Tajiks
This article is about the Central Asian Persians known as Tajiks. Refer to Persian people regarding ethnic Persians in Iran. For South Asian Persians see or Parsis. .
Other Persian-speaking groups living in Central Asia, such as the
Hazara, and
Aimak, are distinguished from the Tajiks in that they are mainly of non-Iranian origin, and only adopted the Persian language over the last
millennium. The so-called
Mountain Tajiks or Pamiris of the
Badakhshan region in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan as well as the group usually known as "
Tajik" in
China's western
Xinjiang region are actually a collection of over a dozen small
Eastern Iranian who merged with the Tajiks, who are themselves a very mixed group.
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A modern example of Persian miniature: painting is an important element of Perso-Tajik culture |
The origin of the term "Tajik" is somewhat unclear. Today, most historians believe that the word "Tajik" - first mentioned by the Turkish historian
Mahmoud Al-Kāshgharī - is an old
Turkish expression referring to all Persian-speaking peoples of the region who are of Iranian origin. Alternatively some believe that it is a term of Eastern Iranian origin, which may originally have been applied by the inhabitants of Central Asia to the Arab conquerors of the region, and that its etymology is linked to the tribe of
Tayy, whilst from the 11th century it came to be applied principally to Iranians
[M.E. Subtelny, "The Symbiosis of Turk and Tajik" in B.F. Manz (ed.), Central Asia in Historical Perspective, (Boulder, Col. & Oxford), 1994, p. 48]. However, it is hard to establish use of the word before the
Turkic conquest of
Central Asia, and since at least the 15th century it has been used by the region's Iranian population to distinguish themselves from Turks. Even Persians in Iran who live in the Turkish-speaking parts of the country call themselves "Tajik", something remarked upon in the 15th century by the poet Mir
Ali Sher Nawa'i of
Herat [ Ali Shir Nava'i Muhakamat al-lughatain tr. & ed. Robert Devereaux (Leiden: Brill) 1966 p6]. In addition to that,
Tibetans call all Persians (including those in
Iran)
Tajik.
Based on these facts, the name
Tajik can be considered a synonym for
Persian.
In the
Turco-Persian culture of the conquerors
Timur and
Babur, the word "Tajik" referred to the Persian-speaking clerks who were schooled in
Arabic. In the
Safavid era, "Tajik" referred to the Persian administrators and nobles of the kingdom.
In addition, the name Tajik, both for the people and for the nation itself, is a geographic reference to the crown (
Taj) of the Pamir Knot.
As an alternative, the term
Sart was also used as a synonym for
Tajik in the medieval post Genghis Khan period, and thus for a
Persian speaker.
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The distribution of the Tajik ethnic group across the borders of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and surrounding areas. |
Tajiks are the principal ethnic group in most of Tajikistan, as well as in northeastern Afghanistan and the cities of
Kabul,
Mazar-e-Sharif, and
Herat. Tajiks also dominate the populations of the cities of
Bukhara and
Samarqand in
Uzbekistan, and are found in large numbers in the
Surxondaryo Province of southern Uzbekistan, and in the eastern part of that country, along its border with Tajikistan. Historically, the ancestors of the Tajiks lived in a much larger territory in Central Asia, but were largely displaced as waves of
Turkic invaders moved into the region from the north and east. Today, Tajiks comprise around 79.9% of the population of Tajikistan, and between 25-30% of the population of Afghanistan. Official statistics in Uzbekistan state the Tajik community as comprising 5% of the nation's total population, although these numbers do not include many ethnic Tajiks whose mother tongue was Uzbek. Moreover, some Tajiks choose for a variety of reasons to declare themselves to be ethnic Uzbeks; it is widely believed that they make up 15 to 30 percent of the country's population.
[See for example the Country report on Uzbekistan, released by the United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor here.] In addition, there are an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Tajiks found in western Pakistan (
NWFP), most being refugees from the Afghan war while others are native to various regions such as
Chitral (see
Wakhi language) and the
Gilgit Agency.
Physically, most Tajiks belong to the
Mediterranean subgroup of the
Caucasian race. While the average Tajik has dark hair and eyes with medium to fair skin, light hair and eyes are not uncommon, particularly in mountainous regions such as
Badakhshan. Some Tajiks in Central Asia show definite
Turkic-
Mongol admixture, while remote Mountain Tajiks appear to more closely resemble the populations that existed before the Turkic and Mongol invasions. A minority of Tajiks in Afghanistan also show traces of Turkic-Mongol ancestry (possibly derived from the
Hazara and/or
Uzbeks). In addition, Tajiks are often distinguished from the related
Farsiwan by religion as opposed to appearance. The Tajiks, as a whole, are a somewhat eclectic population genetically and display a wide range of phenotypes.
