Projekt

This project aims at documenting the language and cultural practices of the Gorani speech community in western Iran. This community is characterised by their adherence to a heterodox Islamic sect known as the Ahl-e Haqq. Its origins are controversial, but have been linked to another heterodox sect, the Yezidis among the Kurds of North Iraq and Southeast Turkey, and may have roots going back to Zoroastrianism. The Goran number at most 1.500 speakers, inhabiting three villages near the townships of Gahvare around 60 km. from the regional centre of Kermanshah, and the village Zarde more to the west. Although the Goran are now small minority languages, they actually have a literary tradition going back some centuries. Both the language and the religion are under threat from the dominant state language and religion, but also from the local dominance of Kurdish as the lingua franca in the region. The project brings together a unique team of linguists, experts on comparative Iranian religions, and musicologists with extensive experience of field research in an Iranian context, and will work closely with colleagues at research institutions in Tehran, with the Goran diaspora community there, and with local researchers at the University of Kermanshah.

• Prof. Dr. Ludwig Paul

  Universität Hamburg
  Asien-Afrika-Institut
  Vorderer Orient
  Hamburg
  

• Priv.-Doz. Dr. Geoffrey Haig

  Universität Kiel
  Philosophische Fakultät
  Seminar für Allgemeine und Vergleichende
  Sprachwissenschaft
  Kiel
  

• Prof. Dr. Philip Gerrit Kreijenbroek

  Universität Göttingen
  Philosophische Fakultät
  Seminar für Iranistik
  Göttingen