Can Kurdish & Persian Speakers Understand Mazandarani?

In today's episode, we are featuring a Caspian Iranian language, Mazandarani, which is also known as Tabari, to see if Kurdish and Persian speakers can understand it. I am joined by Parham, who comes from Sari, Mazandaran, Iran, who will be speaking in the Mazandarani language, Aydın, as the Kurdish speaker from Diyarbakır, Turkey, Sohrab, a Persian speaker from Kabul, Afghanistan, Feruzjon, a Persian speaker from Bukhara, Uzbekistan, Hossein, a Persian speaker from Kerman, Iran, and Ozar, who speaks Shughni and Persian, from Tajikistan.

Mazandarani, known by its endonym as مازرونی (Mazaruni) is classified as a Western Iranian (Iranic) language, belonging to the Caspian branch, and thus sharing a lot in common with other Caspian languages such as Gilaki, Talysh, Deilami, and Semnani. It also shares a lot with Caucasian languages, which is reflective of the historical closeness of the people of the Caspian region and the Caucasus region.

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The region of present-day Mazandaran province of Iran was part of the Kingdom of Tapuria, which is often referred to Tabaristan (طبرستان‎ / تبرستون‎). With the rise of Islam and the eventual downfall of the Sassanian Empire (ساسانیان), much of the Iranian Plateau became part of the Caliphate. However, Tabarestan remained independent of the Umayyad Caliphate and maintained Zoroastrian dynasties, such as the Bavand dynasty (باوندیان‎), the Ziyarid dynasty (زیاریان‎), Dabuyid / Gaubarid Dynasty (گاوباریان / دابویگان), and the Baduspanids / Badusbanids (پادوسبانیان). This significant part of history played a major role on the Mazandarani language as well. Mazandaran maintained a Zoroastrian majority until the 12th century, and thus the language was not influenced by Arabic as much as Persian and many other languages in the region.

Mazanderani contains several different dialects that correspond to the cities and regions of the province, among which there are the Saravi, Amoli, Baboli, Ghaemshahri, Chaloosi, Nuri, Shahsavari, Ghasrani, Shahmirzadi, Damavandi, Firoozkoohi, Astarabadi and Katouli dialects. The major cities of Mazandaran are Sari (ساری), which is the largest city in the province, located between the northern slopes of the Alborz Mountains and southern coast of the Caspian Sea. Many people are not aware that city of Sari was at one point the capital of Iran, Babol (بابل), Amol (آمل), Qaem Shahr (قائم‌شهر), Behshahr (بهشهر), Chalus (چالوس‎), Neka (نكا‎), Babolsar (بابلسر), Tonekabon (تنكابن‎), and Nowshahr (نوشهر‎)

زبان مازندرانی (مازنی، مازِرونی، تبری، طبری) یکی از زبان‌های ایرانی شمال‌غربی است درگروه زبان‌های کاسپین که شامل زبان‌های زازاکی، گورانی، تالشی، گیلکی، طبری، تاتی، هرزندی و سمنانی می‌باشد. در برنامه امروز می خواهیم ببینیم آیا کرد و فارسی زبانان میتوانند آن را درک کنند؟

در این ویدئو پرهام از ساری، آیدین، کرد از دیاربکر، ترکیه، سهراب، از کابل، افغانستان، فیروز، از بخارا، ازبکستان، حسین، از کرمان، و ازار (آذر‎) که به شوغنی و فارسی صحبت می کند، از تاجیکستان هستند

Though not considered to be exactly where the present-day province is located, Mazandaran is been mentioned in the Shahnameh (شاهنامه‎), the national epic of Greater Iran, as well as the Avesta (اوستا), the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism.

This is reflective of the unique culture and language of the people of Mazandaran, who also have their own separate calendar, known as the the Tabarian calendar (گاهشماری طبری / تبری تقویم), which is also used by Gilaks. This calendar comes from the Sassanid era and is still in use today.

The Mazanderani people (مازرونیون‎ / طبریون‎), who are at times referred to as Tabari people, have played a major role throughout the history of Iran. Many notable Iranian figures come from Mazandaran, such as Reza Shah, Nima Youshij, Amir Pazevari, Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Esmat Bagherpour Baboli, better known as Delkash, Bijan Mortazavi, Gholam Hossein Banan, Shahab Hosseini, Khosrow Sinai, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Abdollah Movahed, Imam-Ali Habibi, Ghasem Rezaei, Reza Yazdani, Behdad Salimi, and many others.

The Kurdish languages are mainly divided into three groups. Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) is the largest, spoken in Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq, and northwest and northeast Iran. Central Kurdish (Sorani) is primarily spoken in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iranian Kurdistan Province. Southern Kurdish (Pehlewani) is for the most part spoken in Kermanshah and Ilam provinces of Iran and in the Khanaqin district of eastern Iraq.

The Persian language (فارسی) is classified as one of the Western Iranian languages. Persian, often referred to by its endonym Farsi, holds official status is Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, which it is also the native language of many minority Persian communities in other countries.