Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 24, 2026

Harzandi dialect

Harzandi or Harzani is a dialect of the Tati language, spoken in the northern regions of the East Azarbaijan province of Iran. It is strictly an oral language, and a descendant of the Old Azeri language that has long been extinct as a result of the diffusion of Turkish in the area. Harzandi has many common linguistic features with both Talysh and Zaza and was positioned between the Talysh and Zaza.

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Harzani
Harzandi
Native toIran
Native speakers
36,000 (2021)1
Dialects
  • Harzandi
Language codes
ISO 639-3hrz
Glottologharz1239
ELPHarzani

Harzandi or Harzani (Tati: هرزندی، هرزنی) is a dialect of the Tati language,6789 spoken in the northern regions of the East Azarbaijan province of Iran. It is strictly an oral language, and a descendant of the Old Azeri language that has long been extinct as a result of the diffusion of Turkish in the area.10 Harzandi has many common linguistic features with both Talysh and Zaza and was positioned between the Talysh and Zaza.11

Harzani Tati is considered an endangered language with a little less than 30,000 speakers in present day.12 Its speakers principally reside in the rural district of Harzand, particularly in the village known as Galin Qayah. Harzani is also present in the neighboring villages of Babratein and Dash Harzand.10 As of now, Harzani has not been formally recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and thus receives no government support.13

Classification

Harzandi is a Tati dialect belonging to the Northwestern Iranian languages and closely related to Kilit, Talysh and Zaza.141516 It shares many characteristics and common words and linguistic affinity with Zaza and considered a transitional dialect between Tati/Talysh and Zaza.1711

Grammar

Similar to other languages and dialects of the Iranian language family, Harzani follows a subject–object–verb (SOV) word order. It has nine vowels, and shares a consonant inventory with Persian. It further exhibits a split-ergative case system: its present tense is structured to follow nominative-accusative patterning, while its past tense follows ergative-absolutive.13

One characteristic that distinguishes Harzani from related Northwestern Iranian languages is its change from an intervocalic /d/ to an /r/.7 It also has a tendency to lengthen its vowels. For instance, it has the closed vowel /oe/.

Nouns and pronouns

Nouns and pronouns in Harzani do not reflect grammatical gender, but they do express case. Nouns, in particular, encode two cases: direct and oblique case, the first of which is not rendered morphologically, but the second is by attaching a suffix. Meanwhile, personal pronouns have three cases: direct, oblique, and possessive.

Harzandi, similiar to closely related Zaza, Karingani and Sangsari, lacks possessive enclitics.1819 Harzandi pronouns are i: man, you: te, he: a, she: a, we: âmâ, you: šemā, they: âvoy.20

Verbs

Verbs in Harzani are inflected for present tense and past tense. Information concerning person and number is reflected in suffixes that attach to these two verb stems. Modal and aspectual information is expressed using prefixes. Harzandi, similar to closely related Zaza, derives its present stem from the old Iranian present participle /*-ant/.21

Numeral system

Part of Harzani's census system is given in the table below. In addition to its decimal system, Harzandi has an alternative vigesimal system of counting:20

1. i 11. doh-o-i 21. vist-o-i 40. čel, de-vist
2. de 12. doh-o-de 22. vist-o-de 50. pincö, de-vist-do
3. here 13. doh-o-here 23. vist-o-here 60. šešt, here-vist
4. čö 14. doh-o-čör 24. vist-o-čö 70. haftö, here-vist-do
5. pinǰ 15. doh-o-pinǰ 25. vist-o-pinǰ 80. haštö, čö-vist
6. šoš 16. doh-o-šoš 26. vist-o-šoš 90. nâvör, čö-vist-do
7. hoft 17. doh-o-hoft 27. vist-o-hoft 100. so, pij-vist
8. hašt 18. doh-o-hašt 28. vist-o-hašt 300. here-so
9. nov 19. doh-o-nov 29. vist-o-nov 1000. hazö
10. do 20. vist 30. si, vist-e-do 2000. d-hazö

