The Kulobi Tajiks are a regional group of Tajiks in the southwest area of Tajikistan .
70-952: The Kulobis are ethnic Tajiks and speak Tajik . The current government in Tajikistan is perceived to be dominated by Kulobi Tajiks. The term Kulobi comes from the Kulob Oblast that existed during the Soviet period and was merged with Qurghonteppa Oblast in 1992 to create Khatlon Province . During the Civil War in Tajikistan the Kulyabi Tajiks fought on the side of the government against opposition. Emomalii Rahmon , from Dangara in Kulob oblast, became president of Tajikistan in November 1992 when Kulobi militiamen took control of
140-600: A Persian -speaking Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia , living primarily in Afghanistan , Tajikistan , and Uzbekistan . Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Tajikistan, and the second-largest in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. More Tajiks live in Afghanistan than Tajikistan. 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. In China,
210-467: 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; such as Badakhshi , Baghlani , Mazari , Panjsheri , Kabuli , Herati , Kohistani , etc. Although in the past, some non- Pashto speaking tribes were identified as Tajik, for example, the Furmuli. By this definition, according to
280-592: A 2009 U.S. State Department release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim, (approximately 85% Sunni and 5% Shia ). 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. The community of Bukharian Jews in Central Asia speak a dialect of Persian. The Bukharian Jewish community in Uzbekistan
350-473: 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 ,
420-595: A West-Eurasian component (~74%), an East Asian-related component (~18%), and a South Asian component samplified by Great Andamanese (~8%). According to the authors, the South Asian (Great Andamanese) 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
490-575: 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
560-482: A reference to Persians. 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. Tajiks make up around 84.3% of
630-547: 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. The Tajiks and their ancestors have inhabited Northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and other parts of Central Asia continuously for many millennia. The culture of
700-598: Is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (present-day Afghanistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires. It was long thought that Avestan represented "Old Bactrian", but this notion had "rightly fallen into discredit by the end of the 19th century". Bactrian, which was written predominantly in an alphabet based on
770-467: Is attested from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The ancestors of the Tajiks constituted the core of the ancient population of Khwārezm (Khorezm) and Bactria, which formed part of Transoxania (Sogdiana). Over the course of time, the eastern Iranian dialect that was used by the ancient Tajiks eventually gave way to Farsi , a western dialect spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. The geographical division between
SECTION 10
#1732776030932840-458: Is from Lou-lan and seven from Toyoq, where they were discovered by the second and third Turpan expeditions under Albert von Le Coq . One of these may be a Buddhist text. One other manuscript, in Manichaean script , was found at Qočo by Mary Boyce in 1958. Over 150 legal documents, accounts, letters and Buddhist texts have surfaced since the 1990s, the largest collection of which is
910-537: Is inserted before word-initial consonant clusters . Original word-final vowels and word-initial vowels in open syllables were generally lost. A word-final ο is normally written, but this was probably silent, and it is appended even after retained word-final vowels: e.g. *aštā > αταο 'eight', likely pronounced /ataː/ . The Proto-Iranian syllabic rhotic *r̥ is lost in Bactrian, and is reflected as ορ adjacent to labial consonants, ιρ elsewhere; this agrees with
980-727: 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 in accordance with Aliyah . Recently, the Protestant community of Tajiks descent has experienced significant growth,
1050-714: Is unclear. According to another source, the present-day speakers of Munji, the modern Eastern Iranian language of the Munjan Valley in the Kuran wa Munjan district of the Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan , display the closest possible linguistic affinity with the Bactrian language. Bactrian became the lingua franca of the Kushan Empire and the region of Bactria, replacing the Greek language. Bactrian
1120-994: 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. 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 . Since
1190-575: 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 , Imam Bukhari , Tirmidhi , Abu Dawood , Nasir Khusraw and many others. According to
