Tajiks

Tajiks (Template:Langx; Template:Langx; also spelled Tadzhiks or Tadjiks)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> is the name of various Persian-speaking<ref name="EofI-Tadjik">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Eastern Iranian groups of people native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Even though the term Tajik does not refer to a cohesive cross-national ethnic group,<ref name="nourzhanov">Nourzhanov, K., & Bleuer, C. (2013). Forging Tajik Identity: Ethnic Origins, National–Territorial Delimitation and Nationalism. In Tajikistan: A Political and Social History (pp. 27–50). ANU Press. Link: [1]</ref><ref name="brasher" /> Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Tajikistan, and the second-largest in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. They speak varieties of Persian, a Western Iranian language. In Tajikistan, since the 1939 Soviet census, its small Pamiri and Yaghnobi ethnic groups are included as Tajiks.<ref name="suny" /> In China, the term is used to refer to its Pamiri ethnic groups, the Tajiks of Xinjiang, who speak the Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages.<ref name=arlund1>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=felmy>Template:Cite book</ref> In Afghanistan, the Pamiris are counted as a separate ethnic group.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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,<ref name="Iranica">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>B. A. Litvinsky, Ahmad Hasan Dani (1998). History of Civilizations of Central Asia: Age of Achievement, A.D. 750 to the end of the 15th-century. Excerpt: "...they were the basis for the emergence and gradual consolidation of what became an Eastern Persian-Tajik ethnic identity." pp. 101. UNESCO. Template:ISBN.</ref> has become acceptable during the last several decades, particularly as a result of Soviet administration in Central Asia.<ref name="EofI-Tadjik" /> Alternative names for the Tajiks are Fārsīwān (Persian-speaker), and Dīhgān (cf. Template:Langx) 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, Turks and Romans during the Sassanid and early Islamic period.<ref name=EofI-Afghanistan>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref name="Iranica"/>

The Tajiks have a mixed origin, and are primarily descended from Bactrians, Sogdians, Scythians, but also Persians, Greeks, and various Turkic peoples of Central Asia,<ref name="loc.gov">Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan : country studies Template:Webarchive Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, page 206</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> all of whom are known to have inhabited the region at various times. Tajiks are therefore mainly Eastern Iranian in their ethnic makeup but speak a Persian dialect, which is a Western Iranian language, likely adopting the language in the 7th century AD following the Islamic conquest of Persia, when the prestigious Persian language consequently spread further east leading to the gradual extinction of the Bactrian and Sogdian languages.<ref name="Bergne2007">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="MeriBacharach2006">Template:Cite book</ref> The Tajiks and their ancestors have inhabited Northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and other parts of Central Asia continuously for many millennia.<ref>[2] Template:Webarchive Britannica Online Encyclopedia</ref> The culture of the Tajiks is predominantly Persianate but with strong elements from other cultures of Central Asia, such as Turkic and heavily infused with Islamic traditions.

History

The Tajiks are an Iranian people, speaking a variety of Persian, concentrated in the Oxus basin, the Fergana valley (Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan) and on both banks of the upper Oxus, i.e., the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan, and northeastern Afghanistan (Badakhshan).<ref name="Iranica"/> Historically, the ancient Tajiks were chiefly agriculturalists before the Arab Conquest of Iran.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> While agriculture remained a stronghold, the Islamization of Iran also resulted in the rapid urbanization of historical Khorasan and Transoxiana that lasted until the devastating Mongolian invasion.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name="loc.gov"/> They are also possible descendants of other groups, with an admixture of Western Iranian Persians and non-Iranian peoples.<ref name="loc.gov"/>Template:Sfn The latter group includes Greeks who are known to have settled in the Tajikistan and Uzbekistan region before and after the conquests of Alexander the Great, and some of them were referred to as Dayuan by ancient Chinese chronicles.<ref name="Watson, Burton 1993 pp. 244-245">Watson, Burton(1993). Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson. Han Dynasty II (Revised Edition), pp. 244–245. Columbia University Press. Template:ISBN; Template:ISBN (pbk)</ref> 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.<ref>Richard Nelson Frye, "Persien: bis zum Einbruch des Islam" (original English title: "The Heritage of Persia"), German version, tr. by Paul Baudisch, Kindler Verlag AG, Zürich 1964, pp. 485–498</ref> 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 or Turkic speaking, have one culture, one religion, one set of social values and traditions with only language separating them."<ref name=frey96>Template:Cite book</ref>

