John R. Perry, Ph.D. Cantab. (1970) in Oriental Languages, is Professor of Persian Language and Civilization at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Form and Meaning in Persian Vocabulary:The Arabic Feminine Ending (Bibliotheca Persica, Mazda Publishers, 1991) and numerous articles on Persian and Tajik.

This is the first comprehensive reference grammar of Tajik, the Persian of Central Asia, to appear in English. It describes the modern literary language, with examples of colloquial and dialect usage, from the early Soviet period (1920s) up until Tajikistan's independence after 1991. Grammatical examples, taken from a variety of literary sources, are given in both the Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic scripts. Complete verb paradigms, a grammatical index, and parallel word-indexes in both writing systems make it easy to find particular points.

Essential for the Iranologist and comparative linguist, for the the student or teacher of Tajik Persian, and a valuable supplement for those who work with Persian of Iran or Afghanistan. With extensive indexes.