Gilaki language  The Gilaki language (گیلکی "Giləki") is a Caspian language, and a member of the northwestern Iranian language branch, spoken in Iran's Gilan Province. Gilaki is closely related to Mazandarani and the two languages have similar vocabularies. Though the Persian language has influenced Gilaki to a great extent, Gilaki remains an independent language with a northwestern Iranian origin. The Gilaki and Mazandarani languages (but not other Iranian languages) share certain typological features with Caucasian languages (specifically South Caucasian languages), reflecting the history, ethnic identity, and close relatedness to the Caucasus region and Caucasian peoples of the Gilaki people and Mazandarani people. The language is divided into three dialects: "Western Gilaki", "Eastern Gilaki", and Galeshi (in the mountains of Gilan). The western and eastern dialects are separated by the Sefid River. According to Ethnologue, there were more than 2 million native speakers of Gilaki in 1993. By 2016, there were 2.4 million native speakers of Gilaki. There are three main dialects but larger cities in Gilan have slight variations to the way they speak. These "sub-dialects" are Rashti, Rudbari, Some’e Sarai, Lahijani, Langerudi, Rudesari, Bandar Anzali and Fumani. Eastern Gilaki is also spoken in the city of Ramsar, Tonekabon and surrounding areas. It has been influenced by the Mazandarani language and is sometimes referred to as Gil-Mazani although most refer to it as Ramsari, it is still considered a sub-dialect of Gilaki. Gilaki, similar to Mazandarani, is an inflected and genderless language. It is considered SVO. However, some tenses may be SOV. Gilaki has the same consonants as Persian, but different vowels. Here is a table of correspondences for the Western Gilaki of Rasht, which will be the variety used in the remainder of the article: There are nine vowel phonemes in the Gilaki language: The consonants are:  The verb system of Gilaki is very similar to that of Persian. All infinitives end in "-tən/-dən", or in "-V:n", where V: is a long vowel (from contraction of an original "*-Vdən").