Editing Tajiks (section)

=== Language ===
{{Main|Tajik language|Dari (Persian) |Persian language}}
[[File:Coat of Arms of Tajik ASSR.gif|thumb|left|upright|[[Tajik ASSR|Tajik autonomous republic]] coat of arms with [[Persian language]]: {{lang|fa|جمهوری اجتماعی شوروى مختار تاجيكستان}}]]
The language of the Tajiks is an eastern dialect of [[Persian language|Persian]], called [[Dari (Eastern Persian)|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 [[Tajik language|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.{{sfn|Foltz|2023|p=103}} One Tajik poem relates:

<blockquote>''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>{{sfn|Foltz|2023|p=103}}</blockquote>

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. [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/turkic-loanwords Turkic Loanwords in Persian] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170727084228/http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/turkic-loanwords |date=27 July 2017 }}. [[Encyclopædia Iranica]].</ref> It has also adopted fewer [[Arabic language|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">{{cite book | last=Abdullaev | first=K. | title=Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan | publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers | series=Historical Dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East | year=2018 | isbn=978-1-5381-0252-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OsllDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA257 | access-date=1 November 2023 | page=257}}</ref>

The dialects of modern [[Persian language|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"/>