Sample words

arina Friday7
ruzare 'west'
ruz 'sun'
parare 'below'
parpe 'above'
-are 'under'
oev (öv) 'water'
voer 'wind'
hoev 'sister'
isbaa 'dog'
See also

See also

References

References

  1. Harzani at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Adharic". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Tatic". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Northern Tatic". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  5. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Harzani-Kilit". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  6. Kārang, A. A. 1954: Tāti va Harzani. Tabriz: Esma’il Va’ezpur.
  7. "Hening Tati".
  8. Tati Language (An Introduction), Professor Ehsan Yarshater.
  9. Tati group (Tati-Talyshi); Donald Stilo (1981)
  10. Karimzadeh, J. 1994: "The Verbal Constructions in Azari (Harzani Dialect)." Master's thesis, Tarbiat Modarres University.
  11. Henning, Walter Bruno (1954). "THE ANCIENT LANGUAGE OF AZERBAIJAN". Transactions of the Philological Society. 53 (1): 174–175. On the other side, Harzanī is related to Zaza. One may instance the existence of two genuine plural cases in both languages; the ablative postposition -ri, Zaza -rā; the negative prefix in čini(ya) 'it is not', Zaza činyö, činya; many characteristic words, such as Harzani öšma 'moon', Zaza āšma, the nearest related word being Tāliši ovšįm; vašna 'it shines', Zaza väšena; gen- both ' to take' and ' to fall' in Harzani and Zaza; rau 'quick' in both languages; vondor- 'to stand': Zaza vindär- and Vafsi vender-, a verb known. This is merely a small selection of the many coincidences, some of them exclusive, that can be quoted. They leave no doubt that Harzani takes its place between Tāliši and Zaza.
  12. Harzani at Ethnologue (17th Edition, 2014)]
  13. Harzani Archived 2014-05-02 at the Wayback Machine at Languages of the World (LLOW)
  14. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Harzani-Kilit". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  15. Henning, Walter Bruno (1954). "THE ANCIENT LANGUAGE OF AZERBAIJAN". Transactions of the Philological Society. 53 (1): 174–175.
  16. Asatrian, Garnik; Gevorgian, K. H. (1988). W. Sundermann, W.; Duchesne-Guillemin, J.; Vahman, F. (eds.). "Zāzā Miscellany: Notes on some religious customs and institutions". Acta Iranica: Encyclopédie Permanente des Études Iraniennes. 12 (2): 501. The Zaza language belongs to the north-western group of the Iranian languages and is closely related to Tālišī, Harzanī, Gilakī and Samnānī.
  17. Stilo, D. (1971) A Grammar of Vafsi-Tati: An Application of a Transformational Computer Model, Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan. p. 12.
  18. Zokā (1957), p. 79.
  19. Windfuhr, Gernot (2009). The Iranian Languages. New York: Routledge. pp. 32–33. ISBN 978-0-7007-1 131-4.
  20. Zokā (1957), p. 67.
  21. Henning, Walter Bruno (1954). "The Ancient Language of Azerbaijan". Transactions of the Philological Society. 53 (1): 157–177. ...a perfect series of the languages that form their present stem with the help of an -n-or -nd- suffix, that is, Tāliši, Harzani, Zaza, parts of Gilaki, Tabari, and some dialects near Samnān.

Works cited

  • Zokā, Yaḥyā (1957), Gūyeš-e Galin-Qaye: 'Harzandi' (in Persian), Tehran: Farhang-e Irānzamin
Further reading

Further reading

  1. Kārang, A. A. 1954: Tāti va Harzani. Tabriz: Esma’il Va’ezpur.
  2. Korn, A. 2009: "Western Iranian Pronominal Clitics." In: Orientalia Suecana LVIII.
  3. Mortazavī, M. 1954: "Noktei cand az zabān-e harzani." In: NDATabriz 6, 304-314.
  4. Mortazavī, M. 1963: "Fe‘l dar zabān-e harzani." In: NDATabriz 15, 61-97.
  5. Stilo, D. 1981: "The Tati Language Group in the Sociolinguistic Context of Northwestern Iran and Transcaucasia." In: Iranian Studies 14.3/4, 137-187.
External links