonies, not to look old-fashioned compared to the bigger cities’ new trends, but still, maintaining the Bakhtiari linguistic and cultural touch. There are numerous books, mainly of poetry and proverbs, written and published every month. In 2014 we even witnessed the birth of a Bakhtiari Encyclopedia of 700

23 ær bin-i zæng ni-zæn-om, ni-d-om pæyam-i/ dir-a-dir dus=et dar-om, hær do tiy=am-i ‘If I don’t send you an SMS, I love you from afar, as much as my two eyes’, where the words for SMS (pæyam-i) rhymes with ‘my eyes’ (tiyam-i).

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pages, compiled and written by only one author without many bibliographical references!24 Recently another Bakhtiari encyclopedia has been published, its title, Bakhtiarica,25 modeled after the prestigious Iranica or perhaps Britannica. It is worth mentioning that these more passionate and less scholarly activities are not limited to the Bakhtiari but can be seen more or less from nearly every other Iranian linguistic and cultural group. The exact reasons behind these vigorous representations of interests and sometimes prejudices about one’s so-called ethnic origins in Iran are hard to identify and explain and it certainly requires a thorough sociological investigation which is beyond the scope of the present research. One incident, however, may indicate the idea that a major factor involved here is a struggle for identity which sometimes is felt to be under attack by the mainstream Persian culture. I, however, believe that the fight for identity is not against the so-called ‘Persian dominance’ which in itself is a very vague and at times fabricated assumption, but rather is against the injustice and the lack of proper official governance of the country that has resulted in multiple economic, environmental and other social disasters in different provinces. It seems that the Iranian peoples in different provinces have started to emphasize their cultural or linguistic importance as a means to draw the attention of the people in power to pay more attention to their rights and demands. In 2014, a TV series was produced and broadcast by the national TV called Sarzamin-e Kohan ‘The Ancient Land’, following a story that began around WWI. In the fourth episode, a Persian who is involved in a dispute with the family of one of the prominent Bakhtiari Khans,26 accuses him of being a puppet in the hands of the British and a traitor to the country. The next day, there were thousands of Bakhtiaris in the streets of Esfahan, Ahvaz, and some other cities, protesting against the national TV, the film, and its director, accusing them of a conspiracy against the Bakhtiaris. They continued the demonstrations and protests, backed by some open letters of prominent Bakhtiari poets, writers and scholars to the point that the authorities decided to prevent the series from being broadcast. Now, the point is, I was sure that most of those protestors in the streets had not even watched the series, and I even called some Bakhtiari relatives to check this. It turned out to be true. They, however, joined the crowd for the simple reason that they felt the Bakhtiari 24 The author is a Hamule from dæwmamedi tæš. I was very eager to see and read this book, because in one of her interviews the author claimed that this book is a joint production of her father and her own and she was trying to transfer his knowledge and information to the next generations. I have met her late father, who was one of the respected riš sæfids ‘respected elderly member’ of the tribe and that made me have high expectations from the book. When I finally received the book via post, my expectations turned out to be unrealistic. This young author has apparently chosen to follow the existing practice of the local scholars, compiling the fragmented information in a non-scientific or unscholarly manner. 25 I haven’t seen the book yet, and only saw the book cover on one of the Bakhtiari Facebook pages. 26 A portrait of Sardar Assad, the Second, hung on this family’s living room wall, indicating their affinity with the so-called great Ilkhans. Later, the director of the film, to rectify this unexpected reaction, claimed that all the personages are fictional and do not represent any historical figure, but this one portrait was enough for the Bakhtiari protesters not to believe him.

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should always be united against an outsider’s attack. Almost the same reaction can be seen every time there is an election in the country. They will vote for a Bakhtiari candidate, no matter how incompetent he is, chanting a Bakhtiari saying: liš-e χom-un bæh ze χuv-e mærdom=e ‘Our own bad is better than the others’ good one’! From a linguistic point of view, we can only conjecture that this rigorous solidarity can at least play a positive role in preserving Bakhtiari and lead to the production of more cultural materials. It is also important to have in mind that in Iran, Masjed Soleiman included, the literacy level is relatively high (in 2016 87.6%27), and the national education is in Persian from elementary level to higher education. In cities with predominant local languages, however, the communication language used by the education or administrative authorities is usually that of local language, and in this case Bakhtiari.

1.5 Masjed Soleiman The city of Masjed Soleiman, also spelled as Masjed Soleyman or simply as M.I.S (following the tradition in correspondences of the Anglo-Iranian oil company) is called Maseleymun /mæseleymun/ by its inhabitants. The main reason for choosing this city as the seat of this research is its unique formation as a town, as will be explained in the following paragraphs. This city is built on the plains where oil was explored and the first oil well of the Middle East was founded and extracted in 1908. These plains, however, were not devoid of inhabitants before the discovery of the oil. There are several very known ancient sites in and around the present-day city as discovered and studied by a number of archeologists and Iranists, most notably the French scholar, Roman Girshman (1895–1979) whose last excavations in 1972 revealed interesting discoveries about the historical background of the area (Martinez-Sève 2012). Apart from this historical character, the plains of the area have always been used, even to this day, as the winter quarters for the Bakhtiari nomads. The city of M.I.S, however, has a distinct date of formation in 1909 as the first company town in Iran. ‘Oil was discovered at Masjed Soleyman in 1908, and the town early became one of Iran’s leading oil centers. Pipelines, built in 1909–10, link the town with Abadan, 125 miles (200 km) Southwest.’28

27 The national statistics organization: https://www.amar.org.ir/%D8%A2%D9%85%D8%A7%D8% B1%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B6%D9%88%D8%B9%DB%8C/%D8%B3 %D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AF#5549661– The exact statistics on literacy per individual city is difficult to find, but in 50s and 60s, during the heyday of the Oil Company and the growth and prosperity of the city, the literacy in Masjed Soleimān was for a couple of years even higher than Tehran. 28 Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia. “Masjed Soleymān.” Encyclopedia Britannica, January 24, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/place/Masjed-Soleyman.

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The first constructions in the area began almost at the same time when “the British investors, led by William Knox D’Arcy, signed the first oil concession agreement with the Iranian government in 1903” (Shafiee 2018). After the discovery of oil, a rush of the Iranian workers and British and other Western engineers, skilled Indian workers and doctors created the first vast contact linguistic scene in this city to the point that we can even hypothesize the creation of a sort of Pidgin language among that oil population as reflected in some jokes or rhymes sung by the older workers of the oil company, amalgamating, Persian, Bakhtiari and English words and grammars. A natural consequent shift in the area was the emergence of some local Bazars run by Shushtari, Behbahani, Esfahani, Ahvazi Arab and Dezfuli salesmen that added to this linguistic diversity. The descendants of some of these merchants are still running the main shopping street or mall of the city. This cultural and linguistic diversity combined with building some modern infrastructures in the city, such as the first Airport of Iran, a highly equipped hospital, several sports and leisure clubs and the like, had resulted in a very prosperous lifestyle for the inhabitants of the city to the point that according to the AIOC bulletins in 1950s, M.I.S had the highest literacy rate in the country.29 The next socio-political change that added to the linguistic diversity of M.I.S had happened in mid 70s by establishing some military bases in the city, most notably the Havaniruz (air-force) and the tank factory in the Naftak neighborhood of M.I.S. These military families and industrial workers and technicians were from around Iran with diverse linguistic backgrounds. In the later section when we discuss the statistics, you will see that this multilingual city was an inevitable situation for the Bakhtiari inhabitants of the city to equip themselves with ability to speak Persian as a lingua franca with other Iranian populations of the city as well as a bit of English to be able to communicate with their foreign colleagues. These Bakhtiaris constitute the oldest category of our research and the percentage of their command of Persian and English is higher than the younger generations. After the revolution and especially after the decline of the oil reservoirs in the area and departure of the westerners from the country, the latest dominant socio-cultural change in the city was the establishment of an Azad (free) University30 in 1986. Students from around the country have come to study and live in M.I.S and they brought with them new demands to be fulfilled by a city such as new coffeeshops, bookstores

29 To learn more about the dynamics of the non-linguistic aspects of this and similar oil company towns, the interested reader is advised to read the book Machineries of Oil: An Infrastructural History of BP in Iran by Katayoun Shafiee (2018). Also, two articles “Social Engineering and the Contradictions of Modernization in Khuzestan’s Company Towns: A Look at Abadan and Masjed-Soleyman” by Kaveh Ehsani (2003) and “Shaping Ahwaz’ transnational oil modernity; at the crossroads of oil flows and international planning exchanges” by Rezvan Sarkhosh (2018) will provide us with a more detailed account of the shaping and developing of these towns and cities. 30 https://masjedsoleyman.iau.ir/fa

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or other youth merchandise in the market as well as a new demand for the usage of a lingua franca, i.e., Persian. In the Iranian national administration, Masjed Soleiman acquired the status of a county in 1954, but its heyday has long passed. The city that is nostalgically called by its people as Shahr-e avalin-ha ‘the city of the Firsts’, referring to its prosperous days mentioned above, as having many modern urban facilities even before Tehran and other bigger cities, is now suffering all sorts of urban mismanagement resulting in a lack of basic facilities in some of its neighborhoods such as running water, gas or other municipal commitments. A consequence of this situation is shown in a decrease of the population shown in the two tables below of my researches in 1996 and 2020 (Tables 1 and 2): Table 1: The population of Masjed Soleiman by urban and rural areas, 1996. County

M.I.S

The Population of Resident and Non-resident Households Urban Areas

Rural Areas

Non-resident Areas

118918

69206

2917

Total

191041

Source: Abbasi, Shahni, 1374: 12. Table 2: The population of Masjed Soleiman by urban and rural areas, 2020.31 County

M.I.S

The Population of Resident and Non-resident Households

Total

Urban Areas

Rural Areas

Non-resident Areas

101586

11756

77

113419

Source: Population and Housing Census 2016, Statistics and Information Organization of Iran.

At present, Masjed Soleiman consists of three sections (Central, Golgir and Anbar), six rural areas and two cities. Having this general picture about Masjed Soleiman’s history and its population, we can now turn to the statistical part of this research which begins with a few introductory words about the research method and the way the tables should be read and analyzed.

31 It is always a challenge to receive a very definitive statistics in Iran and here also as you can see, the number of populations that I have found on the website of the Statistics and Information Organization of Iran is different from what is mentioned in the Wikipedia (the first image of this section).

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2 The statistical research In this section, the statistics and the results of the two pieces of research done in 1996 and 2020 will be presented and compared. The aim is to see how valid my predictions were in 1996 about the future of the practical status of Bakhtiari in Masjed Soleiman: Based on the extracted results, it seems that Bakhtiari is not in danger of shifting to Persian. In other words, almost all the women and men in the three age-education-profession categories and in diverse domains such as home, streets and markets and family or ritualistic ceremonies, use Bakhtiari more than Persian. The main reasons given for this linguistic behavior are their robust attitude towards their language and culture, maintaining their traditions and connections with their older generations and expressing their feelings and emotions more comfortably through Bakhtiari than Persian. All these are strong factors in maintaining a language or dialect. A diachronic study, however, through the vertical columns of the tables, shows an average of 4% decrease in the usage of Bakhtiari between age groups, with some occasional anomalies. This rate of decrease seems to be reasonable and not very worrisome and it is now in the hands of the authorities to set and apply a language policy towards the maintaining of this local language (Zolfaghari, 1996: 219–220).

In 2.1 the research method will be explained in both phases of the research. Section 2.2 is assigned to presenting a selection of the tables (of a total of 66) that will be presented in chronological order (2020 compared with the same one from 1996) in order to present a clear picture of the development of the different variables involved in the language change.

2.1 Research method For the sociolinguistic survey of the Bakhtiari language in Masjed Soleiman, a questionnaire was designed consisting of 32 closed questions, with given answers to choose from, as well as open questions, to be answered with some explanation and analysis. In designing the questionnaire decisive factors of language change, such as age, gender, profession, education, and the attitude of the language community towards their language and culture were taken into account. Then these factors were tested in specific domains: at home, in the Bazar (marketplaces), at work, in traditional ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, in communication with the elderly people, and during emotional situations. These questionnaires were distributed among informants of two gender, three educational, and five age groups as depicted in Table 3 below. The ideal situation would have been to find an equal number of informants for every slot of this categorization, but in practice, two boxes remained empty. In other words, we were not able to find male or female informants, younger than 20 years old who were illiterate. For the rest, we have tried to get an even distribution of the questionnaire for every block in order to extract and achieve a meaningful analysis out of them.

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Male

Total

Table 3: Sample population by gender, age and education. Gender Age

Female Education

Illiterate-6

th

7 -Diploma College Illiterate-6 th

th

Under 20 20–29

3

5

3

7

8

7 -Diploma College th

3

4

3

15

6

8

35

30–39

2

9

10

2

9

11

43

40–49

5

4

5

3

3

7

27

Above 50

8

4

3

7

3

5

30

18

29

29

15

25

34

150

Total

The following charts summarizes some of the data in the Table 3 in a more vivid manner:

Age Groups 40 23.3 20

28.7

10

Gender

17.3 20.7

Male 49%

Female 51%

0 >20 20-29 30-39 40-49 33>37). The above assumption is apparently plausible for the home environment. The higher level of Persian usage by the second group compared to the third group, as well as the upward use of Bakhtiari with increasing education, make it difficult to determine exactly how the formal education affects the language use at home.

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100

78.6 55.9

50 0

41.2 37

33

30 6.1

7.1

Illiterate-6th

7th-Diploma

2.9

persian

bakhtiari

College both

Figure 7: Column comparison of Persian and Bakhtiari usage at home by education.

Figure 7 demonstrates more vividly the higher use of Persian in the second group as well as the higher usage of the Bakhtiari in higher educated people. This figure also reveals the fact that the higher educated people have a higher tendency towards bilingualism. Table 10: Percentage of Persian and Bakhtiari usage at home by education 1996. Language Education

Persian

Bakhtiari

Both

Illiterate-6th

6.4 13.6

78.7 37.8

8.5 20

7th-Diploma

19.3 50✶

66.7 38.8✶

14 40

College

20 36.4

57.5 23.5

20 40

Comparison with the same table 10 in 1996 shows a similar situation in the domestic domain but with a bigger difference in their bilingual tendencies. Table 11 explores the language choice by different job groups. The hypothesis was that people, regardless of their jobs, use Bakhtiari more than Persian in the domestic domain. Looking at the row percentages shows that all job groups at the home environment use Bakhtiari more than Persian. The column percentages reveal the following continuum for the Persian usage, meaning from the highest usage in the Unemployed group (32.4%) to the lowest in the Teacher or people in cultural sector (2.9%): Unemployed (32.4%), Housewife (23.5%), Free (17.6%), Employee = Worker (8.8% = 8.8%), Other (5.9%), Teacher (2.9%) The lowest usage of Persian by teachers and people working in the cultural sector is in line with the results of Table 9 and Figure 7 above. The higher the education, the lower use of Persian and the more tendency towards bilingualism. The following is

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Table 11: Percentage of Persian and Bakhtiari usage at home by job. Persian

Bakhtiari

Both

Housewife

21.6 23.5

67.6 24.8

10.8 28.6

Freelance

18.8 17.6

81.3 25.7

Unemployed

40.7 32.4

44.4 11.9

Skilled Worker

18.8 8.8

81.3 12.9

7.1 2.9

71.4 9.9

21.4 21.4

Employee

25 8.8

58.3 6.9

16.6 7.1

Others

16.7 5.9

66.7 7.9

16.7 14.3

Job

Language

Teacher

14.8 28.6

true of Bakhtiari usage, with the highest usage in the Freelancer group (25.7%) to the lowest in the governmental organizations’ employees (6.9%): Free (25.7%), Housewife (24.8%), Workers (12.9%), Unemployed (11.9%), Teacher (9.9%), Other (7.9%), Employee (6.9%) Comparison of the above results with the study conducted in 1996 shows different continuities than before. Comparison of the percentages in Tables 11 and 12 shows that in the cultural group (Teacher), the tendency towards bilingualism has increased more than before. The percentage of Housewives speaking Persian has also increased. The percentage of Bakhtiari use among the Unemployed is also declining. So far, the tables related to the domestic domain were presented above and discussed in more detail. In total, we extracted 66 descriptive tables about the informants, 33 for the media effect and 55 tables explaining the behavior of different groups in all the domains. Together with 45 tables of the 1996 research there were 199 tables in total to be studied and analyzed. To prevent an excessive lengthening of this paper, the tables related to the other four domains, will not be presented here but only the results are presented and compared with 1996 in the following sections.

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Table 12: Percentage of Persian and Bakhtiari usage at home by job 1996. Persian

Bakhtiari

Both

Employee

24.1 31.8

65.5 19.4

6.9 10

Teacher

14.3 18.2

78.6 22.4

3.6 5

Freelance

11.1 9.1

66.7 12.2

16.7 15

Housewife

10.3 13.6

72.4 21.4

13.8 20

Unemployed

16.7 22.7

53.3 16.3

30 45

Job

Language

2.2.2 Bazar In the marketplace and everyday social domains, it is supposed that younger people use Persian more than Bakhtiari. Age: The results show that Persian usage is higher in the youngest group (under 20) and Bakhtiari usage is higher in the oldest group (above 50). The first three age groups use Persian more in the streets and bazars. The second two age groups (older people) use Bakhtiari more in the street and bazar. In the Persian column, the use of this language has gradually increased from the oldest group to the group of 20–29 years. In the youngest group, Persian is declining, which can be due to two reasons: a smaller number of research participants compared to other age groups or the tendency of people in this group to use both languages (bilingualism) more than other age groups. In the Bakhtiari group, the trend of increasing the use of Bakhtiari can be seen with increasing age, but it is violated by the age group of 40–49 years, and in this group, we are faced with a decrease in Bakhtiari usage. A comparison of these results with a 1996 study of both languages showed similar results. Gender: As for the relation of the gender and the language use in the social domains two hypotheses were involved: 1. Men use Persian more because of more social activity. 2. Women use Persian more to maintain their social prestige. The results, however, reveal that women use Persian more than Bakhtiari (57.8% vs. 21.9%) and men use Bakhtiari more than Persian (37.2% vs. 32.8%). Column percentage also shows that women use Persian more than men (63.8% vs. 36.2%) and they use Bakhtiari less than men (37.8% vs. 62.2%). Hypothesis 2 above seems to be closer to the reality. The chart also shows that in the social domains of the city of Masjed Soleiman, men are more

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inclined to use Bakhtiari and women to use Persian. Also, the percentage of bilingual men is higher than bilingual women (59.4% vs. 40.6%). Comparing these results with 1996 generally shows a similar result although the percentages of language choice in both groups has changed. In other words, in 1996 men used Persian only one percent less than women (50.8 vs. 49.8) but now the gap has increased substantially (63.8 vs. 36.2). The 13% of higher use of Persian by women in a span of two decades may indicate a higher degree of literacy or higher education among women. But at the same time women use Bakhtiari 10% more than 1996 and a 44.6% gap of Bakhtiari usage of men and women in 1996 has shrunk to almost half (24.5%) in 2020. This goes in line with the other result of the higher the education level, the higher the use of Bakhtiari. Education: With regard to the education, the hypothesis was the higher the literacy, the less Bakhtiari is used. Thus, the level of education is inversely related to the use of native tongue in society. The row percentages show in the first educational group (illiterate until the 6th), the use of Bakhtiari is more than Persian. In the next two groups, the use of Persian is more than Bakhtiari. The column percentages reveal that in the Persian column, with the increase of education, the use of Persian also increases in the society and from 5.2% in the first group to 51.7% in the third group. In the Bakhtiari column, however, the expected course is violated by the third group, which has a greater use of Bakhtiari than the second group (27.8% vs. 25%). The comparison of the Persian column confirms the hypothesis, but the comparison of the Bakhtiari column and the second group is not justified. 60

51.7

47.2

50

43.1

37.5

40

37.5 27.8

25 25

30 20 10

5.2

0 Illiterate-6th

7th-Diploma persian

bakhtiari

College both

Figure 8: Column comparison of Persian and Bakhtiari usage at bazar by education.

The diagram shows that with the increase of education, the use of Persian in the street and market environment increases. But the reduction of Bakhtiari is violated by the third group with a small difference. In 1996 there were similar results in the row percentages but in the columns, it was the second group (7th to high school diploma) that displayed a deviation from the expected norm. In other words, this group used Persian more than people with university education (52.44% vs. 28.6%).

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Job: Due to professional requirements, literacy and social role of different groups, the following continuum seems to indicate the use of Bakhtiari in the research community, i.e., from the highest in the Housewife group to the lowest in the Cultural one: Housewife, Unemployed, Workers, Free, Employee, Cultural Row percentages: Except for the housewife group and others, the rest of the job groups in the street and market environment use Persian more than Bakhtiari. Column percentage: The following is true for the Persian usage of the continuum: Unemployed (31%), Free (22.4%), Housewife (19%), Employee = Worker (8.6% = 8.6%), Cultural = Other (5.2% = 5.2%) The following is true of this hierarchy as applied to Bakhtiari: Housewife (37.8%), Free (24.3%), Workers = Other (13.5% = 13.5%), Cultural (5.4%), Employee = Unemployed (2.7% = 2.7%) According to the chart, the Unemployed group uses Persian more than other groups in the streets and markets. Also, the Housewife group uses Bakhtiari in the community more than other groups. Also, housewives tend to use both languages more than other groups. Comparison of these results with a study conducted in 1996 shows different continuities than before. Comparison of percentages shows that in the group of Employees we are facing a large increase in the use of Persian. The cultural group shows a tendency towards bilingualism. The unemployed group shows a sharp decrease in Bakhtiari usage and a 20% increase in Persian usage. One’s children’s age: Table 13: Percentage of Persian and Bakhtiari usage at bazar by one’s children’s age. Persian

Bakhtiari

Both

under 20

53.8 21.9

7.7 14.3

38.5 41.7

above 20

65.8 78.1

15.8 85.7

18.4 58.3

Age

Language

The hypothesis for this factor was that due to the impact of formal public education, Persian should be used more by children. The row percentages (Table 13) revealed that both age groups of children use Persian more than Bakhtiari. Column percentages show that the age group over 20 years old uses Persian more in the community than the first group (78.1% vs. 21.9%). The age group over 20 years old also uses Bakhtiari in the community more than the first group. (85.7% vs. 14.3%). Therefore, the desired assumption is confirmed in a row and column comparison. Comparison

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of these results with the research conducted in 1996 shows that unlike the previous research, it is the group over 20 years old that uses both Persian and Bakhtiari more. In general, in the domain of the bazar, Persian showed to be of a higher usage (45.3%) as depicted in Table 14 below. Table 14: Percentage of Persian and Bakhtiari usage at bazar. Frequency

Valid Percent

Persian

58

45.3

Bakhtiari

38

29.7

Both

32

25

Language

Frequencies

When asked for the reasons behind this choice the following answers that are summarized in Table 15 below were given. Table 15: Causes of Persian and Bakhtiari usage at bazar. Frequency

Valid Percent

Sellers speak Persian

17

37.8

Depends on the sellers’ language

17

37.8

Lack of Fluency in Bakhtiari

7

15.6

Bakhtiari is easier

2

4.4

Bakhtiari is the Mother Tongue

1

2.2

Public Place

1

2.2

Cause

Frequencies

The highest percentages of the speakers (38%) prefer Persian because the shopkeepers use Persian. Also, 15.6% of the respondents stated that the reason for using Persian was their lack of fluency in Bakhtiari. A smaller percentage (2.2%) of the community consider public domains as places wherein the official language should be used. Regarding the use of Bakhtiari, 4.4% find it easier to use this language and 2.2% use Bakhtiari because it is their mother tongue in the community. Besides, 37.8% of the speakers, depending on the situation and language of the vendors, use both languages in their speech in the community. Comparison of these results with the research conducted in 1996 shows that the use of Persian in the community, streets and markets is more than before. Comparison

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of percentages shows some increase in Persian usage and some decrease in Bakhtiari. The percentage of use of both languages has also increased. Also, among the reasons for using Persian, in addition to the factors of previous research, lack of language proficiency is also observed.

