Vocabulary Denoting Kinship in the Fereydani Dialect

Abstract

The speech of the Georgians who emigrated to Iran in the 17th century in Fereydan province was formed into the Fereydani dialect. As a result of four centuries of non-contact with homeland Georgia and the strong influence of the Persian language and culture, the speech of the Georgians living in Fereydan underwent certain changes. Nevertheless, the Fereydani dialect, cut off from its native environment, still exists as a language island in Iran and is a remarkable example of linguistic self-immunization.
The Fereydani dialect attracts attention in many ways. In the presented article, we will discuss vocabulary denoting kinship.
The research is mainly based on the new dialectal material we recorded in the Georgian villages of Fereydan in iran (Chughruti, Martghopi, Vashlovani, Akhcha, toreli...), we also processed the published Fereydanian texts, explanatory and dialect dictionaries, scientific literature related to the issue.
According to the analyzed material, it can be said that the Georgian vocabulary denoting kinship is quite well preserved in Fereidani dialecte. Some of the Georgian word forms (sidze/son-in-law, zali/daughter in law, mazli/brother-in-law, muli/sister-in-law, dedamtili/mother-in-law, mamamtili/father-in-law...) are still actively used today, while some are used in parallel with Persian (or Arabic, Turkish, introduced through Persian) lexical units (brother/dashya, sister/baji). In addition, some Georgian words (shvilishvili, shviltashvili, bitzola...) were replaced by corresponding foreign words (nava, natija, zanamua). In a bilingual environment, where Persian is the state language and functions in all spheres, and Georgian is the home language code for the Georgians, the process of restricting and harassing the Kartsia language facts is a natural and, unfortunately, irreversible process.