What language do they speak in Iran? Some might guess Arabic—but that’s wrong, even though Iran uses the Arabic script. Others might guess Persian (or Farsi, the name of the standardized version of Persian used in Iran), and indeed, that’s the official and majority language. But in truth, countless different languages are spoken across the land of Iran, most of them from the Iranian language family. One of those languages is Talysh.
Talysh is spoken by 500,000 to 800,000 people in Iran’s northern Gilan and Ardabil provinces as well as southern Azerbaijan. In both countries, Talysh is threatened by the official language—Persian (Farsi) in Iran and Azerbaijani in Azerbaijan, resulting in a “vulnerable” endangerment status from UNESCO. That’s why most translation firms don’t offer Talysh—endangered languages don’t tend to be that profitable. But we at TranslationServices.com understand that profits aren’t everything. We’re passionate about minority languages like Talysh, and we believe the Talysh people deserve high-quality translation services—so we’ve put together a professional Talysh translation team.
There’s no time like the present to request a free quote for professional Talysh translation services.
Let’s learn about Talysh.
Like many languages, Talysh is divided up into a few dialect groups—Northern Talysh, Central Talysh, and Southern Talysh. Northern Talysh is the only one spoken in Azerbaijan, but all are spoken in Iran. The language can be written in three different scripts—the Latin script, the Cyrillic script, and the Arabic script—but is primarily written in the Latin script in both Azerbaijan and Iran.
The real challenge is Talysh’s grammar. Talysh marks indefinite nouns but not definite ones, exhibiting the rarest form of definiteness marking. Verbs have separate present and past stems (although they’re sometimes the same), and verbal conjugations differ for each. Talysh has three moods and eight tenses, and in some dialects, the verbal negation marker can change the order of other verbal markers—for example, b-a-dašt-im (“I sew”) becomes ni-m-a-dašt (“I don’t sew”). Then there are the four loosely defined Talysh cases—nominative, genitive, definite accusative, and ergative—which behave far beyond the confines of what these categories usually signify.
Talysh’s complicated and irregular grammatical structure makes the language difficult even for language experts to grasp. But luckily, our Talysh translators have mastered this tricky language and are passionate about translating it for you.
Opt for quality in your Talysh translations.
If you want great Talysh translations, our team is here for you. We provide Talysh translations both to and from the language, in any of the scripts used for Talysh. This means we can translate your Talysh-language historical documents, literature, academic notes, and more into English, allowing you to spread Talysh knowledge and culture more broadly. Simultaneously, our team translates English-language business documents, academic material, literature, websites, apps, games, and more into Talysh, which allows companies and creators to more deeply connect with their audience and enables broadens the domain of use for this rich, complex Iranian language.
Reach out if you’re ready to get started with your first Talysh translation!