The language is divided into three dialects: Western Gilaki, Eastern Gilaki, and Galeshi. The western and eastern dialects are separated by the Sefid River. According to Ethnologue, there were more than 2 million native speakers of Gilaki in 1993. By 2016, there were 2.4 million native speakers of Gilaki. There are three main dialects but larger cities in Gilan have slight variations to the way they speak. These "sub-dialects" are Rashti, Rudbari, Some’e Sarai, Lahijani, Langerudi, Rudesari, Bandar Anzali and Fumani. Eastern Gilaki is also spoken in the city ofRamsar, Tonekabon and surrounding areas. It has been influenced by the Mazandarani language and is sometimes referred to as Gil-Mazani although most refer to it as Ramsari, it is still considered a sub-dialect of Gilaki.
Grammar
Gilaki, similar to Mazandarani, is an inflected and genderless language. It is considered SVO. However, some tenses may be SOV.
Phonology
Gilaki has the same consonants as Persian, but different vowels. Here is a table of correspondences for the Western Gilaki of Rasht, which will be the variety used in the remainder of the article:
Gilaki
Persian
Example
, /
,
, /
/
There are nine vowel phonemes in the Gilaki language:
Front
Central
Back
Close
Mid
Open
The consonants are:
Verb system
The verb system of Gilaki is very similar to that of Persian. All infinitives end in -tən/-dən, or in -V:n, where V: is a long vowel. The present stem is usually related to the infinitive, and the past stem is just the infinitive without -ən or -n.
Present tenses
From the infinitive dín, "to see", we get present stem din-.
Present indicative
The present indicative is formed by adding the personal endings to this stem:
The present subjunctive is formed with the prefix bí-, bú-, or bə- added to the indicative forms. Final /e/ neutralizes to /ə/ in the 3rd singular and the plural invariably lacks final /i/.
Singular
Plural
bídinəm
bídinim
bídini
bídinid
bídinə
bídinid
The negative of both the indicative and the subjunctive is formed in the same way, with n- instead of the b- of the subjunctive.
Past tenses
Preterite
From xurdən, "to eat", we get the perfect stem xurd. To this are added unaccented personal endings and the unaccented b- prefix :
Singular
Plural
buxúrdəm
buxúrdim
buxúrdi
buxúrdid
buxúrdə
buxúrdid
Imperfect
The imperfect is formed with what was originally a suffix -i:
Pluperfect
The pluperfect is paraphrastically formed with the verb bon, "to be", and the past participle, which is in turn formed with the perfect stem+ə. The accent can fall on the last syllable of the participle or on the stem itself:
Singular
Plural
buxurdə bum
buxurdə bim
buxurdə bi
buxurdə bid
buxurdə bu
buxurdə bid
Past subjunctive
A curious innovation of Western Gilaki is the past subjunctive, which is formed with the imperfect of bon+past participle:
Singular
Plural
bidé bim
bidé bim
bidé bi
bidé bid
bidé be/bi
bidé bid
This form is often found in the protasis and apodosis of unreal conditions, e.g., mən agə Əkbəra bidé bim, xušhal bubosti bim, "If I were to see/saw/had seen Akbar, I would be happy".
Progressive
There are two very common paraphrastic constructions for the present and past progressives. From the infinitive šon, "to go", we get:
Present progressive
Past progressive
Compound verbs
There are many compound verbs in Gilaki, whose forms differ slightly from simple verbs. Most notably, bV- is never prefixed onto the stem, and the negative prefixnV- can act like an infix-n-, coming between the prefix and the stem. So from fagiftən, "to get", we get present indicativefagirəm, but present subjunctivefágirəm, and the negative of both, faángirəm or fanígirəm. The same applies to the negative of the past tenses: fángiftəm or fanígiftəm.
Nouns, cases and postpositions
Gilaki employs a combination of quasi-case endings and postpositions to do the work of many particles and prepositions in English and Persian.
Cases
There are essentially three "cases" in Gilaki, the nominative, the genitive, and the accusative. The accusative form is often used to express the simple indirect object in addition to the direct object. A noun in the genitive comes before the word it modifies. These "cases" are in origin actually just particles, similar to Persian ra.
Nouns
For the word "per", father, we have:
Singular
Plural
Nom
per
perán
Acc
pera
perána
Gen
perə
peránə
The genitive can change to -i, especially before some postpositions.
