mourning for a language

Gilaki language From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilaki_language)

Gilaki or Guilaki (گیلکی) is one of the North-western

Iranian languages spoken in Iran's Gilan province. It can be divided into two dialects: Western Gilaki and Eastern Gilaki. Gilaki is diminishing in popularity amongst the younger generation of Iranians, especially in the cities. It is losing ground to Persian. The Gilaki language is closely related to Persian and the two languages have similar vocabularies. The syntax and gramatical structure of Gilaki, however, is closer to some of the European languages such as English in that the adjective precedes the noun. For instance, "apple red" in Persian is equivalent to "red apple" in Gilaki. Today Gilak poets are the only people who try to save the language by using its terms and expressions in their poems and writings. A large amount of Gilaki words and expressions are now forgotten, having been replaced by their simpler equivalents in Persian. Gilaki is also a fragmented language, with different variants being spoken in different cities. This lack of linguistic unity may also contribute to its declining popularity.