Zazaki language

Spoken in

Indo-European languages Indo-Iranian languages Iranian languages Nordwestiranisch Zaza - Gorani Zazaki

Zza

Zza ( macro language )

Included Single Languages:

Diq ( Dimli )
Kiu ( Kirmanjki )

The Zaza language - German also Zazaisch - is the language of the ethnic group of the Zaza in eastern Turkey. Most Zaza and some linguists use the language names in Zazaki, Dımılki, Kırdki and Kırmancki. The number of its speakers is estimated at two to three million. It is spoken mainly in eastern Anatolia, through processes of migration in recent decades, it is also common in Western, Central and Northern Europe. Zazaki belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages .

To designate question and the historical background of the Zaza ethnic group see the article Zaza.

3.1 alphabets

6.1 The phonemic
6.2 Nominal Morphology 6.2.1 Nominal Categories
6.2.2 Split - ergativity
6.2.3 Kasusbildung
6.2.4 definiteness
6.2.5 Attributes
6.2.6 Izafe binding
6.2.7 pronouns
6.2.8 copula

6.3.1 Verbal Categories
6.3.2 Split - ergativity
6.3.3 verbal stems
6.3.4 Indicative and continuative Present
6.3.5 Present subjunctive and imperative
6.3.6 preterite
6.3.7 Perfect
6.3.8 imperfect
6.3.9 pluperfect
6.3.10 Future

The linguistic classification of Zazaischen

Zazaisch as autonomous northwestern Iranian language

The Zaza language is erroneously still for political and cultural reasons, often regarded as a Kurdish dialect ( the political background of this assessment, see the article Zaza ). In contrast, the Iranian (the science of the study of the Iranian languages ) clearly states: Zazaki is a language of the northwestern branch of the Iranian languages . Within this northwestern branch form the Kurdish languages - along with central Iranian dialects - a genetic subgroup, the Zaza is in contrast with the Gorani an independent subunit Zaza - Gorani who may have closer ties with the Balochi (see below the classification of the north-western Iranian languages ).

Even linguists of the 19th century (eg Peter Lerch ) showed that the Zazaki is not a dialect of Kurdish, but an independent language in the Iranian language family. This reaffirmed the German Iranisten Oskar Mann and Karl Hadank with their diverse studies, from which in 1932 emerged the first comprehensive scientific grammar of Zazaki under the title dialects of Zaza.

The Zaza language has striking similarities with the extinct Middle Iranian Parthian language, do not share the southwestern Iranian Persian and its predecessor languages. However, you can not prove that the Parthian has been an immediate predecessor of the Zaza language. On the origin issue of Zaza and their language, see the article Zaza.

Classification of northwestern Iranian languages

The following classification describes in more detail the genetic position of the Zaza and Kurdish languages within the group of north- western Iranian languages. For a full view of the Iranian languages and their classification provides the item Iranian languages.

Nordwestiranisch 24 languages , 31 million speakers Medisch: Medisch † ( altiranisch )
Parthian: Parthian: † ( mitteliranisch )
Caspian Gilaki - Māzandarānī: Gilaki ( 1.3 million), Mazanderani ( 2.2 million), Gurgani †
Semnani: Semnani, Sangisari, Sorchei, Lasgerdi ( together 50,000 )
Taleshi: Taleshi ( 1 million)
Azari: Iranian- Azari ( " Southern Tati " ) ( 220,000 )

Kurdish: Kurmanji ( Northwest Kurdish ) (15-20 million), Sorani ( Central Kurdish, Kurdish ) ( 4 million), Südkurdisch ( 3 million)
Zentraliranisch: Tafreshi, Mahallati - Chunsari, Kashani - Natanzi, Gazi, Yazdi - Kermani - Nayini, Kaviri, Sivandi

Zaza - Gorani and Balochi may form a separate genetic entity, but this view is not shared by all researchers.

The history of research of the Zaza language

Already in 1650, the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi reported about the fact that the language of Zaza significantly from the " other Kurdish types " take off and a mutual understanding between the Zaza and other " Kurdish dialects " was not possible. The Russian linguist Peter Lerch calculated in a report of 1856 on the people of eastern Anatolia, the Zaza without closer examination generalizing to the Kurds. F. Müller in 1864 looked at the Zaza as the Kurdish as dialects of modern Persian (!), F. mirror 1871 W. Tomaschek contrast, in 1887 noticed the big differences between the Zaza and Kurdish.

