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Papers by Mortaza Taheri-Ardali
Journal of Linguistic Geography, 2022
Language documentation has been carried out in Iran since the late 1800s but in a sporadic way, a... more Language documentation has been carried out in Iran since the late 1800s but in a sporadic way, and even now, the scholarly picture of the country’s linguistic landscape is fragmentary. The present article responds to this state of affairs in a modest way by working toward a systematic overview of the language situation in one area of the country: Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province of western Iran, where the high Zagros Mountains open onto the Iranian Plateau. In this study, conducted in the context of the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) research programme, we chronicle our research process for this region, beginning with an inventory of languages spoken here—varieties of Bakhtiari, Charmahali, and Turkic—and an overview of their geographical distribution. This initial step enabled us to select 30 varieties from 26 locations across the province for in-depth research, including implementation of the ALI language data questionnaire. Data generated by the study have resulted in tw...
This dataset contains linguistic data collected in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran. Ther... more This dataset contains linguistic data collected in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran. There are three tabs in the spreadsheet: Metadata, Sociolinguistic Context, and Lexicon. Grammatical data and Numbers will be added as the data are processed.
This dataset contains the questionnaire for the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) and related ... more This dataset contains the questionnaire for the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) and related documentation. Linguistic data collected using the questionnaire are archived separately under topical datasets within the ALI Dataverse.
International Handbook of Modern Lexis and Lexicography, 2017
7th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2014, 2014
Iranian Studies, 2019
There have been a number of important efforts to map out the languages of Iran, but until now no ... more There have been a number of important efforts to map out the languages of Iran, but until now no language atlas, or even a comprehensive and detailed country-level language map, has been produced. One of the recent initiatives which aims to fill this gap is the online Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) (http://iranatlas.net). This article delineates objectives of the ALI research programme, atlas architecture, research methodology, and preliminary results that have been generated. Specific topics of interest are the structure and content of the linguistic data questionnaire; the handling of contrasting perspectives about the status of “languages” and “dialects” through a flexible multi-dimensional classification web; and the role of ongoing comparisons between language distribution assessments and hard linguistic data.
This paper is an attempt to test PENTA, an articulatory-functional model, on Persian focus prosod... more This paper is an attempt to test PENTA, an articulatory-functional model, on Persian focus prosody. The test was done on a corpus consisting of utterances with different focus conditions using PENTAtrainer2, a trainable prosody synthesizer that optimizes categorical pitch targets each corresponding to multiple communicative functions. The evaluation was done by comparing the F 0 contours generated by the extracted pitch targets to those of natural utterances through numerical and perceptual evaluations. The numerical results showed that the synthesized F 0 was close to the natural contour in terms of RMSE (= 1.94) and Pearson's r (= 0.84). Perceptual evaluation showed that the rate of focus identification and naturalness judgement by native Persian listeners were highly similar between synthetic and natural F 0 contours.
Natural semantic metalanguage, inspired by Leibnitz's alphabet of human thoughts, is a semantic a... more Natural semantic metalanguage, inspired by Leibnitz's alphabet of human thoughts, is a semantic approach which introduces universal semantic concepts. Empirical crosslinguistic investigations have now established that there are nearly sixty concepts which occur as words or wordlike elements in all languages, and which are presumably innate. These universal concepts cannot be defined or explained, but other more complex concepts can be defined and explained through them. Moreover, these concepts are simply translatable across all languages. Thus, after the introduction of the abovementioned approach, the current paper investigates the use of this approach in translation theory focusing on the possibility of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic translatability. In conclusion, universal human concepts ensure translatability of our thoughts from one language into another since they constitute a basis for genuine human understanding.
Iranian Studies, 2020
Most studies on language contact in Iran have focused on the effects of Persian on the country’s ... more Most studies on language contact in Iran have focused on the effects of Persian on the country’s minority languages. There are also many cases where large regional languages such as Azeri, Kurdish, Balochi, Lori and Bakhtiari exert an influence on smaller regional languages, and a few studies have appeared on this topic. This paper examines the effects of language contact in the city of Juneqan in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran, where the position of two minority languages—Bakhtiari and Qashqai Turkic—appears to be evenly balanced. The analysis is based on a comparison of L1 and L2 speech from two bilingual individuals with a different L1, as found in responses to the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) questionnaire. Drawing on examples from lexicon, phonology and morphosyntax, the article argues that the equivalent influence of each language on the first- and second-language speech of members of the other language community is likely achieved not by simple equal status,...
Journal of Linguistic Geography, 2022
Language documentation has been carried out in Iran since the late 1800s but in a sporadic way, a... more Language documentation has been carried out in Iran since the late 1800s but in a sporadic way, and even now, the scholarly picture of the country’s linguistic landscape is fragmentary. The present article responds to this state of affairs in a modest way by working toward a systematic overview of the language situation in one area of the country: Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province of western Iran, where the high Zagros Mountains open onto the Iranian Plateau. In this study, conducted in the context of the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) research programme, we chronicle our research process for this region, beginning with an inventory of languages spoken here—varieties of Bakhtiari, Charmahali, and Turkic—and an overview of their geographical distribution. This initial step enabled us to select 30 varieties from 26 locations across the province for in-depth research, including implementation of the ALI language data questionnaire. Data generated by the study have resulted in tw...
