Lori dialects

"Luri" redirects here. For the town in France, see Luri, Haute-Corse.

Lori
Spoken in	Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Germany
Region	Southern Zagros (mainly in the Loristan province.)
Ethnicity	Lurs
Native speakers	ca. 3.4 million  (1999–2001)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Southwestern Iranian (Persid)[1] Lori
Language codes
ISO 639-3	variously: lrc – Northern Luri bqi – Bakhtiari luz – Southern Luri zum – Kumzari

Lori or Luri (Lori/Persian: لری, pronounced [loriː], [luriː]) is a collection of Southwestern Iranian languages^[2][3] which are mainly spoken by the Lurs and Bakhtiari people in the Iranian provinces of Loristan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and parts of Khuzestan and Esfahan province and Fars provinces. Lori is a descendant of a variant of Middle Persian^[4] and is lexically similar to modern Persian.^[4] According to the linguist Don Stillo: "Persian, Lori-Baḵtiāri and others, are derived directly from Old Persian through Middle Persian/Pahlavi".^[5] These dialects are also referred to as the “Persid” southern Zagros group.^[6] The special character of the Lori language suggests that its spreading area was Iranicized from Persia and not from Media.^[7][8]

"Luri and Bakhtiari are much more closely related to Persian, than Kurdish."^[9] And Lori also represents a language continuum between Persian language and Kurdish language varieties, and is itself composed of three distinct languages: Loristani, Bakhtiari and Southern Lori. Traditionally, Lori has been categorised as a single language. Some scholars have stated that Lori is only a highly accented or لهجه (lahjeh) form of Persian. And, on the other hand, some researchers are supporting the division of the Lori continuum into more than one language.^[4] There do exist transitional dialects between Southern Kurdish and Lori-Bakhtiāri, and Lori-Bakhtiāri itself may be called a transitional idiom between Kurdish and Persian.^[10]

SIL Ethnologue lists four Lori language dialects,

• Northern Lori [lrc], ca. 1,500,000 speakers as of 2001
• Bakhtiari [bqi], ca. 2,300,000 speakers as of 2001
• Southern Lori [luz], ca. 875,000 speakers as of 1999
• Kumzari [zum], spoken in the Musandam Peninsula of northern Oman, ca. 1,700 speakers as of 1993.

See also

• Bakhtiari dialect
• Borujerdi dialect
• Dialects of Fars
• Laki language

References

1. ^ Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (15 December 2006). "IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS". Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. New York: Columbia University. http://www.iranica.com/articles/iran-vi-iranian-languages-and-scripts. Retrieved 2010-05-23. "Lori (in several varieties) and Baḵtiāri... These are also called the “Perside” dialects." 
2. ^ http://iranica.com/articles/lori-dialects
3. ^ Lecoq P. Les dialectes du sud-ouest de l'Iran // Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden, 1989.
4. ^ ^{a b c} Erik John Anonby, "Update on Luri: How many languages?" // Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series), Volume 13, Issue 02, Jul 2003, pp 171–197
5. ^ Don Stillo, "Isfahan-Provincial Dialetcs" in Encyclopedia Iranica, Excerpt: "While the modern SWI languages, for instance, Persian, Lori-Baḵtiāri and others, are derived directly from Old Persian through Middle Persian/Pahlavi"
6. ^ Bakhtiari tribe and the Bakhtiari dialect, Encyclopedia Iranica
7. ^ Yar-Shater, Ehsan. 1982. Encyclopaedia Iranica. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. V, p. 617a
8. ^ Houtsma, M. T., 1987. E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936. Published by BRILL. Lur. p. 41. (and p. 281) ISBN 9004082654, ISBN 9789004082656
9. ^ Limbert, John: Journal of Iranian Studies Vol. 1, No. 2 at p. 47 (1968) (http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/origins-of-kurds-in-preislamic-iran.pdf), "The Origin and Appearance of Kurds in Pre-Islamic Iran".
10. ^ kurdish language, Encyclopedia Iranica

External links

• Bakhtiari tribe and the Bakhtiari dialect, Iranica