Qashqai language explained

Qashqai
Also Known As:	Qashqay, Kashkai, Kashkay, Qashqayi
Nativename:	قشقايی ديلى, Qašqāyī dili
States:	Iran
Region:	Fars, Isfahan, Bushehr, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Khuzestan
Ethnicity:	million Qashqai (2021)
Speakers:	million
Date:	2021
Ref:	e26
Familycolor:	Altaic
Fam1:	Turkic
Fam2:	Common Turkic
Fam3:	Oghuz
Fam4:	Southern Oghuz
Script:	Persian alphabet
Iso3:	qxq
Lingua:	Part of 44-AAB-a
Glotto:	qash1240
Glottorefname:	Qashqa'i
Notice:	IPA

Qashqai (قشقایی ديلى, Qašqāyī dili, pronounced in English as, and also spelled Qaşqay, Qashqayi, Kashkai, Kashkay, Qašqāʾī^{[1] [2]} and Qashqa'i or Kaşkay) is an Oghuz Turkic language spoken by the Qashqai people, an ethnic group living mainly in the Fars Province of Southern Iran. Encyclopædia Iranica regards Qashqai as an independent third group of dialects within the Southwestern Turkic language group. It is known to speakers as Turki. Estimates of the number of Qashqai speakers vary. Ethnologue gave a figure of million in 2021.

The Qashqai language is closely related to Azerbaijani. However, some Qashqai varieties namely the variety spoken in the Sheshbeyli tribe share features with Turkish.^{[3] [4]} In a sociopolitical sense, though, Qashqai is considered a language in its own right.^[5]

Like other Turkic languages spoken in Iran, such as the Azerbaijani language, Qashqai uses a modified version of the Perso-Arabic script.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants of Qashqai

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)
	voiced	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Fricative	voiceless	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
	voiced	pronounced as /link/ ~ [{{IPA link|w}}]	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)		pronounced as /link/
Approximant			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Trill			pronounced as /link/

• Sounds /pronounced as /link// and /pronounced as /link// only occur as loan consonants from Persian and Arabic.
• Sounds /pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link// mainly occur phonemically before consonants, but may occur as aspirated before vowels or in word-final position as [{{IPA|pʰ tʰ t͡ʃʰ kʰ}}].
• Sounds /pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link// never occur in word-initial position, except in a few loan words.
• [{{IPA link|w}}] only occurs as an intervocalic allophone of /pronounced as /link// when occurring between two rounded vowels. It may also occur in vowel diphthongs as [{{IPA|ow}}].
• /pronounced as /link// and /pronounced as /link// can occur phonemically as [{{IPA link|ɲ}}] and [{{IPA link|ɟ}}] when preceding front vowels.
• /pronounced as /link// may occur as two allophones; as [{{IPA|l̠ʲ}}] before front vowels, or as [{{IPA|ɫ}}] before back vowels.
• /pronounced as /link// can have two allophones; as [{{IPA link|ɾ}}] in word-initial and word-medial positions, or as [{{IPA link|r̥}}] in word-final positions. In native words, /pronounced as /link// rarely occurs word-initially.

Vowels

Front! colspan="2"

Back
Close	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
	(pronounced as /link/)	pronounced as /link/
Open	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)

• Vowels /pronounced as /link// and /pronounced as /link// are used rather infrequently.
• /pronounced as /link// only occurs as a word-final variant of /pronounced as /link//.
• /pronounced as /link// is always realized in word-final position as [{{IPA link|ɪ}}].
• /pronounced as /link// can be realized as [{{IPA link|ɨ}}] in non-initial positions.
• /pronounced as /link// mainly occurs as a centralized allophone [{{IPA link|ʉ}}] when preceding palatal consonants.
• Vowel /pronounced as /link// is in free variation with its rounded equivalent /pronounced as /link//, when occurring in front syllables.^{[6] [7]}

Syntax

Qashqai follows common Turkic syntax features: dependent marking, head-final within unmarked phrases, free word order with SOV preferred, agglutinative.

Further reading

• Csató Éva Ágnes, 2001. Present in Kashkay. In: Turkic Languages, Vol. 5: 104–119.
• Csató Éva Ágnes, 2005. On copying in Kashkay. In: Éva Á. Csató, Bo Isakssons & Carina Jahani (eds.) Linguistic Conversion and areal diffusion: Case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic, London, Routledge Curzon, 271–283.
• Csató Éva Ágnes. 2006. Gunnar Jaring's Kashkay materials, In Lars Johanson & Christiane Bulut (eds.), Turkic-Iranian contact areas. Historical and linguistic aspect. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. 209–225.
• Doerfer Gerhard, et al. 1990. Qašqā’ī-Gedichte aus Fīrūz-ābād (=Südoghusisch). In: Oghusica aus Iran, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, pp. 67–132.
• Dolatkhah Sohrab, Csató Éva Á. & Karakoç Birsel. 2016. On the marker -(y)akï in Kashkay. In: Éva Á. Csató, Lars Johanson, András Róna-Tas, and Bo Utas (eds.) Turks and Iranians: Interactions in Language and History, pp. 283–301. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2016. Parlons qashqay "Let's speak Qashqay". Paris: L'Harmattan.
• Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2016. Kashkai : langue turcique d'Iran. (Réédition du titre Qashqay : langue turcique d'Iran). Independently published (via Amazon).
• Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2015. Qashqay Folktales: transcription, translation, glossary. CreateSpace Independent publishing platform.
• Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2012. Elements for a grammar of Kashkay: a Turkic language of Iran. PhD dissertation. Paris: Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
• Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2007. Présentation et documentation du folklore qashqai : langue turcique du sud d’Iran. Master thesis. Paris: Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
• Gharakhalou-Narrei, Mehdi. 1996. Migration and cultural change in urban communities of the Qashqa'i of Iran. PhD thesis. Ottawa: University of Ottawa.
• Jurie Étienne. 2005. Qashqa’i : derniers nomades d’Iran. Paris : Voyages Zellidja.
• Mardâni R. Assadollâh, 2000. Asanaklar : Tarânehâye torkiye qašqâ’ī "Qashqai folksongs" [in Perso-Arabic script]. Iran: Nakhlhâ-ye Sorkh Publishers.
• Mardâni R. Assadollâh, 2007. Qašqayı sözlügü [Qashqai Dictionary]. [in Azerbaijani and Perso-Arabic script with explications in Persian] Shiraz: Rahgosha Publishers.
• Menges, Karl Heinrich, 1990. Drei Qašqā’ī Text. In: Doerfer et al. (eds.), pp. 135–138.
• Shahbâzi, Habib. (ed.). 1989/1368 A.H., Qašqâ’ï še’ri [Qashqai poetry] [in Perso-Arabic script], Shiraz: Shahbazi.
• Soper, John David, 1987. Loan Syntax in Turkic and Iranian: The Verb Systems of Tajik, Uzbek, and Qashqai. Doctoral dissertation, Los Angeles: University of California

External links

• The Last Nomads of Iran (BBC)

Notes and References

1. , by Michael Knüppel
2. , by Gerhard Doerfer
3. Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2016. Kashkai : langue turcique d'Iran. Independently Published (via Amazon).
4. Caferoglu & Gerhard Doerfer, 1959
5. Book: Csató. Éva. Éva Csató. Johanson. Lars. Lars Johanson. Róna-Tas. András. András Róna-Tas. Turks and Iranians. Interactions in Language and History: The Gunnar Jarring Memorial Program at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. 2016. Harrassowitz Verlag. 978-3-447-10537-8. 101–20.
6. Book: Dolatkhah, Sohrab. Kashkai : langue turcique d'Iran. Independently Published. 2016.
7. Book: Dolatkhah, Sohrab. Qashqai Turkic: A Comprehensive Corpus-based Grammar. Munich: LINCOM. 2019.