Tajiks ( fa, تاجيک، تاجک, ''Tājīk, Tājek''; tg, Тоҷик) are a
Persian-speaking
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
ethnic group native to
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
, living primarily in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
,
Tajikistan
Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
, and
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
. Tajiks are the largest
ethnicity in Tajikistan, and the second-largest in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. They speak varieties of Persian, a
Western Iranian language
The Western Iranic languages are a branch of the Iranic languages, attested from the time of Old Persian (6th century BC) and Median.
Languages
The traditional Northwestern branch is a convention for non-Southwestern languages, rather than a ge ...
. In Tajikistan, since the 1939 Soviet census, its small
Pamiri and
Yaghnobi ethnic groups are included as Tajiks.
In China, the term is used to refer to its Pamiri ethnic groups, the
Tajiks of Xinjiang
The Tajiks of Xinjiang ( Sarikoli: , , ), also known as Chinese Tajiks () or Mountain Tajiks, are Pamiris that live in the Pamir mountains of Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, in Xinjiang, China. They are one of the 56 ethnic groups officia ...
, who speak the
Eastern Iranian
The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from c. the 4th century BC). The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle Western Iranian diale ...
Pamiri languages.
In Afghanistan, the Pamiris are counted as a separate ethnic group.
As a self-designation, the literary
New Persian term ''Tajik'', which originally had some previous pejorative usage as a label for eastern
Persians or
Iranians,
has become acceptable during the last several decades, particularly as a result of
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
administration in Central Asia.
Alternative names for the Tajiks are
Eastern Persian,
Fārsīwān (Persian-speaker), and
Dīhgān (cf. tg, Деҳқон) which translates to "farmer or settled villager", in a wider sense "settled" in contrast to "nomadic" and was later used to describe a class of land-owning magnates as "
Persian of noble blood" in contrast to
Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
,
Turks and
Romans during the
Sassanid
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
and early Islamic period.
History
The Tajiks are an Iranian people, speaking a variety of Persian, concentrated in the
Oxus
The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central Asi ...
Basin, the
Farḡāna valley (Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan) and on both banks of the upper Oxus, i.e., the
Pamir Mountains (Mountain Badaḵšān, in Tajikistan) and northeastern Afghanistan (Badaḵšān).
Historically, the ancient Tajiks were chiefly agriculturalists before the
Arab Conquest of Iran
The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion.
The ...
. While agriculture remained a stronghold, the
Islamization of Iran also resulted in the rapid urbanization of historical
Khorasan
Khorasan may refer to:
* Greater Khorasan, a historical region which lies mostly in modern-day northern/northwestern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
* Khorasan Province, a pre-2004 province of Ira ...
and
Transoxiana that lasted until the devastating Mongolian invasion. Several surviving ancient urban centers of the Tajik people include
Samarkand,
Bukhara,
Khujand, and
Termez.
Contemporary Tajiks are the descendants of ancient Eastern Iranian inhabitants of Central Asia, in particular, the
Sogdians and the
Bactrians, and possibly other groups, with an admixture of Western Iranian Persians and non-Iranian peoples. According to
Richard Nelson Frye, a leading historian of Iranian and Central Asian history, the Persian migration to Central Asia may be considered the beginning of the modern Tajik nation, and ethnic Persians, along with some elements of East-Iranian Bactrians and Sogdians, as the main ancestors of modern Tajiks. In later works, Frye expands on the complexity of the historical origins of the Tajiks. In a 1996 publication, Frye explains that many "factors must be taken into account in explaining the evolution of the peoples whose remnants are the Tajiks in Central Asia" and that "the peoples of Central Asia, whether
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
or
Turkic speaking, have one culture, one religion, one set of social values and traditions with only language separating them."
Regarding Tajiks, the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica'' states:
The geographical division between the eastern and western Iranians is often considered historically and currently to be the desert
Dasht-e Kavir
Dasht-e Kavir ( fa, دشت كوير, lit=Low Plains in classical Persian, from ''khwar'' (low), and ''dasht'' (plain, flatland)), also known as Kavir-e Namak () and the Great Salt Desert, is a large desert lying in the middle of the Iranian Plat ...