[Library of Congress Country Studies - Afghanistan - Ethnic Groups - Tajik - 1997]The language of the Tajiks is
Persian, also called
Dari. The dialect spoken in
Tajikistan is called
Tajiki. It is an Indo-European language, more specifically part of the Iranian language group. Tajik is an offspring of the Persian language, and belongs - along with Afghanistan's Dari - to the Eastern dialects of Persian. Historically, it was considered the local dialect of Persian spoken by the Tajik ethnic group in Central Asia; when the Soviet Union imposed the use of the Latin script in 1928, and later the Cyrillic script, it came to be considered a separate language in Tajikistan, partly for political reasons. (In Afghanistan, however, Tajiks continued to use the Arabic script.) The language has diverged from Persian, as spoken in Iran, having far fewer Arabic loan words. However, the language is greatly influenced by Russian because of political borders; nevertheless, a transcribed Tajik text can in general be easily read and understood by a speaker of the western dialect of Persian, and vice versa. The common origin of the two languages is underscored by the Tajiks' claim to such famous writers as
Omar Khayyám,
Firdausi,
Rumi and
Navoi.
Russian is widely used in government and business in Tajikistan as well.
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Court of the Friday Mosque in Herāt. |
The great majority of Tajiks follow the
Sunni form of
Islam, although small
Ismaili and
Jafari Shia minorities also exist in scattered pockets. In
Afghanistan, Tajiks who follow
Jafari Shiism are called
Farsi or
Farsiwan (
Persians). Additionally, small Tajik
Jewish communities (known as
Bukharan Jews) have existed since ancient times in the cities of
Samarqand and
Bukhara, and in smaller numbers in
Herat,
Kabul, and other Tajik centers.
[J. Sloame, "Bukharan Jews", Jewish Virtual Library, (LINK)] Over the 20th century, the majority of these Tajik-speaking Jews emigrated to
Israel and the United States, although many of these
emigrants maintain ties with their
homeland. Despite the advent of
Christian missionaries to Central Asia since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, the Tajik
Christian population is virtually non-existent.
The collapse of the
Soviet Union and the civil war in Afghanistan both gave rise to a resurgence in Tajik
nationalism across the region. 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 conquest.
The Tajiks (
Chinese: "吉克族,
Pinyin: Tǎjíkèzú) are one of the
56 nationalities officially recognized by the
People's Republic of China.
This group with a population of 41,028 (2000), is located mainly in
China's western
Xinjiang region with 60% living in
Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County; some researchers view them as a collection of over a dozen small
East Iranian ethnic groups that are related to, but distinct from, the Tajiks of
Tajikistan.
In China, the
Tajik language has no official written form. The great majority of Chinese Tajik speakers (16,000) speak the
Sariqul (or
Sariköli) dialect and use
Uyghur and
Chinese to communicate with people of other nationalities in the area. A small proportion of Chinese Tajik speakers (6,000) speak the
Wakhi dialect.
*
Persian people*
Iranian peoples*
Persian culture*
List of famous Persian women*
Persian woman
*Dupree, Louis.
Afghanistan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980
*Jawad, Nassim,
Afghanistan: A Nation of Minorities, London: Minority Rights Group, 1992, ISBN 0946690766.
World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003, ISBN 0886878829.
*Gawarjon [Gāo Ěrqiāng 高""] (ed.):
Tǎjíkè-Hàn cídiǎn "吉克汉词典.
Tujik ziv " Hanzu ziv lughot (Tajik-Chinese dictionary; Chengdu, Sichuan minzu chubanshe 1996).
*
Uzbekistan: Ethnic Composition And Discrimination*
Khorasan: History Of The Tajik Nation*
"Central Asian Jews." from
The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire.*
The Tajik ethnic minority (China) (government website, in English)
*Ethnologue
statistics on Eastern Farsi speakers. Statistics regarding
Tajiki speakers.
*
Geographic distribution of Tajiks world-wide*
Female Genetics*
Male Genetics (the origin of R1a1 is under question see) (see
Genetics and Archaeogenetics of South Asia)
