A comparative dialectal description of Iranian Taleshi  Ph.D., ,
The University of Manchester 466 p. This work presents a
synchronic description of the Taleshi language spoken in
northwest Iran. Its purpose is to provide a comparative study of
the basic phonological, morphological and syntactic structure of
three dialects spoken in Iran: Anbarani (northern), Asalemi
(central) and Masali (southern). In addition, the
sociolinguistic situation of the dialects is explored, along
with some key elements of narrative discourse structure. To date
only individual dialects of Iranian Taleshi have been described,
mostly at the level of a grammatical sketch. This study, by
comparing key representative speech varieties of each main
dialect area, provides an overview of the whole dialect
continuum, and is thereby able to show how the language changes
from north to south. This variation has arisen partly as a
result of language contact: the Taleshi language area is
surrounded by other languages, including South Azerbaijani