Regarding Tajiks, the Encyclopædia Britannica states:Template:Blockquote

The geographical division between the eastern and western Iranians is often considered historically and currently to be the desert Dasht-e Kavir, situated in the center of the Iranian plateau.<ref>Template:Cite book "Western languages were located in the western portion of the Iranian plateau, separated by the Dasht - e Kavir and Dasht - e Lūt deserts from the Eastern Iranian dialects."</ref>

Modern history

During the Soviet–Afghan War, the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e Islami founded by Burhanuddin Rabbani resisted the Soviet Army and the communist Afghan government. Tajik commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud, successfully repelled nine Soviet campaigns from taking Panjshir Valley and earned the nickname "Lion of Panjshir" (Template:Lang).

Etymology

Template:See also According to John Perry (Encyclopaedia Iranica):<ref name="Iranica" />

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 (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 [Barthold], "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 also referred to the Arabs as "Tajika" in the 8th and 9th century.<ref>Political History of the Chālukyas of Badami by Durga Prasad Dikshit p.192</ref><ref>The First Spring: The Golden Age of India by Abraham Eraly p.91</ref> By the eleventh century (Yusof Ḵāṣṣ-ḥājeb, Qutadḡu bilig, lines 280, 282, 3265), the Qarakhanid Turks 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).

File:Таджикские девушки.JPG

Young Tajik women in the 21st century.

The word also occurs in the 8th-century Tonyukuk inscriptions as tözik, used for a local Arab tribe in the Tashkent area.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> These Arabs were said to be from the Taz tribe, which is still found in Yemen. In the 7th-century, the Taz began to Islamize the region of Transoxiana in Central Asia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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 famous Persian poet and Islamic scholar Jalal ad-Din Rumi.<ref>C.E. Bosworth/B.G. Fragner, "Tādjīk", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition: "... In Islamic usage, [Tādjīk] eventually came to designate the Persians, as opposed to Turks [...] the oldest citation for it which Schraeder could find was in verses of Djalāl al-Dīn Rūmī ..."</ref> The 15th-century Turkic-speaking poet Mīr Alī Šer Navā'ī who lived in the Timurid empire also used Tajik as a reference to Persians.<ref>Ali Shir Nava'i Muhakamat al-lughatain tr. & ed. Robert Devereaux (Leiden: Brill) 1966 p6</ref>

Location

The Tajiks are the principal ethnic group in most of Tajikistan, as well as in northern and western Afghanistan, though there are more Tajiks in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan. Tajiks are a substantial minority in Uzbekistan, as well as in overseas communities. Historically, the ancestors of the Tajiks lived in a larger territory in Central Asia than now.

File:Tajik family. Tajikistan.jpg

Tajik family in Tajikistan.

Tajikistan

Tajiks make up around 84.3% of the population of Tajikistan.<ref name="CIA-tj">Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref name=suny>Template:Cite book</ref>

Afghanistan

File:Burhanuddin Rabbani Cropped DVIDS.jpg

Burhanuddin Rabbani served as President of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996, and again in 2001.

File:Shir 5 Shir.jpg

Ahmad Shah Massoud was a powerful military leader in Afghanistan. He is shown here wearing a pakol hat, during his time as a mujahid.