1260-452: The Greek script , was known natively as αριαο [arjaː] (" Arya "; an endonym common amongst Indo-Iranian peoples). It has also been known by names such as Greco-Bactrian or Kushan or Kushano-Bactrian. Under Kushan rule, Bactria became known as Tukhara or Tokhara , and later as Tokharistan . When texts in two extinct and previously unknown Indo-European languages were discovered in
1330-475: The Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents . These have greatly increased the detail in which Bactrian is currently known. The phonology of Bactrian is not known with certainty, owing to the limitations of the native scripts, and also its status as an extinct language. A major difficulty in determining Bactrian phonology is that affricates and voiced stops were not consistently distinguished from
1400-860: 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 . 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. According to official statistics , there were about 47,500 Tajiks in Kyrgyzstan in 2007 (0.9% of
1470-596: 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
SECTION 20
#17327760309321540-456: The Sassanid and early Islamic period. 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, 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
1610-445: The Soviet Union and the exodus of Russians from Central Asia. Nevertheless, Russian fluency is still considered an vital skill for business and education. 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
1680-595: The Tarim Basin of China, during the early 20th century, they were linked circumstantially to Tokharistan, and Bactrian was sometimes referred to as "Eteo-Tocharian" (i.e. "true" or "original" Tocharian). By the 1970s, however, it became clear that there was little evidence for such a connection. For instance, the Tarim "Tocharian" languages were " centum " languages within the Indo-European family, whereas Bactrian
1750-608: The World Factbook , Tajiks make up about 25–27% of Afghanistan 's population, but according to other sources, they form 37–39% of the population. Other sources however, for example the Encyclopædia Britannica , state that they constitute about 12–20% of the population, which is mostly excluding Persianized ethnic groups like some Pashtuns , Uzbeks , Qizilbash , Aimaqs etc. who, especially in large urban areas like Kabul or Herat , assimilated into
1820-607: 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. Today, however, 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,
1890-775: The ks and ps sequences did not occur in Bactrian. They were, however, probably used to represent numbers (just as other Greek letters were). The Bactrian language is known from inscriptions, coins, seals, manuscripts, and other documents. Sites at which Bactrian language inscriptions have been found are (in north–south order) Afrasiyab in Uzbekistan ; Kara-Tepe , Airtam, Delbarjin , Balkh , Kunduz , Baglan , Ratabak/Surkh Kotal , Oruzgan , Kabul , Dasht-e Navur, Ghazni , Jagatu in Afghanistan ; and Islamabad , Shatial Bridge and Tochi Valley in Pakistan . Of eight known manuscript fragments in Greco-Bactrian script, one
1960-613: 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 8th-century 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. In the 7th-century, the Taz began to Islamize
2030-464: The 19th century, Tajiki has been strongly influenced by the Russian language and has incorporated many Russian language loan words . 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, however the prestige and importance of Russian has declined since the fall of
2100-903: The 3rd century, the Kushan territories west of the Indus River fell to the Sasanians , and Bactrian began to be influenced by Middle Persian . The eastern extent of the Kushan Empire in Northwestern India, was conquered by the Gupta Empire . Besides the Pahlavi script and the Brahmi script , some coinage of this period is still in the Aryo (Bactrian) script. From the mid-4th century, Bactria and northwestern India gradually fell under
2170-822: 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 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
Kulobi people - Misplaced Pages Continue
2240-606: 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. There are an estimated 220,000 Tajiks in Pakistan as of 2012, mainly refugees from Afghanistan. During the 1990s, as a result of the Tajikistan Civil War , between 700 and 1,200 Tajiks arrived in Pakistan, mainly as students,
2310-497: The Kushan king Kanishka ( c. 127 AD ) discarded Greek ("Ionian") as the language of administration and adopted Bactrian ("Arya language"). The Greek language accordingly vanished from official use and only Bactrian was later attested. The Greek script , however, remained and was used to write Bactrian. The territorial expansion of the Kushans helped propagate Bactrian in other parts of Central Asia and North India . In
