A Grammatical Sketch of the Early Gilaki Based on Šaraf-šāh Dulāʻī’s Divān

No description has yet been provided on the earlier stages of Gilaki grammar, a Caspian language of northwestern branch of Iranian languages family. With the discovery of a manuscript of Šaraf-šāh Dulāi’s Divān (collected poems) in 1970s, the material required for such research is now at available to us. Following the introduction of the lexical structure of the early Gilaki based on Šaraf-šāh’s Divān, in this article, I aim to provide a brief grammatical sketch of the early Gilaki. To this end, after introducing the manuscript and looking at its orthography as well as sound system, I examine different grammatical categories including noun, pronoun, adposition, verb, and their corresponding dependants. I also reconstruct some unattested forms from existing partial paradigms in Divān. Finally, I make a comparison between early Gilaki and the two main branches of new Gilaki, namely western and eastern Gilaki.