Despite sharing the same name, Tajiks do not refer to the same group of people in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.<ref name="brasher">Brasher, Ryan. “Ethnic Brother or Artificial Namesake? The Construction of Tajik Identity in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology, vol. 55, 2011, pp. 97–120. JSTOR, Link: [3]. Accessed 15 January 2025.</ref><ref name="nourzhanov" /> In Afghanistan, a "Tajik" is typically defined as any primarily Dari-speaking Sunni Muslim who refer to themselves by the region, province, city, town, or village that they are from,<ref>Asian Cultural Intelligence for Military Operations. Tajiks in Afghanistan.</ref><ref name="barfield">[4], p. 26</ref> such as Badakhshi, Baghlani, Mazari, Panjsheri, Kabuli, Herati, Kohistani, etc.<ref name="barfield" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="LOC">Template:Cite web</ref> Although in the past, some non-Pashto speaking tribes were identified as Tajik, for example, the Furmuli.<ref>Bellew, Henry Walter (1891) An inquiry into the ethnography of Afghanistan The Oriental Institute, Woking, Butler & Tanner, Frome, United Kingdom, page 126, Template:OCLC</ref><ref>Markham, C. R. (January 1879) "The Mountain Passes on the Afghan Frontier of British India" Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography (New Monthly Series) 1(1): pp. 38–62, p.48</ref> By this definition, according to the World Factbook, Tajiks make up about 25–27% of Afghanistan's population,<ref name="CIA-af">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="atlas-afghanistan-153">Country Factfiles. — Afghanistan, page 153. // Atlas. Fourth Edition. Editors: Ben Hoare, Margaret Parrish. Publisher: Jonathan Metcalf. First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Dorling Kindersley Limited. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2010, 432 pages. Template:ISBN "Population: 28.1 million
Religions: Sunni Muslim 84%, Shi'a Muslim 15%, other 1%
Ethnic Mix: Pashtun 38%, Tajik 25%, Hazara 19%, Uzbek, Turkmen, other 18%"</ref> but according to other sources, they form 37–39% of the population.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Other sources however, for example the Encyclopædia Britannica, state that they constitute about 12–20% of the population,<ref>Maley, William, ed. Fundamentalism reborn?: Afghanistan and the Taliban, p. 170. NYU Press, 1998.</ref><ref name="Brit-Tajik">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> which is mostly excluding Persianized ethnic groups like some Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Qizilbash, Aimaqs etc. who, especially in large urban areas like Kabul or Herat, assimiliated into the respective local culture.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Fazel, S. M. (2017). Ethnohistory of the Qizilbash in Kabul: Migration, State, and a Shi'a Minority (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University), p. 153.</ref> Tajiks (or Farsiwans respectively) are predominant in four of the largest cities in Afghanistan (Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, and Ghazni) and make up the qualified majority in the northern and western provinces of Badakhshan, Panjshir and Balkh, while making up significant portions of the population in Takhar, Kabul, Parwan, Kapisa, Baghlan, Badghis and Herat. Despite not being Tajik, the westernmost Indo-Aryan Pashayi people of northeastern Afghanistan have deliberately been listed as Tajik by census takers and government agents. However, this is probably because Pashayi-speaking Nizari Isma’ilis refer to themselves as Tajik.<ref name="sil.org">Template:Cite book</ref>

Uzbekistan

Template:Main Template:See alsoIn Uzbekistan, 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 20.4% of all Tajiks in Uzbekistan, with another 34.3% in Samarqand and Bukhara regions.<ref>Ethnic Atlas of Uzbekistan Template:Webarchive, Part 1: Ethnic minorities, Open Society Institute, table with number of Tajiks by province Template:In lang.</ref>

Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that the Tajik community accounts for 5% of the nation's population.<ref name="CIA-uz">Template:Cite web</ref> However, these numbers do not include ethnic Tajiks who, for a variety of reasons, choose to identify themselves as Uzbeks in population census forms.<ref name="USStateDept">Template:Cite web</ref> During the Soviet "Uzbekization" 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.<ref>Rahim Masov, The History of the Clumsy Delimitation, Irfon Publ. House, Dushanbe, 1991 Template:In lang. English translation: The History of a National Catastrophe, transl. Iraj Bashiri, 1996.</ref> 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.<ref>Ethnic Atlas of Uzbekistan Template:Webarchive, Part 1: Ethnic minorities, Open Society Institute, p. 195 Template:In lang.</ref> 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, and believe that just like Afghanistan, there are more Tajiks in Uzbekistan than in Tajikistan.<ref name="Cornell">Svante E. Cornell, "Uzbekistan: A Regional Player in Eurasian Geopolitics?" Template:Webarchive, European Security, vol. 20, no. 2, Summer 2000.</ref>

File:Registan square 2014.JPG

View of the Registan in Samarkand – although the second largest city of Uzbekistan, it is predominantly a Tajik populated city, along with Bukhara.

China

Template:Main Chinese Tajiks or Mountain Tajiks in China (Sarikoli: Template:IPA, Tujik; Template:Zh), 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.