2.2.3 Communication with elderly people The idea behind investigating this generational communication mode was that if people use Bakhtiari more than Persian in relation to the elderly it would be a good sign that the research society continues to remain bilingual for at least a couple of more decades. Age: Comparison of these results with the study conducted in 1996 shows that all age groups still use Bakhtiari to a large extent in conversation with older people. Gender: Comparing these results with a study conducted in 1996 shows that both groups of men and women still use Bakhtiari to a large extent in conversation with the elderly, and the situation is the same as in the past. One’s children’s age: A comparison of these results with the 1996 study shows that, as in the past, both groups use Bakhtiari much more than Persian to communicate with their older relatives. Education: Comparison of these results with the study conducted in 1996 shows a similar situation in the use of Bakhtiari in relation to elderly family members among all the educational groups. Job: Comparison of these results with the study conducted in 1996 shows different continuities than before. Comparison of percentages shows that the Cultural group does not use Persian with the older people, unlike before. Also, unlike in the past, the Housewife group, which did not use Persian, uses 11% of Persian in communication with the older people.

2.2.4 Communication with friends In communicating with friends, people normally use a language that they feel more comfortable with. A higher use of Bakhtiari in this context would be its sign of survival. Age: The row percentages show that except for the two groups younger than 20 and 20–29, other groups use Bakhtiari more than Persian. Column percentages, however, by a comparison of different age groups show that there is an increase in the use of Persian from the oldest group to the group of 20–29 years. This course is broken by the under 20 group, but the lack of use of Bakhtiari in this age group shows that the

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reason for this difference should be related to other factors. Also, in the use of Bakhtiari, the expected course of reducing the use of Bakhtiari from the youngest group to the oldest group, is broken by the group of 30–39 years old. This group uses Bakhtiari more than the group of 40–49 years (30.6% vs. 20.4%). Comparing these results with a study conducted in 1996 shows that instead of one age group, two age groups use Persian more than Bakhtiari in relation to their friends, both of which are the youngest age groups. Based on the results, it seems that people born in the 1360’s (1980’s) are very concerned about the preservation and use of their native tongue. Gender: The hypothesis behind investigating this question was that the use of the languages by women and men is not the same when it comes to communicating with friends. In other words, the category of gender is in effect in the language choice among friends. According to the row percentages women used Persian more than Bakhtiari. (43.2% vs. 27%) and men use Bakhtiari more than Persian. (42.2% vs. 25.4%). Also, the column percentages show that women use Persian more than men. (64% vs. 36%) and men used Bakhtiari more than women. (59.2% vs. 40.8%). Therefore, the above assumption was confirmed. A comparison of these results with research conducted in 1996 shows that the results are still the same as in the past. (Some percentages have changed but the overall results have remained the same). One’s children’s age: Younger generations tend to use the language of the media and school more than their local language, especially when it comes to speaking with their friends. In this research the row percentages for this language choice shows that the group under 20 years old chose Persian and the group over 20 years old chose Bakhtiari over the other language. The column percentage reveals that the age group over 20 years has a higher percentage in both languages. The result of the linear comparison confirms the above assumption. The Persian usage result of the column comparison violates the above assumption. The Bakhtiari usage result of the column comparison confirms the above assumption. 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

64.3 41.9

35.7

34.9 23.3

0 20
persian

bakhtiari

both

Figure 9: Column comparison of Persian and Bakhtiari usage for communication with friends by one’s children’s age.

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In general, by studying diagram 9, we find that the highest percentage is related to the use of Persian in relation to friends in the group under 20 years and this confirms the above-mentioned assumption. Comparison of languages in the group over 20 years also shows the tendency to use Persian more than Bakhtiari. A comparison of these results with a study conducted in 1996 shows that, unlike the previous research, the under-20 group does not generally use Bakhtiari in relation to friends and this decline can be dangerous for the maintenance of Bakhtiari. Education: Educated people in connection with friends apparently should use Persian more, in an expected continuum as follows: University, 7th to Diploma, Illiterate to 6th According to the row percentages only the illiterate group up to 6th grade uses Bakhtiari more than Persian in relation to friends (64.5% vs. 6.5%). The second and third groups use Persian more than Bakhtiari (46% and 50% Persian vs. 32% and 20.6% Bakhtiari). The column percentages about the Persian usage show a continuum that follows as below and confirms the above assumption: University (50%), 7th to Diploma (46%), Illiterate to 6th (4%) Therefore, the answer to the research question is positive, in other words, it seems that the level of education in this field is correlated with the language choice and linear comparison confirms this assumption. In comparison, the Bakhtiari and Persian columns both show the expected course and confirm the assumption, as well. With the increase of education, the use of Bakhtiari in connection with friends has decreased and more people use Persian. Comparison of these results with the study conducted in 1996 shows a similar situation in the use of Bakhtiari with friends among educational groups. Job: The assumption behind this question was that people with different professions still use their mother tongue more in communication with their friends due to their greater comfort. The row percentages for the related table show that the three groups of Housewives, Freelancers and Other use Bakhtiari more than Persian with friends. Unemployed, Cultural (Teacher) and Employee (office workers) groups use Persian more than Bakhtiari to communicate with friends. Laborers use Persian and Bakhtiari equally in communication with friends. Column percentages show that the following is true for Persian usage, and the Unemployed group has the most Persian usage among the groups: Unemployed (36%), Housewife = Free = Workers (14% = 14% = 14%), Employee (10%) Cultural (8%), Other (4%) The following is true about Bakhtiari’s use, and the Housewife group has the most use and the Cultural group has the least Bakhtiari use: Housewife (32.7%), Free (20.4%), Other (16.3%), Workers (14.3%), Unemployed = Employee (6.1% = 6.1%), Cultural (4.1%)

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The row percentage comparison does not confirm the hypothesis, but the result of the column comparison is justified. Comparison of these results with the study conducted in 1996 shows different continuities than before. Also, contrary to the results of the previous study, in which all groups tended to use Bakhtiari, in this study, the tendency of the Unemployed, the Cultural and the Employee groups to use Persian in relation to their friends is higher.

2.2.5 Weddings and funerals It is assumed that in traditional, tribal and religious ceremonies, which are the last bases of mother tongue usage, the standard or the national language, in our study, Persian is used in a lesser degree. Age: In weddings, the row percentages show that all age groups except the age group o while Persian loans that came via Urdu reflect ✶ā>a, as do early Persian loans directly into Wakhi. One example is wadʒi ‘obligatory’, which enters Pakistani Wakhi through Urdu, versus woʒib which enters elsewhere through Tajik. In addition to the basic geographical distribution, certain semantic developments unique to Tajik or Urdu also betray the origin of a particular loan. There is far more to be said about this, but for present purposes, it should be noted that there exists great variation in the meaning, pronunciation and distribution of Persian words in the two Wakhi dialect areas. There is also an interesting lexical split between the northern dialect area, which underwent contact with Turkic languages, and the southern area which did not. This

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can be seen in lexical splits such as the Persian borrowing muʃkil ‘difficult’ (via Urdu) in Pakistan Wakhi versus qin ‘difficult’, which entered Tajik Wakhi through a Central Asian Turkic language. Similarly, Burushaski had no influence on the Wakhi spoken outside of Pakistan and created lexical splits such as aforementioned ʂapik ‘bread’ in Pakistani Wakhi versus native çətʃ ‘bread’ elsewhere, in addition to the Turkic-origin qemotʃ in Tajik dialects. As in Persian, the widespread use of light verbs allows for freer borrowing of verbs than is generally attested crosslinguistically. This can be seen in Rahila’s use of move in the opening of her narrative (4). Similar examples abound in her narrative as discussed in the following subsection. (4)

wuz=əm tə rə-m nju jork move vi-tu 1sg.nom=1sg dat all-prox New York move become-plpf ‘I had moved here to New York.’

Beyond heavier use of English, there are clear “heritage effects” in the speech of Rahila that we do not find in speakers who migrated at an older age. For instance, there are tense/aspect mismatches (cf. Moore & Sadegholvad 2013 for Persian). To take one example from the text in §5.1, shown below in (5), the intended meaning appears to be ‘Growing up, I have been speaking Wakhi with my parents.’ However, the past tense on the verb çat ‘spoke/said’ carries the (in this case uninteded) meaning that the speaker no longer speaks Wakhi with her parents. Whether or not this is due to interference from English or language attrition is impossible to say at this point. (5)

to lup=əm tsə vi-t=a, u=ʂ çik wor until big=1sg when become-pst=prt 1sg.nom=prog Wakhi language də çɨ=nan tat-və-n ça-t-a woz loc refl.gen=mother father-obl.pl-abl say-pst-pst and ‘Until I grew up, I was speaking with my parents in Wakhi.’

A clearer case of potential English interference is found in (6). (6) j-a-v-ən qti, to communication muʃkil dem-med-obl.pl-abl together until communication difficult wos-t become-3sg.npst ‘Communication with them becomes difficult.’ Here, the postpositional phrase javən qti ‘with them’ is produced with the ablative case on the noun phrase complement to qti ‘with/together’. This postposition generally governs the locative d- case so that we expect d-a-v-ən (loc-med-obl.pl-abl) ‘with them’.

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Wakhi distinctions that have no clear structural analog in English also appear to get lost. For instance, a number of verbs can either be inflected directly by agreement or take a light verb, with differences in meaning in each case. One such verb is tain ‘see’, which has a telic/punctual reading when inflected directly, but an atelic reading when occurring as the complement of a light verb, i.e., tain tsaren (see do) ‘to watch’. In (7), repeated from (1), we see that the directly inflected tainəm is used with an atelic intention. (7) çik wor like program-v-i tain-əm sək internet Wakhi language like program-obl.pl-obl see-1sg.npst in internet ‘I watch, Wakhi language, like, programs on the internet.’ Similarly, in the beginning of the same utterance, shown in (8), Rahila says kʂɨjəm ‘I hear’ intending ‘I listen’, which is generally expressed with a light verb, albeit with a different root. (8) lekin u=ʂ koʃiʃ tsar-əm but 1sg.nom=prog struggle do-1sg.npst bajd-v-i kʂɨj-əm song-obl.pl-obl hear-1sg.npst ‘However, I try to listen to Wakhi songs.’

ki çik wor comp Wakhi language

There may also be simplifications of the tense/aspect/mood system evident in heritage Wakhi. One possible instance is shown in (9), where the past existential təj is used. (9) tu=t=ki digar mɨlk təj=a 2sg.nom=2sg=cond other country exist.pst=qm ‘Whether you are in your own country or a different one. . .’ In conditional contexts, Wakhi typically employs a suppletive subjunctive form of the existential (tsəj), seen throughout Jamila’s narrative in §5.2 but generally absent in Rahila’s text in §5.1. As the English subjunctive is well on its way to obsolescence, it could be surmised that the Wakhi subjunctive would meet a similar fate among heritage speakers, and this is precisely what we seem to find. As a final grammatical commentary on §5.1, we find occasional examples of mismatches in the use of derivational morphology. In line (29) in §5.1, we find dzəqlaj-ak (small-nmlz) with the intended meaning ‘childhood’ while this would be normally expressed as dzəqlaj-iʝ, using another widespread nominalizer -iʝ. The formation dzəqlaj-ak also exists, but with the meaning ‘small child’.

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4.2 Talking about Wakhi in Diaspora Rahila speaks about the struggle of maintaining her language in New York with only a handful of people to speak with. As she notes, there are very few books and resources, although she struggles to obtain what she can. As is common among speakers of other threatened languages, she feels not only a personal responsibility to keep her heritage alive but also a responsibility to the language community as a whole to prevent the language from falling into dormancy. Rahila highlights the difference between trying to maintain a world language in diaspora, for which resources are plentiful and easily found on the internet and in libraries, versus maintaining a minority language, which, in her view, can only be preserved properly through the implementation of a home language policy. As someone who sings traditional Wakhi music, she emphasizes the potential of arts in language maintenance. Coming from an area where Wakhi, Shina, Burushaski, Urdu, and English are all actively spoken, she marshals a multilingual perspective against the false dichotomy of having to choose between the heritage language and a dominant language. The dominant language, she points out, will always be learned outside, but the home should be reserved for the heritage language. This is ultimately tied to the remembrance of history and the ancestors. One of the most striking aspects of this narrative is that the metalanguage used for discussing language preservation – indeed, more generally, for discussing culture in the abstract – is borrowed, almost without exception. In Rahila’s narrative, we find that the core act of language maintenance is expressed by the light verb expression preserve çak. The methods for preservation are similarly expressed by English borrowings, such as research, information, interest, arts, and study. The word language itself (alternating with the native terms wor and zik) also appears in this regard. The terms denoting abstract domains relating to language are also recruited from English, for example, identity (alternating with Persian ʃinaxt), culture, history and story, which is used alongside the Urdu equivalent kahani. The ideology of cultural preservation in the Wakhi context is relatively recent and most likely shaped by external influence. The Wakhi-speaking area in Pakistan was, after all, relatively isolated from global assimilatory forces until the opening of the Karakoram Highway in 1979. It is also natural for a heritage speaker to employ English terms for abstract concepts that would have only been introduced late in schooling. As for Jamila, even more striking is her repeated use of English pure, in (10) and (11), as well as elsewhere, to emphasize the distinction between the unadulterated language of her parents and home village and the mixed language of today. (10) wuz=əm tse kun dʒaj-n=əm ki təja pure waxij=əm. 1sg.nom=1sg from where place-abl=1sg comp ext.pst pure Wakhi=1sg ‘I am from a place such that I am pure Wakhi. . .’

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 287

spo tat-nan-iʃ xoli pure spo wor ça-t. 1pl.gen parents-nom.pl only pure 1pl.gen language speak-pst ‘. . .our parents spoke a pure form of our language.’

Despite the relatively infrequent use of English borrowings in Jamila’s narrative, both the words pure and mix are used consistently employed as metalinguistic terms when discussing the state of the language in relation to others, as seen in (12). (12) kam~pam=i tsəj d-a-n=i urdu mix vi-tk. bit-dim=3sg ext.sbjn loc-med-abl=3sg Urdu mix become-perf ‘It has become a little bit mixed with Urdu.’ When discussing the linguistic diversity of New York, Jamila uses English language and different in her first pass, and later in the same utterance amends these with the Urdu Perso-Arabic muxtalif ‘various’,and the Wakhi zik, as seen in (13). (13) trəm=i tsəj language ɣa different=i here=3sg ext.sbjn language very different=3sg tʃiz=i trəm, zik. thing=3sg here language ‘Here there are many different, various languages.’

muxtalif=i various=3sg

Despite the Hunza valley being a long-standing hub of multilingualism, where Iranic and Dardic languages mingle with the language isolate Burushaski, all of which are now layered with Urdu, the terms for talking about diversity and difference overwhelmingly hail from English in both narratives. This seems to reflect a reality in which various types of diversity are lived out in the local languages of Hunza but diversity, as an abstract notion, is put forth explicitly as a value (and/or spectacle) by Western ideologies associated with the English language. Similarly, the notion of a “pure” versus a “mixed” language is encountered most saliently from an outsider’s perspective. A child growing up in a Wakhi village, of course, is not aware that some lexical items are recent “intrusions” from Urdu, English or surrounding languages. The further one is removed from village life, the more it becomes clear that certain aspects of Wakhi speech are most likely not historically native to Wakhi. Thus, the language of purity, mixture and diversity enter the picture most clearly when the speaker is in an English or Urdu speaking environment. The terms employed thus represent the speaker shifting her stance to regard Wakhi from the broader comparative perspective of an outsider looking in. Just as in Rahila’s narrative, Jamila consistently uses the English word culture to refer to Wakhi traditions from an abstract outsider’s perspective, as in (14).

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(14) agar sak jow koʃiʃ tsar-ən, spo if 1pl 3sg.obl try do-1pl.npst 1pl.gen ‘If we try to keep it, our culture is beautiful.’

culture ɣa xuʃruj. culture very beautiful

Again, we see that while “culture” is produced and experienced in Wakhi without an emic distinction between culture and life itself, it is presented as an imagined abstraction in English. Jamila immediately goes on to mention typical folkloristic aspects of Wakhi culture such as clothing and food. While these are minor aspects of the Pamiri traditional complex, they are the features most salient to an outsider’s gaze, and are thus most readily indexed by the English term culture. As both of these video recordings had been posted publicly on YouTube, they have accrued thousands of views and dozens of comments both from within the community, and from outsiders with an interest in the languages of the region. As is common, code mixing is immediately picked up on by anonymous critics, as seen in a comment on Jamila’s narrative reproduced in (15a). Others, commenting on the same recording, both complement the language, as in (15b) ‘Wakhi language is beautiful!’, or deride the (minor!) code-mixing, as in (15c), “Auntie, pure is English, not our language”. (15) a. Wow! What an irony. She talking about speaking “pure wakhi” by speaking in “unpure Wakhi”😁 b. xušroy xikwor! c. ye voch pure ee english spo wor ee nast In the commentary on Rahila’s recording, afficionados comment on the novel sound of Wakhi from a comparative perspective, as in (16a), while another hurries to attribute the “mixed” impression to the fluency of the speaker. (16) a. Sounds like old english mix with Persian, Urdu, Pashto, Greek, more Turkish and when Harry Potter speak to the snake in Chamber of secret. Lol 😂 b. KJ Vids this not how the language actually sounds. It’s mixed because the speaker is not fluent. From outside the community, we find commentary in English with an overriding interest in the “true” affiliation of the language. Community members (as indicated by their use of Wakhi), are generally supportive of any attempt to promote the language on the internet but are also concerned about dialect differences, borrowings, code-mixing and levels of fluency, as they perceive these traits in the speakers. For many Wakhi speakers, YouTube videos provide the first opportunity to hear how their language is spoken across national borders. Predictably, we find many cross-border accusations of language adulteration via contact with Urdu, Russian, Tajik, etc.

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5 Texts 5.1 Life as a Wakhi American The following text was recorded by Husniya Khujamyorova in Queens, New York on March 9, 2018, through a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council. The transcription and translation was also done by Khujamyorova while the morphological analysis was carried out by Daniel Kaufman. The entire video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/Al7Ga2NfUMs. (17)

ʐɨ nung=i Rahila. 1sg.gen name=3sg Rahila My name is Rahila.

(18) woz wuz=əm ʃad sol nan tsə tu wuz=əm tə and 1sg.nom=1sg six year mother when exist.pst 1sg.nom=1sg dat rə-m nju jork move vi-tu gilgit-ə-n ʐɨ all-prox New York move become-plpf Gilgit-obl-abl 1sg.gen tat nan-iʃt=əv hunza-n, hunza. pakistan father mother-pl.nom=3pl Hunza-abl Hunza Pakistan ‘When I was six years old, [we] moved to New York from Gilgit [Pakistan]. My parents are from Hunza, Pakistan.’ (19) to lup=əm tsə vi-t=a, u=ʂ çik wor until big=1sg when become-pst=prt 1sg.nom=prog Wakhi language də çɨ=nan tat-və-n ça-t-a woz loc refl.gen=mother father-obl.pl-abl say-pst-pst and ‘Until I grew up, I was speaking with my parents in Wakhi.’ (20) də çɨ=çɨj vrɨt-və-n=bə woz çə jandi t-rə-m=ən loc refl.gen=sister brother-obl.pl-abl=also and then then dat-all-prox=1pl tsə muv vi-t-a jaani=m də çɨj when move become-pst-pst meaning=1sg loc sister vrɨt-və-n=em ingliʃ çən-ak vi-t=a. brother-obl.pl-abl=1sg English say-inf become-pst=prt ‘With my siblings, when we moved here, I spoke to my sisters and brothers in English.’ (21) çə də çɨ=nan tat-n=əm=ʂ çik wor and loc refl.gen=mother father-abl=1sg=prog Wakhi language çan-əm say-1sg.npst ‘But with my parents I speak in Wakhi.’

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(22) to təmikir muʃkil=ʂ wos-t kabi~kabi tʃiz-r ki until ?? difficult=prog become-3sg.npst sometimes what-dat comp ʐɨ çik wor=i ɣaftʃ baf=bə nast o. 1sg.gen Wakhi language=3sg very good=also neg.cop prt ‘It has been challenging sometimes – my Wakhi is not really good.’ (23) ji sar ʧiz=ʂ wuz çan-ak nə=bas wəzj-əm. one head thing=prog 1sg.nom say-inf neg=capable come-1sg.npst ‘Certain things I cannot say.’ (24) j-a-v-ən qti, to communication muʃkil dem-med-obl.pl-abl together until communication difficult wos-t become-3sg.npst ‘Communication with them becomes difficult.’ (25) lekin u=ʂ koʃiʃ tsar-əm ki çik wor but 1sg.nom=prog struggle do-1sg.npst comp Wakhi language bajd-v-i kʂɨj-əm woz, çik wor song-obl.pl-obl hear-1sg.npst and Wakhi language like program-v-i tain-əm sək internet çə like program-obl.pl-obl see-1sg.npst in internet and çə jo jod tsar-əm jo diʃ-əm tʃiz-ər ki and or memory do-1sg.npst or know-1sg.npst what-dat comp çɨ=zəbon diʃ-n-i ɣaftʃ zururi ma-r refl.gen=language know-ger-obl very necessary 1sg.obl-dat sðɨj-d. seem-3sg.npst ‘However, I try to listen to Wakhi songs, and watch programs in Wakhi on the internet, and I learn and understand. Because it seems to me very important to know your native language.’ (26) woz j-a-w mer-n-e nə=letsre-n dɨstan=i and dem-med-pro die-ger-obl neg=let-ger reason=3sg ‘And it is good to not let it go extinct.’ (27) to until jəçk learn

baf. good

kabi~kabi muʃkil=ʂ wos-t ki çik wor sometimes difficult=prog become-3sg.npst comp Wakhi language wots-n=ən woz diʃ-n=ən tʃiz-r ki become-ger=1pl and know-ger=1pl thing-dat comp

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tu=ki koʃiʃ tsar-∅ tsma ça-k-ər like 2sg.nom=cond struggle do-2sg.npst search do-inf-dat Like resource-iʃt=əv kam woz kitob, you know. resource-pl.nom=3pl little and book you know ‘Sometimes it is hard for us to learn Wakhi and to understand it, because when you try to learn the language, if you try to search, like resources and books are few, you know.’ (28) digar language, j-a digar ʧiz jəçk wots-n-e dzoq other language dem-med other thing learn become-ger-obl desire tsar-∅, rətʂ-∅ tə library jo d-a dukon çə kitob do-2sg.npst go-2sg.npst loc library or loc-med store and dɨrz-∅ çə j-o-w barar jəçk wots book take-2sg.npst and dem-med-pro about learn become-2sg.npst jo sək internet tain tsar-∅ çə research tsar-∅ ji or in internet see do-2sg.npst and research do-2sg.npst one dam-ə-r to tu got-∅. breath-obl-dat until 2sg.nom find-2sg.npst ‘With other languages, when you are willing to learn, you go to the library or store, get the book and learn the language. Also, you can search on the internetand right away you can find everything.’ (29) to wuz=əm dzəqlaj-ak-ən tʃiz ki di-ʐ until 1sg.nom=1sg small-inf-abl what comp loc-1sg.gen dast wəz-d-əj, j-o-w=iʂ dʒoj-əm çik wor hand come-pst-pst dem-med-pro=prog read-1sg.npst Wakhi language barər muʃkilu ɣaftʃ tʃiz=i nast, ɣaftʃ information=i nast about difficult very thing=3sg neg.cop very information=3sg neg.cop çik wor barar. Wakhi language about ‘Since my childhood, whenever I found something, I used to read it for the purpose of learning Wakhi. There is not enough information about the Wakhi language and it has been challenging.’ (30) to mɨʃkil=iʂ wos-t j-o barar diʃ-n=ən until difficult=prog become-3sg.npst dem-med.pro about know-ger=1pl woz j-o barar dʒoj-n=ən. and dem-med.pro about read-ger=1pl ‘It is difficult for us to learn it and read it.’

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to spo zik zinda lətsər-n=i distan ɣaftʃ muxtalif ʧiz until 1pl.gen tongue alive let-abl=3sg reason very various thing tu=ʂ ç-ak bas wəzəj-∅. 2sg.nom=prog make-inf capable come-2sg.npst ‘In order to keep our language alive, there are many things that you can do.’

(32)

tu=t=ki digar mɨlk təj=a tu=t ə 2sg.nom=2sg=cond other country exist.pst=qm 2sg.nom=2sg loc çɨ=mɨlk=ət=bə=ki təj çik wor d-a refl.gen=country=and=also=cond exist.pst Wakhi language loc-med çɨ=zəman-v-ən qəsa tsar-∅ har zedor, tʃiz-r refl.gen=child-obl.pl-abl talk do-2sg.npst every necessary what-dat ki de kum mɨlk=ʂ ki hal-∅, digar comp loc where country=prog comp stay-2sg.npst other zəbon=pə j-a-w jəçk wos-t. language=fut dem-med-pro learn become-3sg.npst ‘Whether you are in your own country or a different one, you should always speak Wakhi to your children, so that in whatever country you stay in, the [child] will learn the language.’

(33)

lekin çik wor jəçk wots-n=əp trəbar nə=ç-ak but Wakhi language learn become-abl=fut outdoor neg=make-inf Bas wizi-t to. capable come-3sg.npst until ‘But [the child] won’t be able to learn Wakhi outside [the home].’

(34) tə xun çik wor qəsa çak=i wadʒi. dat house Wakhi language talk make=3sg necessary ‘At home, it is necessary to speak in Wakhi.’ (35)

woz tu=ʂ=ki dʒoj-∅, koʃiʃ, like tin-ən and 2sg.nom=prog=cond read-2sg.npst struggle like 2sg.gen-abl ki interest təj, çik-v-i barar dʒoj-∅, comp interest exist.pst Wakhi-obl.pl-obl about read-2sg.npst çik-v-i barar study tsar-∅, woz ilm hasel Wakhi-obl.pl-obl about study do-2sg.npst and knowledge result tsar-∅ woz de education field waxi barar research tsar-∅. do-2sg.npst and loc education field Wakhi about research do-2sg.npst ‘If you are willing to read, and have an interest in reading about Wakhis, you need to learn about Wakhis, and to seek knowledge, through education and by doing research, Wakhi learning.’

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(36) tʃiz-r ki təj=əv organization-iʃt=əv təj woz what-dat comp ext.pst=3pl organization-pl.nom=3pl ext.pst and grants ta-r mila wots-ən bas wizi-t grants 2sg.obl-dat meet become-1/3pl.npst capable come-3sg.npst ki tu jə-m zəbon barar dʒoj-∅ woz jəçk comp 2sg.nom dem-prox language about read-2sg.npst and learn wots-∅. become-2sg.npst ‘There are also organizations and grants that can be found in order to read about and learn the language.’ (37)

woz arts jiw woz lup ʧiz, tu=ʂ çɨ=zəbon and arts one and big thing 2sg.nom=prog refl.gen=language  zindal tsr-en bas wizej-∅. alive do-ger capable come-2sg.npst ‘Also, arts is a big thing, you (can) keep your language alive.’

(38) ʃairi-və niviʃ-∅ de çik wor, tini=ki poet-obl.pl write-2sg.npst loc Wakhi language 2sg.gen=cond ʃairi ʃoq təj, ki nej tini=ki photography poet passion ext.pst comp neg 2sg.gen=cond photography ʃoq təj, passion ext.pst ‘Write poems in Wakhi if you have a poetry-desire. If not, if you have photography-desire. . .’ (39) j-o-w-n=iʂ zəbon tum preserve ç-ak dem-med-pro-abl=prog language much preserve make-inf nə=bas wizi-t neg=capable come-3sg.npst ‘With that, it might not be possible to preserve the language much with that,’ (40) lekin video-v-ni=ki tin ʃoq təj, but video-obl-abl=comp 2sg.gen passion ext.pst video=ʂ banaj ç-ak bas wizj-∅=a. video=prog produce make-inf capable come-2sg.npst=prt ‘But if you have a passion for video, you can produce video.’

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so tu=ʂ ɣaftʃ qismi təj ki tu=ʂ so 2sg.nom=prog many kind ext.pst comp 2sg.nom=prog çɨ=zəbon preserve ç-ak bas wəzja. refl.gen=language preserve do-inf capable can ‘So there are different ways you can preserve your language.’

(42) to jan dzəng. until yes like.that ‘So yes, it’s like that.’ (43) ma-r sðujd ki çik wor zinda lətsər-n=i 1sg.obl-dat seems comp Wakhi language alive let-ger=3sg ɣaftʃ zəruri tʃiz-r ki kum çik ki də kum very necessary what-dat comp where Wakhi comp loc where mɨlk=ɨʂ ki çik hal-d, j-o=ʂ ham country=prog comp Wakhi stay-3sg.npst dem-med.pro=prog both çik wor çan-d ham a-d-a mɨlk ki Wakhi language say-3sg.npst both emph-loc-med country comp kum zəbon ki təj=a çan-d. where language comp ext.pst=prt say-3sg.npst ‘I believe it is essential to keep the Wakhi language alive because any Wakhiwhen a Wakhi person lives in any country, s/he speaks both Wakhi and speaks the language that exists there in that country.’ (44) to pots-n-i, çik-v-ni bu ʃinaxt identity, ham until 1pl.gen-abl-obl Wakhi-obl-abl two identity identity both çik-e-n ham də kum mɨlk=iʂ ki hal-ən Wakhi-obl-abl both loc where country=prog comp stay-1/3pl.npst loc ha-j-o-w zejl=ʂ wots-∅. emph-dem-med-pro assimilate=prog become-2sg.npst ‘We Wakhis have two identities: we are Wakhi and we are of whatever country we are staying in.’ (45) to=ki çik nə ça-t, çik wor=ət=ki nə until=cond Wakhi neg say-pst Wakhi language=2sg=cond neg ça-t woz ne diʃ-t, tu=p j-a say-pst and neg know-pst 2sg.nom=fut dem-med digar culture vəzer wots-∅. other culture assimilate become-2sg.npst ‘If you didn’t speak Wakhi and don’t know it, you will assimilate to the other culture.’

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(46) j-o=i ʃak nast j-o=i baf ki dem-med.pro=3sg bad neg.cop dem-med.pro=3sg good comp tu=t=ʂə kum-r ki hal-∅ 2sg.nom=2sg=prog where-dat comp stay-2sg.npst ha-j-a-w=bə zejl tʂaw-∅ lekin jə-m-i=bə emph-dem-med-pro=also assimilate go-2sg.npst but dem-prox-obl=also baf ki tu rɨmɨʂ məj ki ti. . . ti history good comp 2sg.nom forget neg.sbjn comp 2sg.gen 2sg.gen history ʧiz woz ti xalg-v-ə zəbon=i ʧiz. what and 2sg.gen person-obl.pl-obl language=3sg what ‘It’s not something bad that whenever you live somewhere, you get into it, but it is also good not to forget [your language], your history, and what is your people’s language,’ (47) woz j-a-v tʃiz~tʃiz də çɨ=zəndagi win-ətk. and dem-med-obl.pl  thing~thing loc refl.gen=life see-prf ‘. . .and the things they have seen in their life.’ (48) jə-m zəbon=ʂ ha-j-a kɨ ʧiz a-d-a dem-prox language=prog emph-dem-med all thing emph-loc-med zəbon=i ha-j-a kɨ ʧiz ti history wos-t, language=3sg emph-dem-med all what 2sg.gen history become-3sg.npst ti story ti kahani ti pup-iʃt=əv 2sg.gen story 2sg.gen story 2sg.gen grandfather-pl.nom=3pl ʧiz çə-tk a-j-o-w də ti zəbon what make-prf emph-dem-med-pro loc 2sg.gen language zəruri ki tu çɨ=zbon me-rɨmɨʂ to ki necessary comp 2sg.nom refl.gen=language neg.sbjn-forget until comp tu çɨ=history me-rɨmɨʂ. 2sg.nom refl.gen=history neg.sbjn-forget ‘So everything is in the language. Your history, what your grandfathers have done, for that language is important. You should not forget your language, so that you will not forget your history.’

5.2 A Wakhi grandmother, from Pakistan to Brooklyn, New York The following text is excerpted from a recording of Jamila Bibi, who tells the story of her family and her language in Wakhi. The recording was made in Brooklyn on April 24, 2017 by Cameddu Biancarelli working with Husniya Khujamyorova as the interviewer who also provides the transcription and translation. The entire video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/O5Xbfxm06LU.

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(49) wuz=əm tse kun dʒaj-n=əm ki təja pure waxij=əm, waxi=ʂ çan-əm. ‘I am from a place such that I am pure Wakhi, and I speak Wakhi.’ (50) wuz=ɨʂ aləm tse godʒal, ɣulkən ʐɨ dijor. ‘My hometown is Gulkin village in Gojal.’ (51) jor wuz=əm tuj=əm ɣulkən vitk ‘I also got married in Gulkin.’ (52) ʐɨ tat dijori tse murxuni. ‘My parents were from Murkhuni [village].’ (53) spo ziki waxi=ʂ sak kɨ çan-ən. ‘[Among ourselves] we speak only our language, Wakhi.’ (54) godʒal xalg-iʃ tsumən be ki təj tsəj ‘All the people living in Gojal do, dzaq kam-pam=i tsəj dani urdu mix vitk. but it is a little bit mixed with Urdu. (55) e sakən, tsə trə mis waxt tsəj spo tat-nan-iʃ xoli pure spo wor çat. ‘With us, back then, our parents only spoke a pure form of our language.’ (56) spo tat-nan-e tsəj, atʃa sak=iʂ be bet. ‘Our parents did, and we do as well.’ (57) wuz=əm tsə zjadater=em tsə uz=əm tə hel al-ətk, ʃpɨn-iʝ=əm çə-tk, ‘Most of the time I stayed in the summer pasture and did herding.’ (58) atʃa ðas pandz sol-r=ev tsəj maʐ=ev tuj çətk. ‘I was fifteen when I got married.’ (59) ðas pandz soli xatm vitu diʐ jod təj. ‘I remember I was fifteen.’ (60) kam-pami diʐ jod təj tuj tum, maslam maʐ=əv ɣa dʒald tuj çə-tu. ‘I remember a little bit about my wedding, I got married very early.’ (61) atʃa ʐɨni pandz zman. wuz=m maʐ ta dʒaj jav çə-tu ɣulkin. ‘I have five children, I gave birth to them in Gulkin.’

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(62) atʃa niv=em, ʐɨ tuj-en bad uz=əm karatʃi wəs-tu, re ʃer, city. ‘After my wedding, I went to Karachi, to the city.’ (63) ram urdu jəçk vi-tu. dzaq-paq=əm wuz school rəʝd çə, urdu=m dra jəçk vit=a. ‘I learned Urdu there. I went to school there a bit and learned Urdu.’ (64) wa pas=əm woz rəʝd dɨç dijor çe, tam wist sol ald-ət, ‘After that I went back to my village and stayed there for twenty years, pure waxi=m çat, tʃiz ki ʐɨ zik təj. and spoke pure Wakhi, whatever my language was.’ (65) niv=əm woz wez-g amrika, ‘Then I came here to America, tremi mar ðas pandz–ðas ʃad sol=ɨʂ mar tʂ-it. and I have been living here for 15, 16 years.’ (66) çe trəmi tsəj language ɣa different=i muxtalif=i tʃizi trəm, zik. ‘Here, there are many different, various languages.’ (67) trəm=iʂ tsəj har qism zik=ɨʂ çan-ən, There are many types of language spoken here, çe engliʃi, spaniʃi, tʃajnizi. like English, Spanish, and Chinese.’ (68) sak=ɨʂ tsəj trəm spo wor zjadatar jod tsar-ən, spo çɨ zik. ‘We mostly use our language here, our native language.’ (69) de çɨ xalg-və-n=ʂ ki mila wots-ən spo wor zijada, spo çɨ waxi=ʂ çan-ən. ‘Whenever we meet our people, mostly we talk our language, Wakhi.’ (70) dɨç zman-v-ən xaskar dəm çɨ xun=əm tsəj, dəm çɨ xun=ɨʂ wuz=ɨʂ waxi çan-əm. ‘With my children, especially in my house, I speak Wakhi with my children.’ (71) wu=ʂ çɨ zman-və-r bə çan-əm ki, spo zik me rɨmʂit. ‘I also tell my children not to forget our language.’ (72) atʃa woz ʐɨ nɨpɨs-iʃ, ʐɨn bu nɨpɨs uʂ d-av-ən bə çɨ wor çan-əm. ‘Even my grandchildren – I have two grandchildren and I speak my language with them.’ (73) atʃa ʐɨ zman-iʃ be pura po wor çan-ən. waxi=ʂ çan-ən. ‘All my children speak our language. They speak Wakhi.’

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(74) woz wuz çat bə waxi. ‘And I myself too (speak) Wakhi.’ (75) ʐɨ tsumər ki ʐɨ qom-iʃ drəm tej, godʒal nək ki tsumər tej, pandz xun-ən sak drəm, ‘. . .and whatever relatives I have here, as there are five families from Gojal here [in New York], sak=ɨʂ kɨ tan de ləman-ən mila wots-ən waxi=ʂ çan-ən. whenever we get together, we talk in Wakhi.’ (76) sak=ɨʂ get together de ləmanɨ=ʂ wots-ən, neja ji tʃiz=ɨʂ gon-ən, ‘We get together, you know, one thing we do, e, spo wor=əʂ masalan jar çan-ən we speak our language, xɨʃ-iʝ=ɨʂ banaj tsar-ən drəm, də po xun-əv. we make happiness here, in our home.’ (77) za-v-ər pidaj-iʃ rewor=ɨʂ ki wost, pidov ki, tsə vi-tk aja rewor=iʂ banaj tsar-ən. ‘On the day when a child is born, we celebrate the day of their birth.’ (78) gon=ɨʂ çə, aja rwor=eʂ tsəj pura spo wor ‘That day, it is entirely in our language.’ (79) spo wor bajd, spo wor nəmendʒ, atʃa spo wor muzik, ‘Our songs, dance, music, bajd=əʂ çan-ən, də tʃiz spo wor and singing songs [are] in our language.’ (80) sak-r=ɨʂ masalan trəm=ən tsəj ɣaftʃ tʃiz sakər wost, taklif sakər wost, ‘For us, for example, we’re here, we have many difficulties, masalan engliʃ çnak. for example, speaking English.’ (81) sak=ɨʂ koʃiʃ tsar-ən dzaq=ɨʂ engliʃ çan-ən, ‘We are trying to speak in English a little woz nəj woz=ɨʂ çɨ wor zijada-tər saki jod tsar-ən and mostly speak our language.’ (82) dɨ çɨ xun çɨ wor. ‘At our home, our language.’

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(83) woz spo culture tʃiz=i ki tsəj, sak=ɨʂ də çɨ xun jo jod tsar-ən, ‘Also, for our culture, whatever it is, we recall it in our house, jow-e=ʂ istemol tsar-ən. we practice it here.’ (84) ʐɨ nɨpɨs-iʃt tsəj pure masalan, u=ʂ d-av-ən koʃiʃ tsar-əm, ‘My grandchildren, pure, for example, I try [to speak] with them, wuz be bet, ja nan be bet I, as well as the mother, jaw pup be bet kɨ tanɨʂ spo wor çanən. the grandfather, too, are all speaking our language.’ (85) wu=ʂ çɨ zman-ve-r kɨçt-er çan-əm ki, masalan spo wor qsa daven tsarit. ‘I tell all my children to speak with them [their children] in our language.’ (86) jətiʃ çanən, ʐɨ lup nɨpɨs: “tati, nani” azɨng “gizi, nezdi” ‘They say, my big grandson says, “dad, mom”, like that, “stand, sit” azəng. spo wor=əʂ jaw çand. like that. He says it in our language.’ (87) Ajan ʐɨ nɨpɨs jiw nung=i Alhan, ‘My grandsons’ names are Ayan and Alhan, atʃa ʐɨ ðəʝd zman-iʃt=əv, Amina-n. they are my daughter Amina’s children.’ (88) bas baqi, spo wor tsəj spo wor ɣa xʃruj zik. ‘Our language, our language is a very beautiful language.’ (89) agar sak jow koʃiʃ tsarən, spo culture ɣa xuʃruj. ‘If we try to keep it, our culture is beautiful.’ (90) spo culture e tsəj skid=i, atʃa spots-n=i tsəj ptek=ɨʂ pɨrw-en te spo dijor, ‘Our culture, we have skullcaps and scarves we used in our village.’ (91) skid=ɨʂ di-n, ptək=ɨʂ pɨrw-ən. ‘They put on the cap and then the scarf on top of it.’ (92) spo xurok tsəj xaskar. spo xurok ɣaftʃ maslan dʒeda qismi tse ʃer-ən. ‘And especially our food. Our food, for example, is very separate from city food.’ (93) spotsni tsəj spo xurok tsəj: bati, molida=i, gral=i, semn=i. ‘Some examples of our food are bat, molida, gral, semn.’

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e dzɨng-dzɨng tʃiz-v=ɨʂ sak go-n. ‘These are some of the things we make.’

(95)

atʃa dzɨng spo tʃiz zik-iʃt, spo wor masalan tʃiz. ‘Our languages are like that, our languages, for example. . .’

(96)

trəm amrika adzəng tʃiz ki, kɨ tan=ɨʂ tsəj çɨ wor=ɨʂ jod tsar-ən, istemol tsar-ən. ‘Here in America, everyone speaks their own languages.’

(97)

tʃajniz=eʂ be çɨ zik, tʃiz tsar-t, istmol tsar-t. ‘The Chinese are also using their language.’

(98)

kum zik be tsəj, raʃjan da zik be ki, tsəj, ‘Any language, Russians in that language, har xalg çɨ, speniʃ çɨ zik, all people, the Spanish and their language.’

(99)

ingliʃ tsəj ɣa zuri nast, tumər ki çɨ zik-ər zuri təj. ‘English is not that much harder than our native language.’

(100) sak çɨ zik çak-en dɨç zman-v-ən. ‘We speak our language with our children.’ (101) po zik=ki romoʂ-t=əv ajane ɣa ʃak wots-n=a. ‘It would be really bad if our language is forgotten.’ (102) po zik=i ɣa lazmi. ‘Our language is very useful.’ (103) te dijor, te spo dijor=ki rətʂ-n=a d-av-ən qsa çak-ər tsəj spo ziki. ‘In the village, if we go to the village, we must speak our language with them.’

6 Conclusion We have presented an overview of the Pamiri community in New York and a summary of the overall Pamiri language situation. We have also made a first attempt at analyzing a Pamiri language as a heritage language in diaspora, contrasting a younger “generation 1.5” speaker with an older speaker who migrated later in life. We explored some structural aspects of language contact as well as possible motivations for code mixing with a brief foray into public attitudes towards mixing. In future, the researchers at

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ELA are working to edit, transcribe, translate, and analyze as many of the recordings as possible, integrating these into our corpora and making the results available both on popular platforms such as YouTube as well as linguist-oriented platforms such as Kratylos. The complex language contact situation in the Pamir region has been mentioned by all linguists working in the region and has been studied using sociolinguistic surveys. A persistent gap in our knowledge is how Pamiri languages are changing due to contact and the various inter-variety accommodations that are being made both in rural areas, and regional centers like Khorog, as well as in diaspora. We hope to have taken an early step here towards the linguistic analysis of contact in the latter context.

References Arlund, Pamela S. 2006. An acoustic, historical, and developmental analysis of Tajik diphthongs. Ph.D. dissertation. Arlington, TX. University of Texas at Arlington. Backstrom, Peter C. 1992. Wakhi. In Peter C. Backstrom & Carla J. Radloff (eds.), Languages of Northern Areas, 57–74. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics. Bahry, Stephen A. 2016a. Language Ecology: Understanding Central Asian Multilingualism. In Elise S. Ahn & Juldyz Smgulova (eds.), Language Change in Central Asia, 11–32. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Bahry, Stephen A. 2016b. Societal multilingualism and personal plurilingualism in Pamir Tajikistan’s complex language ecology. In Elise S. Ahn & Juldyz Smgulova (eds.), Language Change in Central Asia, 125–148. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Bashir, Elena. 2009. Wakhi. In Gernot Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages, 825–862. London: Routledge. Beck, Simone. 2012. The effect of accessibility on language vitality: The Ishkashimi and the Sanglechi language varieties in Afghanistan. Linguistic Discovery 10(2). 157–233. http:// journals.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/1/xmlpage/1/archive. Beck, Simone. 2013. A sociolinguistic assessment of the Roshani speech variety in Afghanistan. Language Documentation and Conservation 7. 235–301. http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii. edu/bitstream/handle/10125/4573/beck.pdf?sequence=1. Borjian, Habib. 2007. “Tājikestān,” In Kāżem Musawi Bojnurdi (ed.), Dāʾerat al-maʿāref-e bozorg-e eslāmi XIV [The Great Islamic Encyclopedia XIV], 247–60. Tehran: Markaz-e Dāʼerat al-maʻāref-e bozorg-e eslāmī. Borjian, Habib. 2014. Morḡāb. Encyclopaedia Iranica. Online available at https://www.iranicaonline. org/articles/morgab-district, accessed on February 28, 2014. Borjian, Habib & Ross Perlin. 2015. Bukhori in New York. In Matteo De Chiara and Evelin Grassi (eds.), Iranian Languages and Literatures of Central Asia: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, 15–27. (Studia Iranica. Cahier 57). Paris: Association pour l’avancement des études iraniennes. Buddruss, Georg. 1988. Bartangī, Encyclopaedia Iranica II (8). 827–830. [Republished in The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies. CAIS. At https://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Languages/bartangi.htm, accessed 15 June 2020.] Edelman, Džoy I. 1966. Jazguljamskij Jazyk. Moscow: Akademia Nauk SSSR.

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Edelman, Džoy I. 1980. History of the consonant systems of the North-Pamir languages. Indo-Iranian Journal 22. 287–310. Edelman, Džoy I. & Leila Dodykhudoeva. 2009a. Shughni. The Iranian Languages. Ed. by Gernot Windfuhr. New York: Routledge. Edelman, Džoy I. & Leila Dodykhudoeva. 2009b. The Pamir Languages. The Iranian Languages. Ed. by Gernot Windfuhr. New York: Routledge. ELA: Endangered Language Alliance. At https://www.elalliance.org/projects/iranic-languages. Accessed on 20 July 2022. Robert Gauthiot. 1916. Notes sur le Yazgoulami, dialecte iranien des confins du Pamir. Journal Asiatique 11. 239–270. Grierson, George A. 1920. Ishkashmi, Zebaki, and Yazghulami. London: Royal Asiatic Society. Grjunberg, Aleksandr L. & Ivan M. Steblin-Kamenskij. 1976. Vaxanskij jazyk [The Wakhi language]. Moscow: Academy of Science. Hjuler, Anton. 1912. The languages spoken in the Western Pamir (Shughnan and Vakhan). (The Second Danish Pamir Expedition). Copenhagen. Nordisk Forlag. Khujamyorova, Husniya (ed.). 2021. Pamiri Stories. New York: Endangered Language Alliance. Koshkaki, Mawlawi Borhân-al-Din. 1979. Qataghan et Badakhshan, description du pays d’après l’inspection d’un ministre afghan en 1922 [Qataghan and Badakhshan, description of the country according to the inspection of an Afghan minister in 1922]. Transl. by Marguerte Reut. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Lorimer, D. L. R. 1958. The Wakhi Language. London: University of London. Matras, Yaron. 1998. Utterance modifers and universals of grammatical borrowing. Linguistics 36. 281–331. Moore, John & Elham Sadegholvad. 2013. The Linguistic Markers of Persian Heritage Language Speakers: Evidence from the Classroom. Heritage Language Journal 10(1). 83–107. Morgenstierne, Georg. 1938. Iranian Pamir languages. (Indo-Iranian frontier languages 2). Oslo: Aschehoug & Co. Mueller, Katja, Elizabeth Abbess, Paul Daniel, Calvin Thiessen & Gabriela Thiessen. 2005. Language in community-oriented and contact-oriented domains: the case of the Shughni of Tajikistan. In John Clifton (ed.), 2005. Studies in Languages of Tajikistan. Dushanbe, Tajikistan & St. Petersburg, Russia: National State University of Tajikistan and North Eurasia Group, SIL International. Obrtelová, Jaroslava. 2019. From Oral to Written: A Text-linguistic Study of Wakhi Narratives. (Doctoral dissertation, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis). Paxalina, Tatjana N. 1959. Iškašimškij jazyk: očerk fonetiki i grammatiki, teksty i slovar’ [The Ishkashimi language: an outline of phonetics, grammar, texts and dictionary]. Moscow Academy of Science. Paxalina, Tatjana N. 1975. Vaxanskij jazyk [The Wakhi language]. Moscow: Akademia Nauk SSSR. Payne, John. 1989. Pāmir Languages. In Rüdiger Schmitt (ed.), Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, 417–444. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Perlin, Ross, Daniel Kaufman, Jason Lampel, Maya Daurio, Mark Turin & Sienna Craig (eds.). 2021. Languages of New York City (digital version).Online available at https://languagemap.nyc/, accessed 20 July 2022. New York: Endangered Language Alliance. Polo, Marco. 1903. The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East. Translated by Henry Yule. 3rd edn. London: John Murray. Sedighi, Anousha. 2018. Persian as a Heritage Language. In Anousha Sedighi & Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Persian Linguistics, 361–387. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Shaw, Robert. 1876. On the Ghalchah Languages (Wakhí and Sarikolí). Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 45. 139–278. Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 2010. Eastern Iranian languages. Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition. At https://iranicaonline.org/articles/eastern-iranian-languages, accessed 28 November 2019. Sokolova, Valentina Stepanovna. 1959. Rušanskie i Xufskie teksty i slovar’ [Roshani and Khufi texts and dictionary]. Moscow: Academy of Science. Wendtland, Antje. 2009. The position of the Pamir languages within East Iranian, Orientalia Suecana 58. 172–188. Windfuhr, Gernot (ed.). 2009. The Iranian Languages. London & New York: Routledge. Zarubin, Ivan I. 1937. Bartangskie i rušanskie teksty i slovar’ [Bartangi texts and dictionary]. Moscow: Academy of Science. Zarubin, Ivan I. 1960. Šugnanskie teksty i slovar’ [Shughni texts and dictionary]. Moscow: Academy of Science.

