Vafsi

The Vafsis speak Vafsi (locally Vowsi), a Northwestern Iranian language of four villages north of Komijan in Markazi province: Vafs, Chehreqan, Gurchan and Farak. Linguists class Vafsi as Tatic, close to the Southern Tati dialects and to neighbouring Ashtiani, though it shares much grammar with the Central Plateau dialects and has some Kurdish-like features. It is a split-ergative language with grammatical gender, preserved because the villages sit isolated in mountains surrounded by Turkic-speaking settlements. People call themselves Vafsi and many also identify as Tat, though some insist Vafsi is distinct from Tati. Two close variants are recognised, the speech of Vafs and that of Gurchan (about 5% different), and Chehreqani.

Vafs is a stone-built village of twelve quarters strung along a 23 km mountain valley beneath Mount Qelenje (2,745 m), with remains of a twelve-tower fortification and an old bathhouse. Families farm with qanat and spring water, keep orchards and herd sheep and goats, moving them to summer pastures at Abreng and Abdar. Women weave kilims. Vafsi oral culture includes folk tales, proverbs, lullabies and children's games, and a local researcher has compiled a Vafsi dictionary. Vafs is one of Iran's designated tourism target villages and has eco-lodges.

Vafsis are Twelver Shia. The Muharram season is the high point of the year, with processions and the Vafs ta'zieh passion play, said to date to the Safavid era and entered in Iran's national list of intangible heritage. Sayyid families are prominent in village religious life. Emigrant families in Tehran, Qom and Arak live within the national trend toward secularisation, but no data specific to Vafsis exist.

No Scripture or film exists in Vafsi; audio Bible stories or gospel messages are reported to exist (Global Recordings Network listing), but could not be verified. All Vafsis are bilingual in Persian, so the Persian Bible, the Persian Jesus Film and Persian satellite and online Christian media are linguistically accessible. No believers or outreach among Vafsis are known.