Mazanderani language

Mazandarani (Mazanderani: , ''Mazeruni''; also spelled Mazani () or Tabari (); also called Geleki) is an Iranian language of the Northwestern branch spoken by the Mazandarani people. , there were 1.36 million native speakers. The language appears to be decreasing, as it is threatened, and due to the majority of its speakers shifting to Iranian Persian. As a member of the Northwestern branch (the northern branch of Western Iranian), etymologically speaking, it is rather closely related to Gilaki and also related to Persian, which belongs to the Southwestern branch. Though the Persian language has influenced Mazandarani to a great extent, Mazandarani still survives as an independent language with a northwestern Iranian origin.

Mazandarani is closely related to Gilaki, and the two languages have similar vocabularies. The Gilaki and Mazandarani languages (but not other Iranian languages) share certain typological features with Caucasian languages (specifically the non-Indo-European South Caucasian languages), reflecting the history, ethnic identity, and close relatedness to the Caucasus region and Caucasian peoples of Mazandaranis and Gilak people. Provided by Wikipedia