Source: http://www.chelgerd.ir/showpages.aspx?tid=10

          The Bakhtiari dialect falls under the Luri language, which is one of the 8 major spoken languages in Iran (Mehrdad Izady, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs). The Bakhtiari dialect is considered a middle Persian dialect. This dialect along with the Lori dialect are referred to as the “Perside” southern Zagros group that are the origin of the modern Persian language called Farsi.

    The population of Bakhtiaris are about 1 million based on the website: http://www.ethnologue.com.  The only written language in Iran is Farsi. Because the history of Iran before Islam is tied with ethnic groups of people (e.g., Lurs, Kurds, Baluchis, etc.) I personally find myself feeling an obligation to start documenting this language to keep the identity of people in the land of Persia from being lost or forgotten. Due to lack of job opportunities in rural areas, people are immigrating to big cities and forgetting the language more and more. I have always sought an opportunity to write down the stories, proverbs, poems and other beauties in this language since my parents grew up in Bakhtiari land. For this I am very thankful to the department of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for showing me how to do so. 

Name: Reza, Rahimnejad Email: rezarah at  dot edu Preferred language name(s): Bakhtiari Alternative names: Lori, Lori-ye Khaveri, Lori-ye Bakhtiari Language classification: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Southwestern, Luri Geographical areas where spoken: Southwest, west Chahar-Mahal va Bakhtiâri, east Khuzestan, east Lorestan, and west Isfahan provinces. Masjed-e Soleiman, Shahr-e Kord, Dorud Approximate number of monolingual speakers: 350,000 Other languages spoken in the area/country: Farsi (Persian) , Kurdish, Turkish, Baluchi, Azeri, Gilaki, Mazendarani, Arabic. Official language(s) in your country: Farsi (Persian) Does your language have a widely accepted writing system? No If yes, what materials are written?

Language Background What have other sources said about your language? Based on an assessment from a table adapted from the Endangered Languages Project, Bakhtiari is an Endangered Language.

Reported # of speakers      Vitality Assessment ethnologue.com                               1,000,000                   6a (Vigorous)