, situated in the center of the Iranian plateau.
Further according to
Richard Foltz:
Modern History
During the
Soviet-Afghan War, the Tajik-dominated
Jamiat-e Islami
Jamayat-E-Islami (also rendered as Jamiat-e-Islami and Jamiati Islami; fa, جمعیت اسلامی افغانستان, lit=Islamic Society), sometimes shortened to Jamiat, is a predominantly Tajik political party in Afghanistan. It was origin ...
founded by
Burhanuddin Rabbani resisted the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...
and the communist
Afghan government. Tajik commander,
Ahmad Shah Massoud
)
, branch = Jamiat-e Islami / Shura-e Nazar Afghan Armed Forces United Islamic Front
, serviceyears = 1975–2001
, rank = General
, unit =
, commands = Mujahideen commander during the Soviet–Afghan War ...
, successfully repelled nine Soviet campaigns from taking
Panjshir Valley and earned the nickname "Lion of Panjshir" ().
Name
According to John Perry (''
Encyclopaedia Iranica
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article ...
''):
The most plausible and generally accepted origin of the word is Middle Persian tāzīk 'Arab' (cf. New Persian tāzi), or an Iranian (Sogdian or Parthian) cognate word. The Muslim armies that invaded Transoxiana early in the eighth century, conquering the Sogdian principalities and clashing with the Qarluq Turks
The Karluks (also Qarluqs, Qarluks, Karluqs, otk, 𐰴𐰺𐰞𐰸, Qarluq, Para-Mongol: Harluut, zh, s=葛逻禄, t=葛邏祿 ''Géluólù'' ; customary phonetic: ''Gelu, Khololo, Khorlo'', fa, خَلُّخ, ''Khallokh'', ar, قارلوق ...
(see Bregel, Atlas, Maps 8–10) consisted not only of Arabs, but also of Persian converts from Fārs and the central Zagros region (Bartol'd arthold "Tadžiki," pp. 455–57). Hence the Turks of Central Asia adopted a variant of the Iranian word, täžik, to designate their Muslim adversaries in general. For example, the rulers of the south Indian Chalukya dynasty and Rashtrakuta dynasty
Rashtrakuta ( IAST: ') (r. 753-982 CE) was a royal Indian dynasty ruling large parts of the Indian subcontinent between the sixth and 10th centuries. The earliest known Rashtrakuta inscription is a 7th-century copper plate grant detailing the ...
also referred to the Arabs as "Tajika" in the 8th and 9th century. By the eleventh century ( Yusof Ḵāṣṣ-ḥājeb, Qutadḡu bilig, lines 280, 282, 3265), the Qarakhanid Turks
The Kara-Khanid Khanate (; ), also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids (), was a Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia in the 9th through the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek ...
applied this term more specifically to the Persian Muslims in the Oxus basin and Khorasan, who were variously the Turks' rivals, models, overlords (under the Samanid Dynasty), and subjects (from Ghaznavid times on). Persian writers of the Ghaznavid, Seljuq and Atābak periods (ca. 1000–1260) adopted the term and extended its use to cover Persians in the rest of Greater Iran, now under Turkish rule, as early as the poet ʿOnṣori, ca. 1025 (Dabirsiāqi, pp. 3377, 3408). Iranians soon accepted it as an ethnonym, as is shown by a Persian court official's referring to mā tāzikān "we Tajiks" (Bayhaqi, ed. Fayyāz, p. 594). The distinction between Turk and Tajik became stereotyped to express the symbiosis and rivalry of the (ideally) nomadic military executive and the urban civil bureaucracy (Niẓām al-Molk: tāzik, pp. 146, 178–79; Fragner, "Tādjīk. 2" in EI2 10, p. 63).
The word also occurs in the
Tonyukuk inscriptions as ''tözik'', used for a local Arab tribe in the
Tashkent area. These Arabs were said to be from the Taz tribe, which is still found in
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...
. In the 7th-century, the Taz began to Islamize Transoxiana.
