Semnani (, ) is the main language of the Semnan province of Iran and has several branches. The language belongs to the Northwestern branch of the Western Iranian languages. Spoken in south of the Caspian Sea, Semnani is linguistically closely related to Zaza language, another northwestern Iranian language spoken in Anatolia. It is suggested that Semnani and Zaza are descended from a common ancestor. Like other Caspian languages, it bears some resemblance to the Old Iranian Median language and was influenced by Parthian in a later process.
Similiar to Zaza, the noun, adjective systems and verb conjugation exhibit two genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers in Semnani.
(Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Allophones are in parentheses.)
Subjects in Semnani must have gender agreement with the verb in their immediate clause.
Pierre Lecoq. 1989. "Les dialectes caspiens et les dialectes du nord-ouest de l'Iran," Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Ed. Rüdiger Schmitt. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Pages 296âÂÂ314.