Kazakhstan

Template:Main 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

Template:Main 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

Template:Main According to the last Soviet census in 1989,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Population census of Turkmenistan 1995, Vol. 1, State Statistical Committee of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, 1996, pp. 75–100.</ref>

Russia

The population of Tajiks in Russia was about 350,236 according to the 2021 census,<ref name="census2021">Template:Cite web</ref> up from 38,000 in the last Soviet census of 1989.<ref name=census2002>Template:Cite web</ref> Most Tajiks came to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, often as guest workers in places like Moscow and Saint Petersburg or federal subjects near the Kazakhstan border.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.Template:Sfn

Pakistan

Template:Main There are an estimated 220,000 Tajiks in Pakistan as of 2012, mainly refugees from Afghanistan.<ref name="Pakistan">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.Template:Cite web</ref> During the 1990s, as a result of the Tajikistan Civil War, between 700 and 1,200 Tajiks arrived in Pakistan, mainly as students, the children of Tajik 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.<ref name="Tajiks in Pakistan">Template:Cite web</ref>

United States

Template:Main 80,414 Tajiks live in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Genetics

File:Young girls from northern Afghanistan-2012.jpg

Tajik girls in Khwahan, Afghanistan

A 2014 study of the maternal haplogroups of Tajiks from Tajikistan revealed substantial admixture of West Eurasian and East Eurasian lineages, and also the presence of minor South Asian and North African lineages, as well.<ref>Template:Cite journal "The Tajik mtDNA pool was characterized by substantial admixture of western and eastern Eurasian haplogroups, 62.6% and 26.4% sequences, respectively. It also contained 9.9% of South Asian and 1.1% of African haplotypes."</ref> Another study reports that "the Tajik mtDNA pool gene pool harbors nearly equal proportions of eastern Eurasian and western Eurasian haplotypes."<ref>Template:Cite journal "The Tajik mtDNA gene pool harbors nearly equal proportions of eastern Eurasian and western Eurasian haplotypes"...."The genetic features of other ethnic populations likely also reflect their documented demographic histories. For instance, the small mtDNA distance between the Tajik and Uzbek populations suggests a recent shared history. Tajiks and Uzbeks were only formally differentiated in 1929 when the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic was established, and up to 40% of the current Uzbek population is of Tajik ancestry (Library of Congress Federal Research Division Country Profile: Uzbekistan Feb 2007)."</ref>

West Eurasian maternal lineages included haplogroups H, J, K, T, I, W and U.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> East Eurasian lineages included haplogroups M, C, Z, D, G, A, Y and B.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> South Asian lineages detected in this study included haplogroups M and R.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> One lineage in the Tajik sample was assigned to the North African maternal haplogroup X2j.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

The dominant paternal 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> According to another genetic test, 63% of Tajik male samples from Tajikistan carry R1a.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> This high frequency combined with low diversity of Tajik R1a reflects a strong founder effect.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

File:Genetic formation of modern Tajik people.jpg

Schematic map showing the possible admixture model for Tajik populations. The time in parentheses represent a range. Arrows in different colors indicate ancestral sources and directions of the gene flows.

An autosomal DNA study by Guarino-Vignon et al. (2022), suggested that modern Tajiks show genetic continuity with ancient samples from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The genetic ancestry of Tajiks consists largely of a West-Eurasian component (~74%), an East Asian-related component (~18%), and a South Asian component (~8%). According to the authors, the South Asian affinity of Tajiks was previously unreported, although evidence for the presence of a deep South Asian ancestry was already found previously in other Central Asian samples (e.g. among modern Turkmens and historical Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex samples). Both historical and more recent geneflow (~1500 years ago) shaped the genetic makeup of Southern Central Asian populations, such as the Tajiks.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> A follow-up study by Dai et al. (2022) estimated that the Tajiks derive between 11.6 and 18.6% ancestry from admixture with from an East-Eurasian steppe source represented by the Xiongnu, with the remainder of their ancestry being derived from Western Steppe Herders and BMAC components, as well as a small contribution from the early population associated with the Tarim mummies. The authors concluded that Tajiks "present patterns of genetic continuity of Central Asians since the Bronze Age".<ref>Template:Cite journal "The Historical Era gene flow derived from the Eastern Steppe with the representative of Mongolia_Xiongnu_o1 made a more substantial contribution to Kyrgyz and other Turkic-speaking populations (i.e., Kazakh, Uyghur, Turkmen, and Uzbek; 34.9–55.2%) higher than that to the Tajik populations (11.6–18.6%; fig. 4A), suggesting Tajiks suffer fewer impacts of the recent admixtures (Martínez-Cruz et al. 2011). Consequently, the Tajik populations generally present patterns of genetic continuity of Central Asians since the Bronze Age. Our results are consistent with linguistic and genetic evidence that the spreading of Indo-European speakers into Central Asia was earlier than the expansion of Turkic speakers (Kuz′mina and Mallory 2007; Yunusbayev et al. 2015)."</ref>

Culture

File:White house haft seen.jpg

Haft-Seen, White House ceremony for new Persian Year, prepared by Laura Bush.

