The Analysis of the Position and Usage of Gonabadi Dialect

This study was conducted with the aim of detecting the social status of Gonabadi dialect as one of the oldest dialects of Iran via the analysis of the effect of social parameters like age, education, gender, and urbanity upon the frequency of Gonabadi usage in diverse fields including family, school, art, office, alley and street, and hobby. Our method was field analysis and the recruited instruments included questionnaire and interview. The sampling method was random based on which our statistical society included 240 participants from three age groups of 12 to 17, 25 to 35 and 50 and more were selected proportionally and equally from each gender and from two urban and rural societies. The results demonstrated that Gonabadi was the dominant language of informal fields, specifically, family, though in the more formal fields including school and office, Persian was the dominant language. Also, the propensity to utilize Persian among female, young, educated and urban participants outweighed this tendency in the male, older, uneducated, and rustic counterparts. Hence, on the light of these results, it could be asserted that Gonabadi is undergoing gradual trend of extinction in the realm of great Khorasan.