¹ We are grateful to the hospitable residents of Kherimesar, Kordkheyl and Gelekela who cooperated in every possible way in the process of documentation of their dialect and customs. We are indebted to Mr Hoseyn Mahamudi, who guided us to the site, introduced us to the informants, and assisted us in translating the texts into Persian. Ms Dorothy Staub and Dr Sassan Pejhan were kind enough to read the entire manuscript and suggest improvement. The anonymous reader of the manuscript for Iranian Studies was very helpful in his or her critiques.

² See Borjian, H., “Mazandaran: Language and People: The State of Research,” Iran and the Caucasus 8 (2004): 289–328Google Scholar.

³ Published materials include: Borjian, M., “Mazandarani Poems of Aqa Mir” (in Persian) Iranshenasi 14 (2002): 634–644Google Scholar; Borjian, M. and Borjian, M., “Three Mazandarani Folk Poems” (in Persian), in Yasht-e Farzānagi, Tehran, 2005: 427–434Google Scholar; idem, “The Story of Rostam and the White Demon in Mazandarani,” Nāme-ye Irān-e Bāstān 5/1-2 (2006): 107–116; “Marriage Rites in South Caspian Villages: Ethnographic and Linguistic Materials from Mazandaran,” Archiv Orientální 75/2 (2007): 191–214; “[Mysterious Memories of a Woman:] Ethno-Linguistic Materials from Rural Mazandaran,” Iran and the Caucasus 11/2 (2007): 226–254; “Twenty-five Māzandarāni quatrains,” in Nawabi Memorial Volume, Tehran, 2008: in press.

⁴ For an account of the culture of the galesh in the Shahsavār district of Mazandaran, see ‘Alā’-al-Din Āzari-Demirji, “Gālešhā”, Honar o mardom, no. 100 (1970): 28–30.

⁵ It appears that extensive reforms of the Reza Shah period in Mazandaran did not reach the galesh way of life, but this subject needs further clarification.

⁶ For a list of toponyms, see H. L. Rabino, Mazandaran and Astarabad (London, 1928; repr. Karachi, 1980).

⁷ The village Kordkheyl is located at the end of a rural road connecting it to the city of Sari through Rudposht, Talubāgh, Pātin Sangriza, and Miānrud.

⁸ A historical account on the very same region is found in the tenth-century Hodud al-‘Ālam, showing a remarkable cultural continuity in the course of the past millennium. This includes animal husbandry as the chief occupation of the inhabitants and the tradition of bride kidnapping. Note also the correspondence between Perrim below and Ferim (Text I, line 8). Here is the passage and its English translation; the transliteration-transcription pertains to the tenth century Persian. (1) kōh-i Qārin nāhīat-ē ^ast ki mar-ō-rā dah-hazār u čīz-ē dēh ast. u pāδšāh-i ō-rā “sipahpaδ-i Šahryār kōh” x^wānand. u īn nāhīat-ē ^ast ābāδān, u bēštar-i mardumān-i way gabrakān and. u az rōzagār-i musulmānī bāz pāδšāyī-yi īn nāhīat andar farzandān-i Bāw ast. (2) Pirrīm qasaba-yi īn nāhīat ast u mustaqarr-i sipahbaδān; ba lašgargāh-ē ^ast bar nēm farsang az šahr. u andar way musulmānān, u bēštar [-i ĝarībān] pēšawar u bāzargān, zērā ki mardumān-i īn nāhīat juz lašgarī u barzīgar nabāšand. (3) u ba-har pānzdah rōz-ē andar way rōz-i bāzār bāšaδ. u az hama-yi īn nāhīat mardān u kanēzakān u ĝulāmān ārāsta ba-bāzār āyand, u bāzī kunand u rūδ zanand u dōstī gīrand. u rasm-i īn nāhīat čunān ast ki har mard-ē ki kanēzak-ē-rā dōst gīraδ, ō-rā bifirēbaδ u bibaraδ, u se rōz bidāraδ, har-čūn ki x^wāhaδ. āngah ba bar-i piδar-i kanēz kas firistaδ, tā ō-rā ba-zanī ba way dihaδ. (4) u andar nawāhī-yi way čašmahā-yi āb ast, ki ba-yak-sāl-andar čandēn bār bēštar-i mardum-i īn nāhīat ānjā šawand, *ārāsta, bā nabīδ u rūδ u surōδ o pāy-kōftan. u ānjā hājathā x^wāhand az xuδāy — u ān-rā čōn ta‘abbud-ē dārand — u bārān x^wāhand ba-waqt-ē ki-šān bibāyaδ; u ān bārān biāyaδ.

