Iranian peoples

Iranian peoples
Total population
160 million[1] Indigenous ethnicities and emigrant communities living in: Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Oman, China (Xinjiang), India, United Kingdom, Germany and United States.
Regions with significant populations
Iranian plateau and the Middle East, Anatolia, South Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and as immigrant communities in North America, and Western Europe.
Languages

Iranian Languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family.

Religion

Majority:Shi'a Islam
minority:Sunni Islam, Orthodox Christianity,[2] Nestorianism, Judaism, Bahá'í Faith, Zoroastrianism, Toshavim, Atheism, Agnosticism.

Related ethnic groups

Indo-Aryan peoples, other Indo-Iranian peoples

The Iranian peoples[3] (sometimes also Iranic peoples) are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages,[4] a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples. Their historical areas of settlement were on the Iranian plateau mainly in Iran, certain areas of Central Asia such as Tajikistan, most of Afghanistan, parts of Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and scattered parts of the Caucasus Mountains.[5][6] Their current distribution is spread across the Iranian plateau, stretching from the Indus in the east to central Anatolia in the west, and from Central Asia and the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf - a region that is sometimes termed the Iranian cultural continent, or Greater Persia by scholars, representing the extent of the Iranian languages and influence of the Persian People, through the geopolitical reach of the Persian empire.[7]

The Iranian group emerges from an earlier Indo-Iranian unity during the Late Bronze Age, and they enter the historical record during the Early Iron Age.

'Once upon a time, no one really knows how long ago, there lived a community that spoke a common language. For almost two centuries scholars have been trying to locate the time and the place, and to reconstruct the language of that community. The language is referred to as Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and is ancestral to the Germanic, Slavic, Romance, Iranian, Indic, Albanian, and Greek languages. Several recent works by archaeologists and linguists, involving the origins and eventual spread of PIE related languages from India to England, offer new perspectives on this centuries long debate. Among these the work of Renfrew (1987), Mallory (1989), and Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1984, 1995) are of great interest. Renfrew, the archaeologist, contends that the PIE settlement was located in Anatolia c. 7000-6500 BC. Its subsequent spread he attributes to a superior technology: their invention of agriculture. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, the linguists, situate the homeland of the PIE a few millennia later in the nearby Caucasus. Mallory agrees with their fifth to fourth millennium date but places the homeland in the Pontic-Caspian steppe region.

There is an agreement that the PIE community split into two major groups from wherever its homeland was situated, and whatever the timing of its dispersal. One headed west for Europe and became speakers of Indo-European (all the languages of modern Europe save for Basque, Hungarian, and Finnish) while others headed east for Eurasia to become Indo-Iranians. The Indo-Iranians were a community that spoke a common language prior to their branching off into the Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages. Iranian refers to the languages of Iran (Iranian), Pakistan (Baluch), Afghanistan (Pashto), and Tadjikistan (Tadjik) and Indo-Aryan, Hindi and its many related languages.' - Carl C. Lamberg-Karlovsky

The Iranians consists of the Persians, Medes, Scythians, Bactrians, Parthians, Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Alans, Ossetians and their sub-groups. The Iranians had domesticated the horse and travelled far and wide and from the 2nd millennium B.C migrated and settled on the Iranian Plateau. They moved into the Zagros Mountains in the Elamite Kingdom, the first urban settlement area. The Medes formed an Iranian Kingdom. At 646 B.C., Susa and many other cities of Elam were plundered and wrecked by Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria. About 25 years later, the Assyrians were confronted and finaly overthrown by the armies of Media. This was the start of Iranian domination in the Iranian Plateau. Persians formed the Achaemenid Empire by the 6th century BC, while the Scythians dominated the Eurasian steppe.[8][9] 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 the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese. In addition, the various religions of the Iranian peoples, including Zoroastrianism, Mithraism and Manichaeism, are believed by some scholars to be important early philosophical influences on Christianity and Judaism.[10] Early Iranian tribes are the ancestors of modern Iranian peoples.

Contents

Name

The term Iranian is derived from the Old Iranian ethnical adjective Aryana which is itself a cognate of the Sanskrit word Arya.[11][12] The name Iran is from Aryānām; lit: "[Land] of the Aryans".[13][14] The old Proto-Indo-Iranian term Arya, per Thieme meaning "hospitable", is believed to have been one of the self-referential terms used by the Aryans, at least in the areas populated by Aryans who migrated south from Central Asia. Another meaning for Aryan is noble. In the late part of the Avesta (Vendidad 1) one of their homelands was referred to as Airyanem Vaejah. 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).[14]

The academic usage of the term Iranian is distinct from the state of Iran and its various citizens (who are all Iranian by nationality and thus popularly referred to as Iranians) in the same way that Germanic people is distinct from Germans. Many citizens of Iran are not necessarily "Iranian people" by virtue of not being speakers of Iranian languages and may not have discernible ties to ancient Iranian tribes. Unlike the various terms connected with the Aryan arya- in Old Indian, the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning[15] and there can be no doubt about the ethnic value of Old Iran. arya (Benveniste, 1969, I, pp. 369 f.; Szemerényi; Kellens).[16]

The name Arya lives in the ethnic names like Alan, New Persian: Iran, Ossertian: Ir and Iron.[16][17][18][19][19][20][21][22] The name Iran has been in usage since Sassanid times.[20][21]

