Abstract
Gorani refers alternately to a subgroup of the Iranian languages spoken in the borderlands between Iraq and Iran with small islands of speakers stippling the map from the Iranian border to Nineveh or to a literary standard used widely until the decline of the Ardalan dynasty in the 19th century. Here, we explore both these uses of the term to understand the place of Gorani varieties among the regional languages. The role of Gorani has, at times, been the local idiom of minoritized groups or a prestigious literary standard. Gorani and its speakers have substantially impacted its neighbors, including Neo-Aramaic, Southern and Central Kurdish, and Laki. It has been the chosen literary language and spoken vernacular of various religious groups. The conservative character of Gorani varieties has made it essential to understand Iranian dialectology. Here, we explore all aspects of Gorani, explicitly focusing on its diachronic and sociolinguistic developments and the history of its study.
Published in Gorani in its historical and linguistic context
About:
Gorani refers to under-documented, endangered varieties spoken in a cluster within the Zagros mountains (Iran/Iraq). These varieties possess conservative features of importance to linguists. However, their study has been plagued by nomenclature and taxonomy issues. Traditional names for these languages have been supplanted first by orientalists‘ prescriptions and then by their linguist heirs. Inaccurate terminology has sewn discord between speaker communities, disturbing the sociolinguistic landscape. This volume represents the state of the art of Gorani’s historical and socio-linguistics, documentation, and literature, as well as an effort to aid the „decolonization“ of Gorani linguistics.
Contents:
- Shuan Osman Karim & Saloumeh Gholami: Gorani in its historical and linguistic context
- Saeed Karami & Saloumeh Gholami: Examining the structural differences and similarities between literary Gorani and Hawrami through the lens of diglossiaby
- Parvin Mahmoudveysi: The Gūrānī variety of Bzɫāna and the literary language of Saydī
- Hamidreza Nikravesh: Judeo-Gūrānī: Tracing the emergence of a literary corpus
- Geoffrey Khan & Masoud Mohammadirad. Gorani influence on NENA
- Shuan Osman Karim: Pattern borrowing/convergence in the Southern Kurdish Zone
- Mohammad Rasekh-Mahand: The Laki of the Ahl-e Haqq community in Češin: Some morphosyntactic features
- Mahîr Dogan: Problems in Zazakî nomenclature
Soranî (Central Kurdish) possesses a set of formatives of (pro)nominal and adpositional origin that combine with a verbal stem to introduce an additional pronominal indexed argument. Based on the definition used in this volume, these formatives fit neatly under the umbrella of applicative markers. However, they have only recently been described as such (Karim and Salehi 2020). Instead, traditional grammars have labeled these formatives “absolute prepositions,” a term that acknowledges their sometimes adpositional origin and their phonological similarity to synchronic adpositions. This study outlines the distribution of Soranî applicatives, their integration into the alignment system, and the formal differences between adpositional phrases and applicative constructions. Additionally, we provide a diachronic account of Soranî applicative markers. We show that they are likely just the latest stage in a grammaticalization cycle which took place several times in the history of Soranî.