Mahmoud Jaafari-Dehaghi; shima Jaafari- Dehaghi
Abstract
Tālēši is one of the languages bordering the Caspian Sea, which belongs to the western branch of the Iranian languages. Based on its geographical use, the language has three ...
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Tālēši is one of the languages bordering the Caspian Sea, which belongs to the western branch of the Iranian languages. Based on its geographical use, the language has three main dialects, Northern, Central and Southern dialect. These dialects are spoken along the shores of the Caspian Sea, in the southeastern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Māsāli, Lerik, Lankaran, and Astārā, east of Azerbaijan province and west of Gilān. This study deals with the historical changes of the Central Tālēši phonemes using written sources. The historical changes of some phonemes have been studied and compared in Ancient Iranian, Middle Persian, and New Persian languages, respectively. The results of this study showed that most phonemes in Tālēši had the same historical phonetic changes as in Persian, but some special developments have also occurred in this dialect. For example, the phonemes /v/, /č/, /y/ and /j/ have not changed historically from Ancient Iranian to Central Tālēši. Therefore, Central Tālēši can be considered as one of the conservative dialects in terms of historical changes in phonology.
