Qashqai language

Qashqai
Kaşqay dili
Native to	Iran
Region	Fars, Isfahan, Bushehr, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Khuzestan
Ethnicity	Qashqai
Native speakers	949,000 (2015)[1]
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Oghuz Western Oghuz Southwestern Oghuz Qashqai
Writing system	Persian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	qxq
Glottolog	qash1240
Linguasphere	part of 44-AAB-a

Qashqai (قاشقای ديلى, also spelled Qashqay, Kashkai, Kashkay, Qašqāʾī, and Qashqa'i) 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 949,000 in 2015.

The Qashqai language is closely related to Azerbaijani, also known as Azeri. However, some Qashqai varieties namely the variety spoken in the Sheshbeyli tribe share features with Turkish. In a sociopolitical sense, though, Qashqai is considered a language in its own right.

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

Morphology

The suffixes are similar to Azerbaijani.

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. Le Qashqay: langue turcique d'Iran. CreateSpace Independent publishing platform
• 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)