Yaghnobi language


Yaghnobi is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in the upper valley of the Yaghnob River in the Zarafshan area of Tajikistan by the Yaghnobi people. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has often been called Neo-Sogdian in academic literature. There are some 12,500 Yaghnobi speakers, divided into several communities. The principal group lives in the Zafarobod area. There are also resettlers in the Yaghnob Valley. Some communities live in the villages of Zumand and Kůkteppa and in Dushanbe or its vicinity.
Most Yaghnobi speakers are bilingual in Tajik. Yaghnobi is mostly used for daily family communication, and Tajik is used by Yaghnobi-speakers for business and formal transactions. A single Russian ethnographer was told by nearby Tajiks, long hostile to the Yaghnobis, who were late to adopt Islam, that the Yaghnobis used their language as a "secret" mode of communication to confuse the Tajiks. The account led to the belief by some, especially those reliant solely on Russian sources, that Yaghnobi or some derivative of it was used as a code for nefarious purposes.
There are two main dialects: a western and an eastern one. They differ primarily in phonetics. For example, historical *θ corresponds to t in the western dialects and s in the eastern: met – mes 'day' from Sogdian mēθ. Western ay corresponds to Eastern e: wayš – weš 'grass' from Sogdian wayš or wēš. The early Sogdian group θr is reflected as sar in the east but tir in the west: saráy – tiráy 'three' from Sogdian θrē/θray or ṣ̌ē/ṣ̌ay. There are also some differences in verbal endings and the lexicon. In between the two main dialects is a transitional dialect that shares some features of both other dialects.

Writing

Yaghnobi was unwritten until the 1990s, but according to Andreyev, some of the Yaghnobi mullahs used the Arabic script for writing the language before 1928, mainly when they needed to hide some information from the Tajiks. Nowadays, the language is transcribed by scholars using a modified Latin alphabet, with the following symbols:
a, ā, b, č, d, e, f, g, ɣ, h, ḥ, i, ī, ǰ, k, q, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, š, t, u, ū, ʏ, v, w, x, x̊, y, z, ž, ع
TITUS transcribes the alphabet thus: a, b, č, d, e, ĕ, ẹ, ẹ̆, ə, f, g, ɣ, h, x̣, i, ĭ, ī, ǰ, k, q, l, m, n, o, ọ, p, r, s, š, t, u, ŭ, ı̥, v, u̯, x, x̊, y, z, ž, ع
In recent times, Sayfiddīn Mīrzozoda of the Tajik Academy of Sciences has used a modified Tajik alphabet for writing Yaghnobi. The alphabet is quite unsuitable for Yaghnobi, as it does not distinguish short and long vowels or v and w and it does not mark stress. Latin equivalents are given in parentheses:
А а, Б б, В в, Ԝ ԝ, Г г, Ғ ғ, Д д, Е е, Ё ё, Ж ж, З з, И и, Ӣ ӣ, й, К к, Қ қ
Л л, М м, Н н, О о, П п, Р р, С с, Т т, У у, Ӯ ӯ, Ф ф, Х х, Хԝ хԝ, Ҳ ҳ, Ч ч, Ҷ ҷ, Ш ш, Ъ ъ, Э э, Ю ю, Я я

Cyrillic script

Notes to Cyrillic:
  1. The letter й never appears at the beginning of a word. Words beginning with ya-, yo- and yu-/yū-/yʏ- are written as я-, ё- and ю-, and the combinations are written in the middle of the word: viyóra is виёра.
  2. Use of ӣ and ӯ is uncertain, but they seem to distinguish two similar-sounding words: иранка and ӣранка, рупак and рӯпак. Perhaps ӣ is also used as a stress marker as it is also in Tajik, and ӯ can also be used in Tajik loanwords to indicate a Tajik vowel , but it can have some other unknown use.
  3. In older texts, the alphabet did not use letters Ъ ъ and Э э. Instead of Tajik ъ, Yaghnobi ’ and е covered both Tajik е and э for. Later, the letters were integrated into the alphabet so the older етк was changed into этк to represent the pronunciation . Older ша’мак was changed to шаъмак.
  4. and are written е and и. Yaghnobi и can be after a vowel like in Tajik, and ӣ after a vowel is. Also, е has two values: word-initially and after a vowel, it is pronounced, but after a consonant, it is. is rare in Yaghnobi and is only in Tajik or Russian loans, the only example for is Европа, a Russian loanword.
  5. Russian letters Ц ц, Щ щ, Ы ы and Ь ь, which can be used in Tajik loans from Russian, are not used in Yaghnobi. They are written as they are pronounced by the Yaghnobi speakers, not as they are written originally in Russian: aeroplane is самолет/самолёт in Russian, written самолёт in Tajik and pronounced in Russian and in Tajik. In Yaghnobi, it is written as самалиёт and follows the Yaghnobi pronunciation or. The word concert is borrowed from Russian концерт in the form кансерт ). Compare with Tajik консерт.
  6. According to Sayfiddīn Mīrzozoda, the distinction between sounds and needs to be established. For, в is used, but for, another letter should be adopted. W w would be the best choice. For, Хw хw should be used. Mīrzozoda uses w in some texts, but it is inconsistent.