1. (1) The mountainous Qāren is a district which has more than 10,000 villages. Its king is called the Sepahbad of Shahriārkuh. This district is prosperous and most of its people are Zoroastrians. From the [beginning of] Muslim times the kings of this district have been from the descendants of Bāv. (2) Perrim is the chief place of this district, while the seat of the sepahbads is at the military camp situated half a parasang [up to about 9 miles/14 km] from the town. In [Perrim?] live Muslims, mostly strangers, [namely] artisans and merchants, because the inhabitants of this district are exclusively soldiers and husbandmen. (3) Every fifteen days a market is held there, and from all the region men, girls, and young men come there dressed up, frolic, organize games, play on the lute, and make friends. The custom of this province is such that each man who loves a girl beguiles her, carries her away, and for three days does with her as he likes. Then he sends someone to her father that he should give her in marriage. (4) In the districts of Qāren mountain there are springs of water to which several times in the year most of the people of the district repair, dressed up, with wine, music, songs, and dances. There they pray God for their needs, considering this as a sort of worship; they pray for rain when they need it and the rain comes [down] (Hodūd al-‘Ālam, ed. M. Sotuda [Tehran, 1951]; V. Monorsky, Hudūd al-‘Ālam. The Regions of the Word [Cambridge? 1937]: 135–136).

2. For further information on the historical geography of Mazandaran, see H. Borjian, “Historical Geography of Tabarestan in the Early Islamic Centuries” (in Persian), in Sotuda-nāma, in the series: Pazhuheshhā-ye Irānshenāsi: Nāmvāra-ye Dr Mahmud Afshār, XV, ed. Iraj Afshar and Karim Esfahanian (Tehran, 2005): 148–157.

⁹ Elopement or bride kidnapping, also known as marriage by abduction or marriage by capture, is a form of marriage still practiced in a few traditional cultures. It is widely practiced in Kyrgyzstan and among some Turkic tribes of Central Asia as well as in parts of the Caucasus and Africa. This tradition used to be practiced widely in Mazandaran (see the note above) and is alluded to in the Bible: “If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.” (King James Bible /Deuteronomy 22: 28–29).

¹⁰ In 2005 we were informed that Ali Khorshidian finally conceded to the compensation payment and gave up Kherimesar ranch to settle down in the city of Sari. However, we have been informed lately that not having been able to put up with town life, he returned to Kherimesar in April 2007, ignoring the repeated warning messages on trespassing issued by the forest authorities.

¹¹ The transcription principles used here are the same as those explained in Borjian, H., “A Mazandarani account of the Babi Incident at Shaikh Tabarsi,” Iranian Studies 39 (2006): 381–400Google Scholar. Note the hyphenation of the oblique marker -e, postpositions -(r)ε and -je, and other postpositions when the oblique marker is absent. Inflected forms of the personal pronouns are shown without hyphen (e.g. vϵ´nje ‘with her’) because they sometimes coalesce with the endings.

¹² Or pεšt-e ku “the backside of the mountain”; but the true Mazandarani form would be ku-e pεšt.

¹³ The syntactic role of venε “must” is obscure in this sentence.

¹⁴ This do-beyti is in Persian.

