Title: Morphological Sketch of Southern Zazak
Author:Brigitte Werner
Place of publication: İstanbul
Publisher: Publisher: Tij Yayınları, Avcılar - İstanbul
Release date: 2012
Introduction
#Zazaki# as a Spoken Language
The Zaza language is spoken in several districts in East Turkey, mainly in Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Bingöl, Tunceli and Erzurum. Zazaki can be categorized into three main dialects and several subgroups. The three dialects
are called Northern, Southern and Eastern (or Central) Zazaki. However, these three groups are not totally homogenous in itself. It is estimated that 3 to 4 million people belong to the Zaza ethnic group, but not all members are still mother-tongue speakers due to Turkish assimilation processes.
A great amount of the Zaza population moved to West and South Turkey, or immigrated to European countries and the USA. In Europe, Zaza intellectuals in the 1980s were the initiators to revive the Zaza language by publishing magazines and books, and motivate their people to write and read the language. This movement has influenced the Zaza community in Turkey as well and the language has developed and is used more frequently in written form.In oral conversation mutual intelligibility is given between all Zazaki variations. In written language, however,mutual intelligibility is weak and a written standard is wished by many authors but has not developed yet.
The aim of this dictionary is to preserve the rich vocabulary of Southern Zazaki. The orthography represents mainly the recommendations of spelling for the Southern dialect by C. M. Jacobson. He, together with Zaza authors, worked out an orthography which was published in 1993 in the book Zazaca Okuma-Yazma El Kitabı.
Language Family and Language Names
Zazaki belongs to the Northwest-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Most closely related to Zazaki are the Gorani (Hawrami) dialects, spoken in Iran and Iraq.
Zaza people have used different names for their language and ethnicity. Mainly in the Southern Zaza region the term Dimili1 and Zaza2 is used naming the people group and the language. Zaza in the northern regions call their language Zonê Ma [our language] or Kırmancki. The consensus of today is overwhelmingly made by Zaza people of all dialects to call their language Zazaki, and the ethnicity Zaza.[1]