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Aimaq
گویش ایماقی
Aimaqi written in the Persian script in Nastaliq style.
Native to	Afghanistan
Ethnicity	Aimaq
Native speakers	1.9 million (2017–2019)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Southwestern Iranian Persian Eastern Aimaq
Writing system	Persian alphabet
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Tajikistan (in Gorno-Badakhshan)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aiq
Glottolog	aima1241

Aimaq or Aimaqi (Persian: ایماقی, romanized: Aimāqi) is a Persian dialect and the dominant eastern Persian ethnolect spoken by the Aimaq people in central northwest Afghanistan (west of the Hazarajat). It is close to the Dari varieties of Persian. The Aimaq people are thought to have a 5–15% literacy rate.

Dialects

Subdialects of the Aimaq dialect are as follows:

• Chinghizi
• Firozkohi
• Jamshidi
• Maliki
• Mizmast
• Taimani
• Taimuri
• Zainal
• Zohri

Phonology

Phonetically, as one of the eastern Persian dialects, the Aimaq dialect displays typical phonological features of eastern varieties of Persian.

Vowels:

• The "majhul" vowels ē / ī and ō / ū are kept separate in Aimaq, whereas in western Persian they are merged as ī and ū respectively. For instance, the identically written words شیر 'lion' and 'milk' are in western Persian both pronounced [šīr], but in Aimaq [šēr] for 'lion' and [šīr] for 'milk'. The long vowel in زود 'quick' [zūd] and زور 'strong' [zūr] is realized as [ū] in western Persian, whereas these words are pronounced as [zūd] and [zōr] respectively by Aimaq speakers.
• The diphthongs of early Classical Persian aw (as ow in Engl. cow) and ay (as i in English ice) have in Aimaq become [ow] (as in Engl. low) and [ej] (as in Engl. day). Dari and Iranian Persian, on the other hand, are more archaic, e.g. نوروز 'Persian New Year' is realized as [nowrūz], and نخیر 'no' is uttered as [naχejr] in Dari and Iranian Persian, and as [naχajr] in Aimaq.
• /æ/ and /e/ are kept Aimaq separate in word-final positions, whereas in western Persian, /æ/ has [e] as a word-final allophone.

Consonants:

• Aimaq pronounces و as a bilabial consonant [w], which is realized as a voiced labiodental fricative [v] in western Persian. [v] is found in Aimaq as an allophone of f before voiced consonants.
• The voiced uvular stop /ɢ/ (ق) and voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ (غ) are kept separate in Aimaq unlike in western Persian where they are merged as one.

See also

• Hazaragi dialect

References

Notations

• Clifton, John M. (ed.) (2005) Studies in languages of Tajikistan North Eurasia Group, SIL International, St Petersburg, Russia, OCLC 122939499