Be first examined Oskar man (since 1906) the grammatical structure of the Zaza 'in-depth, which he recognized it as a separate language, not a dialect of Kurdish. He saw the Zaza in a narrower context of the Gorani. His classification of the western Iranian has been in the Iranian essentially valid today.

A crucial step in the history of research was the publication of the first grammar of Zaza K. Hadank on the basis of the material of O. man in 1932. This appeared under the title dialects of Zaza as 10th volume of the series of Kurdish - Persian researches of Prussian Academy of Sciences and treated mainly the Süddialekt of Zaza. As a result of this research was now completely clear that the Zaza is phonologically, morphologically, syntactically and lexikologisch a separate language within the Northwest Iranian. Hadank saw - like man - a special near the Zaza to Gorani, the differences from Kurdish to be explained clearly.

J. Gippert presented in 1996 point to the similarities of the Zaza with the Middle Iranian Parthian, which stand out clearly from the Persian. This means that the classification of the Zaza has finally been confirmed as the northwestern Iranian language (Persian contrast, is a southwestern Iranian language ).

A detailed overview of the history of research - especially about all the supporting documents of the independence of the Zaza against the Kurdish and the attempt of some Kurdish scientists, which represent Zaza as a dialect of Kurdish - are Z. Selcan in its vast Zaza grammar of 1998, the Northern dialect the ( Dersim dialect ) converted.

Zazaisch as a written language

Although the Zazaki is spoken for centuries in the Ottoman Empire, one has fixed it a long time not writing. The oldest literary work is the religious scripture Mewlid of Ehmedê Xasi from the year 1898. This work was ( only ) 1984 published in 1899 in Arabic and Latin script. Another important work is zaza Biyîşê Pêxemberî ( Mewlûda Nebi ) from the year 1903 by Usman Efendiyo Babic, it was published only in 1933 in Damascus in Arabic script.

In Latin characters Zazaki texts published since the early 1980s in Germany, Sweden and France in several cultural magazines. Important writers are Malmîsanij, Ebubekir Pamukçu and Koyo Berz.

Were to document the zazaischen language in 2001 and gathered important sources for a zazaisch - German text corpus in a project funded by the German Research Foundation Project 2002. This includes a long tape recordings, handwritten captured sayings and proverbs and special lexical lists.

Alphabets

The Zazaische alphabet modeled on the Latin alphabet. From one of the authors is the Zazaki alphabet ( a term as Zazaisch is not used by linguists ), which was designed by Zaza intellectuals with the help of linguists such as C. M. Jacobson, from another part of the Kurdish- Latin alphabet, the designed by Celadet Ali Bedirxan, taken as a base. An important difference arises in the case of the copula ( " am ", " is ", etc.). In the Zaza spelling the copula as in Persian is directly attached to the previous word in the Bedirxan - sensitive it is separated, although the word with the copula read together as a unit. An example:

German meaning: "My name is Munzur, I am 20 years old and come from Dersim. "
Zaza Zazaki notation: Namey mı Munzuro, ez vist serriyan u Dersimi rawan.
Zazaki the Bedirxan orthography: Nameyê mi Munzur o, ez vist Serri ya û Dersimi ra ya.
Zazaki from Dersim ( Kirmancki ): Name mı Munzuro, ez vist serrio u Dersimi rao.

Dialects

There can be several dialects or dialect groups of Zazaki differ. Ludwig Paul ( 1998) leads to the following:

Northern dialects ( Alevi dialects ): Dersim, Erzincan, Gümüshane, Varto, Hinis ( Kirmancki, zone ma)
Central dialects: Palu, Bingöl ( Kirdki )
Süddialekte: Cermik, Siverek, Çüngüş, Gerger ( Zazaki, Dimili )
Border dialects: Mutki, Aksaray, Sariz ( Zazaki )
Transitional dialects: Kulp, Lice, Ergani, maggots ( Zazaki, Kirdki )

Zazaisch and other Indo-European languages

The linguistic structure of the Zaza language

The examples in the following presentation are taken to a large part of the grammar of Zülfü cited below Selcan (1998), so they are therefore especially for the northern Zaza dialect ( Dersim Dialect ).