According to the ''
Encyclopaedia of Islam'', however, the oldest known usage of the word ''Tajik'' as a reference to Persians in Persian literature can be found in the writings of the Persian poet
Jalal ad-Din Rumi. The 15th-century Turkic-speaking poet
Mīr Alī Šer Navā'ī also used ''Tajik'' as a reference to Persians.
Location
The Tajiks are the principal ethnic group in most of
Tajikistan
Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
, as well as in northern and western
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
, though there are more Tajiks in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan. Tajiks are a substantial minority in
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
, as well as in overseas communities. Historically, the ancestors of the Tajiks lived in a larger territory in Central Asia than now.
Tajikistan
Tajiks comprise around 84.3% of the population of Tajikistan.
This number includes speakers of the
Pamiri languages, including
Wakhi and
Shughni, and the
Yaghnobi people who in the past were considered by the government of the Soviet Union nationalities separate from the Tajiks. In the 1926 and 1937 Soviet censuses, the Yaghnobis and Pamiri language speakers were counted as separate nationalities. After 1937, these groups were required to register as Tajiks.
Afghanistan
According to the
World Factbook
''The World Factbook'', also known as the ''CIA World Factbook'', is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is available ...
, Tajiks make up about 27% of the population in Afghanistan,
but according to other sources, they form 37%–39% of the population. According to the
Encyclopædia Britannica they constitute about one-fifth of the population.
They are predominant in four of the largest cities in Afghanistan (
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into #Districts, 22 municipal dist ...
,
Mazar-e Sharif,
Herat, and
Ghazni
Ghazni ( prs, غزنی, ps, غزني), historically known as Ghaznain () or Ghazna (), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana ( gr, Αλεξάνδρεια Ωπιανή), is a city in southeastern Afghanistan ...
) and make up the largest ethnic group in the northern and western provinces of
Balkh,
Takhar,
Badakhshan
Badakhshan is a historical region comprising parts of modern-day north-eastern Afghanistan, eastern Tajikistan, and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China. Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. Much of historic ...
,
Samangan,
Parwan,
Panjshir,
Kapisa,
Baghlan,
Ghor,
Badghis and
Herat.
In Afghanistan, the Tajiks do not organize themselves by tribes and refer to themselves by the region, province, city, town, or village that they are from; such as ''Badakhshi'', ''Baghlani'', ''Mazari'', ''Panjsheri'', ''Kabuli'', ''Herati'', ''Kohistani'', etc.
Although in the past, some non-
Pashto
Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani ().
Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...
speaking tribes were identified as Tajik, for example, the Furmuli.
Uzbekistan
In
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
, the Tajiks are the largest part of the population of the ancient cities of
Bukhara and
Samarkand, and are found in large numbers in the
Surxondaryo Region in the south and along Uzbekistan's eastern border with Tajikistan. According to official statistics (2000), Surxondaryo Region accounts for 24.4% of all Tajiks in Uzbekistan, with another 34.3% in
Samarqand
fa, سمرقند
, native_name_lang =
, settlement_type = City
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...
and
Bukhara regions.
Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that the Tajik community comprises 5% of the nation's total population.
However, these numbers do not include ethnic Tajiks who, for a variety of reasons, choose to identify themselves as Uzbeks in population census forms.
During the Soviet "
Uzbekization
Uzbekisation or Uzbekization is the process of something or someone culturally non-Uzbek becoming, or being forced to become, Uzbek. The term is often used to describe the process by which the autonomous republic Tajik ASSR was incorporated with ...
" supervised by
Sharof Rashidov, the head of the Uzbek Communist Party, Tajiks had to choose either stay in Uzbekistan and get registered as Uzbek in their passports or leave the republic for Tajikistan, which is mountainous and less agricultural. It is only in the last population census (1989) that the nationality could be reported not according to the passport, but freely declared based on the respondent's ethnic self-identification. This had the effect of increasing the Tajik population in Uzbekistan from 3.9% in 1979 to 4.7% in 1989. Some scholars estimate that Tajiks may make up 35% of Uzbekistan's population.
