نشریه پژوهش های زبانی - ادبی قفقاز و کاسپین
سال دوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 5، پاییز و زمستان 1399)

The article discusses two religious Christian terms in the North Caucasian languages, primarily in Avar, having an obvious Armenian background, xač‘ (cross), and gьatIan. If the first ascends undeniably to Armenian xač‘, the second one defies a convincing interpretation. The author tries to trace its origin to a tentative Armenian protoform.

Tabari or Mazandarani has a history of documentation of nearly a millennium, that is, a language second in age, among the living Iranian languages, only to New Persian. It is the only language of the same family besides Persian into which the Koran is translated in pre-modern times. A historical periodization of Tabari is proposed by this author in Motun-e Ṭabari/ Tabari Texts (2009): Period I, 10-15 centuries, consisting of poems and individual verses, sentences, and words preserved in otherwise Persian works; Period II, interlinear translation of three manuscript of Koran's exegesis by the Zaydi sect, and of Maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrī, all sharig strong dialectal features once spoken in western Mazandaran and in early modern history; Period III, contemporary Mazandarani documented since the first half of the 19th century. A comparative study of the proposed three periods is attempted in this article. After a brief discussion of the sources and the current distribution of Caspian varieties, I propose a historical-comparative analysis of phonology and morphosyntax among the periods and conclude with a brief lexical inquiry.

The article offers a wide-ranging analysis of the semantic area connected with the basic meaning of “smell” in Avestan (which appears to have a positive connotation), with special regard for the attested opposition between “good” and “bad” smell or “perfume” and “stench” as reflected in the oldest Zoroasterian tradition.

The following article rereads the identified letter from the “Zoroastrian Association Nāserī of Kerman” addressed to the Crown Prince of Iran, Moẓaffar al-Dīn Mīrzā. This letter, which is stored in the National Library and Archives of the Islamic Republic of Iran, includes valuable points about the literary writing style of Zoroastrians in Iran during the Qajar period. The Persian prose of the letter is notable as the author, contrary to the style of letter and prose writing of the Qajar era, attempts to use only pure Persian words.

Ali-Ashraf Sadeghi, in an article entitled “New Words from the Old Language of Arran, Shirvan, and Azerbaijan”, after introducing a book on medical terminology called Dastūr al-adviya (Drugs Prescription), has extracted and studied words from the language of the people of these regions. He considers the prose of the book to belong to the 9th century AH. He also suggests that the author is perhaps from Sharvān, because he has frequently given Sharvānī equivalents of words in the book. While quoting words from Sharvānī, Bākū ī, Baylaqānī, Sadeghi has also discussed words from the language of the Armenian people. In the present note, the author has brough up points about بوش (būš), خناو [xnaw?] and کلل [klal?], based on Persian and Armenian botanical and pharmacological sources.

Tâti-ye Râmandi refers to a group of Iranian dialects that are common in the Rāmand region in the south and southwest of Qazvin at the foot of Mount Rāmand. This region has the largest Tati-speaking population in Iran. Dialects of Ramand region of Qazvin province are common in Tâkestân and Buin-Zahrâ counties. They include the dialects of the cities of Takestan and Esfarvarin and the villages of Qarqasin, Xoruzān and Mahmudâbad in Tâkestân county, and also the cities of Šâl, Dânsefahân, Sagzâbâd and the villages of Ebrâhimâbâd, Xuznin, Xiâraǰ, Qalʻe-Ganǰi, Šâdmahân, Meškin-Tappeh, Xeyrâbâd and Qalʻe-ʻAbdol-Rabâbâd in Buin-Zahrâ county.

Армянская община и её приход в Кишиневе были одними из наиболее представительных сегментов данной конфессии в Бессарабии и часто находились на переднем плане религиозной и культурной жизни. В статье рассмотрен ряд вопросов, связанных в первую очередь, с появлением представителей армяно-григорианского вероисповедания в Кишиневе и демографической эволюцией данного элемента. Исследование также  затрагивает проблему функционировании двух важных инструментов в деятельности любого прихода - церкви и школы.