An Assessment of the Level and Factors of Endangerment of “Zoroastrian Dari”

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Institute for Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This article is a research about the Iranian language called “Zoroastrian Dari” which has two varieties of Kermani and Yazdi. The Kermani variety of the language should be considered an extinct variety, but the Yazdi variety is still alive in the city of Yazd and some villages of Yazd Province. The main aim of the article is to examine this language variety within the framework of  criteria related to language endangerment. The article's data come from the Dari variety spoken in Mobarake village in Taft County of Yazd province. Methodologically this research is an inductive one based on interview, description, and analysis. To gather the data, the writer interviewed one of the native speakers of Mobarake variety of the Yazdi variety of Zoroastrian Dari and referred to the written resources available to him. The findings indicate that in different lexical fields of the variety in question, we can see variations that can be evidence of linguistic changes that push the variety towards leveling with standard Persian. The small number of speakers, migration, and the inevitability of contact with the Persian-speaking linguistic community have made the Zoroastrian Dari vulnerable. As a result, Zoroastrian Dari has to be considered an endangered language.

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