Editing Tajik language (section)

==Name==
Up to and including the nineteenth century, speakers in Afghanistan and Central Asia had no separate name for the language and simply regarded themselves as speaking ''Farsi'', which is the [[Exonym and endonym|endonym]] for the Persian language. The term ''Tajik'' derives from Persian, although it has been adopted by the speakers themselves.<ref>Ben Walter, ''Gendering Human Security in Afghanistan in a Time of Western Intervention'' (Routledge 2017), p. 51: for more details, see the article on [[Tajik people]].</ref> For most of the 20th century, its name was rendered in the Russian spelling of ''Tadzhik''.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nswoAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Tadzhik+language%22&pg=PA267 | title=Foreign Social Science Bibliographies: Series P-92 | year=1965 }}</ref>

In 1989, with the growth in Tajik nationalism, a law was enacted declaring Tajik the [[national language|state (national) language]], with Russian being the [[official language]] (as throughout the [[Soviet Union|Union]]).<ref>In 1990 the Russian language was declared as the official language of [[USSR]] and the constituent republics had rights to declare additional state languages within their jurisdictions. See Article 4 of the [http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm Law on Languages of Nations of USSR.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508201331/http://legal-ussr.narod.ru/data01/tex10935.htm |date=2016-05-08 }} {{in lang|ru}}</ref> In addition, the law officially equated Tajik with [[Persian language|Persian]], placing the word ''Farsi'' (the endonym for the Persian language) after Tajik. The law also called for a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic alphabet.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=sgW_HEcULMYC&dq=tajikistan+alphabet+struggle&pg=PA219 ed. Ehteshami 2002], p. 219.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=qkKOpAYG7zMC&dq=tajikistan+alphabet+struggle&pg=PA274 ed. Malik 1996], p. 274.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=BrM_Ms9OVsEC&dq=central+asia+alphabet+struggle&pg=PA33 Banuazizi & Weiner 1994], p. 33.</ref>

In 1999, the word ''Farsi'' was removed from the state language law.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Siddikzoda|first=Sukhail|date=August 2002 |url=http://www.cimera.org/files/camel/en/27e/MICA27E-Siddikzoda.pdf |title=Tajik Language: Farsi or Not Farsi? |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060613195726/http://www.cimera.org/files/camel/en/27e/MICA27E-Siddikzoda.pdf |archive-date=June 13, 2006 |magazine=Media Insight Central Asia|number=27}}</ref>