Farid Saydee

12 Language Maintenance and Language Shift: A Perspective from the First-Generation and Second-Generation Pashto Speakers Living in the United States and Canada Abstract: This article evaluates Pashto language usage among Pashto-speaking immigrants in the United States and Canada through quantitative data analysis. It provides empirical data to policymakers to consider when supporting languages such as Pashto: languages not included in the year-round school curriculum. Although Pashto is not categorized as an endangered language, the descriptive analysis of data from an online survey of 78 participants shows that second and third-generation Pashto speakers in the United States and Canada slowly give up their heritage language in favor of the mainstream language. The study uses the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) of Reversing Language Shift (RLS) perspective introduced by Fishman (1991) to identify the factors contributing to language maintenance and loss. It also recommends ways to improve literacy skills among heritage children – and to slow down or reverse language shift.

1 Background 1.1 The Pashtuns Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. They primarily live in the southern parts of the country. A pocket of Pashtuns also lives in the northeastern part of Pakistan (Tegey and Robson 1996). Pashtuns live as tribal societies. There are over 100 different tribes, and each tribe is conscious of its sphere of influence. However, some Pashtuns have settled in Dari-speaking provinces such as Herat and Kabul and primarily speak Dari rather than Pashto. Some have also migrated to Karachi, Pakistan, where they speak Urdu (Tegey and Robson 1996). Pashtuns are guided by unwritten codes of honor, called Pashtunwali. These values and behavioral protocols influence the Pashtun way of life. Pashtunwali is one of the most significant elements that distinguish Pashtuns from other tribes (Rzehak 2011). It requires each Pashtun to act honorably and adhere to its values. Pashtunwali follows the dichotomy of honor and shame. To a Pashtun, it is highly important how his/her behavior is evaluated by the common understanding of honor and shame within their society (Rzehak 2011). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-012

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1.2 The language Pashto, also called Pakhto, is one of the two official languages spoken in Afghanistan. The other language is Dari, a variant of Persian (García and Munir 2016). According to the Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region at Indiana University, there are approximately 40 million Pashto speakers around the world – 12 million in Afghanistan, and 27 million in Pakistan (CeLCAR 2020). However, Pashto is not an official language in Pakistan, and Pashtuns are only offered education in Urdu and English in the country. Nevertheless, due to its superior infrastructure, more Pashto publications are produced in Pakistan than in Afghanistan (Tegey and Robson 1996). In Pakistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Figure 1). Pashto is further spoken by about 2 million people in Karachi, Pakistan, and around 50 thousand people in Iran (Tegey and Robson 1996). (Uzbek) (Uzbek, Turk men)

(Farsi)

AFGHANISTAN Kabul

Herat (Dari)

Ghazni

Peshawar Islamabad (Urdu)

Kandahar Quetta (Beluchi)

PAKISTAN

Karachi Pashto Speaking Area Figure 1: Pashto speaking areas. Source: Tegey and Robson, 1996.

Pashto, along with Persian belong to the Indo-European group of languages and they share much in common with the Aryan languages. Persian is as a Western Iranian language, and Pashto an Eastern Iranian language (Ali, 2012; Dupree, 2002; Habibi 2003; Heath and Zahedi 2011; García and Munir 2016; uOttawa, 2020; Morgenstierne, 2003; Stammerjohann 2009).

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The closest relatives of Pashto are Kurdish and the Persian of Iran also known as Farsi, the Persian of Afghanistan also known as Dari, and the Persian of Tajikistan also known as Tajik/Tajki. These languages are spoken in Afghanistan’s regional neighboring countries. According to Tegey and Robson (1996), Pashto has preserved archaic elements that other languages have lost. For example, Pashto has a distinctive ergative construction in which the subject of a transitive verb is shown by a special marker. Also, the language uses a gender system in nouns. Other languages have lost these elements to some extent (Tegey and Robson 1996). In addition, a great number of Dari words are used in Pashto. This is not because both languages belong to the same language family but rather due to Pashtun and Dari speakers having lived alongside one another for centuries. Pashto also contains words borrowed from Arabic.

1.3 Pashto dialects Pashto has two main dialects: northern and southern. The northern dialect is also called the Yousafzai or Peshawari dialect and is spoken by Pashtuns in eastern and northeastern Afghanistan, including Kabul. It is also spoken in eastern and southeastern Pakistan, as well as in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (García and Munir 2016). The southern dialect, also called the Qandahari Khattak dialect, is spoken in southeastern Afghanistan, including Kandahar. In Pakistan, it is spoken in the southeastern and southwestern regions, particularly in cities such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Quetta Baluchistan. Each of these dialects is further divided into sub-dialects. For instance, the Durrani, Kakar, Shirani, Khattak, Banuchi, and Masidwala dialects are categorized under the southern dialect, while Yusufzai, Khosti, Zadran, Bangash, Afridi, Khogyani, and Wardak dialects fall under the Northern dialect (CeLCAR 2020; Dupree 2002). The dialectal differences are not major. The speakers of most dialects are readily understood by most Pashto speakers, except for the dialect of Pashtuns who live in isolated areas, i.e., the Waziri dialect which is spoken in Waziristan, Pakistan – and the Wardak dialect. Pashto does not have a standard form. Unlike languages like English, there is no agreement between Pashto speakers as to what constitutes “correct” Pashto. Understandably, each Pashtun tribe considers its own dialect to be the standard dialect. The closest Pashto has to a standardized form is the Kandahari dialect, which enjoys greater prestige and usage in writing among Pashtuns (Tegey and Robson 1996). The lack of standardization, especially in the written form, has posed a challenge to teaching and learning Pashto. Authentic materials such as newspapers, magazines, and online articles vary in spelling and punctuation based on the dominant dialect of the region in which they were produced. Due to the lack of consistency, non-native Pashto learners cannot verify the grammatical accuracy of the materials. Although the establishment of Pashto Academies in 1950 in Peshawar, Pakistan, and in 1979

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in Kabul, Afghanistan brought about some orthographical standards for writing and speaking Pashto, they are often ignored. Many materials, especially online articles, are translated from other languages and are not properly edited by educated native Pashto speakers (University of Peshawar 2021).

1.4 Pashtun immigrants in the United States Pashtuns are a large ethnic group who primarily live in Afghanistan and Pakistan, though pockets of Pashtuns can also be found in India, Iran, and Tajikistan. Furthermore, as a result of 40 years of war and instability in Afghanistan, many Pashtuns have resettled in foreign countries, including the United States (Eigo n.d). While a few (about 200) Afghan Pashtuns arrived in the United States in 1920 and following years, the largest groups of Afghan Pashto speaking refugees started to come to the country in the 1980s (Eigo n.d). This increase was due to the political uncertainty in Afghanistan in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion: the Soviet troops withdrew in February of 1989. It is estimated that more than 100,000 foreign-born Afghans are currently living in the United States and Canada. In addition, the number of American-born Afghan descendants is estimated to be 120,819 (U.S. Census Bureau 2016). Despite these numbers, there are only about 22,000 Pashto speakers in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau 2015). However, the dataset does not distinguish between Pashto speakers based on their country of origin. Also, the number of Pashto speakers has increased in recent years as more Afghans have entered the United States.

1.5 Acculturation and assimilation Economic conditions, war, and in-fighting in Afghanistan forced many Pashto speakers to leave their homeland and take refuge in foreign countries, including the United States and Canada. Resettlement in a new country was a matter of necessity rather than a choice. While immigrants appreciate their lives in the United States and Canada, they feel unsatisfied with the loss of their native language, which is a determinant to their native identity (Saydee 2014). Many immigrants struggle to acquire and learn English due to being illiterate in their native language. On the other hand, children find it easier than adults to become adept at English. Consequently, they feel more comfortable communicating in English rather than in their heritage language, especially with their siblings and friends (Saydee 2014). Pashto-speaking youths also alternate between Pashto and English in conversation, a process called code-switching. While this practice makes communication among youths more accessible, it poses a severe problem between children and their parents who have limited fluency in English. While mixing languages may help chil-

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dren express themselves clearly and conveniently between each other, it leads to language loss in the long run (Saydee 2014). This study is aimed at identifying the current status of Pashto language use among Pashtuns in the United States and Canada through the lens of the RLS Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) introduced by Fishman (1991). Based on the GIDS’s stages, measures that can lead to language maintenance and slow language loss will be recommended.

1.6 Language shift Language shift is an inevitable process, and most of the 7,000 languages that are spoken worldwide will become extinct by the year 2101 (Harrison 2007). Joshua Fishman first used the term “language shift” in the 1960s to explain how immigrant communities fail to foster intergenerational mother tongue transmission (Fishman 1991). Consequently, the number of speakers gradually decreases, or they lose proficiency in their native language. However, communities can take steps to reverse this language shift or, at least, slow down the process (Baker 2006; Fishman 1991; Peyton 2001). Saydee’s (2014) findings are aligned with Baker (2006) and Fishman’s (1991) claims. In a study to assess the status of Dari language usage among youth speakers in San Diego, California, Saydee found a progressive shift toward the mainstream language and culture. Over 81% of the parents in the study indicated that their children would speak English with their siblings and Afghan friends. Over 95% of the parents referred to the dominance of English as one of the main factors in the language shift (Saydee 2014). These findings reveal that, like other immigrant communities, Afghan families are not immune to language shift. The second and third generations feel more comfortable speaking in English rather than communicating in their native language (Saydee 2014).

2 Theoretical framework 2.1 Reversing language shift (RLS) Fishman (1991) introduced the theory of reversing language shift (RLS) as a possible solution to maintain heritage languages. However, he described RLS as a “subjective and culturally embedded decision” (Fishman, 1991: 39). That is, those who want to preserve their native language and culture should, first, believe that the efforts associated with RLS are worthwhile – not everyone within the same culture may agree that they have to take preventive measures to save the language and culture (Fishman 1991).

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Parents must maintain intergenerational transmission by passing on the heritage language to their children to ensure its continuity (Fishman 1991). While reversing the language shift may not be entirely possible, the RLS theory introduces a process that can slow the language shift. It provides a societal perspective for communities to negotiate and consider the priorities involved in the process of reversing the language shift (Dwyer 2009). Achieving the goals of RLS requires the participation of all stakeholders. Governmental institutions are needed to support the efforts of dedicated community members who volunteer their time and resources to preserve and pass on their heritage language and culture to the next generations (Albrecht & Gil-Chin 1986; cited by Fishman 1991). Fishman (1991) presents an eight-stage analysis and prescription for RLS (Figure 2). Severity of Intergenerational Dislocation (read from the bottom up) (X-ish the endangered language, Y-ish the dominant language) 1.

Education, work sphere, mass media and governmental operations at higher and nationwide level.

2.

Local/regional mass media and governmental services.

3.

The local/regional (i.e., non-neighborhood) work sphere, both among Xmen and among Ymen.

4b. Public schools for Xish children, offering some instruction via Xish, but substantially under Yish curricular and staffing control. 4a. Schools in lieu of compulsory education and substantially under Xish curricular and staffing control. II.

RLS to transcend diglossia, subsequent to its attainment

5.

Schools for literacy acquisition, for the old and for the young, and not in lieu of compulsory education.

6.

The intergenerational and demographically concentrated home-family neighborhood: the basis of mother tongue transmission.

7.

Cultural interaction in Xish primarily involving the community-based older generation.

8.

Reconstructing Xish and adult acquisition of XSL (X-ish as a second language). I.

RLS to attain diglossia

Figure 2: Fishman’s (1991) stages of reversing language shift.

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2.2 Graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS) Similar to the “Richter Scale,” which measures the intensity of earthquakes, GIDS measures intergenerational language disruption through an eight-stage analysis. Stages 1–3 focus on language domains, 4–5 on literacy, and 6–8 on intergenerational transmission. Stages 5 and 6 are the most critical as they provide the precondition for language loss (Dwyer 2009) and show whether the language is being passed onto children. If not, it means that the heritage language has been replaced by the mainstream language (Dwyer 2009). The higher the GIDS rating, “the lower the intergenerational continuity and maintenance prospects of a language network or community” (Fishman 1991: 87).

3 Research questions 3.1. At what stage of the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) is the Pashto language in the United States and Canada, as perceived by Afghans/Pashtuns? 3.2. What factors contribute to language maintenance and loss within the Afghan/ Pashtun communities in the United States and Canada?

4 Methodology 4.1 Participants Eighty-eight Pashto speakers living in the United States and Canada participated in this study. Due to some missing information, 11 additional participants from the study were removed as they did not meet inclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria included being a Pashto native or heritage speaker, 18 years of age or older, and living in the United States or Canada for at least five years. Participation was voluntary, and participants could withdraw at any stage. An attempt was made to include a considerable number of Pashto speakers from different walks of life in this research. The ideal number was 500 (participants), but only about 100 participated. Lack of interest in such studies is another issue that can be researched in the future. The participants electronically signed the consent form and completed the anonymous online survey. As the data in Figure 3 shows, 90% of participants were born outside of the United States, and or Canada. The majority (68%) of participants were male and had a bachelor’s or master’s degree (Figures 4 & 5).

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63

60

Frequency

50

40 30 20 10 0

3 Afghanistan

Canada

7

Pakistan

1

2

United States

Other

Figure 3: Demographic information of the participants based on place of birth. 60 52 50

Frequency

40 30

24

20 10 0

Male

Female

Figure 4: Demographic information of the participants based on their gender.

Most participants had children in different age groups. Also, the majority of children were born in Afghanistan and the United States (Figures 6 & 7). Interestingly, more than 65% of parents (Figures 8 & 9) indicated that their children do not speak Pashto with their siblings, or Pashtun friends (N/A means other languages); even though, almost an equal number of children were born in Afghanistan and immigrated to the United States and Canada at an early age (Figure 7). This is one of the signs that language shift is occurring.

12 Language Maintenance and Language Shift 

30

28

25

22 19

Frequency

20 15 10

6 5 1 0

Less than High School Diploma

High School Diploma

Bachelor’s Degree

Master’s Degree

PhD

Figure 5: Demographic information of the participants based on the level of education. 35 30

29 24

25

24

22

20 15

13

10 5 0

1-5 years old

6-10 years old

11-15 years old

16-17 years old

Figure 6: Demographic information of the children’s ages.

18+

 313

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Chart Title 40

37

35

35 30 25 20 15 10

6

5

5

4

0 Afghanistan

Canada

United Sates

Pakistan

Others

Figure 7: Demographic information of the children’s places of birth. 35

32

30

Frequency

25 20 14

15

17

10 5 0

English

Pashto

N/A

Figure 8: Which language does your younger (5–12 years old) child(ren) use(s) most with their siblings and Afghan/Pashto speaking friends?

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35

 315

33

30

Frequency

25 20

17

15 10 5 0

English

Pashto

Figure 9: Which language does your younger (13 and older) child(ren) use(s) most with their siblings and Afghan/Pashto speaking friends?

4.2 Instrument A Likert-type questionnaire was developed based on Fishman’s (1991) graded intergenerational disruption Scale (GIDS) (see Figure 2). The instrument consists of three sections. The first section contains 19 items (Q1–19) aimed at collecting demographic information. The second section (Q20–24) gathers information about the participant’s attitudes and beliefs regarding their heritage language. The third section (27 questions) focuses on the GIDS Stages 1–7 to analyze the status of the Pashto language and determine whether it is threatened in the United States and Canada (GIDS Stage 1, Q25–28; GIDS Stage 2, Q29–30; GIDS Stage 3, Q31–34; GIDS Stage 4a, Q35–37; GIDS Stage 4b1, Q38–40; GIDS Stage 5, Q41–47; GIDS Stage 6, Q48–49; GIDS Stage7, Q50–51). The GIDS Stage 8 was not included in the questionnaire as data from the United States and Canada Census Bureaus can address the questions related to that stage. All the items have been positively worded to ensure smooth and convenient data analysis. Positively worded questions are those where agreement is deemed a good response. Two experts in the field of research and linguistics reviewed the instrument and provided feedback. The tool was then revised and pilot-tested with three Afghan/ Pashto speakers who did not participate in the actual study. This instrument was further revised for clarity. The questionnaire was administered online to Pashto speakers in the United States and Canada. Participants had to consent to the terms and conditions of the study before viewing and answering the questions. The questionnaire can be seen in this herein (Appendix A).

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5 Data collection and analysis A Qualtrics online survey was used to collect the data between August and October 2020. Data was later analyzed in November 2020, using the SPSS data analysis software. The rubric in Figure 10 has been adopted from the UNESCO’s (2003) “Nine Factors” to assess the status of Pashto language among the Pashto speakers in the United States and Canada. The original rubric is a six-grade factor; however, this study focuses only on grades 5 (safe) to 2 (severely endangered), as the Pashto language is not critically endangered, or on the verge of extinction. Degree of Endangerment

Grade

Safe

5

Unsafe

4

Definitively endangered

3

Severely endangered

2

Critically endangered

1

Extinct

0

Figure 10: UNESCO Factor Assessment Rubric.

6 Findings and results 6.1 Attitude towards Pashto In general, the attitude of participants is positive towards the Pashto language and culture (Table 1). More than 82% of the participants indicated that their children like, and prefer, speaking Pashto (Q20–21). However, about 28% of participants believed that English has hindered communication between them and their children (Q23). Table 1: Participants’ attitudes towards Pashto. N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Q20. I like speaking Pashto

74

63

10

1

–

Q21. My children like speaking Pashto

64

28

25

8

3

Q22. I prefer speaking Pashto

73

57

14

2

–

Q23. English has not hindered communication between me and my family

72

26

26

18

2

Q24. The native Pashto culture cannot survive without maintaining the Pashto language

75

54

19

2

–

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Research Question 1. At what stage of the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) is the Pashto language in the United States and Canada, as perceived by Afghans/Pashtuns?

6.2 Graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS) Stages 1 & 2 The GIDS Stages 1 and 2 can be addressed briefly before moving on to the next stages. The data in Tables 2 and 3 indicate that the majority (62%) of participants disagree with the statement that Pashto is used formally in institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada. More than 70% also agree that the Pashto language is not officially used in the workplace, government institutions, and by mass media throughout the United States and Canada. It is important to mention that there are some general newspaper and online bulletins published in Pashto. There are also many private TV channels in the United States and Canada, and at least one government sponsored TV/radio channel (i.e., Voice of America) that broadcasts programs in the Pashto language. It is important to note that the readers of Pashto publications, and Pashto TV audiences are mainly adult/first generation immigrants. Topics are politically focused and are not aimed at addressing the need of the youth and their interests such as improving literacy skills, which will be discussed in GIDS Stages 4–6. The few programs that are focused on young Pashto speakers are often broadcasted in English. Table 2: GIDS Stage 1: Language is used in higher education, occupation, mass media, governmental institutions throughout the United States and Canada. N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Q25. Pashto is used in schools and universities throughout the United States/Canada

74

17

11

22

24

Q26. Pashto is the official language used at workplaces throughout the United States/ Canada

74

9

6

27

32

Q27. Pashto is used in governmental institutions throughout the United States/ Canada

74

12

4

30

28

Q28. Pashto is used by the mass media (TV, radio, etc.) throughout the United States/ Canada

74

8

12

32

22

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Table 3: GIDS Stage 2: Language is used for local governmental services and regional mass media. N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Q29. Pashto is used at the LOCAL governmental agencies in my town/city

74

10

8

28

28

Q30. Pashto is used by my local TV and radio stations, for general public

74

13

9

27

25

6.3 Graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS) Stage 3 GIDS Stage 3 refers to the use of Pashto in local and regional work. The data in Table 4 is promising. Some respondents (43%) indicated that Pashto is used in their community (Q31). Another 26% stated that Pashto is used to conduct business (Q32). Some Afghan-/Pashtun-owned businesses (47%) can remain closed to observe Pashtun/ Muslims national holidays such as Eid, Nowruz, and first day of Ramadan (Q 34). On the contrary, 81% responded that Pashto is not the language of business with non-Pashtun customers in their communities (Q33). Table 4: GIDS Stage 3: Language is used for local and regional work by both Pashtun and non- Pashtun (other Americans/Canadians). N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Q31. Pashto is most often used in my community 74

11

31

22

10

Q32. Pashto is used to conduct business between Afghans/Pashtuns in my community

74

21

34

12

7

Q33. Pashto is used to conduct business with non-Pashto speaking customers in my community

74

3

11

39

21

Q34. In Pashtun-owned businesses that serve all Americans, the business can remain closed on ethnocultural holidays (Eid, New Year/ Nowruz, first day of Ramadan, etc.).