The phonemic

The consonants of the Zaza are shown in the following table according to type of education and location:

In parentheses are the usual representation of the phonemes in today's Zaza texts, based on the Turkish alphabet. The volume / tʃh / is [ ç ] and the sound / dʒ / by [c ] repeatedly.

The voiceless / x / corresponds to the German / ch / in " ah ". The voiced / ʁ / German uvular r.

There are two Zaza / r / - sounds, which are reproduced here with [ ɾ ] and [ r]. Both are voiced trills ( tongues -r). / r / is more intense / ɾ / articulated as. The distinction has Phonemcharakter, as shown by the following examples:

Pere "money", but perre "wings"
Tore " custom ", but torre " safety net "
Birak " lovers ", but bırrak (also bırrek ) " saw"

The vowels of the Zaza are / i, e ( ê ), ε (s), a, o, u, ü, ɨ ( ı ) /, there is no phonemic distinction between long and short vowels. (In brackets are the numbers used in today's Zaza texts. )

The phonological system of the Zaza has some of the typical northwestern Iranian features, including: Zaza / z / and Zaza / b / (< iran / * dw /. ) (Eg Zaza over, pers represent (< iran / * dz /. ) " door ").

Nominal morphology

Nominal categories

The noun (noun, adjective, pronoun ) of the Zaza has the following categories:

Split ergativity

The best ( so also in Z. Selcan ) called " nominative " rectus is used as the subject of the intransitive verb (in all tenses ) and as the subject of the transitive verb in the present tense, in the past tense for the direct object ( ie " accusative ") of the transitive verb. The oblique is used for the direct object of the transitive verb in the present and for the agent in the past tense.

Zazaki is therefore a so-called split- ergative language, because the Ergativkonstruktion occurs only in some, but not all grammatical situations. An actual Ergativkonstruktion occurs only with transitive verbs in the past tense, the oblique is then the " ergative ", the rectus the " absolutive ".

This produces the following distribution of Kasusfunktionen Zaza:

Two examples that illustrate the principle:

Malim cirani beno doxtori

Malımi Ciran berd doxtori

To this end, further details and examples in the section on verbal morphology.

Kasusbildung

The regular Kasusbildung the ( definite ) Nouns is in the examples Lacek m. " The boy ", keyneke f " the girl " and domani " the children " is shown:

The regular declination Zaza

The endings of the primary case are so distributed as follows:

All other (secondary) case based on the oblique, from which they are derived by suffixes, prepositions according to the above scheme. ( The Kasusbezeichnungen for the locative cases vary in the literature, which correspond used herein, the case nomenclature of the Metzeler lexicon language. )

Definiteness

Nouns without further identification (such as articles ) press definite forms of ( Lacek " the boy "). Indefinite forms are given the suffix / - ê / ( Lacek - ê " a boy "). It result from contraction, elision and Hiattilgung some phonetic peculiarities. The following ( somewhat simplified ) examples:

In the plural, the Unbestimmtheitssuffix is replaced by / TAE / Tae Lacek -i " some boys ".

Attribution

In addition to gender, number, case, and definiteness (see above ) is expressed by morphemes on the noun, the attribution, and only in the attributive, but usually not in the predicative case (there are exceptions).

The following rule applies: in predicative use of the noun remains ( as in German ) unchanged, the predicative adjective used gets a Suffixkopula or Verbalsuffix that corresponds to the gender and number of the noun. In the attributive use backpacks - completely unlike the Germans - this copula as " Attributierungssuffix " to the noun to be determined, the trailing adjective receives the normal case endings of the noun. So there is the transition from the predicative attributive use a " cross-over replacement" of the suffixes of noun and adjective.

The following examples:

The Attributierungs suffixes are printed in bold.

Izafe binding

As in most Iranian languages , there is the Izafe binding in Zaza. The Izafe (or Ezafe ) is a Verbindungssuffix (originally - in the Middle Iranian period - a mounted relative pronoun ) that is inserted between a noun and its trailing genitive attribute. Here, the trailing genitive attribute is in the oblique. For the Verbindungssuffix ( Izafe ) the following scheme applies as a function of gender and number of the preceding noun relationship:

The following examples (her "ass", Ciran " neighbor", the Verbindungssuffix is in bold):

However, the Zaza also allows for a few nouns, a conversion of the genitive connection, in which the genitive attribute is facing its antecedent. For example, say " out of hand ( least ) the boy ( Lacek ) ":

Least - ê Lacek -i ra normal consequence, genitive attribute readjusted Izafe / ê /
Lacek least -i ra conversion, genitive attribute preceded by the oblique, no Izafe

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns of the Zazaki is different in the singular and the 3rd person plural, the case rectus and oblique. For comparison, the pronouns of Kurmanji, the Talysh and the Persian are attached.

