Zaza language


Zaza, also called Zazaki, Kirmanjki, Kirdki and Dimli, is an Indo-European language spoken primarily in Eastern Turkey by the Zazas. The language is a part of the northwestern group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family and belongs to the Zaza–Gorani. The glossonym Zaza originated as a pejorative and many Zazas call their language Dimlî.
While Zazaki is linguistically closer related to Gorani, Gilaki, Talysh, Tati, Mazandarani and the Semnani language, Kurdish has had a profound impact on the language due to centuries of interaction, which have blurred the boundaries between the two languages. This and the fact that a majority of Zaza-speakers identify themselves as ethnic Kurds, have encouraged linguists to classify the language as a Kurdish dialect.
According to Ethnologue, the number of speakers is between 1.5 and 2.5 million. According to Nevins, the number of Zaza speakers is between 2 and 4 million.

Disputed origin

While the origin of the Zaza is disputed, one theory claims that the word Dimlî derives from the ancient name Daylam and that Zazas are remnants of the Daylamites who migrated westwards from the 10th century on.

Dialects

There are three main Zaza dialects:
Its subdialects are:
Its subdialects are:
Zaza shows many similarities with Kurmanji, which it does not share with Caspian languages:
Ludwig Paul divides Zaza into three main dialects. In addition, there are transitions and edge accents that have a special position and cannot be fully included in any dialect group.

Literature and broadcast programs

The first written statements in Zaza were compiled by the linguist Peter Lerch in 1850. Two other important documents are the religious writings of Ehmedê Xasî of 1899, and of Osman Efendîyo Babij ; both of these works were written in the Arabic script.
The diaspora has also generated a limited amount of Zaza language broadcasting. Moreover, after restrictions were removed on local languages in Turkey in 2003 during their move toward an eventual accession to the European Union, Turkish state-owned TRT Kurdî television launched several Zaza programs and a radio program on certain days.
Despite being a major Iranic language, Zaza is not well-known to outsiders and has become increasingly vulnerable due to state repression and political unrest in the region. Due to language policies in effect for over 50 years, both the number of Zaza speakers and the degree to which they use the language have been in sharp decline. Diaspora and refugee communities now exist throughout Europe, especially Germany, and in the United States there are currently Zaza communities in New York and New Jersey.
The institution of Higher Education approved the opening of Zaza Language and Literature Department in Munzur University in 2011 and began accepting students in 2012 for the department. In the following year, Bingöl University established the same department.

Grammar

As with a number of other Indo-Iranian languages like the Kurdish languages, Zaza features split ergativity in its morphology, demonstrating ergative marking in past and perfective contexts, and nominative-accusative alignment otherwise. Syntactically it is nominative-accusative.

Grammatical gender

Among all Western Iranian languages only Zaza and Kurmanji distinguish between masculine and feminine grammatical gender. Each noun belongs to one of those two genders. In order to correctly decline any noun and any modifier or other type of word affecting that noun, one must identify whether the noun is feminine or masculine. Most nouns have inherent gender. However, some nominal roots have variable gender, i.e. they may function as either masculine or feminine nouns. This distinguishes Zaza from many other Western Iranian languages that have lost this feature over time.
For example, the masculine preterite participle of the verb kerdene is kerde; the feminine preterite-participle is kerdiye. Both have the sense of the English "made" or "done". The grammatical gender of the preterite-participle would be determined by the grammatical gender of the noun representing the thing that was made or done.
The linguistic notion of grammatical gender is distinguished from the biological and social notion of gender, although they interact closely in many languages. Both grammatical and natural gender can have linguistic effects in a given language.

Phonology

Vowels

A vowel // may also be realized as // when occurring before a consonant. // may become lowered to an // when occurring before a velarized nasal //; , or occurring between a palatal approximant // and a palato-alveolar fricative //. Vowels //, //, or // become nasalized when occurring before //, as //, //, or //.

Consonants

// becomes a velar // when following a velar consonant.

Alphabet

The Zazaki alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Zaza language, consisting of 32 letters, six of which have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements of the language.
Upper caseABCÇDEÊFGĞHIÎJKLMNOPQRSŞTUÛVWXYZ
Lower caseabcçdeêfgğhiîjklmnopqrsştuûvwxyz
IPA phonemes,

Literature