This article is about the group of Indo-European peoples. For the inhabitants of the modern country of Iran, see Ethnicities in Iran. For other uses, see Demographics of Iran.
There have been many attempts to qualify the verbal root of ar- in Old Iranian arya-. The following are according to 1957 and later linguists:
Emmanuel Laroche (1957): ara- "to fit" ("fitting", "proper"). Old Iranian arya- being descended from Proto-Indo-Europeanar-yo-, meaning "(skillfully) assembler".[17]
Georges Dumézil (1958): ar- "to share" (as a union).
Harold Walter Bailey (1959): ar- "to beget" ("born", "nurturing").
Unlike the Sanskritārya- (Aryan), the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning.[18][19] Today, the Old Iranian arya- remains in ethno-linguistic names such as Iran, Alan, Ir, and Iron.[20][15][21][22]
In the Iranian languages, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of Avesta.[23][a] The earliest epigraphically attested reference to the word arya- occurs in the Bistun Inscription of the 6th century BC. The inscription of Bistun (or Behistun; Old Persian: Bagastana) describes itself to have been composed in Arya [language or script]. As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the arya of the inscription does not signify anything but Iranian.[24]
In royal Old Persian inscriptions, the term arya- appears in three different contexts:[19][20]
As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of Darius I in the Bistun Inscription.
As the ethnic background of Darius the Great in inscriptions at Rustam Relief and Susa (Dna, Dse) and the ethnic background of Xerxes I in the inscription from Persepolis (Xph).
As the definition of the God of Iranians, Ohrmazd, in the Elamite version of the Bistun Inscription.
In the Dna and Dse, Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as "an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, and an Aryan, of Aryan stock".[25] Although Darius the Great called his language arya- ("Iranian"),[25] modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian[25] because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language.[26]
The trilingual inscription erected by the command of Shapur I gives a more clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek. In Greek inscription says "ego ... tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi", which translates to "I am the king of the kingdom (nation) of the Iranians". In Middle Persian, Shapur says "ērānšahr xwadāy hēm" and in Parthian he says "aryānšahr xwadāy ahēm".[19][27]
The Avesta clearly uses airiia- as an ethnic name (Videvdat 1; Yasht 13.143–44, etc.), where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi daiŋˊhāvō ("Iranian lands"), airyō šayanəm ("land inhabited by Iranians"), and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi dāityayāfi ("Iranian stretch of the good Dāityā").[19] In the late part of the Avesta (Videvdat 1), one of the mentioned homelands was referred to as Airyan'əm Vaējah which approximately means "expanse of the Iranians". The homeland varied in its geographic range, the area around Herat (Pliny's view) and even the entire expanse of the Iranian Plateau (Strabo's designation).[28]
The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by the Greek sources.[19]Herodotus, in his Histories, remarks about the Iranian Medes that "Medes were called anciently by all people Arians" (7.62).[19][20] In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as Iranians.[29]Eudemus of Rhodes (Dubitationes et Solutiones de Primis Principiis, in Platonis Parmenidem) refers to "the Magi and all those of Iranian (áreion) lineage". Diodorus Siculus (1.94.2) considers Zoroaster (Zathraustēs) as one of the Arianoi.[19]
The name of Ariana is further extended to a part of Persia and of Media, as also to the Bactrians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations.
All this evidence shows that the name Arya was a collective definition, denoting peoples who were aware of belonging to the one ethnic stock, speaking a common language, and having a religious tradition that centered on the cult of Ohrmazd.[19]
The academic usage of the term Iranian is distinct from the state of Iran and its various citizens (who are all Iranian by nationality), in the same way that the term Germanic peoples is distinct from Germans. Some inhabitants of Iran are not necessarily ethnic Iranians by virtue of not being speakers of Iranian languages.[citation needed]
Iranian vs. Iranic
Some scholars such as John Perry prefer the term Iranic as the name for the linguistic family of this category (many of which are spoken outside Iran), while Iranian for anything about the country Iran. He uses the same analogue as in differentiating German from Germanic or differentiating Turkish and Turkic.[32] German scholar Martin Kümmel also argues for the same distinction of Iranian from Iranic.[33]
The Proto-Indo-Iranians are commonly identified with the Sintashta culture and the subsequent Andronovo culture within the broader Andronovo horizon, and their homeland with an area of the Eurasian steppe that borders the Ural River on the west and the Tian Shan on the east.
The Indo-Iranian migrations took place in two waves.[34][35] The first wave consisted of the Indo-Aryan migration through the Bactria-Margiana Culture, also called "Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex," into the Levant, founding the Mittani kingdom; and a migration south-eastward of the Vedic people, over the Hindu Kush into northern India.[36] The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BC from the Iranians,[37] whereafter they were defeated and split into two groups by the Iranians,[38] who dominated the Central Eurasian steppe zone[39] and "chased [the Indo-Aryans] to the extremities of Central Eurasia."[39] One group were the Indo-Aryans who founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria;[40] (c.1500– c.1300 BC) the other group were the Vedic people.[41]Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun, an Indo-EuropeanCaucasian people of Inner Asia in antiquity, were also of Indo-Aryan origin.[42]
The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave,[43] and took place in the third stage of the Indo-European migrations[36] from 800 BC onwards.
The Sintashta culture emerged from the interaction of two antecedent cultures. Its immediate predecessor in the Ural-Tobol steppe was the Poltavka culture, an offshoot of the cattle-herding Yamnaya horizon that moved east into the region between 2800 and 2600 BC. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltavka settlements or close to Poltavka cemeteries, and Poltavka motifs are common on Sintashta pottery. Sintashta material culture also shows the influence of the late Abashevo culture, a collection of Corded Ware settlements in the forest steppe zone north of the Sintashta region that were also predominantly pastoralist.[48] Allentoft et al. (2015) also found close autosomal genetic relationship between peoples of Corded Ware culture and Sintashta culture.[49]
The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the Old World and played an important role in ancient warfare.[50] Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronzemetallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture.[51]
Because of the difficulty of identifying the remains of Sintashta sites beneath those of later settlements, the culture was only recently distinguished from the Andronovo culture.[45] It is now recognised as a separate entity forming part of the 'Andronovo horizon'.[44]
The Andronovo culture's approximate maximal extent, with the formative Sintashta-Petrovka culture (red), the location of the earliest spoke-wheeled chariot finds (purple), and the adjacent and overlapping Afanasevo, Srubna, and BMAC cultures (green).
The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Bronze AgeIndo-Iranian cultures that flourished c. 1800–900 BC in western Siberia and the west Asiatic steppe.[52] It is probably better termed an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon. The name derives from the village of Andronovo (55°53′N55°42′E / 55.883°N 55.700°E / 55.883; 55.700), where in 1914, several graves were discovered, with skeletons in crouched positions, buried with richly decorated pottery. The older Sintashta culture (2100–1800), formerly included within the Andronovo culture, is now considered separately, but regarded as its predecessor, and accepted as part of the wider Andronovo horizon. At least four sub-cultures of the Andronovo horizon have been distinguished, during which the culture expands towards the south and the east:
The geographical extent of the culture is vast and difficult to delineate exactly. On its western fringes, it overlaps with the approximately contemporaneous, but distinct, Srubna culture in the Volga-Ural interfluvial. To the east, it reaches into the Minusinsk depression, with some sites as far west as the southern Ural Mountains,[54] overlapping with the area of the earlier Afanasevo culture.[55] Additional sites are scattered as far south as the Koppet Dag (Turkmenistan), the Pamir (Tajikistan) and the Tian Shan (Kyrgyzstan). The northern boundary vaguely corresponds to the beginning of the Taiga.[54] In the Volga basin, interaction with the Srubna culture was the most intense and prolonged, and Federovo style pottery is found as far west as Volgograd.