It should be noted that the Persian / talische ā and a in Zazaki / Kurdish are played back as a and e (example: Farsi barf برف "snow", Kurmanji Berf ), one would also Talysh av in zazaischem / Kurdish alphabet as ev. Write

Demonstrative pronoun

If a person, thing or situation particularly alluded (eg the finger ), is the demonstrative pronouns with noun following a e - appended.

Copula

The copula, ie the 'is' in Zazaki, is added to the adjective or the noun and the verb.

Verbal morphology

Verbal Categories

The complex verbal morphology of the Zaza can only be hinted at here. We distinguish finite and infinite verbal forms. The finite verb forms have the following categories:

Of the five tenses present, past and Perfect differ by person, number, and gender, while imperfect and pluperfect do not have these categories. ( The pluperfect is different 1 sg. / Pl. )

The infinite verbal forms are two infinitives (on / - ene / and / is / ) and two participles ( Agentiv - participle and Präterital - participle ), will be discussed here in detail.

Split ergativity

Is particularly striking - in comparison to the Germans, but also to many other languages - the rectus and oblique Kasustausch of agent for the transitive verb or undergoer in the present tense and past tense, ie, the so-called split ergativity. ( A more detailed explanation in the " nominal morphology .")

Here are some examples that illustrate these striking facts ( Malim "teacher", Ciran " neighbor", doxtor " doctor ", ben - present stem, Berd - preterite of a verb meaning " to bring " ):

Examples in the present tense:

In the present tense, there is congruence between subject and predicate. In the past tense exchange itself (with transitive verbs) the endings of subject and object, there is congruence between the subject and predicate.

Examples in the past tense ( transitive verb ):

An obvious explanation of the preterite as a passive form is " The neighbor ( rectus ) was the teacher ( oblique ) to the doctor ."

Verbal stems

The verb in the Zaza has three verbal stems: present tense, subjunctive and Präteritalstamm. The formation of the tenses and modes of the verbal stems shown in the following scheme:

Below are some Konjugationsparadigmata of the verb are presented.

Indicative and continuative Present

Indicative and continuative present are made from present stem (Example wan -en "read" ):

The continuative is thus formed by suffixes ( copula ) on the subject of the present indicative. These endings can / -na- / ( Nahdeixis ) and / -ha - / ( Ferndeixis ) be extended, eg, Ti -na -ya ben- i " you bring up straight " and Ti -ha - ben- wa ay " Stick 'em straight away ."

Subjunctive and imperative present tense

Subjunctive and imperative present tense are formed from the subjunctive strain ( Example wan - "read" ):

Preterite

All other tenses and modes are formed by the preterite ( see above). As in other Iranian languages congruent transitive verb in the past tense and perfect with the object that is in Rectus. The intransitive verbs are congruent in all tenses - even in the past tense - with the subject. Thus, the formation of intransitive and transitive verbs form the past tense is different. Examples are conjugated men- d- ene " stay" ( intransitive ) and who -the- ene "read" ( transitive ).

The Kongruenzverhalten of the transitive preterite is clearer if one assigns the schema for the object, which is in Rectus: Example berd - ene " taken away ". The subjects are chosen at random:

Literal Meaning ( 1.sg. ) " I was taken away, from you."

Perfect

The Perfect as the past tense of Präteritalstamm (see above ) are formed and also differs intransitive and transitive forms. It is not semantically equivalent to the German Perfect, but does not describe directly observed or experienced or even doubted actions by the speaker. The examples correspond to those of the past tense ( see above).

Preterite

In the past tense actions are described that are not completed. The imperfect is formed in the indicative by the suffix -enes, in the subjunctive also has the prefix is bi- set.

Pluperfect

The formation of the past imperfect tense in Zazaischen done with the auxiliary bi. It is existent only in the indicative.

Future tense

The Futur is obtained in Zazaischen by the particles do, which precedes the subjunctive.

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