74

12

27

24

11

6.4 Graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS) Stage 4 GIDS State 4 refers to the existences of type 4a schools in the United States and Canada that can be attended in lieu of formal education. As the data in Table 5 indicates, over 65% of respondents in the study have indicated that public schools offer regular

12 Language Maintenance and Language Shift 

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Table 5: GIDS Stage 4: Language literacy is provided through formal education. 4a. Public schools. N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Q35. Public schools regularly offer Pashto classes

74

8

9

31

26

Q36. Public schools offer Pashto entertainment, religious units, youth clubs, sport teams, and summer camps

74

10

13

28

25

Q37. Public schools offer community events organized in coordination with the Afghan/ Pashtun communities

74

8

18

26

22

Pashto classes in their communities (Q35–37). Although some entities and institutions of higher education offer regular classes, the majority are United States Department of Defense sponsored programs. These programs are primarily need-based and military focused (DoDLTC 2020). The data in Table 6 demonstrates that 4b schools exist in some Pashto-speaking communities in the United States and Canada. However, those schools do not provide full-time schooling using Pashto as the medium of instruction. Over 50% of participants have raised their concerns about the lack of such infrastructure in their communities (Q30–40). The Pashto type 4b schools are usually taught by native speakers who have received their education in Afghanistan through the traditional method/banking system (Saydee 2015). In the traditional method, teachers play an active role in the class. Instruction is highly teacher-centered, and curriculum is based on grammar translation approaches. The Pashto type 4b schools are usually offered in mosques, and the curriculum is more focused on religious studies. Sometimes type 4b schools’ curriculum can cause more damage than good (Fishman 1991) as the curriculum is not thematic, or standards-based, and as such it may fail to nurture a sense of pride in students about their native language and culture, further helping them to build empathy toward speakers of that language (Saydee 2016). Table 6: GIDS Stage 4: Language literacy is provided through formal education. 4b. Private/ community-based schools. N Q38. The Pashto speaking community offers regular full-time schooling with Pashto used as the medium of instruction

74

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

7

12

36

19

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Table 6 (continued) N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Q39. The Pashto speaking community offers regular part-time schooling with Pashto used as the medium of instruction

74

8

16

33

17

Q40. The Pashto speaking community-based school(s) requires families to pay tuition for their children at school

74

13

23

30

8

6.5 Graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS) Stage 5 GIDS Stage 5 is about providing literacy education though community-based schools. The education provided by these schools help children develop reading and writing skills in the target language. It is not aimed to satisfy the requirements of compulsory education in the United States and or Canada. The data in Table 7 indicates that adults possess the required literacy skills to communicate in the written form, read books, and translate passages. However, children lack such skills. The majority of children are not able to write and read text messages in Pashto. They are also not able to read Pashto books or translate Pashto text into English – and vice versa (Q44–46). Community-based schools exist in many United States and Canadian cities where Pashtuns have established communities. However, those schools are not government-financed institutions. They are run by native speakers who volunteer their time. In most cases, native speakers who teach classes are not equipped with knowledge of best practices in teaching and learning (Saydee 2016). In addition, classes are often offered once a week for 2–4 hours, which is not sufficient for children to develop higher reading and writing proficiency skills. It is worth mentioning that Pashto is a category IV in terms of learning difficulty. According to the Defense Language Institute guidelines for proficiency, a Pashto language student needs 64 weeks of intensive well-organized training in order to develop proficiency in the language. Thus a few hours of informal schooling are not sufficient to help students obtain rudimentary proficiency in reading and writing Pashto (Ali, 2012; DLIFLC, 2020).

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12 Language Maintenance and Language Shift 

Table 7: GIDS Stage 5: Language literacy is maintained and enhanced by all generations, and it is used effectively in written form. N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Q41. I use Pashto when sending/receiving text messages to/from my family members, Afghan/Pashtun friends, etc.

70

26

23

14

7

Q42. I read Pashto books/passages

69

27

29

9

4

Q43. I can translate a paragraph-length Pashto text to English and vice versa

72

37

27

3

5

Q44. My children use Pashto when sending/ receiving text messages to/from family members, Afghan/Pashtun friends, etc.

62

6

14

23

19

Q45. My children read Pashto books/passages.

59

8

16

25

10

Q46. My children can translate a paragraphlength Pashto text to English and vice versa

56

7

18

19

12

6.6 Graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS) Stage 6 The data in Table 8 indicates that the majority of adult participants feel comfortable using Pashto at home, school, and in socially and culturally organized events. More than 90% indicated that they speak Pashto at home and elsewhere. More than 50% also indicated that they use Pashto at school and for business. More than 60% stated that they feel comfortable using Pashto during cultural activities. However, since the United States government has categorized Pashto as one of the languages critical to the nation’s interests following 9/11, many Pashto native speakers work or have worked for law enforcement institutions in the United States and Canada as translators, and cultural advisors. Nonetheless, the data demonstrates that more than 50% of participants do not feel comfortable using Pashto with teachers, to teach others, or in a restaurant to order food. It seems Pashto is most frequently used at home and in cultural community events. When participants were asked to express their level of agreement with each statement about how, and in what situation, their children feel comfortable using Pashto, more that 70% indicated that their children feel comfortable using Pashto at home and with extended members of their family. More than 50% also stated that their children can use Pashto to teach someone, or tell jokes. On the contrary, more than 64% of the parents indicated that their children do not feel comfortable using Pashto at school, at restaurants to order food, or when playing Pashto games.

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Table 8: GIDS Stage 6: Language is used orally by adult Pashto speakers (Q48–49). N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto at home with all family members (grandparents/parents/siblings)

73

45

24

3

1

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto outside of the house with family and extended family members

74

36

33

3

3

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto at school with teachers

64

11

15

25

13

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto in front of a classroom

64

17

17

22

8

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto at business meeting

68

13

20

25

10

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto when teaching Pashto to someone

69

25

35

6

3

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto when ordering at a restaurant

67

15

21

25

6

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto when playing games

66

14

28

20

4

I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto when telling stories and traditional folktales to my children

69

25

29

15

–

As data in the Participant section reflected, about 47% of the participants’ children were born in Afghanistan/Pakistan and then migrated to the United States. Technically, they are considered first generation immigrants. This information can explain the disparity of parents’ responses in Table 9 in relation to their children’s level of comfort with the Pashto language. Table 9: GIDS Stage 6: Language is used orally by children. N

Strongly Agree Disagree Strongly Agree Disagree

My children feel comfortable speaking/using Pashto at home with all family members (grandparents/parents/siblings)

65

25

29

6

5

My children feel comfortable speaking/using Pashto outside of the house with family and extended family members

66

21

26

12

7

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Table 9 (continued) N

Strongly Agree Disagree Strongly Agree Disagree

My children feel comfortable speaking/using Pashto at school with teachers

60

4

6

37

13

My children feel comfortable speaking/using Pashto in front of a classroom

58

5

15

28

10

My children feel comfortable teaching Pashto to someone 61

9

24

16

12

My children feel comfortable using Pashto when ordering at a restaurant

61

7

11

32

11

My children feel comfortable using Pashto when playing Pashto games

58

6

15

28

9

My children feel comfortable telling stories/jokes

61

9

22

22

8

The data in Tables 8 and 9 suggests that the Pashto language in the United States and Canada is entering the GIDS Stage 6. It is clear that a slow erosion of language is occurring with children as they do not feel comfortable using the Pashto language in public. Children are motivated to learn and use Pashto, but motivation alone is not sufficient to prevent language loss, at least from the RLS perspective (Fishman 1991). Adult efforts are required to maintain language use across generational lines.

6.7 Graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS) Stage 7 As the data in Table 10 confirms, Pashto is not at GIDS Stage 7 as many adults are fluent speakers of Pashto, and who keep the link between the Pashtun generations intact. Adults are vibrant and socially integrated in non-English community events. The data indicates that 78% of participants participate in local community-sponsored activities, religious ceremonies, and cultural festivals. There are a number of Pashto publications available. Additionally, elderly Pashtuns (84%) regularly interact with young Pashto speakers through socially organized events, local TV channels that broadcast in Pashto, and community-based schools. Table 10: GIDS Stage 7: Elderly Pashtuns are socially integrated, but they are beyond child-bearing age. N

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

I participate in Afghan/Pashto social events

74

28

40

6

–

I interact with Afghan/Pashto youth, share my experience with them in Pashto

74

26

36

11

1

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6.8 Graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS) Stage 8 The Pashto language has not gone so far as to be considered for GIDS Stage 8. There are more than 40 million Pashto speakers around the world and more than 100 thousand live in the United States and Canada. Adequate dictionaries, formal grammar and textbooks, and authentic materials are available to support the maintenance of the Pashto language in the United States and Canada. Research Question 2. What factors contribute to language maintenance and loss within the Pashtun communities in the United States and Canada? The data from GIDS Stages 4–6 indicates that Pashto is thriving withing the adult/ first generation immigrant Pashto speaking communities. Pashtuns have access to Pashto resources and use the language at home and in the community. Pashtuns also participate in culturally- organized events and functions. Nevertheless, the situation is a bit different with Pashto speaker youths, i.e., second or third generations. They can communicate in Pashto orally, but not in the written format. The data from GIDS Stage 5 (Table 7) indicates that Pashto speakers are experiencing a slow language shift as the second/third generations do not have, or are losing, their literacy skills. The majority of participants (68%) in the survey indicated that their children do not communicate in written form in Pashto. Another 55% reported that their children cannot translate a paragraph-length Pashto text into English and vice versa. Literacy skills (the ability to read and write) is highly crucial in developing proficiency in a language. Currently, it seems that Pashto speakers do not have the required infrastructure, such as schools with professional teachers and standards-based curriculum, to teach literacy skills to their children. The majority of community-based/ weekend schools are run by volunteer teachers. These volunteers may lack the required teaching skills and knowledge of best practices to provide an effective teaching and learning experience to students (Saydee, 2014).

7 Discussion Pashto is not considered an endangered language as it has more than 40 million speakers around the world. The status of the Pashto language and culture in the United States and Canada is also not in a dire condition for first-generation Pashto speaker immigrants. While Pashto is not part of the formal education curriculum in the United States and Canada, the language is taught at the Department of Defense and Department of States sponsored language training programs. However, students of such programs are usually not of heritage descendent. The purpose of Deportment of Defense and

12 Language Maintenance and Language Shift 

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Department of States language training programs are to enhance the United States military and diplomatic personnel’s linguist capacity and cultural competence to allow them to compete in the global arena (DoDLTC 2020). Recognition of Pashto as one of the critical languages to national security has created an opportunity for Pashto speakers to support and develop their native language and culture. The governments provide funding through different projects to support the teaching and learning of critical languages, including Pashto (GIDS Stage 1). A few participants (24%) also agreed with the statement that Pashto is used at the governmental agencies in their communities. These participants may have been referring to translation and interpretation services that are available in local governmental agencies, but it is not clear from the dataset (GIDS State 2). Pashtuns live in immigrant communities where they participate in ethnocultural activities to maintain their Pashtun identity. These immigrants use Pashto at home and in their communities. Parents in the survey also indicated that they speak Pashto with their children. In addition, they have established businesses in many cities throughout the United States and Canada (GIDS State 3). Concerns were raised in regard to Pashto language maintenance in GIDS Stage 4a where the status of providing Pashto language and culture literacy skills though formal education is investigated. Although, as indicated earlier, Pashto is taught in military-focused training programs at some institutions of higher learning, it is not included in regular school curriculum. (Saydee 2014). There are community-based schools that provide classes to interested children on the weekends, but their curriculum is focused more on religious teachings rather than teaching Pashto literacy skills (GIDS Stage 4b). Most of those schools are offered inside mosques and are primarily focused on religious studies. In these schools, teachers utilize traditional teaching practices and deliver highly teacher-centered and grammar-based instruction. These practices cause students to get frustrated with language learning and decreases their level of motivation. Additionally, type 4b schools often operate with financial assistance from community members. In most cases, the schools lack enough resources to improve instructional quality by offering teacher/professional development and providing supplemental learning materials including textbooks, dictionaries, tablets, etc. Another challenge that type 4b schools may face is having native speakers as teachers. These native speakers often have received their education in their home country through traditional methods of instruction. This situation creates a mismatch as concerns a mutual teacher-student expectations, i.e., an understood paradigm clearly outlining the best teaching and learning practices. Also, enrollment in type 4b schools is optional. For those who are enrolled, attendance is not enforced in these weekend schools.

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When we consider the status of intergenerational transmission, the findings of this study suggest that the Pashto language has slipped from GIDS Stage 4b to the threshold of GIDS Stage 5 and 6 as second generation Pashto speakers are not able to communicate in the written form. Based on the UNESCO factor Assessment Rubric, Pashto is rated 4 meaning it is Unsafe. The findings of this study confirm that Pashtuns are not immune to RLS, and they are experiencing a shift to mainstream language and culture, as it is the case with all immigrant communities (Fisher 1991).

8 Conclusion and recommendations The Pashto language is spoken by over 40 million people around the world, particularly in Afghanistan and the northwest frontier of Pakistan. Afghans began immigrating to the United States and Canada on a large scale in the late 1980s following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. While Pashto speaking immigrants have found access to better lives in the United States and Canada, they have risked losing their heritage language and culture (Saydee 2014). To slow down the erosion of language shift, Fisher has introduced an eight stage Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) to explain the stages of language shift and help immigrant communities take action and reverse or, at least, slow down the erosion of heritage language in lieu of mainstream language and culture. The higher the GIDS stage, the more unsafe the language is, meaning those languages which reach the GIDS Stage 8 are extinct. The findings of this study show that Pashto is on the threshold of GIDS Stages 5 and 6. At this stage, speakers of a language, especially second and third generations, lose their literacy skills and cannot communicate in the written form. Pashto speakers can take some measures to reverse the language shift and ensure intergenerational continuity of their native language and culture: (1) They can establish schools to provide standards-based education to their children; (2) Reaching out to the federal government to support teaching and learning of Pashto through educational programs and proper funding. One of the programs that supports critical languages is the STARTALK program which is administered by the University of Maryland. Currently, Pashto is not among the languages that STARTALK supports (STARTALK 2020). However, the members of Pashto-speaking communities can advocate for Pashto to be included in the list; and (3) Pashtun parents can focus more on developing their children’s literacy skills by reading and writing.

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Appendix A: Questionnaire Note: The terms Afghan and Pashtun have been used interchangeably The term non-Afghans refers to other American nationals Background Information How old are you?

18–25

26–35

36–45

46–60

Above 61

How old were you when you came to the United States?

18–25

26–35

36–45

46–60

Above 61

What is your gender?

M

F

Where were you born?

Afg.

US

Others

What is your highest level of education?

No sc

High S

BA

Master

Phd

Do you have children? If so

Yes

No

How old are your children?

1–5

6–10

11–15

16–17

18 +

What is your children’s gender?

M

F

When and how did you learn to speak Pashto? Check all that apply – As a child – As an adult – In school – In language class or program – From my parents – From my grandparents – From speakers outside my family – I taught myself – From books – I never learned Pashto What other languages do you speak? What is the language you speak most often now? What is your job? How many people do you think speak Pashto in your community? About you Children

Where were they born? When and how did your children learn to speak Pashto? Check all that apply – In school – In language class or program – At home – From speakers outside my family – Self-taught – From books – Never learned Pashto

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(continued) What other languages do your children speak? Which language does your children use most with their siblings and Afghan friends?

Attitudes and Beliefs

SA

A

Unsure

D

SD

D

SD

D

SD

I like speaking Pashto. My children like speaking Pashto. It is more important to speak English today than Pashto. English has changed the communication between yourself and your family members including children? Traditional culture can Not survive without the traditional language

GIDS Stage 1: Pashto is used in higher level education, work, mass media throughout the United States SA

A

Unsure

Pashto is used in schools and universities throughout the United States. Pashto is the official language used at workplace throughout the United States. Pashto is used in governmental institutions throughout the United States. Pashto is used by the mass media (TV, radio, etc.) throughout the United States.

GIDS Stage 2: Pashto is used for LOCAL governmental services and regional mass media. SA Pashto is used at the LOCAL governmental agencies in my town/city. Pashto is used in the township-level government offices. Pashto is used by my local TV and radio stations (for all Americans).

A

Unsure

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12 Language Maintenance and Language Shift 

(continued) GIDS Stage 3: Pashto is used for local and regional work by both Afghans and non-Afghans (other Americans). SA

A

Unsure

D

SD

SA

A

Unsure

D

SD

SA

A

Unsure

D

SD

D

SD

Pashto is most often used in the community. Pashto is used to conduct business with Afghans/Pashtuns. Pashto is used to conduct business with Non-Afghan customers. In a Pashtun owned businesses that serve all Americans, Afghans can still speak in Pashto to keep their business record in Pashto. In Pashtun owned businesses that serve all Americans, the business can remain closed on ethnocultural holidays (Eid, New Year/Nowruz, first day of Ramadan, etc.).

GIDS Stage 4: Pashto literacy is provided thought formal education. 4a. Public schools

Public schools offer regular Pashto classes. Public schools offer Pashto entertainment, religious units, youth clubs, sport teams, and summer camps. Public schools offer community events organized in coordination with the Afghan/Pashtun communities. 4b. Private/community-based schools

The Afghan community offers regular full-time schooling through Pashto as the medium of instruction. The Afghan community offers regular part-time schooling through Pashto as the medium of instruction. The Afghan community-based school(s) requires families to pay tuition for their children at school.

GIDS Stage 5: Pashto literacy is maintained and enhanced by all generations and it is used effectively in written form. SA I use Pashto when sending/receiving text messages to/from my family members, Afghan friends, etc.? I read Pashto books/passages.

A

Unsure

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(continued) I can translate a paragraph-length Pashto text to English and vice versa. My children use Pashto when sending/receiving text messages to/ from family members, Afghan friends, etc. My children read Pashto books/passages. My children can translate a paragraph-length Pashto text to English and vice versa. The followings are available in Pashto in my town/city: – Library Books – Dictionaries – Music – Video/Movies – Children’s stories – Educational Materials – Smartphone Apps or Computer programs

GIDS Stage 6: Pashto is used Orally by all generations including children. I feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto in the following situations?

SA

A

Unsure

D

SD

SA

A

Unsure

D

SD

– At home with all family members (grandparents/parents/siblings – Outside of the house with family and extended family members – At school with teachers – In front of a classroom – At a business meeting – Teaching Pashto to someone – Ordering at a restaurant – Playing games – Telling stories and traditional folktales to my children using Pashto My children feel comfortable speaking/using only Pashto in the following situations: – At home with all family members (grandparents/parents/siblings). – Outside of the house with family and extended family members – At school with teachers – In front of a classroom – Teaching Pashto to someone

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(continued) – Ordering at a restaurant – Playing games – Telling stories/jokes

GIDS Stage 7: Elderly Pashtuns/Afghans are socially integrated, but they are beyond child-bearing age. SA

A

Unsure

D

SD

I participate in Afghan social events. I interact with Afghan youth, share my experience with them in Pashto.

GIDS Stage 8: Pashto has few speakers of older generation. n/a

References Ali, Kishwar. 2012. Understanding The Cognitive Domain of the Pashto Learners. DTLLS. file:///Users/sayadfaridsaydee/Downloads/ UNDERSTANDINGTHECOGNITIVEDOMAINOFTHEPASHTOLEARNERSFinaldraft.pdf (accessed on 11 August 2020) Baker, Colin. 2006. Foundations of bilingual education. 4th edn. Ontario, Canada: British Library. CeLCAR. 2020. Who are the Pashtuns and where do they live? Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region. IU. https://celcar.indiana.edu/materials/language-portal/pashto/index.html (accessed on 11 August 2020) DLIFLC. 2020. Languages offered. Category IV languages. Retrieved from https://www.dliflc.edu/ about/languages-at-dliflc/ (accessed on 22 May 2020) DoDLTC. 2020. A department of defense initiative. Retrieved fromhttps://www.dodltc.org/about-ltc (accessed on 20 July 2020) Dupree, Louis. 2002. Afghanistan. Oxford University Press. Dwyer, Arienne. 2009. Tools and techniques for endangered-language assessment and Revitalization In Vitality and Viability of Minority Languages. University of Kansas. Retrieved from https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/7109 (accessed on 17 June 2020) Eigo, Tim. 2020. Afghan Americans. Countries and their cultures. Online available at https://www. everyculture.com/multi/A-Br/Afghan-Americans.html (accessed on 18 July 2020). Fishman, Joshua. 1991. Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters García, Isabel., & Munir, Bakht. 2016. Origins of the Pashto Language and Phases of its Literary Evolution. Journal of Research in Humanities LII. 145–167. (University of Punjab) Online

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available at: http://pu.edu.pk/home/journal/jrh/V_LII_DEC_2016.html (accessed on 22 May 2020) Ḥabibi, Abdul Hai. 2003. Afghanistan: An Abridged History. US: Fenestra Books. Harrison, David. 2007. When languages die. New York: Oxford University Press. Heath, Jennifer & Ashraf Zahedi. 2011. Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Morgenstierne, Georg. 2003. A new etymological vocabulary of Pashto. Compiled and edited by J. Elfenbein, D.N. MacKenzie & Nicholas Sims-Williams. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. Stammerjohann, Harro. 2009. Lexicon Grammaticorum: A Bio-Bibliographical Companion to the History of Linguistics. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Peyton, Joy, Ranard Donald & Scott McGinnis. 2001. Heritage languages in America: preserving a national resource. language in education: theory and practice. Online available at https://eric. ed.gov/?id=ED458809 (accessed on 18 June 2020) Rzehak, Lutz. 2011. Doing Pashto: Pashtunwali as the ideal of honorable behaviour and tribal life among the Pashtuns. Afghanistan Analysts Network. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/10/20110321LRPashtunwali-FINAL.pdf” Lutz Rzehak: Doing Pashto (afghanistan-analysts.org) Saydee, Farid. 2016. Less commonly taught languages: factors that shape teachers’ beliefs and guide their practices. Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages 20. 63–9. Online available at: http://www.ncolctl.org/jncolctl/jncolctl-editions (accessed on 17 July 2020) Saydee, Farid. 2015. Foreign language teaching: a study of teachers’ beliefs about effective teaching and learning methodologies. Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages. Online available at: http://www.ncolctl.org/files/Foreign_language_teaching.pdf (accessed on 17 July 2020) Saydee, Farid. 2014. Loss of culture, loss of language: an Afghan-American community. Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages. Online available at: http://www. ncolctl.org/files/Loss-of-Culture.pdf (accessed on 17 July 2020) STARTALK. 2020. About STARTALK. Retrieved from https://startalk.umd.edu/public/about (accessed on 15 June 2020) Tegey, Habibulah & Barbara Robson. 1996. A reference grammar of Pashto. Washington D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. uOttawa. 2020. Compendium of language management in Canada (The Indo-European Family). Online available at https://www.uottawa.ca/clmc/indo-european-family (accessed on 17 June 2020) UNESCO. 2003. Language vitality and (Presented at the International Expert Meeting on UNESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages), Paris: UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages. Online available at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000183699 University of Peshawar. 2021. Establishment of Pashto Academy. Online available at http://www. uop.edu.pk/about/?q=genesis (accessed on 18 June 2020) US Census Bureau. 2016. Pashtun Americans. Online available at https://www.census.gov/search-results. html?q=Pashtun+Americans&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web&cssp=SERP&_ charset_=UTF-8 (accessed on 22 May 2020) US Census Bureau. 2016. Detailed languages spoken at home and ability to speak English for the population 5 years and over: 2009–2013. Online available at https://www.census.gov/data/ tables/2013/demo/2009-2013-lang-tables.html (accessed on 22 May 2020) US Census Bureau. 2010. Pashtun Americans. Online available at https://www.census.gov/search-results. html?q=Pashtun+Americans&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web&cssp=SERP&_ charset_=UTF-8 (accessed on 22 May 2020)

Anousha Sedighi

13 Persian as a Diasporic Language in the United States: A Survey of Heritage Persian Learners at College Level Abstract: The United States hosts the largest population of Iranians outside Iran. There has been a wealth of scholarship on the topic of Iranian diaspora mainly focusing on sociological and anthropological aspects with fewer studies focusing on psychological and linguistic issues. The first part of this chapter provides a transdisciplinary overview of the existing research on the Iranian diaspora to familiarize the readers with the highlights of this emerging field. The second part of the chapter is a new research on the college level heritage speakers of Persian in the United States and tackles a large array of issues such as language attitude, language use and literacy practices, identity and belonging, parental and community attitudes, language policy, and language vitality. The research employs quantitative and qualitative methods. A survey consisting of a 50-item questionnaire, with both multiple-choice and open-ended questions, was designed and then completed by 45 heritage speakers of Persian at college level. The survey was followed up by informal interviews. The findings of this study have important implications for scholars of heritage languages, educators, curriculum developers, and policy makers.

1 Introduction As migration and globalization grows, diaspora and migration studies are becoming increasingly more important. Studies on the Iranian-American diaspora flourished after the mass migration of Iranians after the revolution (Askari et al. 1977, Ansari 1992, Bozorgmehr 1998 Naficy 1993, among others). Since then, scholars have tackled the topic of Iranian diaspora from a variety of perspectives such as sociological, anthropological, psychological, and linguistic points of view. The first part of this study provides a transdisciplinary overview of the existing research on the topic to help the broader audience attain a comprehensive understanding of this emerging field. The second part of this chapter showcases a new research designed to explore the language attitudes, and language use of heritage Persian speakers at college level. The main survey was based on a 50-item questionnaire consisting of both open-ended and multiple-choice items that was completed by 45 heritage learners. The data was collected from second and third generation Iranians between the ages of 18–34. Data collection was followed up by informal interviews.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-013

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The structure of this chapter is as follows: Section Two provides an overview of literature on Iranian diaspora. This section serves as a starting point for scholars pursuing research on heritage Persian. Section Three introduces the current research, its methodology and instrumentation, and discusses the qualitative and quantitative survey and results. Section Four is the discussion. Section Five reports the limitations of the study and discusses the current challenges and needs, and puts forward ideas for future research and collaborations. Section Six summarizes the chapter.

