Yaghnobi language

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Yaghnobi-speaking areas and enclaves of Yaghnobi-speakers among a Tajik majority

Yaghnobi^[4] 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.^[5] 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.^[6]

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 ⟨myθ⟩. Western ay corresponds to Eastern e: wayš – weš 'grass' from Sogdian wayš or wēš ⟨wyš⟩. The early Sogdian group θr (later ṣ̌) is reflected as sar in the east but tir in the west: saráy – tiráy 'three' from Sogdian θrē/θray or ṣ̌ē/ṣ̌ay ⟨δry⟩. 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,^[7] 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.^[8] Nowadays, the language is transcribed by scholars using a modified Latin alphabet, with the following symbols: a (á), ā (ā́), b, č, d, e (é), f, g, ɣ, h, ḥ, i (í), ī (ī́), ǰ, k, q, l, m (m̃), n (ñ), o (ó), p, r, s, š, t, u (ú), ū (ū́), ʏ (ʏ́), v, w (u̯), x, x̊, y, z, ž, ع

TITUS transcribes the alphabet thus: a (á), b, č, d, e (é), ĕ (ĕ́), ẹ (ẹ́), ẹ̆ (ẹ̆́), ə (ə́), f, g, ɣ, h, x̣, i (í), ĭ (ĭ́), ī (ī́), ǰ, k, q, l, m (m̃), n (ñ), o (ó), ọ (ọ́), p, r, s, š, t, u (ú), ŭ (ŭ́), ı̥ (í̥), 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 (a), Б б (b), В в (v), Ԝ ԝ (w), Г г (g), Ғ ғ (ɣ), Д д (d), Е е (e/ye), Ё ё (yo), Ж ж (ž), З з (z), И и (i, ī), Ӣ ӣ (ī), й (y), К к (k), Қ қ (q) Л л (l), М м (m), Н н (n), О о (o), П п (p), Р р (r), С с (s), Т т (t), У у (u, ū, ʏ), Ӯ ӯ (ū, ʏ), Ф ф (f), Х х (x), Хԝ хԝ (x̊), Ҳ ҳ (h, ḥ), Ч ч (č), Ҷ ҷ (ǰ), Ш ш (š), Ъ ъ (ع), Э э (e), Ю ю (yu, yū, yʏ), Я я (ya)

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 [vɪ̆ˈjoːra].
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 ⟨ů⟩ [ɵː], 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 /e/. Later, the letters were integrated into the alphabet so the older етк was changed into этк to represent the pronunciation [ˈeːtkʰ] (and not *[ˈjeːtkʰ]). Older ша’мак was changed to шаъмак [ʃʲɑʕˈmak].
4. /je/ and /ji/ are written е and и. Yaghnobi и can be */ji/ after a vowel like in Tajik, and ӣ after a vowel is */jiː/. Also, е has two values: word-initially and after a vowel, it is pronounced [jeː], but after a consonant, it is [eː]. /je/ is rare in Yaghnobi and is only in Tajik or Russian loans, the only example for /je/ is Европа [ˈjeːvrɔpa], 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 [səmɐˈlʲɵt] in Russian and in Tajik. In Yaghnobi, it is written as самалиёт and follows the Yaghnobi pronunciation [samalɪˈjoːtʰ] or [samajlˈoːtʰ]. The word concert is borrowed from Russian концерт [kɐnˈtsɛrt] in the form кансерт [kʰanˈseːrtʰ]). Compare with Tajik консерт.
6. According to Sayfiddīn Mīrzozoda, the distinction between sounds /v/ and /w/ needs to be established. For /v/, в is used, but for /w/, another letter should be adopted. W w would be the best choice. For /χʷ/, Хw хw should be used. Mīrzozoda uses w in some texts, but it is inconsistent.

In his later works (e. g. the textbook Йағнобӣ зивок from 2007), Mīrzozoda does not use the letters я, ю, and ё, replacing them by йа, йу, and йо.

Phonology[]

Yaghnobi includes 9 monophthongs (3 short, 6 long), 8 diphthongs, and 27 consonants.

Vowels[]

The diphthongs in Yaghnobi are /ai̯, ɔːi̯, ʊi̯, uːi̯, yːi̯, ɪi̯, ɔːu̯, au̯/. /ai̯/ only appears in native words in the western dialects, eastern dialects have /ɛː/ in its place, except in loanwords.

• The monophthongs have these allophonic variants:
  • /ɪ/: [i~ɪ~e]
  • /a/: [(æ~)a(~ɑ)]
  • /ʊ/: [(y~)u~ʊ~o]
  • /iː/: [iː]
  • /ɛː/: [ɛː~eː]
  • /ɑː/: [(aː~)ɑː]
  • /ɔː/: [(ɒː~)ɔː(~oː~uː)]
  • /uː/: [uː]
  • /yː/: [(uː~)yː(~iː)]
• /ɑː/ was the result of compensatory lengthening (/dʒɑːm < dʒaʕm < dʒamʕ/).
• In recent loans from Tajik [ɵː] and/or Uzbek [ɵ, ø] can also appear, but its pronunciation usually merges to /uː/.
• /yː/ is only recognised by some authorities. It seems that it is an allophone of /uː/, originating from historical stressed *ū, but historical *ō, changed in Yaghnobi to ū, remains unchanged. It seems that /yː/ is unstable, and it is not recorded in all varieties of Yaghnobi. It is often realised as [uː(j), uːʲ, ʊj, ʊʲ], as well as /yː/. By summary: *ū́ (under stress) > ū/ūy/uy/ʏ or ū, *ō > ū (вуз [vyːz~vuːz] "goat"; Tajik: буз, Avestan: