Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:30:49.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Iran Linguistic Atlas Project (ILA): Past and Present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Faryar Akhlaghi
Faryar Akhlaghi*
Affiliation:
Research Institute for Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Tehran (RICHT)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Iran Linguistic Atlas (ILA), funded by the Research Institute for Cultural Heritage and Tourism (RICHT), is a research project for mapping the linguistic diversity of Iran. The project is aimed at recording unified and comparable data from every spoken dialect of Iran’s rural areas and producing self-organized colored maps of this diversity using a specialized software program. Its initial phase began around the mid-1970s in the form of a joint project by the then Iranian Academy of Language and the National Geography Organization. In 2001, the documented data was handed over to the Cultural Heritage Organization, to be saved and expanded. The Iran Linguistic Atlas has now been redefined as an automatic linguistic atlas with the capability of producing self-organizing colored maps according to the operator’s choices. In this article, the ILA, its background and the state of its current phase is introduced. The nature of its data, its earlier and recent field methods, its audiotapes, digital databases and computer databases of phonetic transcriptions are described. In addition, ILA software program is presented and its capability for creating automatic colored maps is discussed thoroughly.

Keywords

DialectologyLinguistic dataQuestionnaireLinguistic DiversityLanguage DocumentationIran Linguistic AtlasDatabaseAutomatic MappingColored Map
Type
Primary sources and archival reports
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 3-4: Commemorating Ehsan Yarshater Endangered Iranian Languages: Language Contact and Language Islands in Iran , August 2020 , pp. 623 - 659
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Iran Linguistic Atlas is a teamwork effort of all the past and present members of RICHT, especially Dr. Yadollāh Parmun—the former scientific director of the ILA—and other colleagues (faculty members of the Contemporary Languages and Dialects department), all the past and present fieldworkers (working for Farhangsāz and/or the ILA), phonetic transcribers, computer programmers, and the population of generous informants during the past forty-five years. The valuable roles of these people in establishing and promoting the project are appreciated and cannot be ignored.

References

Homāyun, Homādoḫt. “Preface.” In Vāženāme-ye šast-ohaft guyeš-e īrānī [A dictionary of sixty-seven dialects], by Ṣādeq Kīyā. Tehran: Research Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 1390/2011.Google Scholar
Kīyā, Ṣādeq. Rāhnamāye gerdāvarī-ye guyešhā [A guide to documenting dialects]. Tehran: Department of Public Culture, 1340/1961.Google Scholar
Parmun, Yadollāh, and Zāreʿī, Zohreh. Atlas-e zabānī-ye Irān: Mabānī va raveš-šenāsī. Gozāreš-e atlas-e zabānī-ye Esfahān [Iran Language Atlas: fundamentals and methodology. A report on the Esfahan Language Atlas]. Esfahan: Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Esfahan Province, 1385/2006.Google Scholar
Purriāhi, Masʿud. Šenāsāyī-ye guyešhā-ye Irān daftar-e sevom: Šahrestān-e ḫānsār, šahrestān-e semīrom, šahrestān-e šahrezā (qomšeh), šahrestān-e farīdan az Ostān-e Esfahān [Identification of Iran’s dialects, Vol. 3: Ḫānsār city, Semirom city, Šahrezā (Qomšeh) city and Faridan city of Esfahan Province]. Tehran: Iranian Anthropology Center, 1374/1995.Google Scholar
Rūhbaḫšān, Alī Moḥammad, “History of Scientific Dialectology in Iran.” Nāme-ye Farhangestān, 3 (1375/1996): 176–181.Google Scholar
Ṣādeqi, Alī Ašraf. “Mağmuʾe-ye maqālāt-e mardom šenāsī vīže-ye šenāsāˀī-ye gūyešhāye Īrān” [Selected articles of anthropology dedicated to identification of Iran’s dialects (a book review)], Mağalle-ye zabānšenāsī [Journal of Linguistics] 3 (1364/1985): 103–105.Google Scholar
amareh , Yadollāh, “Moarrefī-ye do tarh-e mellī -ye guyeš-šenāsī” [Introducing two national dialectological projects]. In Mağmūˀe-maqālāt-e Naḫostīn Hamandīšī-ye Gūyeš-šenāsī-ye Ῑrān [Selected articles of the first Iran conference on dialectology]. Tehran: Academy of Persian Language and Literature, 1381/2002: 135–142.Google Scholar
Šīrī, Alī akbar. Darāmadī bar guyeš-šenāsī [An introduction to dialectology]. Tehran: Maziyar, 1386/2007.Google Scholar