Kuhmareyi is one of the languages of southwestern Fars. It is a cluster of disparate dialects; the one illustrated here is the Davani dialect (Davani: devani;^[2] Persian: دوانی, transliteration: Davāni) of the village of Davan, 12 kilometers north of Kazerun city in southern Iran. Davani had an estimated 1,000 speakers in 2004.^[3]

Phonology

The transcription used here is only an approximation.^[4]

Vowels

short: a, e, i, o, u
long: â, ā, ē, ī, ō, ū

Consonants

• voiced dental fricative: ð, generally after vowels, like in, 'bað' (bad).
• voiced velar fricative: γ, like in "γal'ati" (shroud).
• alveolar trill: like in 'borrâ' (flail).
• palatalization: inclination for 'g' and 'k' before front vowels, like in 'bega' (say).
• voiceless alveolar affricate: ts, like in 'tse' (what), and voiced dz, like in andzi (fig).

Grammar

Verbs

Davani is ergative in past transitive constructions. For example (Persian transliterations are in UniPers):

English: Hasan saw Ali in the garden.
Persian: Hasan,      Ali-râ tuye bâq did.
Davani:  hasan-eš   ali-a   tu    bâγ di.

Infinitive markers include -san, -tan, -dan, -ðan.

Nouns

The suffix -aku makes nouns definite. For example:

bard "stone" → bard-aku "the stone"

The plural is marked by the suffix -gal. -u is exceptionally used for "man". For example:

sēv "apple" → sēv-gal "apples"
merd "man" → merd-u "men"

Pronouns

Vocabulary

Example sentences