The Study of Kinship Terminology in Language Variety of Lori Khoramabad: An Ecological-Typological Approach

Introduction
Kinship systems have become one of the universal characteristics of languages ​​due to their importance in the organization of society. Nevertheless, the simplicity of the patterns of these terms within the system of kinship relations, the simplicity of recognizing genetic relationships and the universal nature of human families, has made their meanings easily accessible (Berling, 1970: 18). Ecological linguistics is one of the practical approaches that entered the field of linguistic studies in the seventies decade with the studies of Hagen, an American-Norwegian linguist. Referring to the relationship between language and environment, Hagen defined linguistic ecology as "the study of the interaction between a specific language and the environment" (Stephen, 2007: 5). This approach has been very popular in recent years and many researchers around the world are studying this approach and its relationship with different fields of science.
    Due to the unique characteristics of each context, various environmental factors play a role in how languages ​​are formed, as well as dialectal and linguistic variations in different regions. For example, there is a relationship between the amount of rainfall, air temperature and variety of agricultural products with linguistic features of that area (Qatre et al., 2014: 12). Sapir (1884: 19-39) has shown how external factors are presented in language. He introduced the environment as including physical factors (geography, weather, natural environment and the like) and social factors (art, religion, ethnic standards and type of government) that shaped the people’s thinking patterns of that society. Both of these factors are reflected in people's language and their environmental background materially affects their language. Since kinship terms are one of the universal characteristics of languages, it is necessary to determine its quality in typology. Language typology studies the systematic similarities and differences between the languages ​​of the world and compares the morphological and syntactic structures between different languages.
    Lori is one of the Iranian dialects. The main issue of the present research is to examine how the terms of kinship are represented in this dialect based on Ecological morphology and Typological morphology? Therefore, the research is an attempt to answer these questions; what are the characteristics of kinship terms in Lori Khorramabadi from ecological linguistics perspective? How can the morphological construction of these terms be explained from language typology perspective? And according to the typology of the language, how are the kinship terms with possessive constructions distributed in terms of type and amount of use? The data of this research are all the kinship terms related to Lori Khorramabadi, which were collected in both library and field methods (through interviews with available speakers) and the research method is descriptive-analytical.
    As Hassanvand Amuzadeh (2013) says, "The existence of language and dialect varieties depends to a significant extent on the existence of different cultures." Studies conducted on different cultures in the world show that different tribes and clans not only have different languages ​​and dialects, but also have different views of the world as reflected in their languages ​​and dialects. In the present paper, we observe that these terms are more for the male gender than for the female. Also, we observe that there are five for father and three for mother, seven for brother and three for sister, six for grandfather and four for grandmother.  Based on the existing culture in this ecology, the reflection of the importance of paternal race can be shown in these kinship relationships, which indicates the knowledge and thinking of the speakers. This multiplicity can be a sign of the difference that exists among people of paternal and maternal descent in Khorramabad. In fact, the multiplicity of terms allows us to distinguish more and reflects the breadth and depth of special kinship relationships, especially in nomadic and tribal areas of this environment.
    In the present study, the kinship terms of Lori Khorramabad language variety were investigated. These terms were examined from the point of view of morphological typology and ecological morphology. The findings show that at least 89 kinship terms are used in this variety. The diversity in the use of kinship terms in the Khorramabad Lori variety is mainly derived from factors such as culture, geography, gender and sociological factors of the environment such as ethnic and tribal criteria and kinship in this ecology. Also, the diversity in terms of kinship depends on cultural issues and social considerations of the environment surrounding those kinship relationships. For example, older terms (such as dædæ, gægæ, giyæ, tatæ, and kæčiæ) are found in the vocabulary of elderly people, and their near Persian or fully Persian equivalents (xowær /abji, berar, amu, and æmæ, respectively) are used in the vocabulary of the new generation and this point reminds the impact of social factors of this environment. Terms such as haluza, amuza/ tatæza, mimeza and hosiræ are gender neutral and show that in these terms, gender is not very important and this originates from the cultural factor, cognition and worldview of the people of this region. Some very old and local terms (such as xowær and giyæ, which need to be translated) indicate the existence of tribal ethnic criteria (different races and clans) and, accordingly, the geography and cultural sensitivities of this ecology. The findings show the fact that among the upper and middle classes living in Khorramabad, the use of Lori kinship terms has faded and in many cases these old words are being forgotten.
   The results of the structural investigations of these terms in typological morphology show the fact that these terms are mostly agglutinative and the rest of them are isolating. But inflectional and polysynthetic terms are not observed and all of terms correspond to morphological concatenation and non- concatenative strategy is not seen. It should be mentioned that the terms with possessive construction all indicate the strategy of juxtaposition and do not indicate other possessive strategies either combination or fusion.