Caspian Languages and Linguistics: Eight Essays

This book presents a systematic and detailed analysis of Caspian linguistics, contributing new perspectives to Western scholarship. It is relevant to linguistics interested in West Asian languages and the various related areas of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, cultural linguistics, and historical linguistics. This book presents a systematic and detailed analysis of Caspian linguistics, contributing new perspectives to Western scholarship. The range of the essays represents a wide array of sub-themes under the rubric of Caspian languages and linguistics, and traces connections between linguistic patterns and sociocultural transformations across Caspian societies. In doing so this work investigates the geographical, lexical, grammatical, and phonological characteristics of Caspian language families, spoken in the south and west of the Caspian Sea region. Engaging with multiple dialects in the region, the book draws upon the complex, multifarious relations that exist between lifestyle and word-usage. It is relevant to linguistics interested in West Asian languages and the various related areas of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, cultural linguistics, and historical linguistics. Alireza Korangy, Ph.D. is a philologist and linguist. He is the editor of Springer Handbooks in Languages and Linguistics and the International Journal of Persian Literature. Zia Khoshsirat, Ph.D., in Linguistic Anthropology from UCLA. His research examines language ideologies, identity formation, and meaning-making processes employing interdisciplinary frameworks to study Iranian diaspora communities and the Caspian language family. As a native speaker of Gilaki, he is actively engaged in language documentation and revitalization efforts in the Caspian region. His work has been supported by multiple prestigious fellowships and grants. His latest research identifies, for the first time, an inherited passive suffix in the Gilaki dialect of Fooman (a Caspian language), tracing its diachronic development from the Middle Iranian period through historical-phonological analysis.