Native to Azerbaijan Extinct 20th century | Region Nakhchivan Glottolog None | |
Language family Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Iranian
Western
Talysh group
Tati
Kilit | ||
Kilit is an extinct Iranian dialect of Azerbaijan that is closely related to Talysh. It is probably a dialect of Iranian Tati, otherwise found only in Iran. It was spoken in the villages around Kilit, located 12 kilometers southwest from the city of Ordubad in a district with the same name of Nakhchivan in Azerbaijan. It was still used by non-native speakers as a second language in the 1950s.
Contents
History
The language has been long known to the Russian historians and travelers since the middle of nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. The historian Chopin, first mentioned it back in 1852. He states the inhabitants of the village as amounting to 104. Zelinsky researched on the language in 1880 afterwards. In the 1950s a few speakers was reported who used the language probably only as a trade lingo or secret language. In 1966, A. G. Gasanov collected a few words and phrases. Although the possibility of a migration cannot be ruled out, however it is more likely, given more data about Tatic languages and proto-Tatic, that this group extended at least as far as the areas in which the remanent languages are spoken today.
Some available materials
The following is a kiliti text reported by Zelinsky: Transliterated from Cyrillic ‹See TfD›: