Aimaq dialect

Aimaq or Aimaqi (Persian: ایماقی, romanized: Aimāqi) is a Persian dialect and the dominant eastern Persian ethnolect spoken by the Aimaq people in central northwest Afghanistan (west of the Hazarajat) and eastern Iran. It is close to the Dari varieties of Persian. The Aimaq people are thought to have a 5–15% literacy rate.

Aimaq
گویش ایماقی
Aimaqi written in the Perso-Arabic script in Nastaliq style.
Native to	Afghanistan, Iran
Ethnicity	Aimaq
Native speakers	1.9 million (2017–2019)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Southwestern Iranian Persian Aimaq
Writing system	Persian alphabet
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Tajikistan (in Gorno-Badakhshan)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aiq
Glottolog	aima1241

Dialects

Subdialects of Aimaq dialect include:

• Chinghizi
• Firozkohi
• Jamshidi
• Maliki
• Mizmast
• Taimani
• Taimuri
• Teimuri
• Zainal
• Zohri

Phonology

Phonetically, as one of the eastern Persian dialects, the Aimaq dialect resembles a formal or classical form of Persian.

Vowels:

• The "majhul" vowels ē / ī and ō / ū are still kept separate, whereas in western Persian they are merged as ī and ū respectively. For instance, the identically written words شیر 'lion' and 'milk' are in western Persian both pronounced [šīr], but in Aimaq [šēr] for 'lion' and [šīr] for 'milk'. The long vowel in زود 'quick' and زور 'strong' is realized as [ū] in western Persian, in contrast, these words are pronounced as [zūd] and [zōr] respectively by Aimaq speakers.
• The diphthongs of early Classical Persian aw (as ow in Engl. cow) and ay (as i in English ice) have in Aimaq become [ow] (as in Engl. low) and [ej] (as in Engl. day). Dari, on the other hand, is more archaic, e.g. نوروز 'Persian New Year' is realized as [nowrūz] in Iranian, and [nawrōz] in Aimaq, and نخیر 'no' is uttered as [naχejr] in Iranian, and as [naχajr] in Aimaq.
• The high short vowels [i] and [u] tend to be lowered in western Persian to [e] and [o].
• /æ/ and /e/ are in Aimaq kept separate in word-final positions, unlike western Persian, where /æ/ has [e] as a word-final allophone.

Consonants:

• Aimaq still retains the (classical) bilabial pronunciation [w] of the labial consonant و, which is realized as a voiced labiodental fricative [v] in western Persian. [v] is found in Aimaq as an allophone of f before voiced consonants.
• The voiced uvular stop /ɢ/ (ق) and voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ (غ) are still kept separate in Aimaq. They have coincided in western Persian (probably under the influence of Turkic languages like Azeri and Turkmen).

See also

• Hazaragi dialect

References

Notations

• Clifton, John M. (ed.) (2005) Studies in languages of Tajikistan North Eurasia Group, SIL International, St Petersburg, Russia, OCLC 122939499