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Khorasani Turkic
Khorasani Turkic
خراسان تركچیسی, Xorasan Türkçesi
	Khorasani Turkic written in the Persian script.
Native to	Iran
Region	North Khorasan
Ethnicity	Khorasani Turks
Native speakers	400,000–900,000 (2015–2019)
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Oghuz Eastern Khorasani Turkic; ; ; ;
Writing system	Persian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kmz
Glottolog	khor1269
	Khorasani Turkic is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Khorasani Turkic or Khorasani Turkish is an Oghuz Turkic language spoken in the North Khorasan Province and the Razavi Khorasan Province in Iran. Nearly all Khorasani Turkic speakers are also bilingual in Persian.^[1]

Geographic distribution

Khorasani Turkic is spoken in the Iranian provinces of North Khorasan near Bojnord and Razavi Khorasan near Sabzevar, Quchan. The Oghuz dialect spoken in Western Uzbekistan is sometimes considered a dialect of Khorasani Turkic.^{[citation needed]}

Dialects

Khorasani Turkic is split into North, South and West dialects. The northern dialect is spoken in North Khorasan near Quchan; the southern in Soltanabad, near Sabzevar; the western, around Bojnord.

Classification and related languages

Khorasani Turkic belongs to the Oghuz group of Turkic languages, which also includes Turkish, Azerbaijani, Gagauz, Balkan Gagauz, Qashqai, Turkmen and Salar.

Khorasani Turkic was first classified as a separate dialect by Iranian Azerbaijani linguist Javad Heyat in the book Tārikh-e zabān o lahcayā-ye Türki (History of the Turkic dialects).^[3] According to some linguists, it should be considered intermediate linguistically between Azerbaijani and Turkmen, although it is sufficiently distinct not to be considered a dialect of either.^[3] It is considered by Turkic scholars to be most closely related to the other Oghuz varieties spoken in Iran, and a close relationship with Turkmen has been disputed on the basis of the comparisons of the core set of agglutinating morphemes.^[4]

Doerfer and Hesche classify Khorasani Turkic into different branches within the Oghuz languages.^[5]

Oghuz

Central Oghuz

Southeastern Khorasani Turkish

Southern Oghuz

	Northwestern Khorasani Turkish

	Southwestern Khorasani Turkish

Eastern Oghuz

	Northern Khorasani Turkish

	Northeastern Khorasani Turkish

According to Robert Lindsay, Khorasani Turkic has four branches:^[6]

Khorasani Turkic

	Northwest Khorasani Turkic (Bojnurd (ru))

	North-Northeast-Langar Khorasani Turkic

	Southern Khorasani Turkic

	Afshar

Glottolog lists seven distinct dialects:^[7]

Khorasan Turkic

	Langar

	Northeast Khorasan Turkic

	North Khorasan Turkic

	Northwest Khorasan Turkic

	Southeast Khorasan Turkic

	South Khorasan Turkic

	West Quchani

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡ʃ	k	q
Plosive/ Affricate	voiced	b	d	d͡ʒ	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ	x		h
Fricative	voiced	v	z	ʒ	ɣ
Flap			ɾ
Approximant			l	j

Vowels

Vowels
	Front		Back
	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
Close	i	y	ɯ	u
Mid	e	ø		o
Open	æ		ɑ	(ɒ)

All vowels have phonemic length distinction. The vowel /ɑ/ is rounded to [ɒ] when followed by the vowels /u/, /i/ (sho& long /oː/ (Muxabbat [muxɒbbɑt] "love" , Insan [insɒn] "human"). On the other hand, short /o/ & all the remaining vowels do not cause this rounding, not even the mid & close vowels /e ø ɯ y/ & their long counterparts. (Yoldaşlık [joldɑʃlɯk] "friendship"). /ɑ/ is always pronounced [ɑ] in plurals (& for some speakers, it is pronounced as such unconditionally)

Morphology

Nouns

Pluralization

Pluralization is marked on nouns with the suffix /-lar/, which has the two forms /-lar/ and /-lær/, depending on vowel harmony. As mentioned in the phonology section, plural /ɑ/ is never rounded to [ɒ], even when it follows /u/, /oː/ or /i/.

Case

Nouns in Khorasani Turkic take a number of case endings that change based on vowel harmony and whether they follow a vowel or a consonant:

Case
	After Vowels	After Consonants
Nominative	No Ending
Genitive	niŋ/nin	iŋ/in
Dative	ja/jæ	a/æ
Accusative	ni/nɯ	i/ɯ
Locative	da/dæ
Ablative	dan/dæn
Instrumental	nan/næn

Possession

Possession is marked with a suffix on the possessed noun.

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	(I)m	(I)mIz
2nd Person	(I)ŋ	(I)ŋIz
3rd Person	(s)I	lArI

Pronouns

Khorasani Turkic has six personal pronouns. Occasionally, personal pronouns take different case endings from regular nouns.

