The Survival of an Ancient Term in Talishi

Abstract

This is an attempt of tracing an ancient PIr. cultural lexeme in the language of the Talishis, an Iranian people inhabiting the south-western shores of the Caspian Sea, historically known as Talysh or Talyshistan. The term—a unique living remnant of the Old Iranian vocabulary in the whole Western New Iranian expanse (its only cognate in New Persian survived in Classical literature)—belongs to the sphere of syrup-making and denotes primarily date-plum syrup.