Qashqai (قشقایی ديلى,Qašqāyī dili, pronounced in English as/ˈkæʃkaɪ/KASH-ky, and also spelledQaşqay,Qashqayi,Kashkai,Kashkay,Qašqāʾī[2][3] andQashqa'i orKaşkay) is anOghuzTurkic language spoken by theQashqai people, an ethnic group living mainly in theFars province of SouthernIran.Encyclopædia Iranica regards Qashqai as an independent third group of dialects within the Southwestern Turkic language group.[4] It is known to speakers asTurki.[5] Estimates of the number of Qashqai speakers vary.Ethnologue gave a figure of 1.0 million in 2021.[1]
The Qashqai language is closely related toAzerbaijani. However, some Qashqai varieties namely the variety spoken in the Sheshbeyli tribe share features withTurkish.[6][7] In a sociopolitical sense, though, Qashqai is considered a language in its own right.[8]
Like other Turkic languages spoken inIran, such as the Azerbaijani language, Qashqai uses a modified version of the Perso-Arabic script.
Sounds /ʒ/ and /ʔ/ only occur as loan consonants from Persian and Arabic.
Sounds /p,t,t͡ʃ,k/ mainly occur phonemically before consonants, but may occur as aspirated before vowels or in word-final position as [pʰtʰt͡ʃʰkʰ].
Sounds /z,ŋ,ʁ/ never occur in word-initial position, except in a few loan words.
[w] only occurs as an intervocalic allophone of /v/ when occurring between two rounded vowels. It may also occur in vowel diphthongs as [ow].
/ŋ/ and /ɡ/ can occur phonemically as [ɲ] and [ɟ] when preceding front vowels.
/l/ may occur as two allophones; as [l̠ʲ] before front vowels, or as [ɫ] before back vowels.
/r/ can have two allophones; as [ɾ] in word-initial and word-medial positions, or as [r̥] in word-final positions. In native words, /r/ rarely occurs word-initially.
Qashqai follows common Turkic syntax features: dependent marking, head-final within unmarked phrases, free word order with SOV preferred, agglutinative. Grammatical cases in Qashqai Turkic include: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative,terminative, equative and instrumental.[11]
Csató Éva Ágnes, 2005.On copying in Kashkay. In: Éva Á. Csató, Bo Isakssons & Carina Jahani (eds.) Linguistic Conversion and areal diffusion: Case studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic, London,Routledge Curzon, 271–283.
Doerfer Gerhard, et al. 1990.Qašqā’ī-Gedichte aus Fīrūz-ābād (=Südoghusisch). In:Oghusica aus Iran, Wiesbaden:Otto Harrassowitz, pp. 67–132.
Dolatkhah Sohrab, Csató Éva Á. & Karakoç Birsel. 2016.On the marker -(y)akï in Kashkay. In: Éva Á. Csató, Lars Johanson, András Róna-Tas, and Bo Utas (eds.)Turks and Iranians: Interactions in Language and History, pp. 283–301. Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag.
Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2016.Kashkai: langue turcique d'Iran. (Réédition du titre Qashqay : langue turcique d'Iran). Independently published (via Amazon).[self-published source?]
Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2012.Elements for a grammar of Kashkay: a Turkic language of Iran. PhD dissertation. Paris:Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
Dolatkhah Sohrab. 2007.Présentation et documentation du folklore qashqai : langue turcique du sud d’Iran. Master thesis. Paris:Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
Gharakhalou-Narrei, Mehdi. 1996. Migration and cultural change in urban communities of the Qashqa'i of Iran. PhD thesis. Ottawa:University of Ottawa.
Mardâni R. Assadollâh, 2007. Qašqayı sözlügü [Qashqai Dictionary]. [in Azerbaijani and Perso-Arabic script with explications in Persian] Shiraz: Rahgosha Publishers.
Soper, John David, 1987.Loan Syntax in Turkic and Iranian: The Verb Systems ofTajik,Uzbek, and Qashqai. Doctoral dissertation, Los Angeles:University of California
1These are traditional areas of settlement; the Turkic group has been living in the listed country/region for centuries and should not be confused with modern diasporas. 2State with limited international recognition.