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	mæn	bɯz
2nd Person	sæn	siz
3rd Person	o	olar

Verbs

Verbs are declined for tense, aspect, mood, person, and number. The infinitive form of the verb ends in -max.

Examples

Excerpt from Tulu (1989) p. 90

Translation	IPA	Romanization	Arabic script (Iran)
Thus, there was a padishah named Ziyad.	ɑl ɣæssa bir zijæːd pæːdiʃæːhiː bæːɾɨdɨ	Al ğässa bir Ziyäd pädişähi bärıdı	.ال غسا بیر زياد پدیشهی بـهریدی
Almighty God had given him no son.	xodɒːʷændi æːlæm ona hit͡ʃ ɔɣul ataː elæmɑmiʃdi	Xodavändi äläm ona hiç oğul ata elämamişdi.	.خوداوندی آلم اونا هیچ اوغول اتا ایلهمامیشدی
Then, he spoke to his vizier: "O Vizier, I have no son. What shall I do about it?"	bæːdæn vaziːɾæ dədi, ej vaziːɾ, mændæ ki ɔɣul joxdɨ, mæn næ t͡ʃaːɾæ ejlem	Bädän vazirä dedi: "Ey vazir, mändä ki oğul yoxdı. Män nä çarä eylem?"	بدن وازیره دهدی: «ای وازیر, منده کی اوغول یوخدی. من نه چاره ایولیم»؟
The vizier said: "Ruler of the whole world, what will you do with this possession?"	vaziːɾ dedi, pɒːdiʃaː-i ɢɨblæ-ji ɒːlæm, sæn bu mɒːlɨ-æmwɒːlɨ næjlijæsæn	Vazir dedi: "Padişai qıbläyi aläm, sän bu malıämvalı näyliyäsän?"	وازیر دهدی: «پادیشای قیبلنهیی آلم, سن بو مالیموالی نیلیسن»؟

Writing system

Khorasani Turkic is not often written, but it may be with the Persian alphabet in the Perso-Arabic script.^[8]

Letter	Romanization	IPA
ا	a	/ɑ/, /æ/, /o/, /Ø/
ب	b	/b/
پ	p	/p/
ت	t	/t/
ث	(s)	/s/
ج	x	/d͡ʒ/
چ	č	/t͡ʃ/
ح	(h)	/h/
خ	x	/x/
د	d	/d/
ذ	(z)	/z/
ر	r	/r/
ز	z	/z/
ژ	ž	/ʒ/
س	s	/s/
ش	ş	/ʃ/
ص	(s)	/s/
ض	(d)	/d/
ط	(t)	/t/
ظ	(z)	/z/
ع	ə, ‘	/æ/, /Ø/
غ	ǧ	/ɣ/
ف	f	/f/
ق	q	/q/
ک	k	/k/
گ	g	/ɡ/
ل	l	/l/
م	m	/m/
ن	n	/n~ŋ/
و	w	/v~w/, /o/, /ø/, /u/, /y/
ه	h	/h/
ی	y, ı, i, e	/j/, /ɯ/, /i/, /e/
ء	ʿ	/ʔ/
نگ	ng	/ŋ(g)/

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Khorasani Turkic at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^ The Turkic Languages, By Lars Johanson, Éva Ágnes Csató Johanson, page 13, Routledge, 2015
^ ^a ^b Sultan Tulu (1994). "Horasan Türkçesi ne İlgili Folklor Çalışmaları". Journal of Turkish Research Institute (in Turkish). 1: 48–51. ISSN 1300-9052. Wikidata Q122840179.
^ Christiane Bulut (4 November 2021), Turkic Languages of Iran, pp. 287–302, doi:10.4324/9781003243809-19, Wikidata Q122750094
^ Doerfer, Gerhard; Hesche, Wolfram (1993). Chorasantürkisch: Wörterlisten, Kurzgrammatiken, Indices. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-03320-7.
^ Lindsay, Robert. Mutual Intelligibility Among the Turkic Languages. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
^ "Glottolog 4.8 - Khorasan Turkic". glottolog.org. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
^ "Khorasani Turkic alphabet, pronunciation and language".

Bibliography

Tulu, Sultan (1989). Chorasantürkische Materialien aus Kalāt bei Esfarāyen (in German). Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag. ISBN 3-922968-88-0.
Doerfer, Gerhard; Hesche, Wolfram (1993). Chorasantürkisch: Wörterlisten, Kurzgrammatiken, Indices. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-03320-7.

Additional resources

(Persian) Qolizadeh Marzaji, Jalal (جلال قلی زاده مرزجی) (2011). Getting acquainted with the Khorasani Turkish language (آشنایی با زبان ترکی خراسانی). Mashhad, Iran: Damineh. ISBN 978-964-5805-91-1. (Downloadable from: https://turuz.com/storage/Language/2015/0861-_Dil_Ashnayi_Ba_Zabane_Turki_Xorasani_Celal_Qulizade_Merzeci.pdf / Archive)