Tati Bible — Lerd Dialect New Testament

Overview

The Tati Bible (Lerd Dialect) is a 2024 New Testament in the Lerd dialect of Muslim Tat published by Körpü Company, dedicated in London in January 2024 alongside eleven other completed New Testaments in Iranian minority languages. A companion translation in the Khalkhali dialect of the same language was published simultaneously (YouVersion ID 4207). The translations target the Muslim Tat-speaking communities of Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran — an ethnic Iranian people who have lived in the Caucasus since the Sassanid period and whose language has been classified by UNESCO as severely endangered.

The Lerd dialect takes its name from a village community whose speech is documented in the Shahrūd district of Khalkhal County, Ardabil Province, northwestern Iran. Linguistically the dialect occupies a transitional position: it shares phonological features with North Talysh and syntactic features (ergative constructions) with Central Talysh, and it retains grammatical gender in contrast to several other dialects of the family. The choice to produce two separate Tati NTs — one for the Lerd dialect and one for Khalkhali — reflects the significant internal variation across the Tat dialect continuum, where some subgroups have limited mutual intelligibility.

Prior to 2024, limited Scripture existed in Muslim Tat: portions were recorded as available between 1989 and 2011. A separate NT project targeting a different Muslim Tat community was initiated by Bibles International in 2022 with a target of 2032. The Körpü Lerd Dialect NT appears to be the first complete New Testament specifically for this dialect community.

Language and People

Muslim Tat (ISO 639-3: ttt; autonym: zuhun tati) is a Southwestern Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European, closely related to Persian. It is one of two religious-linguistic varieties of Caucasian Tat: Muslim Tat (ttt) and Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (jdt), spoken by the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus — the two communities share a common ancestor but are no longer mutually intelligible and are treated as distinct languages. Approximately 22,800 native Tat speakers were recorded in Azerbaijan in the 2011 census; the Joshua Project estimates the total Muslim Tat ethnic population at around 115,000, though fewer maintain active Tat fluency. UNESCO classifies the language as severely endangered.

Muslim Tat speakers are found across the Absheron Peninsula (near Baku), and in the Quba, Şabran, Siyəzən, Xızı, İsmayıllı, Şamaxı, and Ağsu districts of Azerbaijan, with additional communities in northwestern Iran and scattered communities in Georgia and Russia. The largest single Tat village is Lahij (İsmayıllı district), with approximately 10,000 residents, which serves as a significant centre of Tat cultural life.

The Tats are descendants of Iranian settlers placed in the Caucasus by the Sassanid Empire (3rd–7th century AD) as garrison communities and agricultural colonists. They converted to Islam following the Arab conquests of the 7th–8th centuries and formed the main population of the medieval Shirvanshah state. From the 11th century onward, successive waves of Turkic migration — Seljuq, Mongol, and Ottoman — progressively displaced Tat as the regional language in favour of Azerbaijani, a process accelerated by Soviet nationality policy. Soviet censuses recorded a sharp decline: from 28,443 Tats in 1926 to 10,239 by 1989, largely through "gradual Turkicization" (Vladimir Minorsky's phrase). Many contemporary Tats identify primarily as Azerbaijani and have lost active Tat fluency.

The Muslim Tats are predominantly Shia Muslim. Joshua Project classifies them as unreached (1.3% Christian), noting that the Jesus Film and the New Testament are now available in the language — the latter a reference to the 2024 Körpü publications.

Publishing and Organizations

Published by Körpü Company (Korpu Ltd.), a UK-based Bible translation organization founded by Rev. Dr. Feridoon Mokhof, an Iranian of Azerbaijani descent who converted to Christianity in 1974. Körpü (Azerbaijani: bridge) focuses on minority-language peoples of Iran and the South Caucasus. Mokhof began translation work in 1990 with Southern Azerbaijani; Körpü was formally established around 1995 to address the many Iranian minority languages for which no Scripture existed. The organization employs approximately 73 staff including 58 translators, two-thirds of whom work from inside Iran. Partners include United Bible Societies, Seed Company, Operation Mobilization, and the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board.

The Tati Bible (Lerd Dialect) is available via YouVersion/Bible.com (ID 4210) in Arabic/Persian script.

References