Most researchers associate the Andronovo horizon with early Indo-Iranian languages, though it may have overlapped the early Uralic-speaking area at its northern fringe.
The division into an "Eastern" and a "Western" group by the early 1st millennium is visible in Avestan vs. Old Persian, the two oldest known Iranian languages.[citation needed] The Old Avestan texts known as the Gathas are believed to have been composed by Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, with the Yaz culture (c. 1500 BC – 1100 BC) as a candidate for the development of Eastern Iranian culture.[61]
Western Iranian peoples
Distribution of Iranic peoples during the Iron Age.Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent under the rule of Darius I (522 BC to 486 BC)Persepolis: Persian guards
During the 1st centuries of the 1st millennium BC, the ancient Persians established themselves in the western portion of the Iranian Plateau and appear to have interacted considerably with the Elamites and Babylonians, while the Medes also entered in contact with the Assyrians.[62] Remnants of the Median language and Old Persian show their common Proto-Iranian roots, emphasized in Strabo and Herodotus' description of their languages as very similar to the languages spoken by the Bactrians and Sogdians in the east.[28][63] Following the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian language (referred to as "Farsi" in Persian after being changed from Parsi) spread from Pars or Fars province (Persia) to various regions of the Empire, with the modern dialects of Iran, Afghanistan (also known as Dari) and Central-Asia (known as Tajiki) descending from Old Persian.
At first, the Western Iranian peoples in the Near East were dominated by the various Assyrian empires. An alliance of the Medes with the Persians, and rebelling Babylonians, Scythians, Chaldeans, and Cimmerians, helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BC, which resulted in the eventual collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by 605 BC.[64] The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, between 616 BC and 605 BC, a unified Median state was formed, which, together with Babylonia, Lydia, and Egypt, became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East
Later on, in 550 BC, Cyrus the Great, would overthrow the leading Median rule, and conquer Kingdom of Lydia and the Babylonian Empire after which he established the Achaemenid Empire (or the First Persian Empire), while his successors would dramatically extend its borders. At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire would encompass swaths of territory across three continents, namely Europe, Africa and Asia, stretching from the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east. The largest empire of ancient history, with their base in Persis (although the main capital was located in Babylon) the Achaemenids would rule much of the known ancient world for centuries. This First Persian Empire was equally notable for its successful model of a centralised, bureaucratic administration (through satraps under a king) and a government working to the profit of its subjects, for building infrastructure such as a postal system and road systems and the use of an official language across its territories and a large professional army and civil services (inspiring similar systems in later empires),[65] and for emancipation of slaves including the Jewish exiles in Babylon, and is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city states during the Greco-Persian Wars. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in the empire as well.
The Greco-Persian Wars resulted in the Persians being forced to withdraw from their European territories, setting the direct further course of history of Greece and the rest of Europe. More than a century later, a prince of Macedon (which itself was a subject to Persia from the late 6th century BC up to the First Persian invasion of Greece) later known by the name of Alexander the Great, overthrew the incumbent Persian king, by which the Achaemenid Empire was ended.
Old Persian is attested in the Behistun Inscription (c. 519 BC), recording a proclamation by Darius the Great.[66] In southwestern Iran, the Achaemenid kings usually wrote their inscriptions in trilingual form (Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian)[67] while elsewhere other languages were used. The administrative languages were Elamite in the early period, and later Imperial Aramaic,[68] as well as Greek, making it a widely used bureaucratic language.[69] Even though the Achaemenids had extensive contacts with the Greeks and vice versa, and had conquered many of the Greek-speaking area's both in Europe and Asia Minor during different periods of the empire, the native Old Iranian sources provide no indication of Greek linguistic evidence.[69] However, there is plenty of evidence (in addition to the accounts of Herodotus) that Greeks, apart from being deployed and employed in the core regions of the empire, also evidently lived and worked in the heartland of the Achaemenid Empire, namely Iran.[69] For example, Greeks were part of the various ethnicities that constructed Darius' palace in Susa, apart from the Greek inscriptions found nearby there, and one short Persepolis tablet written in Greek.[69]
The early inhabitants of the Achaemenid Empire appear to have adopted the religion of Zoroastrianism.[70] The Baloch who speak a west Iranian language relate an oral tradition regarding their migration from Aleppo, Syria around the year 1000 AD, whereas linguistic evidence links Balochi to Kurmanji, Soranî, Gorani and Zazaki language.[71]
Eastern Iranian peoples
The Eastern Iranic and Balto-Slavic dialect continuums in Eastern Europe, the latter with proposed material cultures correlating to speakers of Balto-Slavic in the Bronze Age (white). Red dots = archaic Slavic hydronymsArchaeological cultures c. 750 BC at the start of Eastern-Central Europe's Iron Age; the Proto-Scythian culture borders the Balto-Slavic cultures (Lusatian, Milograd and Chernoles)Silver coin of the Indo-Scythian king Azes II (reigned c. 35–12 BC). Buddhist triratna symbol in the left field on the reverse
While the Iranian tribes of the south are better known through their texts and modern counterparts, the tribes which remained largely in the vast Eurasian expanse are known through the references made to them by the ancient Greeks, Persians, Chinese, and Indo-Aryans as well as by archaeological finds. The Greek chronicler, Herodotus (5th century BC) makes references to a nomadic people, the Scythians; he describes them as having dwelt in what is today southern European Russia and Ukraine. He was the first to make a reference to them. Many ancient Sanskrit texts from a later period make references to such tribes they were witness of pointing them towards the southeasternmost edges of Central Asia, around the Hindukush range in northern Pakistan.
It is believed that these Scythians were conquered by their eastern cousins, the Sarmatians, who are mentioned by Strabo as the dominant tribe which controlled the southern Russian steppe in the 1st millennium AD. These Sarmatians were also known to the Romans, who conquered the western tribes in the Balkans and sent Sarmatian conscripts, as part of Roman legions, as far west as Roman Britain. These Iranian-speaking Scythians and Sarmatians dominated large parts of Eastern Europe for a millennium, and were eventually absorbed and assimilated (e.g. Slavicisation) by the Proto-Slavic population of the region.[8][9][11]
The Sarmatians differed from the Scythians in their veneration of the god of fire rather than god of nature, and women's prominent role in warfare, which possibly served as the inspiration for the Amazons.[72][73] At their greatest reported extent, around the 1st century AD, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas as well as the Caucasus to the south.[b] Their territory, which was known as Sarmatia to Greco-Roman ethnographers, corresponded to the western part of greater Scythia (mostly modern Ukraine and Southern Russia, also to a smaller extent north eastern Balkans around Moldova). According to authors Arrowsmith, Fellowes and Graves Hansard in their book A Grammar of Ancient Geography published in 1832, Sarmatia had two parts, Sarmatia Europea[74] and Sarmatia Asiatica[75] covering a combined area of 503,000 sq mi or 1,302,764km2.
Throughout the 1st millennium AD, the large presence of the Sarmatians who once dominated Ukraine, Southern Russia, and swaths of the Carpathians, gradually started to diminish mainly due to assimilation and absorption by the GermanicGoths, especially from the areas near the Roman frontier, but only completely by the Proto-Slavic peoples. The abundant East Iranian-derived toponyms in Eastern Europe proper (e.g. some of the largest rivers; the Dniestr and Dniepr), as well as loanwords adopted predominantly through the Eastern Slavic languages and adopted aspects of Iranian culture amongst the early Slavs, are all a remnant of this. A connection between Proto-Slavonic and Iranian languages is also furthermore proven by the earliest layer of loanwords in the former.[76] For instance, the Proto-Slavonic words for god (*bogъ), demon (*divъ), house (*xata), axe (*toporъ) and dog (*sobaka) are of Scythian origin.[77]
The extensive contact between these Scytho-Sarmatian Iranian tribes in Eastern Europe and the (Early) Slavs included religion. After Slavic and Baltic languages diverged the Early Slavs interacted with Iranian peoples and merged elements of Iranian spirituality into their beliefs. For example, both Early Iranian and Slavic supreme gods were considered givers of wealth, unlike the supreme thunder gods in many other European religions. Also, both Slavs and Iranians had demons –- given names from similar linguistic roots, Daêva (Iranian) and Divŭ (Slavic) –- and a concept of dualism, of good and evil.[78]
The Sarmatians of the east, based in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, became the Alans, who also ventured far and wide, with a branch ending up in Western Europe and then North Africa, as they accompanied the Germanic Vandals and Suebi during their migrations. The modern Ossetians are believed to be the direct descendants of the Alans, as other remnants of the Alans disappeared following Germanic, Hunnic and ultimately Slavic migrations and invasions.[79] Another group of Alans allied with Goths to defeat the Romans and ultimately settled in what is now called Catalonia (Goth-Alania).[80]
Some of the Saka-Scythian tribes in Central Asia would later move further southeast and invade the Iranian Plateau, large sections of present-day Afghanistan and finally deep into present day Pakistan (see Indo-Scythians). Another Iranian tribe related to the Saka-Scythians were the Parni in Central Asia, and who later become indistinguishable from the Parthians, speakers of a northwest-Iranian language. Many Iranian tribes, including the Khwarazmians, Massagetae and Sogdians, were assimilated and/or displaced in Central Asia by the migrations of Turkic tribes emanating out of Xinjiang and Siberia.[81]
The modern Sarikoli in southern Xinjiang and the Ossetians of the Caucasus (mainly South Ossetia and North Ossetia) are remnants of the various Scythian-derived tribes from the vast far and wide territory they once dwelled in. The modern Ossetians are the descendants of the Alano-Sarmatians,[82][83] and their claims are supported by their Northeast Iranian language, while culturally the Ossetians resemble their North Caucasian neighbors, the Kabardians and Circassians.[79][84] Various extinct Iranian peoples existed in the eastern Caucasus, including the Azaris, while some Iranian peoples remain in the region, including the Talysh[85] and the Tats[86] found in Azerbaijan and as far north as the Russian republic of Dagestan. A remnant of the Sogdians is found in the Yaghnobi-speaking population in parts of the Zeravshan valley in Tajikistan.
Later developments
The main migration of Turkic peoples occurred between the 6th and 10th centuries, when they spread across most of Central Asia. The Turkic peoples slowly replaced and assimilated the previous Iranian-speaking locals, turning the population of Central Asia from being largely Iranian into being primarily of East Asian descent.[87]
Starting with the reign of Omar in 634 AD, MuslimArabs began a conquest of the Iranian Plateau. The Arabs conquered the Sassanid Empire of the Persians and seized much of the Byzantine Empire populated by the Kurds and others. Ultimately, the various Iranian peoples, including the Persians, Pashtuns, Kurds and Balochis, converted to Islam, while the Alans converted to Christianity, thus laying the foundation for the fact that the modern-day Ossetians are Christian.[88][pageneeded] The Iranian peoples would later split along sectarian lines as the Persians adopted the Shi'a sect. As ancient tribes and identities changed, so did the Iranian peoples, many of whom assimilated foreign cultures and peoples.[89]
Later, during the 2nd millennium AD, the Iranian peoples would play a prominent role during the age of Islamic expansion and empire. Saladin, a noted adversary of the Crusaders, was an ethnic Kurd, while various empires centered in Iran (including the Safavids) re-established a modern dialect of Persian as the official language spoken throughout much of what is today Iran and the Caucasus. Iranian influence was also an principal factor in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turks integrated Persian into their court, governance, and daily life. Supported by the sultans, nobility, and spiritual leaders, Persian was promoted as a second language, intertwining with Turkish and greatly influencing Ottoman cultural traditions.[90] However, a heavy Turko-Persian basis in Anatolia was set already by the predecessors of the Ottomans, namely the Sultanate of Rum and Anatolian Beyliks amongst others) as well to the court of the Mughal Empire. All of the major Iranian peoples reasserted their use of Iranian languages following the decline of Arab rule, but would not begin to form modern national identities until the 19th and early 20th centuries.[citation needed]
The term "Persian" (Arabic: فُرس, romanized:Furs, Persian: فارس, romanized:Fars) is more often used in English partly due to the fact that "Iran" was known in the western world as "Persia". In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Shah's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably.[91] Nowadays, the term "Persians" mainly refers to those whose mother tongue is Persian (Farsi) and those who identify as Persian.[92] However, Iran is a mosaic of ethnic and linguistic groups.[92] Persians are said to make up roughly half the population (with some estimates reaching 60%), while the rest comprises Azeris, Arabs (e.g. Khuzestani Arabs), Balochis, Kurds, Gilanis, Mazanderanis, Loris, Qashqais, Bakhtiaris, Armenians, and others.[92] Although many of these groups speak Persian (Farsi) and identify as Iranian, their ethnic identity is distinct from being Persian. Additionally, Iran is home to various religious minorities—Sunni Muslims, Christians, Jews, Bahá’ís, Zoroastrians, and others—some of whom identify as Persian while others do not.[92] The denial of this diversity stems not only from ignorance but also from Persian-centric nationalism rooted in mid-20th century Iranian state policies. This approach, particularly under the Pahlavi regime, sought to erase ethnic and linguistic diversity in favour of an exclusivist Persian identity.[92] Inspired by European and Turkish nationalist ideologies, Reza Shah Pahlavi's regime crafted an artificial narrative of Iranian history centered on Persian ethnic unity over 2,500 years.[92] This contradicted the historical reality, as previous Iranian dynasties, such as the Qajars and Safavids, were of Azeri Turkish origin, and the Persian Empire itself historically united diverse peoples through imperial administration and Persian as a lingua franca rather than ethnicity.[92] This nationalistic approach extended as far as to the Gulf Arab states where the Iranian migrants lived; as such, anything that happened in Iran that was annoying to these countries, the pressure was immediately put on Iranians living in Bahrain, in Kuwait, or the rest of the Gulf in general.[93]:44–45 Reza Shah's policies were mainly influenced by Aryanism, a colonial-era ideology linking language with ethnicity.[92] This framework, which tied the Indo-European language family to an imagined migration of an Aryan nation, shaped nationalist projects in Europe and Iran.[92]Aryanism conveniently justified European colonial views of Indian and Persian civilizations while influencing Iranian nationalism to adopt an exclusionary identity framework.[92] Author Mehran Kokherdi [Author of "History of South Fars"] states that the term Persians is used to refer to all groups with original Parsi roots, including the inhabitants of villages scattered across Persia who still speak their ancient Parsi language. However, the term has also come to describe the populations of major cities (e.g. Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan) more broadly, who consist of a blend of various ethnic groups, all unified by their use of Modern Persian—a language that incorporates elements from Arabic, Turkish, French, Russian, Mongolian, and Parsi. Based on their shared language, the people of Iran generally identify them as Persians.[94]:3–4 This leads many scholars to believe that the term "Iranian" is more encompassing and inclusive of these various ethnic groups (Iranic people, and ethnic groups in Iran).[95] It's worth noting that many groups such as the Kurds, do not refer to themselves as such (Persian), despite their Iranic/Iranian roots.
