Social:Khorasani Turkic language

Khorasani Turkic
خراسان تركچىسى
Pronunciation	[xorɑsɑn tyrktʃesi]
Native to	Iran
Region	Greater Khorasan
Native speakers	400,000–886,000  (2014)
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Oghuz Eastern Oghuz Khorasani Turkic
Writing system	Persian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kmz
Glottolog	khor1269

Khorasani Turkic (Khorasani Turkic: خراسان تركچىسى, pronounced [xorɑsɑn tyrktʃesi]; Persian: زبان ترکی خراسانی‎, romanized: Zabân-e Torkī-ye Xorâsânī) is an Oghuz Turkic language spoken in the North Khorasan Province and the Razavi Khorasan Province in Iran. Nearly all Khorasani Turkic speakers are also bilingual in Persian.

Geographic distribution

Turkic peoples of the North Khorasan region (North Khorasan and Razavi Khorasan provinces of Iran); excluding Turkic peoples inhabiting Western and Southern counties of Khorasan region (Nishapur County, Sabzevar County, etc.)

Khorasani Turkic is spoken in the Iranian provinces of North Khorasan near Bojnord and Razavi Khorasan near Sabzevar, Quchan. The Oghuz dialect spoken in Western Uzbekistan is sometimes considered a dialect of Khorasani Turkic.

Dialects

Khorasani Turkic is split into North, South and West dialects. The northern dialect is spoken in North Khorasan near Quchan; the southern in Soltanabad, near Sabzevar; the western, around Bojnord.

Classification and related languages

Khorasani Turkic belongs to the Oghuz group of Turkic languages, which also includes Turkish, Azerbaijani, Gagauz, Balkan Gagauz Turkish, Turkmen and Salar, as well as the Oghuz dialect spoken in Uzbekistan. Khorasani Turkic is most closely related to Oghuz Uzbek and Turkmen and is close to the Azerbaijani dialects spoken in Iran.

Khorasani Turkic was first classified as a separate dialect by Iranian Azerbaijani linguist Javad Heyat in the book Tarikh-e zabān o lahcayā-ye Türki (History of the Turkic dialects). According to some linguists, it should be considered intermediate linguistically between Azerbaijani and Turkmen, although it is sufficiently distinct not to be considered a dialect of either.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Plosive	p	b	t	d			k	ɡ	q
Affricate					t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ
Fricative	f	v	s	z	ʃ	ʒ	x	ɣ			h
Nasal	m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Flap			r
Lateral			l
Approximant					j

Vowels

Vowels

	Front		Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i	y	ɯ	u
Mid	e	ø		o
Open	æ		ɑ	ɒ

The open back vowel is rounded when followed by /u/ or /i/: muxabbat love /muxɒbbɑt/, insan human /insɒn/, but yoldaşlık friendship /joldɑʃlɯk/. It can also be rounded by a following long /o/. This may not happen for all speakers, and plurals never have any rounding.

Morphology

Nouns

Pluralization

Pluralization is marked on nouns with the suffix /-lar/, which has the two forms /-lar/ and /-lær/, depending on vowel harmony. Plural /ɑ/ is never rounded, even when it follows /u/ or /i/.

Case

Nouns in Khorasani Turkic take a number of case endings that change based on vowel harmony and whether they follow a vowel or a consonant:

Case	After Vowels	After Consonants
Nominative	No Ending
Genitive	niŋ/nin	iŋ/in
Dative	ja/jæ	a/æ
Accusative	ni/nɯ	i/ɯ
Locative	da/dæ
Ablative	dan/dæn
Instrumental	nan/næn

Possession

Possession is marked with a suffix on the possessed noun.

	Singular	Plural
First Person	(I)m	(I)mIz
Second Person	(I)ŋ	(I)ŋIz
Third Person	(s)I	lArI

Pronouns

Khorasani Turkic has six personal pronouns. Occasionally, personal pronouns take different case endings from regular nouns.

	Singular	Plural
First Person	mæn	bɯz
Second Person	sæn	siz
Third Person	o	olar

Verbs

Verbs are declined for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number. The infinitive form of the verb ends in -max.

Examples

Excerpt from Tulu (1989) p. 90

Translation	IPA	In Latin Alphabet	Arabic script (Iran)
Thus, there was a padishah named Ziyad.	ɑl ɣəssa bir ziyæːd pæːdiʃæːhiː bæːɾɨdɨ	Al ğässa bir ziüäd pädişähi bärıdı	.ال غسا بیر زیود پدیشهی بـهریدی
Almighty God had given him no son.	xodɒːʷændi æːlæm ona hit͡ʃ ɔɣul ataː elæmɑmiʃdi	Xodavändi äläm ona hiç oğul ata elämamişdi.	.خوداوندی آلم اونا هیچ اوغول اتا ایلهمامیشدی
There he spoke to his vizier: "O Vizier, I have no son. What shall I do about it?"	bæːdæn vaziːɾæ dədi, ej vaziːɾ, mændæ ki ɔɣul joxdɨ, mæn næ t͡ʃaːɾæ eylem	Bädän vazirä dädi: "Ey vazir, mändä ki oğul yoxdı. Män nä çarä eylem?"	بدن وازیره دهدی: «ای وازیر, منده کی اوغول یوخدی. من نه چاره ایولیم»؟
The vizier said: "Ruler of the whole world, what will you do with this possession?"	vaziːɾ dədi, pɒːdiʃaː-i ɢɨblæ-ji ɒːlæm, sæn bu mɒːlɨ-æmwɒːlɨ næjlijæsæn	Vazir dädi: "Padişai qıbläyi aläm, sän bu malıämvalı näyliyäsän?"	وازیر دهدی: «پادیشای قیبلنهیی آلم, سن بو مالیموالی نیلیسن»؟

References

Tulu, Sultan (1989). Chorasantürkische Materialien aus Kalāt bei Esfarāyen. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. ISBN 3-922968-88-0. 

Doerfer, Gerhard; Hesche, Wolfram (1993). Chorasantürkisch: Wörterlisten, Kurzgrammatiken, Indices. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-03320-7.