This dataset contains linguistic data collected in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran. Ther... more This dataset contains linguistic data collected in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran. There are three tabs in the spreadsheet: Metadata, Sociolinguistic Context, and Lexicon. Grammatical data and Numbers will be added as the data are processed.
This dataset contains the questionnaire for the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) and related ... more This dataset contains the questionnaire for the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) and related documentation. Linguistic data collected using the questionnaire are archived separately under topical datasets within the ALI Dataverse.
International Handbook of Modern Lexis and Lexicography, 2017
7th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2014, 2014
Iranian Studies, 2019
There have been a number of important efforts to map out the languages of Iran, but until now no ... more There have been a number of important efforts to map out the languages of Iran, but until now no language atlas, or even a comprehensive and detailed country-level language map, has been produced. One of the recent initiatives which aims to fill this gap is the online Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) (http://iranatlas.net). This article delineates objectives of the ALI research programme, atlas architecture, research methodology, and preliminary results that have been generated. Specific topics of interest are the structure and content of the linguistic data questionnaire; the handling of contrasting perspectives about the status of “languages” and “dialects” through a flexible multi-dimensional classification web; and the role of ongoing comparisons between language distribution assessments and hard linguistic data.
This paper is an attempt to test PENTA, an articulatory-functional model, on Persian focus prosod... more This paper is an attempt to test PENTA, an articulatory-functional model, on Persian focus prosody. The test was done on a corpus consisting of utterances with different focus conditions using PENTAtrainer2, a trainable prosody synthesizer that optimizes categorical pitch targets each corresponding to multiple communicative functions. The evaluation was done by comparing the F 0 contours generated by the extracted pitch targets to those of natural utterances through numerical and perceptual evaluations. The numerical results showed that the synthesized F 0 was close to the natural contour in terms of RMSE (= 1.94) and Pearson's r (= 0.84). Perceptual evaluation showed that the rate of focus identification and naturalness judgement by native Persian listeners were highly similar between synthetic and natural F 0 contours.
Natural semantic metalanguage, inspired by Leibnitz's alphabet of human thoughts, is a semantic a... more Natural semantic metalanguage, inspired by Leibnitz's alphabet of human thoughts, is a semantic approach which introduces universal semantic concepts. Empirical crosslinguistic investigations have now established that there are nearly sixty concepts which occur as words or wordlike elements in all languages, and which are presumably innate. These universal concepts cannot be defined or explained, but other more complex concepts can be defined and explained through them. Moreover, these concepts are simply translatable across all languages. Thus, after the introduction of the abovementioned approach, the current paper investigates the use of this approach in translation theory focusing on the possibility of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic translatability. In conclusion, universal human concepts ensure translatability of our thoughts from one language into another since they constitute a basis for genuine human understanding.
Iranian Studies, 2020
Most studies on language contact in Iran have focused on the effects of Persian on the country’s ... more Most studies on language contact in Iran have focused on the effects of Persian on the country’s minority languages. There are also many cases where large regional languages such as Azeri, Kurdish, Balochi, Lori and Bakhtiari exert an influence on smaller regional languages, and a few studies have appeared on this topic. This paper examines the effects of language contact in the city of Juneqan in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran, where the position of two minority languages—Bakhtiari and Qashqai Turkic—appears to be evenly balanced. The analysis is based on a comparison of L1 and L2 speech from two bilingual individuals with a different L1, as found in responses to the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (ALI) questionnaire. Drawing on examples from lexicon, phonology and morphosyntax, the article argues that the equivalent influence of each language on the first- and second-language speech of members of the other language community is likely achieved not by simple equal status,...
Adopting Autosegmental-Metrical phonology, the present thesis is an attempt to investigate the in... more Adopting Autosegmental-Metrical phonology, the present thesis is an attempt to investigate the intonation of focus in declarative sentences in Persian. This research which analyzes the effect of focus on pre-fabricated constructions has two phonetic and phonological dimensions. From a phonetic perspective, the effects of focus on duration and F0 of simple declarative sentences reveal that the mean duration and F0 of focal elements are higher than their non-focused counterparts. The comparison of mean duration and F0 of pre-focus and post-focus elements with their neutral counterparts was not significant. Regarding phonological viewpoint, results show that focused elements follow the tonal pattern of (L+)^H*. Focal elements form a separate accentual phrase with the boundary tone of "l" which spreads up to the end of post-focal elements. Tonal pattern of ^H* matches the words with initial stress and the pattern of L+^H* belongs to the words with final stress.