Nowruz, an ancient Iranian annual festival that is still widely celebrated throughout the Iranian Plateau and beyond, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Iranian culture is today considered to be centered in what is called the Iranian Plateau, and has its origins tracing back to the Andronovo culture of the late Bronze Age, which is associated with other cultures of the Eurasian Steppe.[111][112] It was, however, later developed distinguishably from its earlier generations in the Steppe, where a large number of Iranian-speaking peoples (i.e., the Scythians) continued to participate, resulting in a differentiation that is displayed in Iranian mythology as the contrast between Iran and Turan.[111]
Like other Indo-Europeans, the early Iranians practiced ritual sacrifice, had a social hierarchy consisting of warriors, clerics, and farmers, and recounted their deeds through poetic hymns and sagas.[113] Various common traits can be discerned among the Iranian peoples. For instance, the social event of Nowruz is an ancient Iranian festival that is still celebrated by nearly all of the Iranian peoples. However, due to their different environmental adaptations through migration, the Iranian peoples embrace some degrees of diversity in dialect, social system, and other aspects of culture.[1]
With numerous artistic, scientific, architectural, and philosophical achievements and numerous kingdoms and empires that bridged much of the civilized world in antiquity, the Iranian peoples were often in close contact with people from various western and eastern parts of the world.
The early Iranian peoples practiced the ancient Iranian religion, which, like that of other Indo-European peoples, embraced various male and female deities.[115] Fire was regarded as an important and highly sacred element, and also a deity. In ancient Iran, fire was kept with great care in fire temples.[115] Various annual festivals that were mainly related to agriculture and herding were celebrated, the most important of which was the New Year (Nowruz), which is still widely celebrated.[115]Zoroastrianism, a form of the ancient Iranian religion that is still practiced by some communities,[116] was later developed and spread to nearly all of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian Plateau. Other religions that had their origins in the Iranian world were Mithraism, Manichaeism, and Mazdakism, among others. The various religions of the Iranian peoples are believed by some scholars to have been significant early philosophical influences on Christianity and Judaism.[117]
Nowadays, most Iranian people follow Islam (Sunnism, followed by Shi'ism), with minorities following Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism, Iranian religions and various levels of irreligion.[citation needed]
Iranian languages were and, to a lesser extent, still are spoken in a wide area comprising regions around the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia and the northwest of China.[118] This population was linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups, while the sedentary population eventually adopted the Persian language, which began to spread within the region since the time of the Sasanian Empire.[118] The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an "elite dominance" process.[119][120] Moreover, various Turkic-speaking ethnic groups of the Iranian Plateau are often conversant also in an Iranian language and embrace Iranian culture to the extent that the term Turko-Iranian would be applied.[121] A number of Iranian peoples were also intermixed with the Slavs,[9] and many were subjected to Slavicisation.[10][11]
The following either partially descend from or are sometimes regarded as descendants of the Iranian peoples.
Azerbaijanis: In spite of being native speakers of a Turkic language (Azerbaijani Turkic), they are believed to be primarily descended from the earlier Iranian-speakers of the region.[1][111][122][123][124] They are possibly related to the ancient Iranian tribe of the Medes, aside from the rise of the subsequent Persian and Turkic elements (changing of the native Iranian language) within their area of settlement,[125] which, prior to the spread of Turkic, was Iranian-speaking.[126] Thus, due to their historical, genetic and cultural ties to the Iranians,[127] the Azerbaijanis are often associated with the Iranian peoples. Genetic studies observed that they are also genetically related to the Iranian peoples.[128]
Turkmens: Genetic studies show that the Turkmens are characterized by the presence of local Iranian mtDNA lineages, similar to the eastern Iranian populations, but modest female MongoloidmtDNA components were observed in Turkmen populations with the frequencies of about 20%.[129]
Uzbeks: The unique grammatical and phonetical features of the Uzbek language,[130] as well as elements within the modern Uzbek culture, reflect the older Iranian roots of the Uzbek people.[118][131][132][133] According to recent genetic genealogy testing from a University of Oxford study, the genetic admixture of the Uzbeks clusters somewhere between the Iranian peoples and the Mongols.[134] Prior to the Russian conquest of Central Asia, the local ancestors of the Turkic-speaking Uzbeks and the Persian-speaking Tajiks, both living in Central Asia, were referred to as Sarts, while Uzbek and Turk were the names given to the nomadic and semi-nomadic populations of the area. Still, as of today, modern Uzbeks and Tajiks are known to their Turkic neighbors, the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz, as Sarts. Some Uzbek scholars also favor the Iranian origin theory.[135][pageneeded] However, another study, conducted in 2009, claims that Uzbeks and Central Asian Turkic peoples cluster genetically and are far from Iranian groups.[136]
Uyghurs: Contemporary scholars consider modern Uyghurs to be the descendants of, apart from the ancient Uyghurs, the Iranian Saka (Scythian) tribes and other Indo-European peoples who inhabited the Tarim Basin before the arrival of the Turkic tribes.[137]
The Hazaras are a Persian-speaking ethnic group native to, and primarily residing in, the mountainous region of Hazarajat, in central Afghanistan. Although the origins of the Hazara people have not been fully reconstructed, genetic analysis of the Hazara indicate partial Mongol ancestry. Mongol and Turkic invaders (Turco-Mongols) mixed with the local indigenous Turkic and Iranian populations; for example, Qara'unas settled in what is now Afghanistan and mixed with the local populations. A second wave of mostly Chagatai Turco-Mongols came from Central Asia, associated with the Ilkhanate and the Timurids, all of whom settled in Hazarajat and mixed with the local populations. Phenotype can vary, with some noting that certain Hazaras may resemble peoples native to the Iranian plateau.[138][139]
Croats and Serbs: Some scholars suggest that the Slavic-speaking Serbs and Croats are descended from the ancient Sarmatians,[140][141] an ancient Iranian people who once settled in most of southern European Russia and the eastern Balkans, and that their ethnonyms are of Iranian origin. It is proposed that the Sarmatian Serboi and alleged Horoathos tribes were assimilated with the numerically superior Slavs, passing on their name. Iranian-speaking peoples did inhabit parts of the Balkans in late classical times, and would have been encountered by the Slavs. An archaeogenetic IBD study found that the Slavs make a specific and recognisable genetic cluster which "was formed by admixture of a Baltic-related group with East Germanic people and Sarmatians or Scythians".[142] Although previous direct linguistic, historical, or archaeological proof for such a theory is lacking.[d]
Shirazis: The Shirazi are a sub-group of the Swahili people living on the Swahili coast of East Africa, especially on the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, and Comoros. Local traditions about their origin claim they are descended from merchant princes from Shiraz in Iran who settled along the Swahili coast.
