AVROMANI, the dialect of Avroman, properly Hawrāmi, is the most archaic of the ōԾ group. All ōԾ dialects exhibit a number of phonological features which link them with the dialects of central Iran and distinguish them from Kurdish. While the main ōԾ language area, to the west of Kermānæāh, is an island in a sea of chiefly Kurdish dialects, the Hawrāmān now forms a separate islet to the north. It is clear, however, that the neighboring Kurdish dialects have encroached on a much wider ōԾ area and have been considerably affected in the process. There has also been much interchange of vocabulary.
Phonologically Hawrāmi is distinguished from Kurdish and Persian alike by (i) the preservation of initial y- and w-, (ii) the development of hw- to w-, (iii) wy- to y-, (iv) x- to h-, and (v) dw- to b-; e.g. (i) yawa “barley,” yahar “liver,” “wind,” ɲ “spring,” ī “twenty,” (ii) rday “to eat,” stay, z- “to want,” witay, ū- “to sleep,” ŧ- “self,” (iii) 岵ŧ “place,” - “arrive”( < *ɲȳ-), (iv) har “ass,” Բ “spring, source,” (v) bara “door.” In common with Kurdish, etc., it has (vi) the preservation of s, z < IE, k, g and (vii) the development of ǰ- to ž-, e.g., (vi) “iron,” 첹 “gazelle,” “to know,” “bridegroom,” (vii) žī “woman,” žī- “to live.” The preservation of intervocalic -č-, especially in some verb stems, is noteworthy, e.g., ōč- “burn,” č- “speak,” ŧč- “sift”; otherwise to -ž, or lost, e.g., ŧž “sharp,” ž- “to suck,” ō “day” (perhaps loanwords).
The vowel system comprises seven long and three short vowels, with a distinction, morphologically important, between open and close e and o, thus ī ē e ā o ū, i a u. The consonant phonemes, 26 in number, are similar to those of the neighboring Kurdish dialects, particularly the continuant allophones of d and t, the distinction between flapped r and rolled ṟ, and l and ł. Stress plays a vital part in the morphology, often distinguishing otherwise identical forms, e.g., čˈī “needle”: čˈī “with,” ūˈŧ “they went”: ˈūŧ “if he had gone” (cf. ūˈŧ “he was going”).
The dialect preserves a distinction of number (singular and plural), gender (masculine and feminine), and case (direct and oblique) for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (including the “indefinite article” suffix, masc. -ŧ, fem. -ŧa): thus, 쾱ŧ (-ŧ) -ī siˈāw “(a) black book,” plur. 쾱ŧē sīˈāwē, ٲɲī (ٲɲŧɲ-) īˈɲ “(a) black stone,” plur. ٲɲī sīˈāwē, obl. ǰa tawaŧ sīˈāwē “from black stone”; dagā-y gawrˈē “a big village,” plur. dagē gawrˈē. Besides the epithetic particle ī there is a genitival (żڲ) ū: Բ- (ŧ-ī) ɰˈ “(a) big house,” yāna-w æūānˈay “the shepherd’s house.”
In conjunction with various defining and pronominal suffixes these endings form some very intricate inflexional patterns.
The verbal system presents further complications, having two distinct sets of personal endings used with each of the present and past stems. They are (i-a) Present sing. 1 -u, 2 -ī, 3 -ō, plur. 1 -(y)ŧ, 2 -(y)ŧ, 3 -, (i-b) Imperfect, -ˈŧŧ, -ŧī, -ŧ, -ŧnŧ, -ŧnŧ, -ŧŧ, (ii-a) Past, -(ŧ), -ī, -Ø masc. ~ -a fem., -īŧ, -īŧ, -ŧ, and (ii-b) Past Conditional ēŧ, etc. (like i-b).
The copula is characterized by the presence of n, thus -, -ī, -/-n(a) masc. ~ -ana fem., -anŧ, -anŧ, -aŧ.
The modal prefixes, m(i)- pres. indicative, b(i)- subjunctive, are regularly omitted with some verbs, thus -ūˈū “I sleep,” ˈ-岹 “should I give,” but 첹ˈū “I do,” ˈū “if I do”: the corresponding negative forms are generally ma-, na- respectively, thus ˈ-ɲū, ˈ-岹, ˈ-첹ū, ˈ-첹ū. Verbs may also take adverbial suffixes and a pronominal suffix, as agent in the regular construction of the past tenses of transitive verbs, otherwise as object, e.g., wizū-æ-arāwa r “I shall throw it (-æ) down (-ara) again (-awa),” wist-im-ara r “I threw it down,” waō-æ-ō “if he drinks it,” agar na-rda-bīē-m-ō “if I had not drunk it.”
Bibliography:
D. N. MacKenzie, The Dialect of Awroman (Hawrāmān-ī Luhōn), Hist.-Filos. Skr. Dan. Vid. Selsk. 4, no. 3, Copenhagen, 1966 (with earlier literature).
Search terms:
| &Բ;اورامانی | oramani | ouramany | oraamaani |
(D. N. MacKenzie)
Originally Published: December 15, 1987
Last Updated: August 18, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 1, pp. 111-112