Language

File:Coat of Arms of Tajik ASSR.gif

Tajik autonomous republic coat of arms with Persian language: Template:Lang

The language of the Tajiks is an eastern dialect of Persian, called Dari (derived from Darbārī, "[of/from the] royal 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, unlike in Tajikistan, Tajiks continue to use the Perso-Arabic script, as well as in Iran. When the Soviet Union introduced the Latin script in 1928, and later the Cyrillic script, the Persian dialect of Tajikistan came to be disassociated from the Tajik language. Many Tajik authors have lamented this artificial separation of the Tajik language from its Iranian heritage.Template:Sfn One Tajik poem relates:

Once you said 'you are Iranian', then you said, 'you are Tajik'

May he die separated from his roots, he who separated us.<ref>Moḥammad Reẓa Shafi‘ī-Kadkanī, ‘Borbad’s Khusravanis – First Iranian Songs’, in Iraj Bashiri (tr and ed), From the Hymns of Zarathustra to the Songs of Borbad,

Dushanbe, 2003, p. 135.</ref>Template:Sfn

Since the 19th century, Tajiki has been strongly influenced by the Russian language and has incorporated many Russian language loan words.<ref name=eiturkloan>Michael Knüppel. Turkic Loanwords in Persian Template:Webarchive. Encyclopædia Iranica.</ref> It has also adopted fewer Arabic loan words than Iranian Persian while retaining vocabulary that has fallen out of use in the latter language.

Many Tajiks can read, speak or write in Russian, while the prestige and importance of Russian has declined since the fall of the Soviet Union and the exodus of Russians from Central Asia. Nevertheless, Russian fluency is still considered a vital skill for business and education.<ref name="Abdullaev 2018 p. 257">Template:Cite book</ref>

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, in present-day Afghanistan.<ref name="Iranica"/>

Religion

Template:MainVarious scholars have recorded the Zoroastrian, and Buddhist 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.<ref>Lena Jonson, Tajikistan in the New Central Asia: Geopolitics, Great Power Rivalry and Radical Islam Template:Webarchive (International Library of Central Asia Studies), page 21</ref>

Today, the great majority of Tajiks follow Sunni Islam, although small Twelver and Ismaili Shia minorities also exist in scattered pockets. Areas with large numbers of Shias include Herat, Badakhshan provinces in Afghanistan, the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan, and Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County 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,<ref name="Iranica"/> Imam Bukhari, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawood, Nasir Khusraw and many others.

According to a 2009 U.S. State Department release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim, (approximately 85% Sunni and 5% Shia).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In Afghanistan, the great number of Tajiks adhere to Sunni Islam. A small number of Tajiks may follow Twelver Shia Islam; the Farsiwan are one such group.<ref name="Shaikh 1992">Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>J. Sloame, "Bukharan Jews", Jewish Virtual Library, (LINK Template:Webarchive)</ref> From the 1970s to the 1990s the majority of these Tajik-speaking Jews emigrated to the United States and to Israel 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The construction of one of the largest mosques in the world, funded by Qatar, was announced in October 2009. The mosque is planned to be built in Dushanbe and construction is said to be completed by 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Recent developments

Cultural revival

File:Праздник "Мехргон" в парке г. Душанбе, 01.jpg

Tajiks celebrating Mehregan in Dushanbe park.

The collapse of the Soviet Union 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 script in Tajikistan.<ref name="EoIranic Tajik Persian">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Iranica" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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 advance. For instance, the President of Tajikistan, Emomalii Rahmon, dropped the Russian suffix "-ov" from his surname and directed others to adopt Tajik names when registering births.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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 as Tajikistan's inter-ethnic lingua franca.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• List of Tajik people
• Bukharan Jews
• Chagatai people
• Kharduri people
• Tor Tajiks
• Yaghnobis

Further reading

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External links

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• Tajiks at Encyclopædia Britannica Online
• Tajik – The Ethnonym: Origins and Application at Encyclopædia Iranica