Editing Tajik language (section)

{{Short description|Variety of Persian spoken in Central Asia}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Tajik
| nativename       = {{lang|tg|Тоҷикӣ}} ({{lang|tg-Latn|Tojikī}}, تاجيکى), {{lang|tg|форсии тоҷикӣ}} ({{lang|tg-Latn|Forsii Tojikī}}, فارسى تاجيکى)
| region           = [[Central Asia]]
| states           = [[Tajikistan]]<br/> [[Uzbekistan]]<br/>
| ethnicity        = [[Tajiks]]
| speakers         = {{sigfig|10.539520|3}} million
| date             = 2022–2023
| ref              = <ref>{{e28|tgk}}</ref>
| familycolor      = Indo-European
| fam2             = [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]]
| fam3             = [[Iranian languages|Iranian]]
| fam4             = [[Western Iranian languages|Western Iranian]]
| fam5             = [[Southwestern Iranian languages|Southwestern Iranian]]
| fam6             = [[Persian language|Persian]]
| script           = {{unbulleted indent list 
|[[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] ([[Tajik alphabet]])
|Historically: 
|{{unbulleted indent list 
|[[Arabic script|Arabic]] ([[Persian alphabet]])
|[[Latin script|Latin]] ([[Yañalif]]-based)
}}
|[[Hebrew script|Hebrew]] (by [[Bukharan Jews]]) 
|[[Russian Braille#Additional alphabets|Tajik Braille]]
}}
| agency           = [[Rudaki Institute of Language and Literature]]
| nation           = {{Flagdeco|Tajikistan}}[[Tajikistan]]
| minority         = {{Flagdeco|Uzbekistan}} [[Uzbekistan]]<br/>{{Flagdeco|Russia}} [[Russia]]
| iso1             = tg
| iso2             = tgk
| iso3             = tgk
| lingua           = 58-AAC-ci
| image            = "Tajik", written in Cyrillic (Tоҷикӣ) and Nastaliq (تاجیکی).svg
| imagescale       = 0.7
| imagecaption     = "Tojikī" written in Cyrillic script and [[Perso-Arabic script]] ([[Nastaliq|Nastaʿlīq calligraphy]])
| notice           = IPA
| glotto           = taji1245
| glottorefname    = Tajik
| dia1             = [[Bukharian (Judeo-Tajik dialect)|Bukharian]]
| altname          = Tajiki Persian
| map              = Distribution of the Tajik language.png
| mapcaption       = Areas where Tajik speakers comprise a majority shown in dark purple, and areas where Tajik speakers comprise a sizeable minority shown in light purple
}}
{{Tajiks}}
'''Tajik''',<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=tgk|title=Tajik}}</ref>{{efn|[[Endonym and exonym|Endonym]]: {{lang|tg|(забони) тоҷикӣ}}, {{lang|tg-Latn|(zaboni) tojikī}}, {{IPA|tg|(zɐˈbɔnɪ) tʰɔdʒɪˈkʰi|pron}}}} '''Tajik Persian''', '''Tajiki Persian''',{{efn|Tajik: {{lang|tg|форсии тоҷикӣ}}, {{lang|tg-Latn|forsii tojikī}}, {{IPA|tg|fɔɾˈsijɪ tʰɔdʒɪˈkʰi|pron}}}} also called '''Tajiki''', is the variety of [[Persian language|Persian]] spoken in [[Tajikistan]] and [[Uzbekistan]] by [[Tajiks]]. It is closely related to neighbouring [[Dari]] of [[Afghanistan]] with which it forms a [[dialect continuum|continuum]] of [[mutually intelligible]] varieties of the [[Persian language]]. Several scholars consider Tajik as a dialectal variety of Persian rather than a language on its own.<ref>Lazard, G. 1989</ref><ref>Halimov 1974: 30–31</ref><ref>Oafforov 1979: 33</ref> The popularity of this conception of Tajik as a variety of Persian was such that, during the period in which [[Tajiks|Tajik]] intellectuals were trying to establish Tajik as a language separate from Persian, prominent intellectual [[Sadriddin Ayni]] counterargued that Tajik was not a "bastardised dialect" of Persian.<ref name=Ido>{{cite book |last1=Ido |first1=Shinji |last2=Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari |first2=Behrooz |editor-first1=Shinji |editor-first2=Behrooz |editor-last1=Ido |editor-last2=Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari |year=2023 |location=Berlin, Boston |title=Tajik Linguistics |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |doi=10.1515/9783110622799 |isbn=978-3-11-062279-9 }}</ref> The issue of whether Tajik and Persian are to be considered two dialects of a single language or two discrete languages<ref>Studies pertaining to the association between Tajik and Persian include Amanova (1991), Kozlov (1949), Lazard (1970), Rozenfel'd (1961) and Wei-Mintz (1962). The following papers/presentations focus on specific aspects of Tajik and their historical modern Persian counterparts: Cejpek (1956), Jilraev (1962), Lorenz (1961, 1964), Murav'eva (1956), Murav'eva and Rubinl!ik (1959), Ostrovskij (1973) and Sadeghi (1991).</ref> has political aspects to it.<ref name=Ido />

By way of Early New Persian, Tajik, like [[Iranian Persian]] and [[Dari|Dari Persian]], is a continuation of [[Middle Persian]], the official administrative, religious and literary language of the [[Sasanian Empire]] (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of [[Old Persian]], the language of the [[Achaemenid Empire]] (550–330 BC).<ref>Lazard, Gilbert (1975), ''The Rise of the New Persian Language''.</ref><ref>in Frye, R.&nbsp;N., ''The Cambridge History of Iran'', Vol. 4, pp. 595–632, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref><ref name="EI">[[Frye, R.&nbsp;N.]], "Darī", ''[[The Encyclopaedia of Islam]]'', Brill Publications, CD version</ref><ref>[[Richard Foltz]], ''A History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East'', London: [[Bloomsbury]], 2nd ed., 2023, pp. 2–5.</ref>

Tajiki is one of the two official languages of Tajikistan, the other being [[Russian language|Russian]]<ref name="RIA-RU">{{cite web|url=https://ria.ru/culture/20091022/190107839.html|title=The status of the Russian language in Tajikistan remains unchanged – Rahmon|publisher=RIA – RIA.ru|date=22 October 2009|access-date=30 September 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161002141721/https://ria.ru/culture/20091022/190107839.html|archive-date=2 October 2016}}</ref><ref name="lenta.ru/news/2011/06/09">{{cite web|url=http://lenta.ru/news/2011/06/09/russian|title=В Таджикистане русскому языку вернули прежний статус|publisher=Lenta.ru|access-date=13 September 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130905014016/http://lenta.ru/news/2011/06/09/russian/|archive-date=5 September 2013}}</ref> as the official interethnic language. In [[Afghanistan]], this language is less influenced by [[Turkic languages]] and is regarded as a form of [[Dari]], which has co-official language status.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Library |first=International and Area Studies |title=LibGuides: Dari Language: Language History |url=https://guides.library.illinois.edu/c.php?g=347570&p=2349642 |access-date=2024-06-30 |website=guides.library.illinois.edu |language=en}}</ref> The Tajiki Persian of Tajikistan has diverged from Persian as spoken in Afghanistan and even more from that of [[Iran]] due to political borders, geographical isolation, the standardisation process and the influence of [[Russian language|Russian]] and neighbouring Turkic languages. The standard language is based on the northwestern dialects of Tajik (region of the old major city of [[Samarkand|Samarqand]]), which have been somewhat influenced by the neighbouring [[Uzbek language]] 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 [[Central Asia]].