This paper investigates key linguistic features of languages spoken in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari ... more This paper investigates key linguistic features of languages spoken in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari (henceforth C&B) Province, located in the heights of the Zagros mountain range in south-west Iran. This province’s population, which totals nearly 900,000 inhabitants, is distributed among about 800 towns and villages (ISC, 2011). The findings in this paper are part of a large-scale study of languages and dialects in C&B (Taheri-Ardali et al, 2016). To achieve this goal, essential linguistic data have been gathered by means of a comprehensive questionnaire which has been developed for the description of language variation in Iran (Anonby et al. 2016). The data were collected from twenty-one locations across the province, selected to ensure that the geographic and linguistic coverage is both representative and diverse.
The present paper investigates the effects of language contact on a previously undocumented varie... more The present paper investigates the effects of language contact on a previously undocumented variety of Qashqay, spoken in a predominantly Bakhtiari-speaking region of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province in Iran. Generally, Qashqay is spoken in an area of high linguistic diversity and thus exhibits several contact-induced features, many of which have been discussed previously in the literature (Bulut
در راستای آغاز مرحلة دوم از اطلس زبانهای ایران (www.iranatlas.net)، استان چهارمحال و بختیاری به ... more در راستای آغاز مرحلة دوم از اطلس زبانهای ایران (www.iranatlas.net)، استان چهارمحال و بختیاری به عنوان اولین استان در مرحلة گردآوری دادههای زبانشناختی در نظر گرفته شد. به منظور رسیدن به این هدف، از سه پرسشنامة تنظیمشده استفاده شده است (https://carleton.ca/iran/questionnaires)؛ پرسشنامة نخست، حاوی اطلاعات جامعهشناختی، واژگانی و واجشناختی؛ پرسشنامة دوم حاوی اطلاعات صرفی ـ نحوی و پرسشنامة سوم دربردارندة نظام شمارش است. درکنار پرسشنامه سعی شد نمونة فایل صوتی از هر یک از گونهها نیز ضبط شود. در ابتدا، بعد از بررسی پراکندگی زبانی در کلیة آبادیهای استان، بختیاری، فارسی، چهارمحالی شهری، چهارمحالی ولایتی و ترکی به عنوان گونههای زبانی رایج در نظرگرفته شد. سپس، با هدف پوشش بیشترین تنوع زبانی، در ابتدا نقاط مهم زبانی را در سطح استان انتخاب کرده و سپس به انتخاب روستاهای کوچکتر و به لحاظ زبانی متمایزتر پرداختیم. همچنین به منظور بررسی تاثیر برخورد زبانی، سعی شد از نقاطی که در استان دو یا چندزبانه هستند نیز داده جمعآوری شود. در مجموع 28 نقطه در سطح استان برای کار میدانی در نظر گرفته شد که تاکنون به 21 مورد از این نقاط به اتمام رسیده است. از مشاهدات بارز زبانشناختی استان میتوان به برخورد زبانی و نیز تاثیر خاص زبان فارسی بر ترکی، بختیاری و چهارمحالی اشاره کرد. برای نمونه، گونة ترکی شهر بلداجی در جوار فارسی و بختیاری، نظام واکهای سادهتر و به شش واکه تقلیل پیدا کرده است. از طرف دیگر، روستای صعبالعبور سرآقاسید، به لحاظ زبانی از متمایزترین مناطق بختیاریزبان در استان است؛ این نقطه تنها روستای بختیاری است که در آن واکة گرد و پیشین [y] وجود دارد که تاکنون در دیگر گونهای بختیاری استان مشاهده نشده است. از دیگر ویژگیهای بارز در مناطق بختیاری نرمشدگی همخوان /d/ در جایگاههای بینواکهای و پایانی است. این مشخصه تا برخی از مناطق چهارمحالینشین نیز امتداد یافته است.
Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, with nearly 900,000 inhabitants, is located on the eastern ed... more Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, with nearly 900,000 inhabitants, is located on the eastern edge of the Zagros Mountains. This province is bounded by Khuzestan, Lorestan, Esfahan Province, and Kohgiluyieh va Boyer Ahmad. Our work on Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province was carried out as part of the research programme, the Atlas of the Languages of Iran (www.iranatlas.net). The first step in our work was a survey of language distribution in each of the 876 populated places (districts, cities and villages) of the province. The results of our research showed Bakhtiari as a dominant language spoken in the western, northern and southern parts of the province, and as the largest language in the capital city, Shahr-e Kord. The Turkic language community is found in about 40 villages, mainly in the north-eastern part of the Province. Urban Chaharmahali dialects are spoken in the major urban centers of Shahr-e Kord, Borujen, Farrokh Shahr and Hafshejan. Rural Chaharmahali dialects, which differ from their urban counterparts, include a number of villages in the north-east. Among these, areas such as Kiar and Gandoman have previously been treated in the literature – ethnically and then linguistically – as Charmahali. However, they share important linguistic features in common with Bakhtiari.