Vanji language
{{Short description|Extinct Iranian language of Bukharan Emirate}}
{{Infobox language
| name = Vanji
| altname = Old Wanji
| states = Bukharan Emirate
| extinct = late 19th century
| familycolor = Indo-European
| fam2 = Indo-Iranian
| fam3 = Iranian
| fam4 = Eastern Iranian
| script = Unwritten
| iso3 = none
| glotto = oldw1238
| glottorefname = Old Wanji
| region = Vanj river valley
| nativename = {{lang|mis|w/vanǰi, vanǰiwor(í), vanǰivor}}
}}
The Vanji language, also spelt Vanchi and Vanži ({{Langx|mis|vanǰivor|links=no|label=Vanji}}) is an extinct Iranian language, one of the areal group of Iranian languages. It was spoken in the Vanj River valley in what is now the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. There are only 64 known words.{{Citation |last=Ľubomír Novák |title=Problem of Archaism and Innovation in the Eastern Iranian Languages |date=2013 |url=http://rgdoi.net/10.13140/RG.2.1.1316.7603 |access-date=2025-02-02 |publisher=Unpublished |doi=10.13140/RG.2.1.1316.7603}}
In the 19th century the region was forcibly annexed to the Bukharan Emirate and a campaign of violent assimilation undertaken, and by the end of the 19th century, the Vanji language had completely disappeared, displaced by Tajik Persian as a result of assimilation.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}} The local dialect of Tajik Persian spoken in Vanj has some Vanji influence.
Documentation
The Russian linguist Ivan Ivanovich Zarubin was the first to assess the language in the early 20th century, by which time it was already extinct. Zarubin was able to collect only words and phrases recalled by older inhabitants of the region as having been spoken by their grandparents who still knew something of the language, and he considered it one of the Pamir languages.Zarubin, I. К списку Памирских языков in Doklady Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 1924 B pp. 79-81; quoted in Problem of Archaism and Innovation in the Eastern Iranian Languages, Ľubomír Novák, 2013
Phonology
The language as reconstructedLashkarbekov, B. B, Старованджский язык, Moscow (2008), quoted in Problem of Archaism and Innovation in the Eastern Iranian Languages, Ľubomír Novák, 2013 had a phonology consisting of the stop consonants p, b, t, d, k, g and q, the fricative consonants f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, x, ɣ, χ, ʁ and h, the affricate consonants t͡ʃ and d͡ʒ and the sonorants m, w, n, r, l, j and ŋ as well as the vowels a, e, ẹ, i, ə, o, ü and u.
| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
! |
| align="center"
|{{IPA link|p}} {{IPA link|b}} | | colspan="3" |{{IPA link|t}} {{IPA link|d}} | |{{IPA link|k}} {{IPA link|ɡ}} |{{IPA link|q}} | |
| align="center"
| | | |({{IPA link|t͡s}}) ({{IPA link|d͡z}}) |{{IPA link|t͡ʃ}} {{IPA link|d͡ʒ}} | | | | |
| align="center"
| |{{IPA link|f}} {{IPA link|v}} |{{IPA link|θ}} {{IPA link|ð}} |{{IPA link|s}} {{IPA link|z}} |{{IPA link|ʃ}} {{IPA link|ʒ}} | |{{IPA link|x}} {{IPA link|ɣ}} |{{IPA link|χ}} {{IPA link|ʁ}} |{{IPA link|h}} |
| align="center"
! align="left" |Sonorant |{{IPA link|m}} {{IPA link|w}} | | |{{IPA link|n}} {{IPA link|r}} {{IPA link|l}} | |{{IPA link|j}} |({{IPA link|ŋ}}) | | |
Grammar
Much less can be discerned about the grammar of Vanji: there were probably two genders, masculine and feminine, with plurals of nouns formed by adding a suffix -ev, comparative forms of adjectives by adding -tar and Infinitives of verbs were formed by adding -ak.
References
{{reflist}}
- {{cite thesis
|author=Suhrobsho Davlatshoev
|title=The formation and consolidation of Pamiri ethnic identity in Tajikistan
|type = MS thesis
|publisher=Graduate School of Social Sciences, Middle East Technical University
|date=January 2006
|url=https://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12607111/index.pdf
|hdl=11511/15825
|access-date=2023-03-18}}
{{Iranian languages}}
Category:Eastern Iranian languages
Category:Languages of Tajikistan
Category:Extinct languages of Asia
Category:Languages extinct in the 19th century
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