2 Overview of literature As previously mentioned, Iranian diaspora within the U.S. has been studied from a variety of perspectives including the sociological, anthropological aspects, and less widely explored from the psychological and linguistic points of view. While providing a thorough study of Iranian diaspora is beyond the scope of this paper, this section provides a bird’s eye view of the existing literature that can serve as a foundation for future researchers to further explore the topic. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the literature that encompasses various disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, providing an analysis for each cited reference is beyond the scope of expertise of the author of this work. Thus, the subsequent sections might be best described as an annotated bibliography rather than an analysis of each cited reference.

2.1 Language maintenance and loss This section focuses on the studies that discuss the role of language maintenance within the Iranian diaspora. Ansari’s (1992) book reports on a case study of Iranian-Americans in the United States from a sociological perspective. In terms of language maintenance, he argues that the phenomenon of language loyalty found in some other immigrant groups (such as Hungarian) has not prevailed among Iranian immigrant children, who show some resistance to their parents’ attempts to teach them Persian. Mahdi (1997 & 1998) conducts a national survey of second-generation Iranian youths in the United States and examines the concepts of ethnic, cultural, and national identity. Mahdi’s results show that the majority of participants could speak and understand Persian. However, 60% of participants could not read or write. Mahdi also makes the interesting observation that the notion of “Iranian identity” among second-generation Iranians is more “symbolic” than “behavioral”; and values, norms, and symbols are not as easily accessible to them as they are to their parents. He further points out the importance of a unified community which has a positive effect toward the maintenance of the heritage language. For instance, he argues that in an area with a higher concentration of Iranians (such as Los Angeles)

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a higher percentage of heritage speakers maintained their language skills as opposed to areas with a lower percentage of Iranians where the usage of the heritage language is not a norm in the community. Modarresi (2001) provides a sociolinguistic study of heritage Persian speakers which gives a general view of the status of Persian in the Iranian community in the United States. He notes that second generation Iranians seem to be in the frustrating position of being American by birth on the one hand, and bearing the stigma of being a foreigner on the other hand, owing this to the anti-Iranian sentiments during the hostage crisis and thereafter: “The first-generation Iranians have been trying to preserve their linguistic and cultural heritage and introduce it to their children through various means such as national Iranian ceremonies, radio and TV programs, newspapers, magazines, books, etc. However, since the process of Americanization applies powerful pressure, the second generation needs stronger cultural motivations and supports to resist language shift” (Modarresi 2001: 93). Najafi’s Ph.D. dissertation (2009) examines the state of the maintenance of Persian language among Iranians in the United States and examines the data from secondary sources such as the U.S. Census (2000) and the Iranian Survey (2007). Najafi’s research shows that among second generation Iranians 70.3% understand Persian, 55% speak Persian, 27% can read in Persian, and 21.6 % can write. She concludes that the rate of Persian loss as an oral language is 45% and that the rate of language loss as a literate language is at a rate of almost 75%. Earlier, Mahdi’s (1997 & 1998) research showed that 60% of second-generation Iranians could not read or write in Persian. These two studies have been conducted a decade apart, and one can see that, unfortunately, within ten years the rate of language loss has increased by 15%. Najafi concludes that as an oral language Persian might get transferred to the third generation but, as for most immigrant languages, the literate language will die after the second generation. Najafi acknowledges the limitations of her data, mainly since the secondary sources of data were not originally designed for a linguistic study.

2.2 Parental attitudes Family and parental attitudes are extremely crucial in the development and maintenance of the heritage language. After all, family and parents are the ties that connect the children to their heritage language. Following Fishman (1966), Modarresi (2001) points to an interesting factor which is the role of Iranian women in the language maintenance of their children. He states that children, in families whose mothers appreciate the Iranian cultural heritage, have a relatively better command of Persian: “Mothers who love the Iranian cultural heritage and the Persian language try harder to teach Persian to their children, and, thus, they actually play a very important part in the process of maintenance of Persian in the next generation” (Modarresi 2001: 111). Additionally, Modarresi highlights the role of grandparents and relatives visiting from

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Iran, who spend a considerable time with the children, as well as frequent trips of children with the parents to Iran as crucial factors toward the maintenance of the Persian language in second generation Iranians. Rohani et al. (2006) explore the role of the family in language maintenance, focusing on immigrant families living around New York City from six language backgrounds: Cantonese, Persian, Japanese, Spanish, and Urdu. The key questions include: What factors contribute to the maintenance of language within each language group? What specific efforts are made by families across groups to maintain language? How does each group vary in determination and attitude towards language maintenance? For each language group, interviews were conducted with six participants, three born in the United States and three born elsewhere who came to the United States before sixth grade. The Persian component of the study focuses on the Iranian Baha’is. The results indicate that Baha’I families have no sound language maintenance program for their children. Issues such as lack of access to the home country due to persecution and natural assimilation into the American culture are the major factors contributing to this language loss. Moeini Meybodi’s M.A. dissertation (2014), and Bozorgmehr and Moeini Meybodi (2016), adopt the data from the American Community Survey as well as 48 interviews with East Coast Iranian Americans to examine the attitude and behavior of children of Iranian immigrants, and their parents, towards Persian language learning and maintenance. Their quantitative data were supplemented by in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of Iranian American families on their behavior and attitudes toward learning and preserving their heritage language. Bozorgmehr and Moeini Meybodi (2016) show that parents and children displayed a positive attitude and behavior toward Persian language maintenance. They argue that as transnational families, parents have created a “tool kit” to ensure that Persian will persist at least through the second generation. They report that “maintaining transnational ties, attending weekly cultural and religious events, Persian language instruction, and encouraging the use of Persian language at home” were among the most important mechanisms of ethnic language maintenance. Their findings indicate that, at least for young children, the general consensus of “language erosion” is not supported. Faghihi’s M.A. dissertation (2017) examines the reasons behind the lack of language proficiency by focusing on the role of Iranian parents and families in encouraging their children’s Persian language and literacy acquisition and maintenance. Her findings are based on the reflective analysis and evaluation of semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, a questionnaire, and participant observation. The results of her research indicate that families have been moderately successful in maintaining the spoken language in their household. However, literacy skills are “on the brink” of disappearing among the second and third generation Iranian Americans in the U.S. She argues that Iranian immigrant parents’ strong bias in favor of English, motivated by education and/or socio-economical reasons, has endangered the heritage language literacy skills of their children.

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Salahshoor’s Ph.D. dissertation (2017) explores the Iranian-American parents’ perspectives and attitudes towards the language maintenance of their children in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. It also focuses on the challenges that parents face in maintaining their children’s’ heritage language as well as the role of the Persian community in heritage language development and maintenance. Data were collected through parents’ responses to a demographic questionnaire and interviews, classroom observations, and a semester-long reflection journal. Her results indicate that Iranian-American parents thought that learning Persian is highly important and they had various expectations for their children in regards to reading, writing, speaking, and understanding. The parents also indicated their efforts to help their children maintain heritage language by encouraging them to speak it at home and taking them to community events such as dance and Persian New Year festivals. Interestingly, the parents involved in this study viewed heritage language learning not only a means of communication, but also as a “tool for their children to get exposed to the cultural values and practices of their heritage background in order to preserve their culture and identity”. Salahshoor’s (2017: 150) research indicates that mothers were more proactive in these efforts, and most fathers were supportive of their wife’s efforts, and helped as much as they could.

2.3 Psychological aspects Fewer studies have focused on the psychological aspects of being a second-generation Iranian-American, a topic that deserves much needed attention. In a ground-breaking study, Jalali (2005) focuses on the basic Iranian cultural characteristics that influence people, irrespective of social class. She explores the Iranian family structure, including traditional and modern families living in Iran, and Iranian families living in the U.S. Among many interesting ideas and observations, she states that intergenerational ties are extremely close, and in-laws often live together and help raise the children. She distinguishes between traditional and modern families in the sense that modern families typically do not live with their in-laws. She argues that Iranian-American families often grapple with finding a balance between maintaining traditional values and adapting to American expectations: parents struggle with their children’s expectations of parental authority, and fathers in particular may interpret their children’s youthful attitude or obstinance as disrespect. Another interesting observation by Jalali (2005) is the fact that second-generation Iranian-American children, whose patents are not fluent in English often help their parents navigate the details of the host country, helping them make sense of American culture. She argues that the responsibility of carrying the load of their parents’ lack of communication skills could manifest as psychological or mental difficulty. Following (Boutakidis, Rodriguez, & Chao 2011), Jalali (2005) points out the possibility of “subtractive bilingualism” where a child’s fluency of their native language begins to deteriorate as a result of using

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English in American schools, suggesting that the relationship between parent and child may be affected by limited communication due to a diminishing language usage. Haeri Darya’s Ph.D. dissertation (2006) explores the life experiences and challenges of second generation Iranian-Americans by examining the relationship between their ethnicity and psychological well-being. She focuses on the implications of growing up in an unfavorable social/political climate for second generation Iranian-Americans. She utilizes a mixed methodology consisting of both quantitative and qualitative measures to explore the relationship amongst the variables in her research questions. The results of her study indicate that majority of second generation Iranian-Americans reported to have bicultural orientation with high level of ethnic identity, and similarly a high level of acculturation to mainstream culture. The findings also indicated an overall flexibility among participants that would likely help them to negotiate, construct, and reconstruct a meaningful sense of self through their social and cultural interactions. The pattern of flexibility was further evident in coping with stress which Darya argues to be a helpful attribute. Haeri Darya (2006) also measures psychological well-being using a multidimensional scale with the components of autonomy, purpose in life, environmental mastery, personal growth, and positive relations with others. The positive sense of well-being was found to be related to bicultural orientation, personal resources, and parental support that help this young generation to meet life’s challenges. Overall, Haeri Darya’s research sounds promising in the sense that despite various levels of hardship encountered and experienced by second-generation Iranian-Americans, the reality of the situation is not as grim as one would imagine. She argues that access to two distinct cultures equips the second-generation Iranian-Americans with better coping strategies, otherwise absent in the mono-cultural population. Ramezanzadeh’s Ph.D. dissertation (2010) studies the effects of socio-psychological factors on heritage Persian language loss and maintenance. She conducts a deductive thematic analysis of coding of 22 college students. Her findings lead to some interesting issues related to identity. She observes that identification with Iran among her subjects was complex: Iran is politically, religiously, and ethnically “othered”. Thus, students strategically align themselves with different aspects of their identity at different times and spaces depending on the audience and the effect they hope to achieve. Forouzan’s Masters dissertation (2015) studies second-generation Iranian-American young adults who have struggled with understanding and exploring their ethnic identity. Forouzan argues that immigrant families have experienced the ongoing stress of acculturation, which has left an impact on second-generation individuals attempting to balance their identities between multiple cultures. Forouzan (2015) designed a workshop to guide participants through understanding the multifaceted issues they have undergone and puts them into the context of their own lives. She argues that factors influencing one’s identity confusion include diminished psychological well-being, life-cycle stages, and relationships between the generations. She

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argues that parents need to provide a structured environment designed to address the ways in which these factors impact the lives of young adults. Participants conclude the workshop by being encouraged to use their own life-story to connect with others, linking their personal narrative to the concepts discussed in the workshop and ultimately beginning a dialogue amongst Iranian-Americans.

2.4 Language policy and bilingual education The United States has been built by immigrants so language maintenance and bilingual education has been an ongoing issue within the education system. However, each ethnicity has its own story and implications are different for different heritage languages. In an interesting study, Hoffman (1988) studies a secondary school in Los Angeles with a large population of Iranian students. Her results show that the school was not successful in acknowledging the Iranian students’ national origin including their language and national holidays. Iranians collectively were viewed negatively by the teachers, not because of the lack of academic ambition or poor performance but due to the students’ lack of respect for the rules and regulations of the school. Iranians resisted the implicit educational mission of the school and maintained their affiliation with Iran. They devised various modes of resistance to overcome what they perceived as the school’s preoccupation with rules and regulations. The teachers, in turn, perceived these actions as bypassing the rules. Shavarini’s (2004) studies the second generation Iranian-Americans from a variety of perspectives. In terms of maintenance of the heritage language, Shavarini (2004, p: 141) states: “One salient component of successful assimilation into American society for second-generation Iranians has been the acquisition and perfection of English. Rather than being forbidden or discouraged to speak English at home, they were encouraged. Mastering English meant that second generation Iranians would improve their academic performance and further guarantee their success in higher education.” Furthermore, Shavarini indicates that while some of the supporters of bilingual education argue that promoting English over the heritage language is harmful towards their cultural identity, her research shows that the promotion of English among second-generation Iranians does not necessarily mean they have lost their ethnic culture and heritage because their heritage and culture is nurtured in a variety of contexts that go beyond only the language. Atoofi (2011, 2013a, and 2013b) embarks on a study to evaluate the linguistic markers of affect for the students and teachers. Atoofi observes that teachers’ strategies include linguistic repetition as a poetic device to influence students as they coached students to do the same. He also argues that teachers used affective communication for class management and discipline and that affect was frequently used to create hierarchical differences. On the other hand, students used affective display to align their class interaction based on the output received from the interlocutor.

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Shirazi & Borjian (2012) study the Persian bilingual and community education among Iranian-Americans in New York City by conducting an in-depth study of nine Iranian Americans living in New York City as well as examining the Persian community language schools in that area. Contrary to Roshani et al.’s (2006) work, the findings of this study show that the Iranian American community is actively involved in making an effort for their children to learn their heritage language as a means of providing them with “additional avenues of expression, additional connections to their families, additional exposure to cultural diversity, and additional tools to further their intellectual development and academic proficiency”. Miremadi (2014) studies the motivational factors for heritage and second language learners of Persian through a 40-item questionnaire. Responses were subjected to descriptive analyses to capture salient features of students’ responses. The results of his descriptive analyses exhibit differences in motivation of students from the two universities. The main reasons for learning were reported as culture, geopolitical issues (possible future relations between United States and Iran), and interest in knowing their parents’ mother tongue. Shirazi (2014) studies how a Persian community-organized language school serves as a site of diasporic cultural production and examines how the school serves as a site to teach the Persian language, delimit cultural meanings, and facilitate a sense of belonging and community membership amongst a diverse population of parents and children. Shirazi reports that community education efforts remain vital to the understanding and exploration of notions of identity and culture that may be socially contested within diasporic communities.

2.5 Linguistic studies The linguistic aspects of Persian as a heritage language deserves much exploration in order to provide the best road map for heritage speakers to advance their language skills. Cagri, Jackson, & Megerdoomian (2007) conduct a comprehensive linguistic study to test a wide range of language features in Persian phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, collocation, and comprehension totaling 56 distinct test sets through a computer-based battery project. They controlled the items for frequency, vocabulary level, and register. The subjects were both heritage learners and second language learners. Subject responses were measured for accuracy and reaction time. They conclude that heritage learners are faster than second language learners across the board and perform better in argument structure (causatives), and formation of complex conversational sentences (sequence of tenses). On the other hand, they conclude that second language learners perform better on elements not frequent in conversational language such as Arabic broken plurals. This result could be due to the fact that the second language learners had already learned Arabic. They also argue that

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English-like structures such as preposition subcategorization hinder heritage learners more than second language learners. Sedighi (2010) studies the linguistic abilities of heritage Persian speakers and examines them from a variety of perspectives including their syntax, phonetics, phonology, lexicon, as well as identity, motivation, and parental attitudes, while shedding light on the existing limitations of Persian heritage language instruction at the college level. She emphasizes the importance for the Iranian community and academia to pay attention to the maintenance of their children’s Persian language skills. Moore & Sadegholvad (2013) conduct a survey on heritage learners’ performance in exams and other assignments and focus on morphological, syntactic and orthographic errors. Their data was collected from 26 undergraduate students enrolled in the lower-level Heritage Persian course. They report that heritage Persian speakers exhibit colloquial usage, transfer effects, and simplification. They also argue that the phonetic and phonological inefficiencies of the heritage speakers affect their orthography. Based on their study of the linguistics markers of heritage speakers, Moore & Sadegholvad (2013) propose a specific methodology to create authentic and concrete context for learning to address the differences between heritage and standard/baseline language. Sedighi (2018) builds on the previous work and studies the characteristics of heritage Persian speakers by identifying the recurrent features of their linguistic and metalinguistic profiles from a variety of perspectives including language style, phonetics, phonology, lexicon, syntax, sociocultural norms, language attitude, identity, motivation, and community and parental attitudes. Sedighi (2018) also compares the performance of heritage speaker with that of a native speaker as well as a second language learner. The findings of the research provide implications that can help educators, curriculum and textbook designers identify the areas that require more focus and attention. Methods of data collection are through a questionnaire, recorded spontaneous speech prior to entering the Persian language classes, and class performance in a mixed class with second language learners. She reports that the most common challenging areas for heritage speakers are: language style, polite/honorific forms, phonetics, phonology, lexicon, and syntax: relative clauses, continuous past tense, present perfect tense, future tense, and passive construction. There area however many areas where heritage speakers’ abilities and performance resemble those of a native speaker while second language learners tend to struggle in such areas. These areas are: rate of speech, word order, overt subject, exceptions to verbal agreement, generic nouns, specific direct object marker, the Ezāfe construction, order of nouns and adjectives, imperative, and language chunk and formulaic speech. This study provides a great resource for curriculum developers to focus on the areas of problem and strengthen the more challenging areas in order to help the heritage learners achieve native-like proficiency in an effective and accelerated manner.

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3 Current study: Methodology The present study explores the language attitudes and language use of heritage Persian speakers at the college level. The research attempts to shed light on the language maintenance and vitality of Persian as a heritage language in the United States, which is home to the largest population of the Iranian diaspora. The data was drawn in a mixed-methods format which consisted of a questionnaire and informal follow-up interviews. A survey was designed with a 50-item questionnaire consisting of both open-ended and multiple-choice items. A total of 45 college-level heritage speakers of Persian participated in the study. The data was collected from male and female second-generation Iranians between the ages of 18 and 34 with mean age of 25. Among the total of 45 participants, 33 were female (N=33; 73%) and 12 were male (N=12; 23%). The birthplace of the majority of the participants is outside Iran, while a small number of them left Iran prior to primary school. They have been exposed to the Persian language mainly at home, with their extended family, in the Iranian community, the internet, and the media sources such as Iranian television and satellite programs. A small number of the participants had received Persian language instruction as a child in the Persian language community language schools. In terms of the data collection procedure, the participants were requested to complete the online survey on a voluntary basis. The following ethical considerations were taken to account in this research: in order to protect the participants’ anonymity and avoid any potential sensitivity to reveal their private information, the names of the participants were not recorded. Moreover, in order to avoid any potential conflict of interests, only former students who were not taking heritage Persian courses at the time of the survey were selected to participate. No existing students, were included in the survey.

3.1 Instrumentation This research draws on data from a mixed-methods study including a questionnaire and informal follow-up interviews. The main data collection tool in this research was a questionnaire consisting of 50 items that included both multiple choices and openended questions (See Appendix A). The questionnaire was inspired by Qin’s questionnaire (2006) which in turn has adopted the content of reliable and piloted surveys such as Feuerverger (1991) and Gardner & Lambert (1972). The questionnaire however was modified to include additional components that have not been tackled in the aforementioned surveys. This is due to the fact that those questionnaires were designed for speakers of heritage languages in general and were not language-specific. Since the current study focuses on Iranian-American heritage speakers, various components of the questionnaire were tailored to capture the specific intricacies of the heritage Persian speakers including the geopolitical dynamics between the U.S. and Iran.

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The questionnaire consisted of the following six sections. The first section was about the demographic information. The second section included questions regarding the education level of the participants in the heritage. The third section was focused on the participants’ self-assessment of their proficiency level in the heritage language. The fourth section of the survey focused on the participants’ feelings and attitudes towards their heritage language and included novel questions such as “Does the negative portray of Iranians in the U.S. politics bother you?”. The fifth section was geared towards the domains of heritage language use. The last section was devoted to the participants’ perceived parental attitudes towards their heritage language acquisition and maintenance. All sections included open-ended questions in order to allow the participants to express their feelings and experiences in their own words. The second tool for data collection was informal follow-up interviews. The follow-up interviews were intentionally pivoted to be informal in order to maximize the participants’ comfort level in order to elicit most accurate results. During the interviews, the participants were intentionally given ability guide the direction of the discussion in order to create space for authentic feedback to emerge, while still exploring answers to the research questions. Below, the data collection tools and results are discussed below.

3.2 Quantitative survey and results In this section, the six components of the quantitative survey will be introduced and the results will be provided. The first component was the demographics of the participants.

3.2.1 Demographics In terms of the birthplace, out of 45 participants, 38 were born in the United States. The majority were born in the West Coast (Oregon and California) and the rest were born in other parts of the country such Florida, Colorado, and Connecticut. Only four of the respondents were born in Iran and had left Iran between the ages of 4 to 7. Also, 3 respondents were born in Europe and came to the U.S. prior to the elementary school (Figure 1). In terms of the language use during childhood, Figure 2 indicates that while a high number of the participants solely used Persian until the age of 5, almost all of them switched to using only English after age 12 with the highest percentage of the English usage between the ages of 13–18 years old. This can be attributed to the peer pressure that is involved during puberty and the possible stigma of using an ethnic language. Beyond the age of 18, the English language usage slightly drops as students enter college and start valuing their heritage language once again.

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7% 9% US Iran Europe

84%

Figure 1: Birthplace of participants. 40

36

35

30

30 25

30

24

20

15

15

12

10 5 0

3

6 0

Persian 0–5 years old

15 9

0 English 6–12 years old

13–18 years old

Both 18+ years old

Figure 2: Language use at different ages.

As the previous studies on heritage learners of other languages have indicated, children do tend to converse in the dominant language (English) as soon as they start kindergarten or primary school where they get in daily contact with peers speaking the dominant language. Because of peer pressure, they often feel that their heritage language is a barrier to their “fitting in” with their peers and classmates (Modarresi 2001). At an older age, the urge to learn and speak their heritage language re-flourishes and that is when they feel the gap in their heritage language abilities. The data collected in this study are in accord with the above statements. Figure 3 demonstrates the parental language use. As can be seen, a low percentage of the participants’ mother were a native speaker of Spanish. Therefore, the fact that the figure indicates a higher number of fathers speaking Persian might be slightly affected by the aforementioned factor. The same goes for the higher number

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of mothers speaking English than Persian. Overall, parents have been using both Persian and English almost equally. 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Mother

Father

Persian

English

Both

Spanish

Figure 3: Parental language use.

In terms of parental academic background, the majority of mothers held a bachelors degree and more fathers held a masters or Ph.D. degrees. All of the mothers had obtained a high school diploma while there was at least one father without a high school diploma (Figure 4). With respect to the parents’ proficiency level of Persian, Figure 5, demonstrates that the majority of the fathers were fluent in Persian. Again, the reason that the figure shows lower scores for mothers is due to the fact that some of them were native speakers of other languages such as Spanish or English. Also, the reports of “poor” levels of Persian proficiency for parents represent the non-Persian speaker parents. 25 20 15 10 5 0

None

HS

Associate Mother

Figure 4: Parental education level.

Bachelors Father

Masters

Ph.D.

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45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Excellent

Very Good

Good Mother

Fair

Poor

father

Figure 5: Parents’ proficiency level of Persian language.

3.2.2 Formal education in heritage language None of the participants had completed their high school degree in a Persian-speaking country. As can be seen in Figure 6, the majority of participants had attended Persian community language classes at some point throughout their childhood with the range being from a couple of months to five years.

40%

60%

Yes

No

Figure 6: Participation in Persian community language classes.

With respect to the community language classes, overall, they had a positive experience but they did not like the fact that they had to do more scholastic work during the weekend. Here are some of their feedback:

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“My teacher was very strict and the curriculum was dry, and it was a 6th day of school or interfered with sports or musical activities.” “I think I learned a lot about spelling and grammar.” “I learned basic conversational skills.” “It was hard to learn and my parents were always expecting that I would be fluent after one lesson!”

