Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hung. Volume 63 (1), 39–62 (2010) DOI: 10.1556/AOrient.63.2010.1.4 0001-6446 / $ 20.00 © 2010 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest NEΘƗB-E ΚABARI REVISITED: A MƗZANDARƗNI GLOSSARY FROM THE 19TH CENTURY HABIB BORJIAN * New York e-mail: hb146@columbia.edu The article studies and glosses a Ṭabari– Persian versified vocabulary (neΙƘb) composed in 1848 by Amir Timur Qajar. The subject language, Ṭabari, also called MƘzandarƘni, is spoken in the Cas- pian province of MƘzandarƘn in northern Iran and has been subjected to an enormous Persian influ- ence in modern times. The NeΙƘb provides a unique opportunity to study the linguistic developments of Ṭabari, more particularly so because the three oldest manuscripts of the NeΙƘb are written in dif- ferent dialects of the language. An attempt is made here to identify these dialects and their dia- chronic developments through a comparative phonological analysis. Key words: Ṭabari, MƘzandarƘn, Caspian languages, Iranian dialectology, versified dictionaries, lan- guage history, typology. The Ṭabari or MƘzandarƘni language, spoken in the Caspian province of MƘzandarƘn in northern Persia, is comparatively well documented in the 19th century by European travellers (see Borjian 2004). A rich source of its vocabulary is, however, NeΙƘb-e Λabari, a versified MƘzandarƘni – Persian dictionary composed in 1848 by Amir Timur QƘjƘr SƘravi, known also as Amir-e MƘzandarƘni. The work was commissioned by Ar- dashir MirzƘ, the prince-governor of MƘzandarƘn in the reign of Moḥammad Shah Qajar. 1 NeΙƘbs are versified vocabularies which exploit the mnemonic value of rhyme and rhythm for rote learning. The genre began with the 13th-century Arabic –Persian NeΙƘb al-ΙebyƘn of Abu Naԕr FarƘhi which has 1365 Arabic terms and their Persian equivalents,s coveringsthesfieldssofsreligion,s history,s science,s ands literaturesins200 * I am indebted to my wife Dr. Maryam Borjian for her assistance in preparing this article. A preliminary draft of the paper was published in Arjnāma-ye Θādeq-e Kiā [S. Kia Memorial Volume], edited by ‘Askar Bahrāmi and published in Tehran by Mirās-e maktub in 1387/2008. 1 It appears that more MƘzandarƘni NeΙƘbs survive: ‘AllƘma (1949, pp. 100 ff.) quotes parts of one; NajafzƘda (1996, p. 15) claims to have seen some twenty of them!