Population genomic PCA, showing the CIC (Central Iranian cluster) among other worldwide samples.
Recent population genomic studies found that the genetic structure of Iranian peoples formed already about 5,000 years ago and show high continuity since then, suggesting that they were largely unaffected by migration events from outside groups. Genetically speaking, Iranian peoples generally cluster closely with European and other Middle Eastern peoples. Analyzed samples of Iranian Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Lurs, Mazanderanis, Gilaks and Arabs cluster tightly together, forming a single cluster known as the CIC (Central Iranian cluster). Compared with worldwide populations, Iranians (CIC) cluster in the center of the wider West-Eurasian cluster, close to Europeans, Middle Easterners, and South-Central Asians. Iranian Arabs and Azeris genetically overlap with Iranian peoples. The genetic substructure of Iranians is low and homogeneous, compared with other "1000G" populations. Europeans, and certain South Asians (specifically the Parsi minority) showed the highest affinity with Iranians, while Sub-Saharan Africans and East Asians showed the highest differentiation with Iranians.[149]
Regueiro et al (2006)[150] and Grugni et al (2012)[151] have performed large-scale sampling of Y chromosome haplogroups of different ethnic groups within Iran. They found that the most common paternal haplogroups were:
J1-M267; commonly found among Semitic-speaking people, was rarely over 10% in Iranian groups.
J2-M172: is the most common Hg in Iran (~23%); almost exclusively represented by J2a-M410 subclade (93%), the other major sub-clade being J2b-M12. Apart from Iranians, J2 is common in northern Arabs, Mediterranean and Balkan peoples (Croats, Serbs, Greeks, Bosniaks, Albanians, Italians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Turks), in the Caucasus (Armenians, Georgians, Chechens, Ingush, northeastern Turkey, north/northwestern Iran, Kurds, Persians); whilst its frequency drops suddenly beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India.[152] In Europe, J2a is more common in southern Greece and southern Italy; whilst J2b (J2-M12) is more common in Thessaly, Macedonia and central – northern Italy. Thus J2a and its subgroups within it have a wide distribution from Italy to India, whilst J2b is mostly confined to the Balkans and Italy,[153] being rare even in Turkey. Whilst closely linked with Anatolia and the Levant; and putative agricultural expansions, the distribution of the various sub-clades of J2 likely represents a number of migrational histories which require further elucidation.[152][154]
R1a-M198: is common in Iran, more so in the east and south rather than the west and north; suggesting a migration toward the south to India then a secondary westward spread across Iran.[155] Whilst the Grongi and Regueiro studies did not define exactly which sub-clades Iranian R1a haplogrouops belong to, private genealogy tests suggest that they virtually all belong to "Eurasian" R1a-Z93.[156] Indeed, population studies of neighbouring Indian groups found that they all were in R1a-Z93.[157] This implies that R1a in Iran did not descend from "European" R1a, or vice versa. Rather, both groups are collateral, brother branches which descend from a parental group hypothesized to have initially lived somewhere between central Asia and Eastern Europe.[157]
R1b – M269: is widespread from Ireland to Iran, and is common in highland West Asian populations such as Armenians, Turks and Iranians – with an average frequency of 8.5%. Iranian R1b belongs to the L-23 subclade,[158] which is an older than the derivative subclade (R1b-M412) which is most common in western Europe.[159]
Haplogroup G and subclades: most concentrated in the Caucasus,[160] it is present in 10% of Iranians.[151]
Haplogroup E and various subclades are frequently found among Middle Easterners, Europeans, northern and eastern African populations. They are present in less than 10% of Iranians.
Two large – scale papers by Haber (2012)[161] and Di Cristofaro (2013)[162] analyzed populations from Afghanistan, where several Iranian-speaking groups are native. They found that different groups (e.g. Baluch, Hazara, Pashtun) were quite diverse, yet overall:
R1a (subclade not further analyzed) was the predominant haplogroup, especially amongst Pashtuns, the Baloch and Tajiks.
The presence of "East-Eurasian" haplogroup C3, especially in Hazaras (33–40%), in part linked to Mongol expansions into the region.
The presence of haplogroup J2, like in Iran, of 5–20%.
A relative paucity of "Indian" haplogroup H (< 10%).
A 2012 study by Grugni et al. analyzed the haplogroups of 15 different ethnic groups from Iran. They found that about 31.4% belong to J, 29.1% belong to R, 11.8% belong to G, and 9.2% belong to E. They found that Iranian ethnic groups display high haplogroup diversity, compared to other Middle Easterners. The authors concluded that the Iranian gene pool has been an important source for the Middle Eastern and Eurasian Y chromosome diversity, and the results suggest that there was already rather high Y chromosome diversity during the Neolithic period, placing Iranian populations in between Europeans, Middle Easterners and South Asians.[163]
A 2024 study by Vallini et al. stated that ancient and modern populations in the Iranian plateau have a similar genetic component to the Ancient West Eurasian lineage which stayed in the 'population hub' (WEC2). But they also display some ancestry from Basal Eurasians and Ancient East Eurasians via contact events starting in the Paleolithic.[164]
↑ In the Avesta the airiia- are members of the ethnic group of the Avesta-reciters themselves, in contradistinction to the anairiia-, the "non-Aryas". The word also appears four times in Old Persian: One is in the Behistun inscription, where ariya- is the name of a language or script (DB 4.89). The other three instances occur in Darius I's inscription at Naqsh-e Rustam (DNa 14–15), in Darius I's inscription at Susa (DSe 13–14), and in the inscription of Xerxes I at Persepolis (XPh 12–13). In these, the two Achaemenid dynasts describe themselves as pārsa pārsahyā puça ariya ariyaciça "a Persian, son of a Persian, an Ariya, of Ariya origin." "The phrase with ciça, "origin, descendance", assures that it [i.e. ariya] is an ethnic name wider in meaning than pārsa and not a simple adjectival epithet".[23]
The Indo-Iranian languages constitute the largest and southeasternmost extant branch of the Indo-European language family. They include over 300 languages, spoken by around 1.5 billion speakers, predominantly in South Asia, West Asia and parts of Central Asia.