3.2.3 Self-assessment of proficiency level in heritage language Clearly, the assessment of one’s own proficiency level is not an objective and reliable source especially when it comes to comparing one’s self-assessment with another. However, this is an interesting factor that Sedighi (2010 & 2018) has previously discussed. The results of this survey indicate that the majority of the participants (27%) have self-assessed their overall Persian language proficiency level as “fair” (Figure 7). Incidentally, this indicates a “fair” judgment on the part of the participants. Also, equal number of the participants have self-assessed their overall Persian language proficiency level as “excellent” and “good” at 20%. The “excellent” ratings are indeed debatable but this is a further testament to Sedighi (2010 & 2018) where it is reported that heritage speakers of Persian often tend to over-estimate their Persian language proficiency level, which often creates issues with their initial placement and also in mixed language classes with second language learners. Lastly, 13% of the participants have self-assessed their overall Persian language proficiency level as “poor”. Figure 8, breaks down the proficiency level based on the language skills. In terms of speaking, equal number of participants have self-assessed their level at “very good”, “good” and “poor”, while 14% have rated as “fair”. None of the participants rated their speaking skill as “excellent”.

20%

13%

20%

27% 20%

Excellent

Very good

Good

Fair

Poor

Figure 7: Overall proficiency level in Persian language.

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In terms of understanding, 33% have rated themselves as “good”, 31% have rated themselves as “fair” and 29% have rated themselves as “poor”. Only 7% of the participants have self-assessed their understanding as “very good”, while none of the participants have self-assed as “excellent”. With regards to reading skills, 67% have rated themselves as “fair”, 13% have rated themselves as “good” and 13% have rated themselves as “poor”. Only 7% have rated themselves as “very good”, while none of the participants have rated themselves as “excellent”. Lastly, in terms of writing skills, 42% have self-assed themselves as “fair”, 17% as “good”, 33% as poor, and 8% as “very good”. None of the participants have self-assessed their writing skill as excellent. 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Speaking Excellent

Understanding Very good

Reading Good

Fair

Writing Poor

Figure 8: Proficiency level based on language skills.

3.2.4 Feelings and attitudes towards the heritage language This section aims to tackle a variety of issues regarding feelings and attitudes towards the heritage language as well as identification with the one’s ethnic background. Data collected through this research shows that according to Figure 9, 87% of the participants reported that maintaining their heritage language is “very important” to them, 6% reported that it is “important” to them and almost equal amount (7%) reported that it is “unimportant” to them. None of the participants chose the options “fairly important” and “just so, so”. This is a promising result indeed. Figure 10 shows that in terms of self-identification with their hyphenated identity, 80% of the participants self-identified as Iranian-American, 13% self-identified as American, while 7% self-identified as Iranian. The question had an open-ended component where “other” options could be included and the following were among the mentioned choices: Mix, Persian, Persian-American.

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45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Very Important

Important

Fairly Important

Just so so

Unimportant

Figure 9: The importance of maintaining the heritage language

7%

13%

80%

American

Iranian-American

Iranian

Figure 10: Self-identification.

Regarding motivation and reasons for learning their heritage language (Figure 11), 25% of the participants reported “learning about cultural roots”, 24% of the participants reported “communicating with family and friends abroad”, and 22% of the participants reported “communicating with family and friends in the U.S.” as their reason. Fulfilling a language requirement and preparing for a travel to the heritage country received the equal scores of 11%. Only 5% reported “because it is easy for me” and only 3% reported “to enhance career opportunities”. The design of the question was in a way that students could choose more than one option. Thus, thus one might assume that these numbers indicate that heritage speakers are mainly interested in increasing their ancestral roots and communication with family and friends and less concerned about career opportunities, whereas second language learners usually

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report enhancing career opportunities among the reasons for learning Persian. This could also be due to the fact that typically, Iranian families encourage their children to pursue careers in the medical field and engineering so students do not feel that language proficiency in a less commonly taught language could enhance their career opportunities but in fact that is not always the case. 40 30

33

30

33 15

20

15

10

6

3

0

1 To Learn about my cultural roots To communicate better with family and friends in the U.S. To communicate better with family and friends abroad To fulfill a language requirement To enhance career opportunities To prepare for travel to my country of origin Because it is easy for me

Figure 11: Reasons for learning the heritage language.

To tackle the notion of belonging, the next question asks if the participants feel connected to their heritage language community. The results show that 47% of the participants agreed that they feel connected to their heritage language community, 33% neither agreed nor disagreed, 13% strongly agreed, and 7% did not feel integrated into their heritage language community. None of the participants chose the “strongly disagree” option (Figure 12). 7%

0% 13%

33%

47%

Strongly agree

Agree

Neither agree or disagree

Disagree

Strongly disagreec

Figure 12: Do you feel integrated into your heritage language community?

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The flowing section of the survey aimed to explore the psycholinguistic issues of bilingualism by designing a variety of questions that are provided below. Figure 13 shows that 60% of the participants believe that their thought process is happening in the English language, while 40% of them believe that they use the Persian language in their thought process. None of the participants chose the option “both”. This result is intriguing considering the earlier data regarding the overall proficiency level in language and thus requires further investigation.

40%

60%

English

Persian

Figure 13: Do you feel like you “think” in English or Persian?

In the next question, the participants were asked about the language they use when experiencing intense feelings such as happiness, anger, etc. The results are provided in Figure 14. As can be seen, 53% of the participants chose English, 40% chose Persian, and 7% chose both. This result is similar to the previous question that inquired about the language used during the thought process. The next question asks about the choice of language when the participants are using terms of endearment addressing their loved one or pet (Figure 15). The results show that 53% of the participants chose Persian, 40% chose both, and only 7% chose English as the language they use for terms of endearment. This result shows that the participants use Persian more often when using terms of endearment. This is yet another fascinating observation which stems from the fact that the participants were more likely raised by parents who have been mainly using Persian with them as a child and thus the participants have internalized the Persian terms of endearment more so than the English ones. The fact that Persian is more of a poetic language vs

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English which is more of a scientific language also comes to play as the Persian language allows for more exaggeration,1 while English is pretty factual.

40%

53%

7% English

Persian

both

Figure 14: Expression of intense feelings. 7%

40%

53%

English

Persian

both

Figure 15: Language choice for terms of endearment.

The next question asks participants about their choice of language: “If need arises for using a swear word, which language would you use?”. In contrast to the previous

1 A good example of this claim is the Persian terms of endearment such as “ghorboon-et beram” (spoken form) which literally means “I sacrifice myself for you” but simply means “I am very fond of you”.

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question about terms of endearment where the majority chose Persian, when it comes to using swear words, English takes the lead. The results show that 67% of the participants chose English, 20% use both, and only 13% use Persian for swearing (Figure 16). This is yet again another fascinating fining of the current survey which indicates that heritage speakers have a hard time using their heritage language while swearing. The reason is mainly cultural as using a swear word in Persian is more of a taboo than in English. One could argue that this is due to the level of respect that the participants demonstrate towards their ancestral language. It can also be that unlike terms of endearment, their inventory of Persian swear words is rather limited as they have not been exposed to such words in their heritage language. However, due to abundance of western media, exposure to English swearwords is practically inevitable.

20%

13%

67%

English

Persian

both

Figure 16: Language choice for swear words.

Regarding the aspects of the Persian language that they find enjoyable, Figure 17 indicates that the majority of participants report “belonging” as the main factor, followed by the factor of “familiarity”. They also report that they like the way it sounds; and the poetic aspects of the Persian language is reported as the least important. This question had an open-ended component where participants could add their own choice and among the interesting responses were the “uncommonness” of the Persian language and the fact that they can talk in public “discreetly” through their heritage language. The next question aims to tackle the issue of culture, which is broader than language and encompasses many intrinsic issues. Figure 18, indicates “having strong family ties” has been reported as the most important factor, followed by “food”. The next choice has been reported as “using polite pronouns”. Tārof,2 which is the social

2 Tārof (‫)تعارف‬ is a set of polite behaviors practiced in Iranian and neighboring countries. According ُ

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40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

The way it sound

It is poetic

You have a sense of belonging to it

It is familiar

Figure 17: Which aspect of the Persian language do you enjoy?

etiquette and is exercised in a variety of situations, is the least favorite aspect of their heritage culture. This is of course not surprising considering the fact that the notion of Tārof does not exist in the American culture and as a result, is not practiced on a daily basis. In the open-ended section, the participants reported “chai/tea”, “music”, “hospitality”, “celebrations”, “Nowruz (Persian New Year)” and “religion” as aspects of their heritage culture that the enjoy. 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Food

Tarof

Using polite pronouns for elderly

Family connections

Figure 18: Which aspect of Persian culture do you enjoy?

to the concept of Ta’ārof, social etiquette obligates one to behave “politely” towards others (including unfamiliar and familiar people). Ta’ārof covers a wide range of behaviors and may cause people to give up their true wants and needs.

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The next question, is asking about the aspects of the Persian culture that the participants do not enjoy. As can be seen in Figure 19, ‘tārof” stands out as the sole option that the participants least enjoy. In the open-ended section, the participants reported “tardiness”, “gossip”, “the need to show-off”, and “being nosy” as the aspects of their heritage culture that they do not enjoy. 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Using polite pronouns for elderly

Tarof

Family connections

Figure 19: Which aspect of Persian culture do you not enjoy?

In the overview of literature, many studies were introduced that discuss the negative effects of the political turmoil between the U.S. and Iran on the heritage Persian speakers. Being from an ethnic background that is regularly portrayed negatively in the U.S. media is an issue that requires an in-depth investigation. Thus, the next question is aimed at evaluating the feelings of the participants towards this situation. As can be seen in Figure 20, 58% of the participants report that they are always bothered by the negative portray of Iranians in the U.S. politics, 27% report that they are often bothered, 13% report that they are sometimes bothered, and only 2% report that they are never bothered by it. One respondent made a valid correction to the question and indicated that the word “Iranians” should have been replaced with “Iran” as the media is negatively portraying the government not the people. In order to tackle the issue of language vitality for the next generation, the next question asks the importance of learning the heritage language for their children. As can be seen in Figure 21, 80% of the participants reported that it is “very important” for their children to learn Persian; 13%responded that it is “somewhat” important; and 7% responded that it is not important at all. This is promising as there are other heritage languages that have witnessed a complete attrition and loss by the third generation. Of course, “action talked louder than words” so only time will tell whether or not this belief of the participants will materialize itself.

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0%

2%

13%

27%

Always

58%

Often

Sometimes

Seldom,

Never

Figure 20: Does the negative portray of Iranians in the U.S. politics bother you? 7% 13%

80%

Very important

Somewhat important

Not important at all

Figure 21: How important is it for you to have your children learn Persian?

3.2.5 Domains of language use This section is focused on the domains of language use by the participants. Figure 22 shows that 67% of the participants reported that they speak English most of the times while 33% reported the use Persian most of the time. The subsequent questions aim to dig deeper into the language use.

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33%

67%

0%

English

Persian

both

Figure 22: What language do you speak most of the time?

Figure 23 shows the language use based on different skills. For the speaking skill, the majority (48%) of the participants chose that they “sometimes” speak in Persian. Respectively, 18% of the participants reported that they “always” and “often” speak in Persian and lastly, 13% of the participants reported that they seldom speak in Persian. None of the participants chose the option “never” for speaking in Persian which is expected considering that they are heritage “speakers” after all. 25 20 15 10 5 0

Speaking Always

Reading Often

Sometimes

Write Seldom

Never

Figure 23: Language use based on skills.

In terms of reading skills, Figure 23 indicates that, similar to the speaking skills, 48% of the participants “sometimes” read in Persian. Here, the point that needs to be considered is that the majority of the participants had taken at least one term of Persian language at college level through which they usually gain basic literacy skills. The result might have been different had the data been collected from heritage speakers

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who had not previously taken any Persian courses. The data also shows that 13% of the participants “often” read in Persian, while 27% of the participants “seldom” read in Persian and less than 1% “never” read in Persian. None of the participants chose the option “always” for reading skills. With respect to writing skills, 40% of the participants chose the options “sometimes” and “seldom” respectively, while less than 1% chose the option “often”, 13% chose the option “never”, and none of the participants chose the option “always” for writing skills. Figure 24 provides the various types of interaction to find out the context where the heritage language use occurs most. The participants mainly used their heritage language with the extended family, and they also used it equally with their parents, grandparents, and friends. This is an interesting result as one would expect them to use their heritage language more with parents and grand-parents than friends. However, the survey did not take into account how many of the participants had grandparents with whom they were in contact. Moreover, since the majority of the participants had taken Persian language classes at college level, it is possible that the Persian language use occurs among their classmates who had continued to be in touch after the language class had ended. The participants used their heritage language the least when interacting with their siblings. The survey did not ask if they were younger siblings or older and it would have been interesting to see the answer to that question. The survey had an open-ended question about other interactions that the participants conduct in Persian and among the answers was “dating apps” which is interesting because it indicates that the participant has been actively trying to find a partner that shares the same heritage. 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Parents

Siblings

Grandparents

Extended family

Friends

Figure 24: Language use based on the interaction.

The next question focuses on the activities that prompts the participants to use their heritage language. As can be seen in Figure 25, “listening to music” surpasses all other

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activities. This is followed by “speaking on the phone” after which three activities of “texting”, “using social media” and “watching a movie” receive the same scores. This is followed by the other two activities of “visiting a Persian website” and “watching TV”. The last two activities that the participants use the Persian language for are recorded as “writing an email” and “listening to radio”. Considering that “listening to music” and “texting” had much higher usage, one might argue that the last two options show the flaw of the survey which is not geared towards the lifestyles of the millennials and generation z’s. Otherwise, “listening to the radio” should not have been included as the new generation use other resources to listen to the music and communicate via “text” as opposed to “email”. 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

1 Writing an email

Texting

Using social media

Visiting a Persian website

Watching TV

Listening to music

Watching a movie

Listening to radio

Spoking on the phone

Figure 25: Language use based on the activity.

The next question was focused on the importance of improving their heritage language based on a variety of criteria including the language skills as well as improving grammatical accuracy and increasing their vocabulary bank. The question is formed in the following way: “On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “not important” and 5 being “extremely important”, how important is it for you to improve the following in Persian? As can be seen in Figure 26, the participants consider the most important areas to improve as “speaking”, “listening” and increased vocabulary”. This is followed by “reading” and “writing”, while the last area that is desired to improve is “grammatical accuracy”. The next area that the survey has focused on is the issue of accent. Figure 27 indicates that 89% of the participants believe they have an accent when speaking in Persian, while 11% of them believe that they do not have an accent. The next question is aimed to elicit the inhibiting factors towards the development and maintenance of their heritage language. The responses indicate that the most important factor towards their heritage language development is “lack of time”

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40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Speaking

Listening

Reading 1

2

Writing 3

4

Grammatical Increased accuracy vocabulary

5

Figure 26: Importance of improving the components of the heritage language. 11%

89%

Yes

No

Figure 27: Accent in heritage language.

(Figure 28). After that, in a descending order, the following factors were reported: “lack of access to the heritage language”, “lack of motivation”, “lack of Persian language classes” and lastly “native speakers’ negative attitude”.

3.2.6 Perceived parental attitudes This section focuses on perceived parental attitude towards the language development and maintenance of the heritage language. Figure 29 indicates that overall, parents were strongly supportive of their children’s’ development and maintenance of their heritage language. The slight difference in the number of fathers being support-

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30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Lack of time

Lack of access to Persian language

Lack of motivation

Lack of Persian language classes

Native speaker’s negative attitude

Figure 28: Inhibiting factor towards your development/maintenance of heritage language.

ive could be due to the fact that the number of fathers with Iranian heritage is higher. The same goes for the slight percentage of participants who chose “didn’t care” under the category of “mother”. 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Mother Strongly supportive

Father Supportive

Sort of Supportive

Didn’t Care

Opposing

Figure 29: Parental attitude towards heritage language when growing up.

In terms parental language use of the heritage language, Figure 30 indicates the amount of time that the parents spoke in Persian with the participants. As can be seen, 40% of the participants reported that their parents “always” conversed with them in Persian, 27% report that their parents conversed with them in Persian “often”, 20% report that their parents “seldom” spoke with them in Persian, 6% report “sometimes” and 7% report that their parents never spoke with them in Persian.

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7%

20% 40%

6%

27% Always

Often

Sometimes

Seldom

Never

Figure 30: How often do your parents speak in Persian to you?

Figure 31 is providing data about way that the participants’ parents (or grandparents) supported them in learning or maintenance of heritage language. As can be seen, the two responses of “Bought story books in Persian” and “Took you on trips back home” receive the equal percentage of 31% of the time, while the other two

19%

31%

19%

31% Read bedtime stories in Persian to you Sent you to Persion community/after school Bought you storybooks in your heritage language Took you on trips back home for visits Figure 31: Ways that parents supported your heritage language maintenance.

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responses “Read bedtime stories in Persian” and “Sent you to Persian community/ after school” receive the equal responses of 19% of the time.

3.3 Qualitative survey and results In order to triangulate the data, 10 participants from the questionnaire phase volunteered to participate in an informal interview. The interview sessions were held on the telephone or via zoom. The follow-up questions were aimed to elicit responses on a number of areas including their attitudes and feelings towards their heritage language, attitudes and feeling towards their hyphenated nationality, and family language policy. The interviews were designed to be informal in order to maximize the participants’ comfort level and to elicit the most authentic results. During the interviews, the participants were intentionally given ability guide the direction of the discussion in order to create space for authentic feedback to emerge, while still exploring answers to the research questions. Among the participants, 8 were selected for the interview. The interviews were conducted in English which is the dominant language of the participants so that they could share their ideas with ease. The analysis of the interview pointed to the saliency of three recurring and interrelated themes. Below, each of these themes is introduced and discussed. The most salient theme repeatedly emerging during the interviews pertained to the participants’ lack of satisfaction with their parents’ efforts towards maintaining their heritage language skills. The participants expressed a significant degree of discontent with respect to their contact with the Persian language and mainly held their parents responsible for this oversight. They expressed regrets towards the fact that their parents did not continuously speak to them in Persian and if they did, did not request an answer back in Persian. Sedighi (2010 & 2018) argues that with the hectic life of the twenty first century, and the unique cultural, social, political, economic, linguistic, and educational challenges immigrants face, it is unfair to put too much blame on the parents with regards to the amount of time they spend speaking in their heritage language to their children. Yet, this crucial task must not be overlooked and needs to be taken seriously. In terms of the practicality, the usage of the dominant language between parents and children is at times inevitable. As Namei (2008) observes, there are times that it is more practical and straightforward for parents to discuss certain topics, such as scholastic matters, in the dominant language. Furthermore, there are certain concepts in the host culture that do not exist in the Persian culture and lexicon. For instance, the word “potluck” does not have an equivalent in Persian as the Persian hospitality dictates that the host always prepares food for the guests. Sedighi (2010) also reports that heritage speakers whose parents are both Iranian usually have stronger Persian language skills than those with only one Iranian parent. This is mainly due to the fact that immigrant couples often tend to converse in their

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native tongue with each other and that creates more opportunities for children to overhear and perhaps utilize the Persian language. Sedighi (2010) also reports that typically, among students who have only one Persian parent, those with a Persian mother have better Persian language skills than those with a Persian father. This is due to the fact that mothers usually tend to spend more time with their children especially during the young age. This issue goes hand in hand with Modarresi’s (2001) observation on the role of Iranian women in the language maintenance of their children. The second recurring theme in the interviews was the level of satisfaction the participants reported in taking the college level heritage Persian course. This was not necessarily due to their satisfaction with the improvement of their heritage language skills, rather, they stated that the sense of community that was present during the classes had created long-lasting friendships between them and their fellow heritage Persian classmates. They believed that their lack of involvement in the Iranian community was compensated by the interactions with their fellow heritage Persian classmates in and beyond classroom. This included class field trips such as going to Persian movies that were screened locally and attending Iranian festivities such as Nowruz organized by the Iranian community. The last recurring theme was the attitude of the extended family, friends, relatives, and the Persian community towards their maintenance of Persian language. The participants indicated a general level of satisfaction with the support they receive from the extended family, friends, relatives, and the Persian community. With respect to their accent which others them from the native speaker, they shared the following: “They find it cute.” “They react with kindness.” “They want to teach the correct pronunciation.” “They make me feel self-conscious.” “They tell me that I sound Spanish.”

This data was somewhat in contrast to the quantitative survey, where only 47% of the participants reported that they feel integrated into the heritage community. It could be that the selected participants for the qualitative survey just happened to be among those who scored higher to this question. Regardless, Iranian community should make a better effort in helping the heritage speakers to feel integrated into their community. In addition to the parental roles, community-based organization need to set up a stronger outreach recruiting for the younger generation to get involved by asking them to help volunteer for community events such as Nowruz and other Iranian celebration.

4 Discussion The results from the present research on heritage Persian speakers at college level showed that they generally demonstrate a positive attitude towards their heritage lan-

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guage. Overall, 87% of the participants indicated that it is “very important” for them to maintain their heritage language skills and 80% of the participants feel a sense of belonging to their heritage language. This is indeed very promising towards the goal of improving and maintaining their language skills as life-long learners. However, the participants report a series of factors that hinder their heritage language maintenance. In a descending order, the participants report the following as the most inhibiting factor towards their heritage language development: “lack of time”, “lack of access to the heritage language”, “lack of motivation”, “lack of Persian language classes” and lastly “native speakers’ negative attitude”. In terms of language use, 67% of the participants reported that they use English most of the time and 33% reported that they use both. Not surprisingly, they reported that they use the heritage language mainly when speaking, and they use it the least for writing. The domain of heritage language use is reported as extended family, parents, grand parents and friends. It is interesting to see that heritage speakers use their heritage language more with the extended family than with their own parents. Another interesting observation is that they do not use the heritage language with their siblings but they use it with friends (who obviously speak the language). With respect to the language use based on the activity type, listening to music takes the highest place, followed by talking on the phone, watching a movie, and using the social media and texting. The participants also reported the importance of improving their skills as the following (in the order of importance): speaking, increased vocabulary, listening, reading, writing, and grammatical accuracy. Regarding motivating factors for learning heritage languages, the reasons were reported as “learning about cultural roots” and “communicating with family and friends abroad and at home”. The reported reasons are in contrast with the motivation for second language learners who usually report “to enhance career opportunities” as one of the main reasons for learning Persian. One interesting observation that can be made here is that generally speaking, Iranian families encourage their children to pursue careers in the medical field and engineering so students do not feel that language proficiency in a less commonly taught language could enhance their career opportunities but in fact that is not always the case. Digging into the psycholinguistic aspects of the issue, 60% of the participants feel that their thought process happens in English. Moreover, 53% of the participants reported that they express intense feelings in English, and only 40% of them use English for terms of endearment. These number shod that heritage speakers tend to use Persian when expressing intense feelings. It can be argued that since the terms of endearment used towards them as child has been in Persian and thus they have picked them up and have continued to utilize them throughout their life. Lastly, 67% of the participants reported that they use English for swear words. This is again another fascinating observation made by the current survey which indicates that heritage speakers have a hard time using their heritage language while swearing. The reason is mainly cultural as using a swear word in Persian is more of a taboo than

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in English. It also shows the level of respect that the heritage speakers demonstrate towards their ancestral language. It can also be that unlike terms of endearment, their inventory of Persian swear words is rather limited as they have not been expose to such words in their heritage language. However, due to abundance of western media, exposure to English swearwords is practically inevitable. When asked about the aspects of the Persian language that they enjoy most, the majority of the participants reported “belonging” and “familiarity”, while few reported “discreteness” and “uncommonness” as the aspects they enjoy about their heritage language. The issue of cultural differences is a double-edge sword. Sedighi (2010) argues that the way heritage learners carry themselves, their discourse, gestures, facial expressions, and even the way they sit in class are more affected by their dominant language and culture than their heritage culture. This issue might create a gap between heritage speakers and other members of the Iranian community. It will also be a differentiating factor when they visit Iran and are exposed to the authentic settings and interactions in Iran. Subsequently, Sedighi (2010) states that sometimes, while heritage speakers are behaving completely politely in their own mind, their mannerism might come across as rude or ignorant in the eyes of native speakers who are unfamiliar with the dominant culture of heritage speakers. They may not completely follow the concepts of Tārof (social etiquette) as they are mainly immersed in the dominant language’s cultural norms. Such cultural mismatches can create a negative barrier to heritage speakers’ assimilation with their heritage community and culture. The above points were clearly reflected in the current survey’s results. The participants felt a disconnect with some of the cultural norms such as “Tarof” and found it unnecessary and at times annoying. Additionally, the participants reported “tardiness”, “gossip”, “the need to show-off”, and “being noisy” as the aspects of their heritage culture that they do not enjoy. Regarding the cultural aspects of their heritage culture that they enjoy most, the participants reported “ family connections” and “food” at the top of their list. This was followed by other factors such as hospitality, tea/chai, music, celebrations, religion, and Nowruz/Persian New Year. Several studies have addressed heritage speakers and the issue of identity for other languages. These studies have mainly focused on the cultural and socio-psychological struggles of heritage speakers. For instance, Hornberger & Wang (2008, p: 5) state the following: “defining heritage language learners requires far more than simply assessing their linguistic abilities and determining the relationship between their dominant language and home language.” Heath (1983), Trueba and Zou (1994) among others have argued that the heritage culture and ideologies of heritage speakers have to constantly compete with their dominant culture and ideologies. Erickson and Schultz (1982) state that heritage individuals must constantly choose, construct and perform their social identities based on the different group of people they associate with. In the overview of literatures, a series of language specific research was introduced that looked at the issue of identity within the complexities of U.S.-Iran relations. As presented in the overview of literature section, the socio-political factors

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that heritage Persian speakers deal with have been previously studied by several scholars such as Mahdi (1998), Modarresi (2001), Shivarini (2004), and Ramezanzadeh (2010). Due to political issues between Iran and western countries, the issue of identity for heritage Persian speakers differs from that for other languages. How people view themselves with respect to others and the world around them is an important and multi-disciplinary field of study. Also, the way the host country views people of a certain culture or nation will adds to the complexity of identity issues of heritage learners of a language. Ramezanzadeh (2010) describes the situation of heritage Persian speakers as being considered “othered” politically, religiously, and ethnically. She concludes that students strategically align themselves with different aspects of their identity at different times and spaces depending on the audience and the effect they hope to achieve. The present survey results show that 58% of participants seemed to be bothered by this issue. At the same time, their open-ended answers showed that they were content and proud of their ethnic background. There were some references to the usage of the term “Persian” that they seemed to prefer over the term “Iranian” so there still seemed to be a certain level of concern with stating the nationality whereas stating their ethnicity was more preferred by them.

