Khalaj language

ISO confusion

Ethnologue and ISO list an Iranian language "Khalaj" with the same population, but Glottolog states it does not exist. The Khalaj speak their Turkic language and Farsi, and the supposed Iranian language of the Khalaj is spurious.

Classification

Further, 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 ("foot"), which has preserved the initial *h and medial *d. The equivalent form in nearby Oghuz dialects is ayaq (compare Turkish ayak). Therefore, it is an independent language that became distinct very early from other extant Turkic languages. Because of the preservation of these archaic features, some scholars have speculated that the Khalaj are the descendants of the Arghu Turks. It's considered as "last examples" of Old Turkic by some Turkish scholars.

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.

Vowels

Khalaj vowels are /i, y, u, æ, œ, o, a/.

It is often claimed that vowels in Khalaj occur in three lengths: long (e.g. [qaːn] 'blood'), half-long (e.g. [baˑʃ] 'head'), and short (e.g. [hat] 'horse'). This view has been challenged by A. Manaster Ramer. Additionally, some vowels are realized as falling diphthongs, as in [quo̯l] ('arm, sleeve').

Nouns

Nouns in Khalaj may receive a plural marker or possessive marker. Cases in Khalaj include genitive, accusative, dative, locative, ablative, instrumental, and equative.

Forms of case suffixes change based on vowel harmony and the consonants they follow. Case endings also interact with possessive suffixes. A table of basic case endings is provided below:

Verbs

Verbs in Khalaj are inflected for voice, tense, aspect, and negation. Verbs consist of long strings of morphemes in the following array:

Syntax

Khalaj employs subject–object–verb word order. Adjectives precede nouns.

Vocabulary

The core of Khalaj vocabulary is Turkic, but many words have been borrowed from Persian. Words from neighboring Turkic dialects, namely, Azerbaijani have also made their way into Khalaj.

Numbers

Khalaj numbers are Turkic in form, but some speakers replace the forms for "80" and "90" with Persian terms:

Examples

(Excerpt from Dorfer & Tezcan (1994) pp. 158–159)