2380-613: The Proto-Iranian vowel length contrast. It is not clear if ο might represent short [o] in addition to [u] , and if any contrast existed. Short [o] may have occurred at least as a reflex of *a followed by a lost *u in the next syllable, e.g. *madu > μολο 'wine', *pasu > ποσο 'sheep'. Short [e] is also rare. By contrast, long /eː/ , /oː/ are well established as reflexes of Proto-Iranian diphthongs and certain vowel-semivowel sequences: η < *ai, *aya, *iya; ω < *au, *awa. An epenthetic vowel [ə] (written α )
2450-552: The Tajik community accounts for 5% of the nation's 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 " 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
2520-868: The Tajik sample was assigned to the North African maternal haplogroup X2j. 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. 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), suggested that modern Tajiks show genetic continuity with ancient samples from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan . The genetic ancestry of Tajiks consists largely of
2590-515: 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. Various scholars have recorded
2660-758: The Tajiks is predominantly Persianate but with strong elements from other cultures of Central Asia, such as Turkic and heavily infused with Islamic traditions. The Tajiks are an Iranian people, speaking a variety of Persian, concentrated in the Oxus 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,
2730-434: The ancient Tajiks were chiefly agriculturalists before the Arab Conquest of Iran . 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. Several surviving ancient urban centers of the Tajik people include Samarkand , Bukhara , Khujand , and Termez . Contemporary Tajiks are
2800-399: The capital Dushanbe from opposition forces. This article about an ethnic group in Asia is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Tajikistan -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tajiks Tajiks ( Persian : تاجيک، تاجک , romanized : Tājīk, Tājek ; Tajik : Тоҷик , romanized : Tojik ) are
2870-404: 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. 80,414 Tajiks live in the United States. A 2014 study of the maternal haplogroups of Tajiks from Tajikistan revealed substantial admixture of West Eurasian and East Eurasian lineages, and also
Kulobi people - Misplaced Pages Continue
2940-489: The clusters *sr, *str, *rst. In several cases, however, Proto-Iranian *š becomes /h/ or is lost; the distribution is unclear. E.g. *snušā > ασνωυο 'daughter-in-law', *aštā > αταο 'eight', *xšāθriya > χαρο 'ruler', *pašman- > παμανο 'wool'. The Greek script does not consistently represent vowel length. Fewer vowel contrasts yet are found in the Manichaean script, but short /a/ and long /aː/ are distinguished in it, suggesting that Bactrian generally retains
3010-447: The control the Hephthalite and other Huna tribes . The Hephthalite period is marked by linguistic diversity; in addition to Bactrian, Middle Persian, Indo-Aryan and Latin vocabulary is also attested. The Hephthalites ruled these regions until the 7th century, when they were overrun by the Umayyad Caliphate , after which official use of Bactrian ceased. Although Bactrian briefly survived in other usage, that also eventually ceased, and
3080-464: The corresponding fricatives in the Greek script. The status of θ is unclear; it only appears in the word ιθαο 'thus, also', which may be a loanword from another Iranian language. In most positions Proto-Iranian *θ becomes /h/ (written υ ), or is lost, e.g. *puθra- > πουρο 'son'. The cluster *θw, however, appears to become /lf/ , e.g. *wikāθwan > οιγαλφο 'witness'. ϸ continues, in addition to Proto-Iranian *š, also Proto-Iranian *s in
3150-502: The descendants of ancient Eastern Iranian inhabitants of Central Asia, in particular, the Sogdians and the Bactrians . Possibly are descendants from other groups, with an admixture of Western Iranian Persians and non-Iranian peoples. The latter group may include Greeks who were known to have settled in the Tajikistan and Uzbekistan region following the conquests of Alexander the Great and some of them were referred to as Dayuan by Chinese chronicles. According to Richard Nelson Frye ,
3220-408: 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". 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
3290-456: 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. 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
3360-407: The eastern provinces of Lebap and Mary adjoining the borders with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The population of Tajiks in Russia was about 350,236 according to the 2021 census, up from 38,000 in the last Soviet census of 1989. 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
3430-455: 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." Regarding Tajiks, the Encyclopædia Britannica states: The Tajiks are the direct descendants of the Iranian peoples whose continuous presence in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan
3500-409: The genetic makeup of Southern Central Asian populations, such as the Tajiks. 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
