Monthly Archives: March 2007

What happened to Iranian Languages and Scripts?

Posted on March 27, 2007 by | Leave a comment

There used to be an excellent web site called Iranian Languages & Scripts (IL&S) at http://iranianlanguages.com, but there has been nothing at this address for several months now. This site had introductory information, samples of writing, and bibliographies for all the languages of the Iranian language family, as well as some good articles on the history of the Iranian language, and on-line texts from the Avesta. If anyone knows a new address for this web site please leave a note with the new URL in the comments at the end of this post. Continue reading →

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Posted in Iranian Languages, Linguistics, Persian, Tajikistan

Naruzaton Mubarak – Happy New year!

Posted on March 21, 2007 by | Leave a comment

Today is the first day of spring and the Persian new year’s day which is called no ruz in Farsi, and na ruz in Tajik- both meaning ‘new day’. So, this post is to wish everyone idaton mubarak!  ‘may your holiday be blessed!’

Noruz
Read more about Noruz on FarsiNet

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Posted in Persian, Tajik

Video of Iran

Posted on March 18, 2007 by | Leave a comment

I found a nice video slide-show of Iran with Persian  background music at this link:

Iran from Another Perspective

Iran scene

This video was posted with along with a plea to take action to prevent the US from going to war against Iran. Personally, I don’t think the Bush administration would make such a foolish and politically unpopular decision. Nevertheless, I do support this effort to promote peace!

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Posted in Iran, Persian

Phone calls between the CIS and the United States

Posted on March 17, 2007 by | Leave a comment

Listed below are instructions for calling to/from the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States, also known as the former Soviet Union)  and the United States. Continue reading →

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Posted in Central Asia, Tajikistan

Writing about Yaghnobi grammar

Posted on March 14, 2007 by | Leave a comment

My wife and I spent the fall of last year living with a Yaghnobi family in a village in Tajikistan. It was a fantastic experience. The family we lived with was extremely hospitable. We spent several hours every day sitting around the dastarkhon (tablecloth) with them, their extended family, and neighbors. We will always value the friendships we made there.

My purpose for living in a Yaghnobi community was to study the language and collect material for my MA Thesis. I am a graduate student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Oregon and plan to graduate in the spring of this year.

I really enjoyed eliciting words and sentences in Yaghnobi, collecting stories, and analyzing the language. Since we lived in the home of Saifiddin Mirzoev who has a doctorate in philology and is head of the department of languages at the Rudaki Institute of Language and Literature, I received a great deal of expert consultation and was able to make tremendous progress in studying the Yaghnobi language.

Now I’m back home in Oregon working and writing my Thesis. I’ve been feeling a bit isolated in this work since I don’t know anyone else who is studying the Yaghnobi language. I’m hoping that this blog will be a medium for connecting and collaborating with other students and scholars of the Yaghnobi language.

 6/13/07 Update: I started a new blog, The Yaghnobi, and all new posts about the Yaghnobi language are being made there.

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Posted in fieldwork, Linguistics, Tajikistan, Yaghnobi