    Phonology

Yaghnobi includes 9 monophthongs, 8 diphthongs, and 27 consonants.

Vowels

The diphthongs in Yaghnobi are. only appears in native words in the western dialects, eastern dialects have in its place, except in loanwords.
When the second vowel is a back vowel, *ə usually changes to in Western or Transitional dialects: *θβār > *tfār > *təfór > W./Tr. tufór vs. E. tafór, *pδūfs- > *bədū́fs > W./Tr./E. budū́fs-. The later change appears also in morphology: verb tifárak has form in 3rd sg. present tufórči < *təfár- < *tfar- < *θβar-. The alternation can be seen also in Tajik loans where an unstressed vowel can undergo this change: W./Tr. širī́k vs. E. šarī́k < Tajik шарик /šarīk/ "partner", W./Tr. xipár vs. E. xapár < Tajik хабар /xabar/ "news". The former svarabhakti vowels are often ultra-short or reduced in pronunciation, and they can even disappear in fast speech: xišáp /xišáp vs. xⁱšáp vs. xšap/ < *xəšáp < *xšap.
W, E and Tr. refer to the Western, Eastern and Transitional dialects.

Noun

Case endings:
CaseStem ending is consonantStem ending is vowel other than -aStem ending is -a
Sg. Direct ––-a
Sg. Oblique-i-y-ay, -e
Pl. Direct -t-t-ot
Pl. Oblique-ti-ti-oti

Examples:
The second person plural, šumóx also finds use as the polite form of the second person.

Numerals

Verb

Personal endings – present:
PersonSingularPlural
1st-omišt-īmišt
2nd-īšt-tišt, -sišt
3rd-tišt, -či -ošt

Personal endings – preterite :
PersonSingularPlural
1sta- -ima- -om, a- -īm
2nda- -īa- -ti, a- -si
3rda- –a- -or

By adding the ending -išt to the preterite, the durative preterite is formed.
The present participle is formed by adding -na to the verbal stem. Past participle is formed by addition of -ta to the stem.
The infinitive is formed by addition of ending -ak to the verbal stem.
Negation is formed by prefix na-, in combination with augment in preterite it changes to nē-.
The copula is this:
PersonSingularPlural
1stīmom
2ndištot, os
3rdast, -x, xast, ásti, xástior

Lexicon

Knowledge of Yaghnobi lexicon comes from three main works: from a Yaghnobi-Russian dictionary presented in Yaghnobi Texts by Andreyev and Peščereva and then from a supplementary word list presented in Yaghnobi Grammar by Xromov. The last work is Yaghnobi-Tajik Dictionary compiled by Xromov's student, Sayfiddīn Mīrzozoda, himself a Yaghnobi native speaker. Yaghnobi Tajik words represent the majority of the lexicon, followed by words of Turkic origin and a few Russian words. Only a third of the lexicon is of Eastern-Iranian origin and can be easily comparable to those known from Sogdian, Ossetian, the Pamir languages or Pashto.

Sample texts

LatinFálɣar-at Yáɣnob asosī́ láfz-šint ī-x gumū́n, néki áxtit toǰīkī́-pi wóošt, mox yaɣnobī́-pi. 'Mʏ́štif' wóomišt, áxtit 'Muždív' wóošt.
CyrillicФалғарат Яғноб асосӣ лафзшинт ӣх гумун, неки ахтит тоҷикипӣ ԝоошт, мох яғнобипӣ. 'Мӯштиф' ԝоомишт, ахтит 'Муждив' ԝоошт.
IPA
TranslationIn Falghar and in Yaghnob it is certainly one basic language, but they speak Tajik and we speak Yaghnobi. We say 'Müštif', they say 'Muždiv'.

An anecdote about Nasreddin