Investigation of the Dialectal Evidence of Early New Persian (Darī) in Khuzestan

Abstract

Khuzestan is one of the regions of Iran in which Persian Dialects are spoken. The spread of Persian to this region, as shows the historical evidence, must have begun in ancient Iran and continued in the middle period. The political importance of Susa and Gundeshapur in Achaemenid and Sassanid empires, the proximity to Pārs region and the Sassanid court of Ctesiphon (Tīsifōn), and the establishment of the Academy of Gundeshapur are historical backgrounds which might have contributed to the spread of Persian to Khouzestan in the pre-Islamic epoch.Historians, geographers and authors of the early Islamic centuries, such as al-Jāḥiẓ, al-Istakhri, al-Maqdisī, etc. have mentioned the dialectal usage of Persian in the Khuzestan of their time. For example, al-Jāḥiẓ has called the language of Ahwāz, the most eloquent dialect of New Persian (Darī). These pieces of evidence, besides the Judaeo-Persian texts and the Persian sentences of some authors of Arabic literature (Fārisiyyāt), like Abū Nuwās of Ahwāz, Sahl ibn ʻAbd Allāh of Tustar (Shushtar) and Abū Hilāl of ʻAskar, prove that the New Persian was spoken in Khuzestan even before the appearance of Darī literature in the Ninth and tenth centuries.

Keywords

• early new persian
• khuzestan
• the historical atlas of persian language
• fārisiyyāt
• judaeo-persian