5 Limitations, challenges, and further research Several factors that can be considered as the limitations of the study were briefly mentioned earlier. The most important limitation is the fact that even though the participants were originally from different parts of the U.S. (see Figure 1), they were mainly residing in one region (Portland metro area) and had attended the same institution. Thus, the participants do not constitute a representative sample of the entire target population of heritage speakers of Persian in the United States. Future studies with a larger body of participants from several universities need to be conducted before making reliable generalization. The other issue is “self-assessment” of the language proficiency which is not an objective approach, especially as previous studies such as Sedighi (2010 & 2018) indicate the heritage speakers often over-estimate their language proficiency level. Some of the questions (such as listening to the radio) were outdated and not suitable for the life-style of the current generation. Even though there was an explicit question about parents’ proficiency level of Persian, there was not an explicit question about the background of the parents in terms of their ethnicity. Thus, the survey did not control for the parental background of the participants to identify exactly how many of the participants were from mixed heritage backgrounds. As previously mentioned, the current study does not take into account how many participants had a living grandparent or parent so the numbers might not accurately reflect the percentages. Lastly, regarding the language use, it would have been helpful to see the patterns of language use with older and younger siblings.

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Heritage language learning and teaching, especially Persian as a heritage language is a young and emerging field that requires much more attention, research, and exploration. There are many challenges and needs that can lead to future areas for research, some of which are listed below: – More systematic research on linguistic and cultural profiles, attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and motivations of heritage speakers of Persian. – More research focused on developing pedagogical strategies for heritage language teaching and learning – Adequate training for teachers who teach heritage languages – More level appropriate instructional materials for heritage learners – Creating appropriate placement and assessment tools for heritage learners – Raising awareness in educational institutions on the importance of heritage Persian instruction – Raising awareness in families/communities to foster the heritage language for their children – Raising awareness at the government level to invest and promote heritage languages as a great national linguistic resource.

6 Summary This chapter focused on Persian as a diasporic language in the United States by surveying the heritage learners of Persian at college level. The first part of the chapter provided a transdisciplinary overview of the existing research in order to help the broader audience attain a broad understanding of this emerging field. The overview covered various issues such as language maintenance and loss, parental attitudes, language policy and bilingual education, psychological studies, and linguistic studies. The second part of this chapter reported on a new research designed to explore the language attitudes and language use of heritage Persian speakers at college level in the U.S. The survey consisted of a 50-item questionnaire with both open-ended and multiple-choice items. It was completed by 45 heritage learners at college level. It focused on a number of components including demographics, formal education level in the heritage language, self-assessment of proficiency level in the heritage language, feelings and attitudes towards their heritage language, domains of heritage language use, and perceived parental attitudes towards heritage language acquisition and maintenance. The results indicate that while students show a strong desire in development and maintenance of their heritage language use, they report a variety of reasons that hinder their efforts towards this goal. They also report a certain level of dissatisfaction with their parents’ effort towards the maintenance of their heritage language. The chapter also provided suggestions for further research and recommendations for community engagement and policy improvements.

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Appendix A: The Questionnaire 1. Background Information 1. Place of birth: 2. Age when came/brought to the U.S: 3. Place/s where you were raised: 4. What language did you use most at the following periods in your life? 0–5 years old 6–12 years old 13–18 years old 18+ years old 5. Language/s spoken by parents: Mother Father 6. Educational Level of Parents: Mother Father 7. Do your parents use a regional variety of Persian? If yes, which one? 8. Persian language Proficiency of parents. Mother Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor Father Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor 9. English language Proficiency of Parents: Mother Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor Father Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor

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(continued) 2. Education of Heritage Language 10. Did you attend a K-12 school in a Persian speaking country? If yes, which grades? 11. Did you attend community Persian language classes such as Saturday/Sunday schools? For how long? 12. How did you like the community Persian language classes and why? A lot Fairly A little Didn’t like it at all 13. What did you mainly learn about at the Persian community school/s? (you can select more than one) Culture Basic conversation skills Reading Writing Other (please specify) 3. Proficiency in Heritage Language 14. How would you describe your overall level of proficiency in Persian? Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor 15. How do you describe your “speaking” skills Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor 16. How do you describe your “understanding” skills? Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor 17. How do you describe your “reading” skills? Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor

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(continued) 18. How do you describe your “writing” skills? Excellent Very good Good Fair Poor 4. Feelings and Attitudes towards Heritage Language 19. How important is maintaining your heritage language? Very Important Important Fairly Important Just so so Unimportant 20. How do you self-identify? American Iranian-American Other: (please specify, ex: Kurdish, Zoroastrian, etc.) 21. Why did you enroll in Persian class in college? (you can select more than one) To learn about my cultural roots To communicate better with family and friends in the U.S. To communicate better with family and friends abroad To fulfill a language requirement To enhance career opportunities To prepare for travel in my country of origin Because it is easy for me Other (please specify) 22. Can you remember an incident when your heritage language was helpful or caused you problems? 23. Do you feel integrated into your heritage language community? Strongly agree Agree Neither agree or disagree Disagree Strongly disagree 24. Do you feel like you “think” in English or Persian? 25. When experiencing intense feelings (happiness, anger, etc.) do you express your feelings in: English Persian both 26. When using terms of endearment to your loved one or your pet, do you use a Persian word or English? 27. If need arises for using a swear word, would you use an English one or Persian? 😊

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(continued) 28. Which aspect of the Persian language do you enjoy more? (you can select more than one) The way it sounds It is poetic You have a sense of belonging to it It is familiar Other (please specify) 29. Which aspect of Persian culture do you enjoy most? (you can select more than one) Food Tarof Using polite pronouns for elderly Family connections Other (please specify) 30. Which aspect of Persian culture do you not enjoy? (you can select more than one) Food Using polite pronouns for elderly Tarof Family connections Other (please specify) 31. Does the negative portray of Iranians in the U.S. politics bother you? Always Often Sometimes Seldom, Never 32. How important is it for you to have your children learn Persian? Very important Somewhat important Not important at all 33. If you had the means to make a difference in the promotion and maintenance of the Persian language, what would you do? 5. Heritage Language Use 34. What language do you speak most of the time? English Persian both 35. How often do you speak in Persian? Always Often Sometimes Seldom

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(continued) 36. How often do you read in Persian? Always Often Sometimes Seldom, Never 37. How often do you write in Persian? Always Often Sometimes Seldom Never 38. Who do you usually speak Persian with? (you can select more than one) Parents Siblings Grandparents Extended family Friends Other (please specify) 39. Which of the following activities do you do in Persian? (you can select more than one) Writing an email Texting Using social media Visiting a Persian website Watching TV Listening to music Watching a movie Listening to radio Spoking on the phone Other (please specify) 40. Other than attending Persian language classes, which other activity/ies would you say has been most helpful in improving your Persian language skills? 41. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “not important” and 5 being “extremely important”, how important is it for you to improve the following in Persian? Speaking Listening Reading Writing Grammatical accuracy Increase vocabulary 42. Do you feel like you have an accent when speaking Persian? Yes No

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(continued) 43. If you answered “yes”, what is the reaction that you have experienced towards your accent from others? 44. Do you feel like you have an accent when speaking English? Yes No 45. If you answered “yes”, what is the reaction that you have experienced towards your accent from others? 46. What do you consider as an inhibiting factor towards your development/maintenance of heritage language? (you can select more than one) Lack of time Lack of access to Persian language Lack of motivation Lack of Persian language classes Native speakers’ negative attitude 47. Which of the following applies to you? (you can select more than one) I can talk discreetly in Persian when in public I can speak better with my relatives after taking the college Persian class I can use my Persian language skills to help others I was put in ESL classes because of my background in Persian I have been made fun of or discriminated against I have learned more about my culture I have made more friends I have problems with my lack of knowledge of my heritage language I can more easily learn other languages 6. Perceived Parental Attitudes 48. How would you describe your parents’ attitude toward improving and maintaining your heritage language while you were growing up? Mother Strongly supportive Supportive Sort of Supportive Didn’t Care Opposing Father Strongly supportive Supportive Sort of Supportive Didn’t Care Opposing

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(continued) 40. How often do your parents speak Persian to you? Always Often Sometimes Seldom Never 50. Please choose any of the following ways that your parents (or grandparents) supported your learning or maintenance of heritage language: (you can select more than one) Read bedtime stories in Persian to you Sent you to Persian community school/after school Bought you storybooks in your heritage language Took you on trips back home for visits Other: (please specify)

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Feuerverger, Grace. 1991. University Students’ Perceptions of Heritage Language Learning and Ethnic Identity Maintenance. The Canadian Modern Language Review 47. 4. 660–677 Forouzan, Sara. 2015. Ethnic Identity and Acculturation: The Impact on Iranian-American Communities. Master’s Dissertation. California State University, Northridge. Gardner, Robert & Wallace Lambert. 1972. Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers. Heath, Shirley Brice. 1983. Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haeri Darya, Fereshteh. 2006. Second -generation Iranian-Americans: The relationship between ethnic identity, acculturation, and psychological well-being. Ph.D. Dissertation. Capella University. Hoffman, Diane. 1988. Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Learning: Iranians and Americans at School. In Henry T. Touba & Concha Delgado-Gaitan (eds.), School and Society: Learning Content Through Culture, 163–180. New York: Praege. Hornberger, Nancy, & Shuhan Wang 2008. Who Are Our Heritage Language Learners? In D. Brinton, O. Kagan, & S. Bauckus (eds.), Heritage Language Education: a New Field Emerging. 3–35, New York, NY: Routledge. Jalali, Behnaz. 2005. Iranian-American families. In M. McGoldrick, J. Giordano & N. Garcia-Preto (eds.), Ethnicity and Family Therapy, 451–568. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Mahdi, Ali Akbar. 1997. The Second-Generation Iranians: Questions and Concerns. The Iranian 9 (2).77–95. Reprinted in Danesh Bulletin 1. 2. Mahdi, Ali Akbar. 1998. Ethnic Identity among Second-Generation Iranians in the United States. International Journal of Iranian Studies 31. 1. Miremadi, Ali. 2014. Why Do Iranian Heritage and Non-Heritage Students Show Interest in Learning Persian Language? Journal of ELT and Applied Linguistics (JELTAL) 2(1). 1–48. Modarresi, Yahya. 2001. The Iranian Community in the United States and the Maintenance of Persian. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 148. 93–115. Moeini Meybodi, Maryam. 2014. Second-Generation Iranian Americans in the Northeastern States. M.A. Thesis, City University of New York (CUNY). Mokhtari, Azita. 2007. Language learning strategies and beliefs about language learning: A study of university students of Persian in the United States. Austin, TX: The University of Texas. Moore, John. & Elham Sadegholvad. 2013. The Linguistic Markers of Persian Heritage Language Speakers: Evidence from the Classroom. Heritage Language Journal 10(1). 83–107. Naficy, Hamid. 1993. The Making of Exile Culture: Iranian Television in Los Angeles. University of Minnesota Press. Najafi, Hedieh. 2009. Language maintenance and shift among Iranians residing in the United States. Ph. D. Dissertation. Arizona State University. Namei, Shidrokh. 2008. Language choice among Iranians in Sweden. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 29(5). 419–437. Ramezanzadeh, Farah. 2010. Unveiling the Veiled and Veiling the Unveiled: Revealing the Underlying Linguistic Ideologies and Their Impact on Persian Language Loss and Maintenance Among Second Generation Iranian-American College Students. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Utah. Rohani, Sahba, Christine Choi, Rishm Najm Amjad, Christal Burnett & Christopher Colahan. 2006. Language Maintenance and the Role of the Family amongst Immigrant Groups in the United States: Persian Speaking Bahá’is, Cantonese, Urdu, Spanish, and Japanese”. The Center for Multiple Languages and Literacies. Unpublished manuscript. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.

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Salahshoor, Maryam. 2017. Maintaining Farsi as a Heritage Language in the United States: Exploring Persian Parents’ Attitudes, Efforts, and Challenges. Ph.D. Dissertation. George Mason University. Sedighi, Anousha. 2010. Teaching Persian to Heritage Persian Speakers. International Journal on Iranian Studies. 43(5). 681–695. Sedighi, Anousha. 2018. Persian as a Heritage Language.In Anousha Sedighi & Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Persian Linguistics, 361–387. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shavarini, Mitra. 2004. Educating Immigrants: Experiences of Second-generation Iranians. LFB Scholarly Publishing. Shirazi, Roozbeh. 2014. The pedagogy of visibility: Constructs and contests of Iranianness in a community organized school in a large southern U.S. city. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 8(2). 108–124. Shirazi, Roozbeh, & Maryam Borjian. 2012. Persian Bilingual and Community Education among Iranian-Americans in New York City. In Ofelia García, Zeena Zakharia, & Bahar Otcu (eds.), Bilingual Community Education and Multilingualism: Beyond Heritage Languages in a Global City, 154–168. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Trueba, Henry T. & Yali Zou. 1994. Power in Education: the Case of Miao University Students and its Significance for American Culture. UK. Taylor & Francis Group. Qin, Jingjing. 2006. College Heritage Language Speakers’ Perceptions of Heritage Languages and Identity. Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages 3. 35–60.

Index Armenians 4, 30, 89, 118, 119, 249–268 Attitude 1–6, 9, 14–16, 32, 39, 41, 48, 50–58, 83–106, 121, 126, 150, 179, 183–185, 199, 206, 209, 211–212, 214, 223–226, 229, 236, 238, 246, 250, 254, 255, 257–261, 267–268, 275, 279, 300, 313, 316–317, 327, 333, 335–337, 341–343, 348–356, 360–365, 368, 371–372, 374–375 Azeri 3, 10, 27, 28, 40, 42, 87, 88, 90–92, 177–200 Bakhtiari 3, 40, 111–172 Balochi 2, 10, 20, 61–78 Bilingual education 184, 199, 339–340, 368 Bilingualism 39, 40, 88, 134–136, 138, 143, 144, 172, 178, 183, 195, 199, 210, 211, 235, 242, 253, 337, 351 Caspian 2, 9–32, 37, 207, 208 Code switching 16, 40, 183, 226–227, 235, 236, 240, 242, 244–245, 262, 308 Community language schools 340, 342, 346 Diachronic sociolinguistic survey 120–123 Diaspora 1, 5, 6, 99, 232, 250, 251, 273–301, 333, 334, 342 Domain analysis 39, 40, 57, 185, 206, 209, 216, 220 Endangered language 3, 4, 25, 84, 86, 91, 100, 102, 177, 178, 228, 231, 250, 279, 324 Ethnography 4, 10, 84, 85, 92, 93, 100, 103, 114, 254, 256, 258, 261–267 Gender 2, 3, 39–41, 45, 53–55, 57, 58, 89, 95, 126, 127, 130, 131, 136, 140, 141, 143, 145, 171, 185, 186, 188, 191, 193–197, 206, 209, 211, 212, 214, 220–222, 224, 226–229, 238, 239, 307, 312 Gilaki 2, 10–23, 25–27, 29, 40, 88, 92, 182, 184 Gilan 10, 11, 13, 14, 16–18, 22, 24, 27, 29, 30, 37, 42, 67, 91, 92 Heritage language 1, 4–6, 12, 63–65, 74, 99–103, 188, 211, 255, 258, 261, 263, 266, 281–288, 300, 308–311, 324, 325, 333–375 Home domain 191, 242, 265, 266 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694277-014

Identity 1, 2, 4–6, 9, 12, 14, 16–20, 28–30, 32, 66–69, 71, 72, 83, 84, 86, 88, 93, 98–100, 102, 103, 114, 122, 154, 155, 183, 184, 186, 197, 198, 211, 245, 249–268, 273, 279, 286, 294, 308, 324, 334, 337–341, 348, 366, 367 Interview 3–5, 19, 40, 77, 85, 92–94, 98–102, 104–106, 120–122, 184, 234, 253, 254, 256–259, 262–266, 268, 275, 281, 333, 336, 337, 342, 343, 363, 364 Iran 1–5, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 27–32, 37, 38, 40, 61, 62, 65–69, 71, 73–78, 83–106, 111–113, 115, 116, 119, 120, 122–125, 156, 172, 177–200, 206–208, 214, 231–246, 249–268, 306–308, 336–340, 342, 343, 355, 366, 367 Iranian-American 333, 334, 337–340, 342, 348, 349, 371 Isfahan 4, 16, 89, 249–268, Ismaili 274, 275, 278, 279, 281 Julfa 250 Kurdish 10, 20, 25, 29, 31, 40, 42, 61, 87, 88, 90, 182, 185, 196, 307, 371 Kurmanji 20 Language attitude 1, 3–6, 14–16, 50, 58, 84–86, 91, 93–94, 103–104, 179, 206, 211–212, 223–226, 255, 257, 267–268, 275, 279, 333, 341, 342, 368 Language choice 2, 3, 85, 111, 130, 132, 134, 137, 141, 142, 144, 146, 156, 159–172, 179, 216, 217, 220, 224, 227–229, 238, 352, 353 Language coexistence 27–31, 40 Language contact 5, 40, 92, 178, 192, 196–199, 207–209, 235, 240, 245, 246, 273–301 Language endangerment 23–27, 91, 100, 178, 211, 316 Language identity 1, 2, 4–6, 9, 12, 14, 16–20, 32, 66–69, 71, 72, 88, 93, 98–100, 114, 154, 249–268, 273, 286, 294, 308, 367 Language maintenance 1, 3–6, 30, 86, 95, 102, 111–172, 179, 183, 185, 188, 199, 205–229, 231–246, 255, 286, 305–330, 334–339, 341–343, 359–362, 364, 365, 368

380 

 Index

Language policy 1, 4–6, 12, 67, 87, 88, 94, 102, 105, 126, 178–180, 195, 286, 339–340, 363, 368 Language policy and planning 6, 89 Language revitalization 102, 246 Language shift 1, 3–6, 30, 32, 39, 40, 52, 53, 56, 68, 69, 78, 99, 111–172, 178–179, 182, 185, 194, 197, 205–229, 231, 235, 236, 238, 244–246, 279, 305–330, 335 Language standardization 10, 21, 66, 71, 72, 78, 307 Language use 3–6, 40–50, 54, 55, 65, 87, 102, 120, 121, 123, 133, 136, 179, 186, 209, 211, 214, 218, 220–221, 226, 227, 229, 240, 242–245, 255, 257, 258, 275, 307, 309, 317, 322, 327, 333, 342–345, 351, 356–361, 365, 367, 368, 372 Literary heritage 63–65, 74, 188 Loss of heritage language 334–336, 338, 368 Mandaic 4, 231–246 Masjed Soleiman 3, 40, 111–172 Mazandaran 2, 10–21, 27, 30, 37, 38, 40, 42, 45, 48, 57, 58, 67, 208 Mazandarani 2, 10–13, 15–23, 25–27, 29, 30, 37–58, 88, 89 Minority language 1–4, 6, 10, 12–15, 18–20, 28, 29, 31, 32, 83–92, 98, 100, 102, 103, 182, 195, 205, 206, 211, 219, 231, 233, 244, 249, 255, 286 Multilingualism 1, 5, 6, 83, 88, 183, 242, 273–301 New York 5, 273–301 Official language 2, 4, 12, 20, 28, 29, 40, 47, 54, 69, 88, 89, 98, 139, 152, 177, 178, 181, 182, 206, 217, 220, 225, 228, 245, 250, 266, 282, 306, 317, 327 Pakistan 2, 20, 27, 61–63, 65–67, 69, 71, 73–76, 78, 208, 273, 275–277, 280–282, 284, 286, 295–300, 305–308, 322, 325 Pamiri 5, 273–301 Pashto 5, 20, 275, 276, 288, 305–330

Pashto language loss 5, 308, 309, 311, 322, 323 Pashto language maintenance 5, 305–330 Pashtun in the United States 308, 309, 311, 323 Persian 2–5, 9, 10, 12–23, 27–32, 38–50, 53–58, 63–65, 67, 73, 84, 86–90, 92, 96–101, 103–105, 111, 114–120, 122–154, 158–172, 177–200, 206, 208, 214–218, 220–222, 224–229, 233–235, 238, 242–246, 250, 252–268, 275, 279–284, 286, 288, 306, 307, 333–375 Questionnaire 3–5, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 85, 88, 92–98, 100–104, 112, 120, 126, 128, 145, 186–189, 196, 213, 214, 217, 227, 228, 231, 238, 240, 245, 253, 256–261, 267–268, 313–315, 326–330, 333, 336, 337, 340–343, 363, 368–375 Reversing language shift (RLS) 5, 78, 182, 309–310, 322, 325 Social factors 39, 53–57, 214, 226–229 Social variables 9, 214 Sociolinguistics 1–6, 9–32, 40, 74, 83–87, 92, 101, 102, 112, 118, 120–123, 126, 172, 180, 181, 191, 196, 206, 209, 215, 216, 220, 233, 235, 249, 250, 253–255, 262, 266, 267, 276, 280, 301, 335 Sorani 20 Survey 2, 3, 5, 15, 29, 42, 47, 85, 87, 92, 94, 101, 102, 111–172, 183, 186, 199, 213, 223, 229, 235, 245, 250, 254, 255, 257–260, 266, 267, 274, 275, 301, 311, 315, 323, 324, 333–375 Survey research 87, 92, 101, 186 Tabari 11, 17, 18, 22, 38 Tajikistan 207, 208, 273–281, 307, 308 Tat 96, 97, 104 Tati 2–3, 83–106 Turkmen 3–4, 10, 40, 69, 182, 205–229 Wakhi 5, 273–301 Wikipedia 2, 20–22, 31, 125 Zazaki 20