Khalaj language

language
name=Khalaj
familycolor=Altaic
states=Iran
region=Northeast of Arak in Markazi Province of Iran
speakers=42,107 (2000)
fam1=Altaic [" [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90009] Ethnologue"] (controversial)
fam2=Turkic
fam3=Arghu
iso2=tut|iso3=klj|

Khalaj is a language spoken primarily in Iran and Afghanistan. It belongs to the Turkic family of languages. There were approximately 42,000 speakers of this language as of 2000. ISO 639-3 uses the name [http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=klj Turkic Khalaj] to distinguish it from the Indo-Iranian language called "Khalaj".

Classification

Khalaj has traditionally been classified with Turkoman or Azerbaijani dialects, primarily because of its proximity to those languages. However, features such as preservation of three vowel lengths, preservation of word-initial Proto-Turkic *h, and lack of the sound change *d > y has led to a non-Oghuz classification of Khalaj. An example of these archaisms is present in the word "hadaq", which has preserved the initial *h and medial *d. The equivalent form in nearby Oghuz dialects is "ayaq". Because of the preservation of these archaic features, some scholars have speculated that the Khalaj are the descendants of the Arghu Turks.

Geographical distribution

Khalaj is spoken mainly in Markazi Province in Iran. Doerfer cites the number of speakers as approximately 17,000 in 1968; the Ethnologue reports that the population of speakers grew to 42,107 by 2000.

Dialects

The main dialects of Khalaj are Northern and Southern. Within these dialect groupings, individual villages and groupings of speakers have distinct speech patterns.

ounds

Consonants

References

*cite book | author=Doerfer, Gerhard| title=Khalaj Materials | location=Bloomington | publisher=Indiana University Press | year=1971
*cite book | author=Doerfer, Gerhard | title=Grammatik des Chaladsch |location=Wiesbaden | publisher=Harrassowitz | year=1998 | ISBN=3447028653
*cite book | author=Doerfer, Gerhard & Tezcan, Semih | title=Folklore-Texte der Chaladsch| location=Wiesbaden| publisher=Harrassowitz| year=1994
*cite book | author=Johanson, Lars & Csató, Éva Ágnes | title=The Turkic Languages | location=London | publisher=Routledge | year=1998