¹⁶ For xānε-xεrāb “one whose house is ruined”, expressed in an endearing tone.

¹⁷ “They wouldn't bring them to their presence.”

¹⁸ Lit. “you should no more say or ask.”

¹⁹ Ilāt can be interpreted as the residents of Ilātkhel, stated in the previous paragraph, or a gypsy. Ilātlkhel may simply be a gypsy camp.

²⁰ Mahalla, treated here as a proper toponym, is used also throughout Mazandaran and Gilan as a suffix signifying any small settlement, e.g. Tork-mahalla in paragraph 42.

²¹ Mazandaran in this sense means the lowlands of the province.

²² Or “I abducted [her].”

¹⁵ Missing words are placed in square brackets, and explanations are in parentheses.

²³ Ahmad Shah was dethroned by the Constituent Assembly in December 1925 and Reza Shah's coronation was in April 1926. Despite the fact that Reza Shah is referred to in this paragraph with the derogatory title Rezā qoldor, the speaker praises him throughout the rest of the account.

²⁴ A maund is 3 kg/6.6 kg.

²⁵ Lit. “the seat of Ferim”; cf. Perrim in the Hodud.

²⁶ Mazandaranis show a particular pride toward Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was born in Alāsht, an upland village in Mazandaran, and launched extensive reforms throughout the province.

²⁷ E.g. Maz. bεlεndi∼Pers. bolandi ‘height’, šā(i)∼šāh(i) ‘king(ship)’, dεvāzda:∼davāzdah ‘twelve’, olād∼owlād “offspring”.

²⁸ Some verb stems appear in two variants, with a when the stem is stressed and ε when it is not. The vowel variation in the stems gε-∼go-, xεr-∼xor-, xεt∼xot- implies a mix of dialects.

²⁹ The alphabetical order of the entries is as follows: ā/a, b, č, d, e/ε/ē, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o/ō, p, q, r, s, š, t, u/ū, v, x, y, z.

³⁰ The verbs to be and to become merge in the negative past.

³¹ naie is the negative for both baiε “it became” and biε “it was” (→bi-).

³² dani-bimε is the negative for both daimε (preterit) and dai-bimε (pluperfect).

³³ Note that the main verb always conjugates (in the present or preterit tenses), while the conjugation of the auxiliary is optional.

³⁴ For the irregularity, see Borjian, H., “Personal endings in Eastern Māzandarāni verbs” (in Persian), Dialectology/ Guyesh-shenāsi 2.1 (2005): 13–19Google Scholar, esp. para. 7.1.

³⁵ A Persian form for Maz. darεsar.

³⁶ Note the dissimilation of the n of the ending into d when attached to tun-.

³⁷ Note that bátundε is a synonym of nátundε “he cannot”, the negative forms of tundε “he can”. The verb tunessεn carries the preverb irregularly.

³⁸ Pers. form for Maz. age natunεm.

³⁹ The r in the stem assimilates into the n of the ending.

⁴⁰ Two variants of the stem (xεr-, xor-) cannot be explained morphologically but as a result of dialect mixture.

⁴¹ Cf. , cited in the 13^th-century Tārikh-e Tabarestān, probably reads xεrεma raz “fresh green garden,” cf. Pers. xorram “fresh green” (S. Kiā, Vāzhanāma-ye tabari, Tehran 1948: 238).

⁴² The last three paradigms are treated as pluperfect forms, constructed on the past participle and the past conjugation of the copula verb: baxεtε naimε, baxotε bii, xεt^ε bimi. Note the last case lacks the verbal prefix ba-, which is unusual; the expected form is the imperfect xεtεmi “we would/used to sleep.” The alternative approach would be to treat baxεt(ε) as an adjective (p.p.); this conjecture is supported by the contrast between baxεtε and bidār in baxεtε naimε, ke bidār baimε (I.18).

⁴³ Expected form: dar-nε yār-εnnε.