| Chapter : | Brief Introduction to the Herati Dialect |
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“e” (“ι” being the most closed); “ä” indicates a more front allophone of “a”, while “æ” stands for its front variant slightly shifted up toward a lower-mid position similar to “a” in “cat” (versus “a”, which renders a sound similar to “a” in “father”), “ə” is used for a reduced “a” with a slight loss of quality; “ĭ”, “ŏ”, and “ŭ” imply non-syllabic vowels. Symbol “č” renders a consonant like “ch” in “cherry”; “š” is similar to “sh” in “she”; “ž” indicates a consonant like “g” in “beige”; “ġ” stands for a back velar or front uvular stop, which does not occur in English; “x” (kh) renders a fricative sound produced between the back of the tongue and the soft palate, which does not occur in English; “đ” indicates a semi-voiced “d”; and ñ (ŋ) is a velar nasal consonant.
Strongly reduced, partially dropped, or barely perceptible sounds are indicated by superscripts. All unstressed morphemes attached to the end of words are separated by a hyphen.
Phonology
Vowels and Diphthongs (and Their Major Alterations)
There is no distinction in the Herati dialect between the “long” and “short” vowels (unlike modern Afghan Persian) and between the “stable” and “unstable” vowels (unlike modern Persian and Tajiki). Thus, all the vowels are given to qualitative and quantitative changes, including reduction. However, alterations and reduction occur according to certain rules (see the following).
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1. The historic majhul vowels and diphthongs generally evolve with a progressive tendency toward gradual merging together of the phonemes [ê] and [i]; [ô] and [u]; and the changing of the diphthongs [ay] > [äy] > [æy] > [εy] > [ey]; [av/aw] > [äu] > [öu/öuw]. This is best illustrated by the use of interchangeable variants, existing for all the words with historic [ê], [ô], [ay], and [av]: safêd/safid-“white,” dêr/dir-“long,” kô/ku-“mountain,” rôz/ruz-“day,” päydâ/peydâ-“obvious,” and däur-e/döur-e-“around.”