[Svante E. Cornell, "Uzbekistan: A Regional Player in Eurasian Geopolitics?"]
, ''European Security'', vol. 20, no. 2, Summer 2000.
China
Chinese Tajiks or Mountain Tajiks in China (
Sarikoli: , ''Tujik''; ), including Sarikolis (majority) and
Wakhis (minority) in China, are the
Pamiri ethnic group that lives in the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in
Northwestern China. They are one of the
56 nationalities officially recognized by the government of the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
.
Kazakhstan
According to the
1999 population census, there were 26,000 Tajiks in Kazakhstan (0.17% of the total population), about the same number as in the 1989 census.
Kyrgyzstan
According to
official statistics, there were about 47,500 Tajiks in Kyrgyzstan in 2007 (0.9% of the total population), up from 42,600 in the 1999 census and 33,500 in the 1989 census.
Turkmenistan
According to the last Soviet census in 1989, there were 3,149 Tajiks in Turkmenistan, or less than 0.1% of the total population of 3.5 million at that time. The first population census of independent Turkmenistan conducted in 1995 showed 3,103 Tajiks in a population of 4.4 million (0.07%), most of them (1,922) concentrated in the eastern provinces of
Lebap and
Mary adjoining the borders with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
Russia
The population of Tajiks in Russia was about 200,303 according to the 2010 census, up from 38,000 in the last
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
census of 1989.
Most Tajiks came to Russia after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, often as
guest workers in places like
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
and
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
or federal subjects near the Kazakhstan border. There are currently estimated to be over one million Tajik guest workers living in Russia, with their remittances accounting for as much as half of Tajikistan's economy.
Pakistan
There are an estimated 220,000
Tajiks in Pakistan as of 2012, mainly refugees from Afghanistan.
[The ethnic composition of the 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees living in Pakistan are believed to be 85% Pashtun and 15% Tajik, Uzbek and others.] During the 1990s, as a result of the
Tajikistan Civil War
The Tajikistani Civil War ( tg, Ҷанги шаҳрвандии Тоҷикистон, translit=Jangi shahrvandiyi Tojikiston / Çangi shahrvandiji Toçikiston; russian: Гражданская война в Таджикистане), also known ...
, between 700 and 1,200 Tajikistanis arrived in Pakistan, mainly as students, the children of Tajikistani refugees in Afghanistan. In 2002, around 300 requested to return home and were repatriated back to Tajikistan with the help of the
IOM,
UNHCR and the two countries' authorities.
Genetics
The dominant
haplogroup among modern Tajiks is the Haplogroup
R1a Y-DNA. ~45% of Tajik men share R1a (M17), ~18% J (M172), ~8% R2 (M124), and ~8% C (M130 & M48). Tajiks of Panjikent score 68% R1a, Tajiks of Khojant score 64% R1a. The high frequency of haplogroup R1a in the Tajiks probably reflects a strong
founder effect. According to another genetic test, 63% of Tajik male samples from Tajikistan carry R1a.
An autosomal DNA study by Guarino-Vignon et al. 2022, analyzing 5019 individuals (3102 ancient and 1915 modern), revealed that
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities.
The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate ...
, specifically the Tajiks and
Yaghnobis
The Yaghnobi people ( Yaghnobi: yaγnōbī́t or suγdī́t; tg, яғнобиҳо, yağnobiho/jaƣnoʙiho) are an Iranian ethnic minority in Tajikistan. They inhabit Tajikistan's Sughd province in the valleys of the Yaghnob, Qul and Varzob r ...
, show strong genetic continuity with ancient
Indo-Iranian samples from pre-Turkic
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
, including Iron Age samples from
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the s ...
. The authors found that Tajiks stayed largely unaffected by outside geneflow, and show continuity with ancient Indo-Iranian samples from Tajikistan and from modern
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the s ...
since the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...
, but have slightly higher affinity with "Baikal hunter-gatherers" and "South Asians" than Ancient Central Asian samples. In conclusion the authors summarized that Tajiks display "''a long-term continuity since the Iron Age with only limited recent impulses from other Eurasian groups''".