3570-492: 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. According to a government announcement in October 2009, approximately 4,000 Tajik nationals have dropped "ov" and "ev" from their surnames since
SECTION 50
#17327760309323640-488: 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. Bactrian language Bactrian (Bactrian: Αριαο , romanized: ariao , [arjaː] , meaning "Iranian")
3710-450: The last several decades, particularly as a result of Soviet administration in Central Asia. Alternative names for the Tajiks are Fārsīwān (Persian-speaker), and Dīhgān (cf. Tajik : 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 , Turks and Romans during
3780-449: The latest known examples of the Bactrian script, found in the Tochi Valley in Pakistan, date to the end of the 9th century. Among Indo-Iranian languages, the use of the Greek script is unique to Bactrian. Although ambiguities remain, some of the disadvantages were overcome by using heta ( Ͱ, ͱ ) for /h/ and by introducing sho ( Ϸ, ϸ ) to represent /ʃ/ . Xi ( Ξ, ξ ) and psi ( Ψ, ψ ) were not used for writing Bactrian as
3850-402: The nickname "Lion of Panjshir" ( شیر پنجشیر ). According to John Perry ( Encyclopaedia 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
3920-458: 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. In Afghanistan,
3990-404: 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. Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that
4060-460: The presence of South Asian and North African lineages, as well. Another study reports that "the Tajik mtDNA pool gene pool harbors nearly equal proportions of eastern Eurasian and western Eurasian haplotypes." West Eurasian maternal lineages included haplogroups H, J, K, T, I, W and U. East Eurasian lineages included haplogroups M, C, Z, D, G, A, Y and B. South Asian lineages detected in this study included haplogroups M and R. One lineage in
4130-403: The region of Transoxiana in Central Asia. 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 . The 15th-century Turkic-speaking poet Mīr Alī Šer Navā'ī who lived in the Timurid empire also used Tajik as
4200-760: 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, and believe that just like Afghanistan, there are more Tajiks in Uzbekistan than in Tajikistan. Chinese Tajiks or Mountain Tajiks in China ( Sarikoli : [tudʒik] , Tujik ; Chinese : 塔吉克族 ; pinyin : Tǎjíkè Zú ), including Sarikolis (majority) and Wakhis (minority) in China, are
4270-451: The respective local culture. 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,
SECTION 60
#17327760309324340-478: 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 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
4410-420: 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
4480-401: The term is used to refer to its Pamiri ethnic groups, the Tajiks of Xinjiang , who speak the Eastern Iranian 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
4550-418: The total population), up from 42,600 in the 1999 census and 33,500 in the 1989 census. 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
4620-410: The westernmost Indo-Aryan Pashayi people of northeastern Afghanistan have deliberately been listed as Tajik by census takers and government agents. This is a result of the census takers being Tajik themselves, wanting to increase their own numbers for “consequent benefits”. Although, Pashayi-speaking Nizari Isma’ilis refer to themselves as Tajik. In Uzbekistan , the Tajiks are the largest part of
4690-443: Was an Iranian, thus " satem " language. Bactrian is a part of the Eastern Iranian languages and shares features with the extinct Middle Iranian languages Sogdian and Khwarezmian (Eastern) and Parthian ( Western ), as well as sharing affinity with the modern Eastern Iranian languages such as Pamir subgroup of languages like Munji and Yidgha which are part of the same branch of the Pamir languages. Its genealogical position
4760-429: Was announced in October 2009. The mosque is planned to be built in Dushanbe and construction is said to be completed by 2014. 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. Furthermore, Tajikistan in particular has been a focal point for this movement, and
4830-414: Was overrun by a confederation of tribes belonging to the Great Yuezhi and Tokhari . In the 1st century AD, the Kushana, one of the Yuezhi tribes, founded the ruling dynasty of the Kushan Empire . The Kushan Empire initially retained the Greek language for administrative purposes but soon began to use Bactrian. The Bactrian Rabatak inscription (discovered in 1993 and deciphered in 2000) records that
4900-462: Was used by successive rulers in Bactria, until the arrival of the Umayyad Caliphate . Following the conquest of Bactria by Alexander the Great in 323 BC, for about two centuries Greek was the administrative language of his Hellenistic successors, that is, the Seleucid and the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms . Eastern Scythian tribes (the Saka , or Sacaraucae of Greek sources) invaded the territory around 140 BC, and at some time after 124 BC, Bactria
#931068