Historical Change of Sound “b” in Kalhori Dialect of Kurdish Language

Abstract

Recorded languages have always been one of the main tools for inquiry about ancient times and their relationships with Present. In this study Kalhori, a subdialect of Kurdish, is investigated under the assumption of retaining one of the original initial sounds of words i.e. /w/ in Old Persian’s morphological system. The significant point in doing this is the fact of substituting this sound with /b/ in earlier times before transiting to Pahlavi and Dari Period. Though this sound shifted to / b/ whenever occurred to be the first sound of a word, Kalhori has retained it not only in that position in original Kurdish terms, but also substituted /b/ with /w/ within other areas of borrowed words under specific rules to utilize Dari words in Kurdish conversations. This process is not specified for nouns, other grammatical classes also retained the same change.

Key words: Kurdish; Kalhori; Sound change; Ancient times