Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Iranian Languages and Dialects

It is a great honor that the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Iranian Languages and Dialects (past and present) are now published and made available to interested audiences. As mentioned in the preface of the proceedings of the First International Conference on Iranian Languages and Dialects, Iranian languages and dialects are documents of our national, religious, and cultural identity. Researching and introducing these documents, which are cultural and historical treasures of the Iranian land, is the responsibility of all lovers of Iranian culture and civilization. The diversity of Iranian languages and dialects, which are remnants of Middle and Ancient Iranian languages and dialects, is such that today a significant portion of them exist beyond the political geographical borders of Iran. Currently, Asi, Tati, Talyshi, and Kurdish are spoken in parts of the Caucasus, Dagestan, Georgia, Armenia, and Arran. Some groups of eastern Iranian languages and dialects are found in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Punjab, and Sind up to Xinjiang in northwestern China. A significant part of the southwestern Iranian dialects are even used in the countries south of the Persian Gulf. Moreover, thanks to Iranian poets and literati, Dari Persian in the Islamic era spread to a large part of the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, and Asia Minor and was used for centuries as a scientific and literary language in this vast region.