The Sarmatians were a large confederation of ancient Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th century AD.
The Saka were a group of nomadic Eastern Iranian peoples who lived in the Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin from the 9th century BC to the 5th century AD. The Saka were closely related to the Scythians, and both groups formed part of the wider Scythian cultures. However, they are distinguished from the Scythians by their specific geographical and cultural traits. The Saka languages formed part of the Scythian phylum, a branch of the Eastern Iranian languages.
The Yamnaya culture or the Yamna culture, also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, is a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers, dating to 3300–2600 BC. It was discovered by Vasily Gorodtsov following his archaeological excavations near the Donets River in 1901–1903. Its name derives from its characteristic burial tradition: Я́мная is a Russian adjective that means 'related to pits ', as these people used to bury their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers. Research in recent years has found that Mikhaylovka, in lower Dnieper river, Ukraine, formed the Core Yamnaya culture.
The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished c. 2000–1150 BC, spanning from the southern Urals to the upper Yenisei River in central Siberia and western Xinjiang in the east. In the south, the Andronovo sites reached Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is agreed among scholars that the Andronovo culture was Indo-Iranian. Some researchers have preferred to term it an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon.
The Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to major parts of Eurasia in waves from the first part of the 2nd millennium BC onwards. They eventually branched out into the Iranian peoples and Indo-Aryan peoples.
The Srubnaya culture, also known as Timber-grave culture, was a Late Bronze Age 1900–1200 BC culture in the eastern part of the Pontic–Caspian steppe. It is a successor of the Yamna culture, the Catacomb culture and the Poltavka culture. It is co-ordinate and probably closely related to the Andronovo culture, its eastern neighbor. Whether the Srubnaya culture originated in the east, west, or was a local development, is disputed among archaeologists.
The Catacomb culture was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2,500–1,950 BC.
Poltavka culture was an early to middle Bronze Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Volga-Ural steppe and the forest steppe in 2800—2100 BCE.
The Indo-Aryan migrations were the migrations into the Indian subcontinent of Indo-Aryan peoples, an ethnolinguistic group that spoke Indo-Aryan languages. These are the predominant languages of today's Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, North India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
The Azerbaijanis or Azeris are a Turkic ethnic group of mixed ethnic origins, primarily the indigenous peoples of eastern Transcaucasia, the Medians, an ancient Iranian people, and the Oghuz Turkic tribes that began migrating to Azerbaijan in the 11th century CE. Modern Azerbaijanis are the second most numerous ethnic group among the Turkic peoples after Anatolian Turks and speak North Azerbaijani and/or South Azerbaijani. Both languages also have dialects, with 21 North Azerbaijani dialects and 11 South Azerbaijani dialects.
Aryan, or Arya in Proto-Indo-Iranian, is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians, and later Iranians and Indo-Aryans. It stood in contrast to nearby outsiders, whom they designated as non-Aryan. In ancient India, the term was used by the Indo-Aryan peoples of the Vedic period, both as an endonym and in reference to a region called Aryavarta, where their culture emerged. Similarly, according to the Avesta, the Iranian peoples used the term to designate themselves as an ethnic group and to refer to a region called Airyanem Vaejah, which was their mythical homeland. The word stem also forms the etymological source of place names like Alania and Iran.
The Sintashta culture is a Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture of the Southern Urals, dated to the period c. 2200–1900 BCE. It is the first phase of the Sintashta–Petrovka complex, c. 2200–1750 BCE. The culture is named after the Sintashta archaeological site, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, and spreads through Orenburg Oblast, Bashkortostan, and Northern Kazakhstan. Widely regarded as the origin of the Indo-Iranian languages, whose speakers originally referred to themselves as the Aryans, the Sintashta culture is thought to represent an eastward migration of peoples from the Corded Ware culture.
The Indo-European migrations are hypothesized migrations of peoples who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and the derived Indo-European languages, which took place from around 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially explaining how these related languages came to be spoken across a large area of Eurasia spanning from the Indian subcontinent and Iranian plateau to Atlantic Europe, in a process of cultural diffusion.
This article summarizes the History of the western steppe, which is the western third of the Eurasian steppe, that is, the grasslands of Ukraine and southern Russia. It is intended as a summary and an index to the more-detailed linked articles. It is a companion to History of the central steppe and History of the eastern steppe. All dates are approximate since there are few exact starting and ending dates. This summary article does not list the uncertainties, which are many. For these, see the linked articles.
The Scytho-Siberian world was an archaeological horizon that flourished across the entire Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age, from approximately the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD. It included the Scythian, Sauromatian and Sarmatian cultures of Eastern Europe, the Saka-Massagetae and Tasmola cultures of Central Asia, and the Aldy-Bel, Pazyryk and Tagar cultures of south Siberia.
The names of the Scythians are a topic of interest for classicists and linguists. The Scythians were an Iranic people best known for dominating much of the Pontic steppe from about 700 BC to 400 BC. The name of the Scythians is believed to be of Indo-European origin and to have meant "archer". The Scythians gave their name to the region of Scythia. The Persians referred to all Iranic nomads of the steppes, including the Scythians, as Sakas. Some modern scholars apply the name Scythians to all peoples of the Scytho-Siberian world, but this terminology is controversial.
Arya was the ethnonym used by Iranians during the early History of Iran. In contrast to cognates of Arya used by the Vedic people and Iranic steppe nomads, the term is commonly translated using the modern ethnonym Iranian.
↑ Harmatta 1992, p.348: "From the first millennium b.c., we have abundant historical, archaeological and linguistic sources for the location of the territory inhabited by the Iranian peoples. In this period the territory of the northern Iranians, they being equestrian nomads, extended over the whole zone of the steppes and the wooded steppes and even the semi-deserts from the Great Hungarian Plain to the Ordos in northern China."
1 2 Brzezinski, Richard; Mielczarek, Mariusz (2002). The Sarmatians, 600 BC-AD 450. Osprey Publishing. p.39. (...) Indeed, it is now accepted that the Sarmatians merged in with pre-Slavic populations.
1 2 3 Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. p.523. (...) In their Ukrainian and Polish homeland the Slavs were intermixed and at times overlain by Germanic speakers (the Goths) and by Iranian speakers (Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans) in a shifting array of tribal and national configurations.
1 2 Atkinson, Dorothy; Dallin, Alexander; Lapidus, Gail Warshofsky, eds. (1977). Women in Russia. Stanford University Press. p.3. ISBN978-0-8047-0910-1. (...) Ancient accounts link the Amazons with the Scythians and the Sarmatians, who successively dominated the south of Russia for a millennium extending back to the seventh century B.C. The descendants of these peoples were absorbed by the Slavs who came to be known as Russians.
1 2 3 Slovene Studies. Vol.9–11. Society for Slovene Studies. 1987. p.36. (...) For example, the ancient Scythians, Sarmatians (amongst others) and many other attested but now extinct peoples were assimilated in the course of history by Proto-Slavs.
