Tajik language

Tajik, Tajik Persian, Tajiki Persian, also called Tajiki, is the variety of <a href="/facts/Persian_language/jfUYbHbt">Persian</a> spoken in <a href="/facts/Tajikistan/xLLXqHEJ">Tajikistan</a> and <a href="/facts/Uzbekistan/o8wfw2xR">Uzbekistan</a> by <a href="/facts/Tajiks/78Xa8RKa">Tajiks</a>. It is closely related to neighbouring <a href="/facts/Dari/6lydLJeG">Dari</a> of <a href="/facts/Afghanistan/v63Auu1C">Afghanistan</a> with which it forms a <a href="/facts/Dialect_continuum/0QAuqxp3">continuum</a> of <a href="/facts/Mutually_intelligible/h1SbX0wN">mutually intelligible</a> varieties of the <a href="/facts/Persian_language/jfUYbHbt">Persian language</a>. Several scholars consider Tajik as a dialectal variety of Persian rather than a language on its own. The popularity of this conception of Tajik as a variety of Persian was such that, during the period in which <a href="/facts/Tajiks/78Xa8RKa">Tajik</a> intellectuals were trying to establish Tajik as a language separate from Persian, prominent intellectual <a href="/facts/Sadriddin_Ayni/F3g5akes">Sadriddin Ayni</a> counterargued that Tajik was not a "bastardised dialect" of Persian. The issue of whether Tajik and Persian are to be considered two dialects of a single language or two discrete languages has political aspects to it.
By way of Early New Persian, Tajik, like <a href="/facts/Iranian_Persian/CjAdntAm">Iranian Persian</a> and <a href="/facts/Dari/6lydLJeG">Dari Persian</a>, is a continuation of <a href="/facts/Middle_Persian/gDkd45qF">Middle Persian</a>, the official administrative, religious and literary language of the <a href="/facts/Sasanian_Empire/JvbRevkA">Sasanian Empire</a> (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of <a href="/facts/Old_Persian/gxx47Ul7">Old Persian</a>, the language of the <a href="/facts/Achaemenid_Empire/avlzWxF0">Achaemenid Empire</a> (550–330 BC).
Tajiki is one of the two official languages of Tajikistan, the other being <a href="/facts/Russian_language/ETXrTgHV">Russian</a> as the official interethnic language. In <a href="/facts/Afghanistan/v63Auu1C">Afghanistan</a>, this language is less influenced by <a href="/facts/Turkic_languages/RXqsmfgh">Turkic languages</a> and is regarded as a form of <a href="/facts/Dari/6lydLJeG">Dari</a>, which has co-official language status. The Tajiki Persian of Tajikistan has diverged from Persian as spoken in Afghanistan and even more from that of <a href="/facts/Iran/24yukge8">Iran</a> due to political borders, geographical isolation, the standardisation process and the influence of <a href="/facts/Russian_language/ETXrTgHV">Russian</a> and neighbouring Turkic languages. The standard language is based on the northwestern dialects of Tajik (region of the old major city of <a href="/facts/Samarkand/Q6VnueRr">Samarqand</a>), which have been somewhat influenced by the neighbouring <a href="/facts/Uzbek_language/ovLJMy4J">Uzbek language</a> as a result of geographical proximity. Tajik also retains numerous archaic elements in its vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar that have been lost elsewhere in the Persophone world, in part due to its relative isolation in the mountains of <a href="/facts/Central_Asia/rB8k0CyT">Central Asia</a>.

Tajik language open-in-new

Tajik language