Culture
Language
The language of the Tajiks is an eastern dialect of
Persian, called
Dari
Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī  ...
(derived from ''Darbārī'', "
f/from theroyal courts", in the sense of "courtly language"), or also Parsi-e Darbari. In Tajikistan, where
Cyrillic script is used, it is called the
Tajiki language. In
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
, unlike in
Tajikistan
Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
, Tajiks continue to use the
Perso-Arabic script
The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian) and Afghanistan ( Dari Persian) since the 7th ce ...
, as well as in Iran. However, when the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
introduced the Latin script in 1928, and later the Cyrillic script, the Persian dialect of Tajikistan came to be considered a separate (Persian) language. Since the 19th century, Tajiki has been strongly influenced by the Russian language and has incorporated many Russian language
loan words.
[Michael Knüppel]
Turkic Loanwords in Persian
Encyclopædia Iranica
''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times.
Scope
The ''Encyc ...
. It has also adopted fewer
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
loan words than Iranian Persian while retaining vocabulary that has fallen out of use in the latter language. In Tajikistan, in ordinary speech, also known as "zaboni kucha" (lit. "street language", as opposed to "zaboni adabi", lit. "literary language", which is used in schools, media etc.), many urban Tajiks prefer to use Russian loanwords instead of their literary Persian analogs.
The dialects of modern
Persian spoken throughout
Greater Iran have a common origin. This is due to the fact that one of
Greater Iran's historical cultural capitals, called
Greater Khorasan, which included parts of modern Central Asia and much of Afghanistan and constitutes as the Tajik's ancestral homeland, played a key role in the development and propagation of Persian language and culture throughout much of
Greater Iran after the Muslim conquest. Furthermore, early manuscripts of the historical Persian spoken in
Mashhad during the development of Middle to New Persian show that their origins came from
Sistan
Sistān ( fa, سیستان), known in ancient times as Sakastān ( fa, سَكاستان, "the land of the Saka"), is a historical and geographical region in present-day Eastern Iran ( Sistan and Baluchestan Province) and Southern Afghanistan ( ...
, in present-day Afghanistan.
Religion
Various scholars have recorded the
Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...
,
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
, and
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
pre-Islamic heritage of the Tajik people. Early temples for fire worship have been found in
Balkh and
Bactria and excavations in present-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan show remnants of Zoroastrian fire temples.
Today, however, the great majority of Tajiks follow
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disag ...
, although small
Twelver and
Ismaili Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mos ...
minorities also exist in scattered pockets. Areas with large numbers of Shias include
Herat,
Badakhshan
Badakhshan is a historical region comprising parts of modern-day north-eastern Afghanistan, eastern Tajikistan, and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China. Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. Much of historic ...
provinces in Afghanistan, the
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan, and
Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County
Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County (also known as Taxkorgan County, sometimes spelled Tashkurgan, Tashkorgan and Tash Kurghan Tadzhik Autonomous Hsien) is an autonomous county of Kashgar Prefecture in Western Xinjiang, China. The county seat is t ...
in China. Some of the famous Islamic scholars were from either modern or historical East-Iranian regions lying in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and therefore can arguably be viewed as Tajiks. They include
Abu Hanifa,
Imam Bukhari
Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, serv ...
,
Tirmidhi,
Abu Dawood
Abū Dāwūd (Dā’ūd) Sulaymān ibn al-Ash‘ath ibn Isḥāq al-Azdī al-Sijistānī ( ar, أبو داود سليمان بن الأشعث الأزدي السجستاني), commonly known simply as Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, was a scholar o ...
,
Nasir Khusraw and many others.
According to a 2009
U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim, (approximately 85%
Sunni
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a dis ...
and 5%
Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mos ...
). In
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
, the great number of Tajiks adhere to
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disag ...
. The smaller number of Tajiks who may follow
Twelver Shia Islam
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mos ...
are locally called
Farsiwan
Fārsīwān (Pashto/ fa, فارسیوان or its regional forms: Pārsīwān or Pārsībān,The ''Encyc. Iranica'' makes clear in the article on Afghanistan — Ethnography that "The term Farsiwan also has the regional forms Parsiwan and Pars ...