↑ Roy, Olivier (2007). The New Central Asia: Geopolitics and the Birth of Nations. I.B. Tauris. p.6. ISBN978-1-84511-552-4. The mass of the Oghuz who crossed the Amu Darya towards the west left the Iranian Plateau, which remained Persian and established themselves more to the west, in Anatolia. Here they divided into Ottomans, who were Sunni and settled, and Turkmens, who were nomads and in part Shiite (or, rather, Alevi). The latter were to keep the name 'Turkmen' for a long time: from the thirteenth century onwards they 'Turkised' the Iranian populations of Azerbaijan (who spoke west Iranian languages such as Tat, which is still found in residual forms), thus creating a new identity based on Shiism and the use of Turkish. These are the people today known as Azeris.
↑ Frye 2005, p.xi: "Iran means all lands and people where Iranian languages were and are spoken, and where in the past, multi-faceted Iranian cultures existed."
1 2 3 MacKenzie, David Niel (1998). "Ērān, Ērānšahr". Encyclopedia Iranica. Vol.8. Costa Mesa: Mazda. Archived from the original on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 15 January 2012.
↑ Schmitt, Rüdiger (1987), "Aryans", Encyclopedia Iranica, vol.2, New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp.684–687, archived from the original on 20 April 2019, retrieved 15 January 2012
↑ Laroche. 1957. Proto-Iranian*arya- descends from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *ar-yo-, a yo-adjective to a root *ar "to assemble skillfully", present in Greek harma "chariot", Greek aristos, (as in "aristocracy"), Latin ars "art", etc.
↑ G. Gnoli, "Iranian Identity as a Historical Problem: the Beginnings of a National Awareness under the Achaemenians", in The East and the Meaning of History. International Conference (23–27 November 1992), Roma, 1994, pp. 147–67.
↑ Dalby, Andrew (2004), Dictionary of Languages, Bloomsbury, ISBN0-7475-7683-1
↑ G. Gnoli. "ēr, ēr mazdēsn". Encyclopedia Iranica. Archived from the original on 17 May 2023. Retrieved 15 January 2012.
1 2 Bailey, Harold Walter (1987). "Arya". Encyclopedia Iranica. Vol.2. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp.681–683. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 15 January 2012.
↑ cf.Gershevitch, Ilya (1968). "Old Iranian Literature". Handbuch der Orientalistik, Literatur I. Leiden: Brill. pp.1–31., p. 2.
1 2 3 R. G. Kent. Old Persian. Grammar, texts, lexicon. 2nd ed., New Haven, Conn.
↑ MacKenzie D.N. Corpus inscriptionum Iranicarum Part. 2., inscription of the Seleucid and Parthian periods of Eastern Iran and Central Asia. Vol. 2. Parthian, London, P. Lund, Humphries 1976–2001
↑ R.W. Thomson. History of Armenians by Moses Khorenat’si. Harvard University Press, 1978. Pg 118, pg 166
↑ The "Aryan" Language, Gherardo Gnoli, Instituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, Roma, 2002
↑ N. Sims-Williams, "Further notes on the Bactrian inscription of Rabatak, with the Appendix on the name of Kujula Kadphises and VimTatku in Chinese". Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies (Cambridge, September 1995). Part 1: Old and Middle Iranian Studies, N. Sims-Williams, ed. Wiesbaden, pp 79-92
↑ Perry 1998, p.517: ""Iranian" is still the more commonly used term; I prefer "Iranic," as being more consistent with analogous categories such as "Turkic" and "Germanic" and unambiguous with "Iranian" in the sense "pertaining to the country or state of Iran": cf. Indic/Indian, Italic/Italian"
↑ Kümmel 2018, p.3: "Iranic for Iranian[:] To avoid confusion with terms related to the country or territory of Iran (especially in recent geneticist papers speaking of prehistoric "Iranian" populations almost certainly not "Iranian" in the linguistic sense)"
1 2 Okladnikov, A. P. (1994), "Inner Asia at the dawn of history", The Cambridge history of early Inner Asia, Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press, p.83, ISBN978-0-521-24304-9
↑ R. G. Kent, Old Persian: Grammar, texts and lexicon.
↑ R. Hallock (1969), Persepolis Fortification Tablets; A. L. Driver (1954), Aramaic Documents of the V Century BC.
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↑ Cross, S. H. (1946). "Primitive Civilization of the Eastern Slavs". American Slavic and East European Review. 5 (1/2): 51–87. doi:10.2307/2491581. JSTOR2491581.
1 2 A History of Russia by Nicholas Riasanovsky, pp. 11–18, Russia before the Russians, ISBN0-19-515394-4 . Retrieved 4 June 2006.
↑ The Sarmatians: 600 BC-AD 450 (Men-at-Arms) by Richard Brzezinski and Gerry Embleton, 19 August 2002
↑ James Minahan, "One Europe, Many Nations", Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000. pg 518: "The Ossetians, calling themselves Iristi and their homeland Iryston are the most northerly Iranian people. ... They are descended from a division of Sarmatians, the Alans who were pushed out of the Terek River lowlands and in the Caucasus foothills by invading Huns in the 4th century CE.
↑ "Ossetians". Encarta. Microsoft Corporation. 2008.
↑ From Scythia to Camelot by Littleton and Malcor, pp.40–43, ISBN0-8153-3566-0 . Retrieved 4 June 2006.
↑ The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates by Hugh Kennedy, ISBN0-582-40525-4 (retrieved 4 June 2006), p. 135
↑ Inan, Murat Umut (2019). "Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian Learning in the Ottoman World". In Green, Nile (ed.). The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca. University of California Press. pp.88–89. As the Ottoman Turks learned Persian, the language and the culture it carried seeped not only into their court and imperial institutions but also into their vernacular language and culture. The appropriation of Persian, both as a second language and as a language to be steeped together with Turkish, was encouraged notably by the sultans, the ruling class, and leading members of the mystical communities.
↑ Bozorgmehr, Mehdi (2009). "Iran". In Mary C. Waters; Reed Ueda; Helen B. Marrow (eds.). The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration since 1965. Harvard University Press. p.469. ISBN978-0-674-04493-7.
↑ Gordon, Raymond G. Jr. (2005). "Report for Iranian languages". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Fifteenthed.). Archived from the original on 1 October 2012. Retrieved 22 December 2005.
↑ Taherkhani, Neda; Ourang, Muhammed (2013). "A Study of Derivational Morphemes in Lari & Tati as Two Endangered Iranian Languages: An Analytical Contrastive Examination with Persian"(PDF). Journal of American Science. ISSN1545-1003. Lari is of the SW branch of Middle Iranian languages, Pahlavi, in the Middle period of Persian Language Evolution and consists of nine dialects, which are prominently different in pronunciation (Geravand, 2010). Being a branch of Pahlavi language, Lari has several common features with it as its mother language. The ergative structure (the difference between the conjugation of transitive and intransitive verbs) existing in Lari can be mentioned as such an example. The speech community of this language includes Fars province, Hormozgan province and some of the Arabic-speaking countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman (Khonji, 2010, p. 15).
