| Chapter : | Brief Introduction to the Herati Dialect |
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- 13. As in any variety of colloquial speech, there are many contractions in the Herati dialect. Since most of them involve both vowels and consonants, we consider them after the description of the consonants.
Consonants and Semivowels (and Their Major Alterations)
- 14. The system of consonants and semivowels in Herati is identical to Persian (except for bilabial “w”, which tends to replace labiodental “v”). Herati (as a Khorasani dialect and like Persian dialects as a rule) is characterized by the existence of one phoneme-[ġ], whereas Afghan Persian in general and Tajiki have two different phonemes-[q] and [γ] (gh). This one phoneme is defined as a back velar or front uvular stop. When [ġ] occurs intervocalically, it tends toward a uvular fricative [γ]. The two allophones are in free variation. Thus, there is no distinction in Herati pronunciation between the word ġarib, cf. LK qarib-“close; related, relative,” and ġarib, cf. LK γarib “strange, stranger; poor.”
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15. There is an obvious tendency toward the dropping of consonants:
- a) “h” is most regularly dropped in any position (as in Afghan Persian dialects generally): arf, cf. LK harf—“letter; word(s)”; šar, cf. LK šahr—“city” (“ah” never becomes “â”); rubâ, cf. LK, LP rubâh—“fox”;
- b) “n” often drops in a postvocalic position at the end of words: biru, cf. LK bêrun-“exterior, out-of-door”; âfari, cf. LK âfarin-“bravo”;
- c) “m” may drop in a final position or when preceded or followed by another consonant (or a semivowel): kodu, cf. LK, LP kodâm-“which”; čeč/čιš, cf. LK češm-“eye”; awâr, cf. LK hamwâr-“plain, smooth”; kafâl, cf. LK kafmâl-nonverbal part of the compound verb “to grind by hand”;
- d) occasional dropping of other consonants is widely observed: doz, cf. LK, LP dozd-“thief”; râs, cf. LK, LP râst-“right, true”; sandun, cf. LK sangdân-“gizzard of a bird”; pirmad, cf. LK pirmard-“old man”; kad, cf. LK kard-past stem of the verb “to do.”