. The community of
Bukharian Jews in Central Asia speak a dialect of Persian. The
Bukharian Jewish community in Uzbekistan is the largest remaining community of Central Asian Jews and resides primarily in Bukhara and Samarkand, while the
Bukharaian Jews of Tajikistan live in Dushanbe and number only a few hundred. From the 1970s to the 1990s the majority of these Tajik-speaking Jews emigrated to the United States and to
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
in accordance with
Aliyah. Recently, the Protestant community of Tajiks descent has experienced significant growth, a 2015 study estimates some 2,600 Muslim Tajik converted to Christianity.
Tajikistan marked 2009 as the year to commemorate the Tajik Sunni Muslim jurist
Abu Hanifa, whose ancestry hailed from
Parwan Province of Afghanistan, as the nation hosted an international symposium that drew scientific and religious leaders. The construction of one of the largest mosques in the world, funded by
Qatar
Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...
, was announced in October 2009. The mosque is planned to be built in Dushanbe and construction is said to be completed by 2014.
Recent developments
Cultural revival
The collapse of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and the
Civil War in Afghanistan both gave rise to a resurgence in Tajik nationalism across the region, including a trial to revert to the
Perso-Arabic
The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran (Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th ce ...
script in Tajikistan.
Furthermore, Tajikistan in particular has been a focal point for this movement, and the government there has made a conscious effort to revive the legacy of the
Samanid empire, the first Tajik-dominated state in the region after the
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
advance. For instance, the
President of Tajikistan
The president of Tajikistan is the head of state and de facto head of government of the Republic of Tajikistan. The president heads the executive branch of the country's federal government and is the supreme commander in chief of the Armed Fo ...
,
Emomalii Rahmon, dropped the Russian suffix "-ov" from his surname and directed others to adopt Tajik names when registering births. According to a government announcement in October 2009, approximately 4,000 Tajik nationals have dropped "ov" and "ev" from their surnames since the start of the year.
In September 2009, the
Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan proposed a draft law to have the nation's language referred to as "Tajiki-Farsi" rather than "Tajik." The proposal drew criticism from Russian media since the bill sought to remove the
Russian language
Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living E ...
as Tajikistan's inter-ethnic ''
lingua franca''.
In 1989, the original name of the language (Farsi) had been added to its official name in brackets, though Rahmon's government renamed the language to simply "Tajiki" in 1994.
On 6 October 2009, Tajikistan adopted the law that removes Russian as the ''lingua franca'' and mandated Tajik as the language to be used in official documents and education, with an exception for members Tajikistan's ethnic minority groups, who would be permitted to receive an education in the language of their choosing.
See also
*
Bukharan Jews
*
Farsiwan
Fārsīwān (Pashto/ fa, فارسیوان or its regional forms: Pārsīwān or Pārsībān,The ''Encyc. Iranica'' makes clear in the article on Afghanistan — Ethnography that "The term Farsiwan also has the regional forms Parsiwan and Pars ...
*
Persian people
*
Chagatai Tajiks
*
Kharduri Tajiks
*
Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County
Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County (also known as Taxkorgan County, sometimes spelled Tashkurgan, Tashkorgan and Tash Kurghan Tadzhik Autonomous Hsien) is an autonomous county of Kashgar Prefecture in Western Xinjiang, China. The county seat is t ...
*
Tajiks of Xinjiang
The Tajiks of Xinjiang ( Sarikoli: , , ), also known as Chinese Tajiks () or Mountain Tajiks, are Pamiris that live in the Pamir mountains of Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, in Xinjiang, China. They are one of the 56 ethnic groups officia ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Tajiksat ''
Encyclopædia Britannica Online
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article ...
''
Tajik – The Ethnonym: Origins and Applicationat ''
Encyclopædia Iranica
''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times.
Scope
The ''Encyc ...
''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tajik People
Ethnic groups in Afghanistan
Ethnic groups in Tajikistan
Ethnic groups in Uzbekistan
Iranian ethnic groups
Ethnic groups divided by international borders