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↑ Kaya, Mehmed S. (15 June 2011). The Zaza Kurds of Turkey: A Middle Eastern Minority in a Globalised Society. I.B.Tauris. ISBN978-1845118754.
↑ The World Factbook (Onlineed.). Langley, Virginia: US Central Intelligence Agency. 2015. ISSN1553-8133. Archived from the original on 6 January 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2015. A rough estimate in this edition gives populations of 14.3 million in Turkey, 8.2 million in Iran, about 5.6 to 7.4 million in Iraq, and less than 2 million in Syria, which adds up to approximately 28–30 million Kurds in Kurdistan or in adjacent regions. The CIA estimates are as of August2015[update] – Turkey: Kurdish 18%, of 81.6 million; Iran: Kurd 10%, of 81.82 million; Iraq: Kurdish 15–20%, of 37.01 million, Syria: Kurds, Armenians, and other 9.7%, of 17.01 million.
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↑ Minorsky, V. "Azerbaijan". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; Donzel, E. van; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill.
↑ Roy, Olivier (2007). The new Central Asia. I.B. Tauris. p.6. ISBN978-1-84511-552-4. Retrieved 28 May 2020. The mass of the Oghuz who crossed the Amu Darya towards the west left the Iranian Plateau, which remained Persian, and established themselves more to the west, in Anatolia. Here they divided into Ottomans, who were Sunni and settled, and Turkmens, who were nomads and in part Shiite (or, rather, Alevi). The latter were to keep the name 'Turkmen' for a long time: from the 13th century onwards they 'Turkised' the Iranian populations of Azerbaijan (who spoke west Iranian languages such as Tat, which is still found in residual forms), thus creating a new identity based on Shiism and the use of Turkish. These are the people today known as Azeris.
↑ Gabain, A. von (1945). Özbekische Grammatik. Leipzig and Vienna.
↑ Bečka, J. "Tajik Literature from the 16th Century to the Present". In Rypka, J. (ed.). History of Iranian Literature. pp.520–605.
↑ Jung, A. (1983). Quellen der klassischen Musiktradition Mittelasiens: Die usbekisch-tadshikischen maqom-Zyklen und ihre Beziehung zu anderen regionalen maqam-Traditionen im Vorderen and Mittleren Orient (PhD). Berlin.
↑ Levin, T. (1984). The Music and Tradition of the Bukharan Shashmaqam in Soviet Uzbekistan (PhD). Princeton. OCLC24081562.
↑ Millward, James A.; Perdue, Peter C. (2004). "Chapter 2: Political and Cultural History of the Xinjiang Region through the Late Nineteenth Century". In Starr, S. Frederick (ed.). Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland. M.E. Sharpe. pp.40–41. ISBN978-0-7656-1318-9.
↑ B. Campbell, Disappearing people? Indigenous groups and ethnic minorities in South and Central Asia in: Barbara Brower, Barbara Rose Johnston (Ed.) International Mountain Society, California, 2007
↑ Kieffer, Charles M. "HAZĀRA" [iv. Hazāragi dialect]. Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
↑ Milanović, Miodrag (2008). Srpski stari vek. Beograd. p.81.
↑ Mehrjoo, Zohreh; Fattahi, Zohreh; Beheshtian, Maryam; Mohseni, Marzieh; Poustchi, Hossein; Ardalani, Fariba; Jalalvand, Khadijeh; Arzhangi, Sanaz; Mohammadi, Zahra; Khoshbakht, Shahrouz; Najafi, Farid (24 September 2019). "Distinct genetic variation and heterogeneity of the Iranian population". PLOS Genetics. 15 (9): e1008385. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1008385. ISSN1553-7404. PMC6759149. PMID31550250. Seven groups (Iranian Arabs, Azeris, Gilaks, Kurds, Mazanderanis, Lurs and Persians) strongly overlapped in their overall autosomal diversity in an MDS analysis (Fig 1B), suggesting the existence of a Central Iranian Cluster (CIC), notably also including Iranian Arabs and Azeris. On a global scale (Fig 2 including "Old World" populations only; see S2 Fig for all 1000G populations), CIC Iranians closely clustered with Europeans, while Iranian Turkmen showed similar yet distinct degrees of admixture compared to other South Asians. A local comparison corroborated the distinct genetic diversity of CIC Iranians relative to other geographically close populations [2, 6, 44] (Fig 3 and S3 Fig). Still, genetic substructure was much smaller among Iranian groups than in relation to any of the 1000G populations, supporting the view that the CIC groups form a distinct genetic entity, despite internal heterogeneity. European (FST~0.0105–0.0294), South Asians (FST~0.0141–0.0338), but also some Latin American populations (Puerto Ricans: FST~0.0153–0.0228; Colombians: FST~0.0170–0.0261) were closest to Iranians, whereas Sub-Saharan Africans and admixed Afro-Americans (FST~0.0764–0.1424) as well as East Asians (FST ~ 0.0645–0.1055) showed large degrees of differentiation with Iranians.
↑ Regueiro, M.; Cadenas, A.M.; Gayden, T.; Underhill, P.A.; Herrera, R.J. (2006). "Iran: Tricontinental Nexus for Y-Chromosome Driven Migration". Human Heredity. 61 (3): 132–143. doi:10.1159/000093774. PMID16770078. S2CID7017701.
↑ Myres, Natalie M; Rootsi, Siiri; Lin, Alice A; Järve, Mari; King, Roy J; Kutuev, Ildus; Cabrera, Vicente M; Khusnutdinova, Elza K; Pshenichnov, Andrey; Yunusbayev, Bayazit; Balanovsky, Oleg; Balanovska, Elena; Rudan, Pavao; Baldovic, Marian; Herrera, Rene J; Chiaroni, Jacques; Di Cristofaro, Julie; Villems, Richard; Kivisild, Toomas; Underhill, Peter A (January 2011). "A major Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b Holocene era founder effect in Central and Western Europe". European Journal of Human Genetics. 19 (1): 95–101. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.146. PMC3039512. PMID20736979.
↑ Rootsi, Siiri; Myres, Natalie M; Lin, Alice A; Järve, Mari; King, Roy J; Kutuev, Ildus; Cabrera, Vicente M; Khusnutdinova, Elza K; Varendi, Kärt; Sahakyan, Hovhannes; Behar, Doron M; Khusainova, Rita; Balanovsky, Oleg; Balanovska, Elena; Rudan, Pavao; Yepiskoposyan, Levon; Bahmanimehr, Ardeshir; Farjadian, Shirin; Kushniarevich, Alena; Herrera, Rene J; Grugni, Viola; Battaglia, Vincenza; Nici, Carmela; Crobu, Francesca; Karachanak, Sena; Kashani, Baharak Hooshiar; Houshmand, Massoud; Sanati, Mohammad H; Toncheva, Draga; Lisa, Antonella; Semino, Ornella; Chiaroni, Jacques; Cristofaro, Julie Di; Villems, Richard; Kivisild, Toomas; Underhill, Peter A (December 2012). "Distinguishing the co-ancestries of haplogroup G Y-chromosomes in the populations of Europe and the Caucasus". European Journal of Human Genetics. 20 (12): 1275–1282. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2012.86. PMC3499744. PMID22588667.
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