The Avesta clearly uses airya as an ethnic name (Vd. 1; Yt. 13.143-44, etc.), where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi; daiŋˊhāvō “Iranian lands, peoples,” airyō.šayanəm “land inhabited by Iranians,” and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi; dāityayāfi; “Iranian stretch of the good Dāityā,” the river Oxus, the modern Āmū Daryā.[16]

The term "Ariya" appears in the royal Old Persian inscriptions in three different contexts: 1) As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of Darius the Great in Behistun; 2) as the ethnic background of Darius in inscriptions at Naqsh-e-Rostam and Susa (Dna, Dse) and Xerxes in the inscription from Persepolis (Xph) and 3) as the definition of the God of Iranian people, Ahuramazda, in the Elamite version of the Behistun inscription.[16][17][19] For example in the Dna and Dse Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as “An Achaemenian, A Persian son of a Persian and an Aryan, of Aryan stock”.[23] Although Darius the Great called his language the Iranian language,[23] modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian[23] due to the fact that it is the ancestor of modern Persian language.[24]

The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by the Greek sources”.[16] Herodotus in his Histories remarks about the Iranian Medes that: “These Medes were called anciently by all people Arians; “ (7.62).[16][17][19] In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as Iranians.[25] Eudemus of Rhodes apud Damascius (Dubitationes et solutiones in Platonis Parmenidem 125 bis) refers to “the Magi and all those of Iranian (áreion) lineage”; Diodorus Siculus (1.94.2) considers Zoroaster (Zathraustēs) as one of the Arianoi.[16]

Strabo, in his "Geography", mentions the unity of Medes, Persians, Bactrians and Sogdians:[18]

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.

Geography, 15.8

The trilingual inscription erected by Shapur's command gives us a more clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian and Greek. In Greek the inscription says: “ego ... tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi”(“I am lord of the kingdom (Gk. nation) of the Aryans”) which translates to “I am the king of the Iranian people”. In the Middle Persian, Shapour states: “ērānšahr xwadāy hēm” and in Parthian he states: “aryānšahr xwadāy ahēm”.[20][26]

The Bactrian language (an Middle Iranian language) inscription of Kanishka the founder of the Kushan empire at Rabatak, which was discovered in 1993 in an unexcavated site in the Afghanistan province of Baghlan clearly refers to this Eastern Iranian language as Arya[27][28] In the post-Islamic era one can still see a clear usage of the term Iran in the work of the 10th century historian Hamzeh Isfahani. In his famous book “the history of Prophets and Kings” writes: “Aryan which is also called Pars(Persia) is in the middle of these countries and these six countries surround it because the South East is in the hands China, the North of the Turks, the middle South is India, the middle North is Rome, and the South West and the North West is the Sudan and Berber lands”.[29] All this evidence shows that the name arya “Iranian” was a collective definition, denoting peoples (Geiger, pp. 167 f.; Schmitt, 1978, p. 31) 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 Ahura Mazdā.[30]

History and settlement

Roots

By the early 1st millennium, Ancient Iranian peoples such as Medes, Persians, Bactrians, Parthians and Scythians populated the Iranian plateau, and other Scythian tribes, along with Cimmerians, Sarmatians and Alans populated the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Saka, Scythian, tribes spread as far west as the Balkans and as far east as Xinjiang. Scythians as well formed the Indo-Scythian Empire, and Bactrians formed a Greco-Bactrian Kingdom founded by Diodotus I, the satrap of Bactria. The Kushan Empire, with Bactrian roots/connections, once controlled much of Pakistan, some of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The Kushan elite (who the Chinese called the Yuezhi) were either a Tocharian-speaking (another Indo-European branch) people or an Eastern Iranian language-speaking people.

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. The Old Avestan texts known as the Gathas are believed to have been composed by Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, with the Yaz culture (ca. 1500–1100 BCE) as a candidate for the development of Eastern Iranian culture.

Old Persian appears to have been established in written form by 519 BCE, following the creation of the Old Persian script, inspired by the cuneiform script of the Assyrians.[31]

Western Iranic peoples

During the 1st centuries of the first millennium BCE, 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.[32] 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 Soghdians in the east.[14][33] Following the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian language (referred to as "Farsi" in Persian) spread from Pars or Fars Province 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.

Old Persian is attested in the Behistun Inscription (ca. 519 BCE), recording a proclamation by Darius the Great. In southwestern Iran, the Achaemenid kings usually wrote their inscriptions in trilingual form (Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian)[34] while elsewhere other languages were used. The administrative languages were Elamite in the early period, and later Imperial Aramaic.[35]

The early inhabitants of the Achaemenid Empire appear to have adopted the religion of Zoroastrianism.[36] 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.[37]

Eastern Iranic peoples

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, Indo-Aryans as well as by archaeological finds. Many ancient Sanskrit texts make references to tribes like Sakas, Paradas, Kambojas, Bahlikas, Uttaramadras, Madras, Lohas, Parama Kambojas, Rishikas, Tukharas or Tusharas etc. and locate them in the (Uttarapatha) (north-west) division, in Central Asia, around Hindukush range in northern Pakistan. The Greek chronicler, Herodotus (5th century BCE) makes references to a nomadic people, the Scythians; he describes as having dwelt in what is today southern Russia.

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.

The Sarmatians of the east became the Alans, who also ventured far and wide, with a branch ending up in Western Europe and North Africa, as they accompanied the Germanic Vandals during their migrations. The modern Ossetians are believed to be the sole direct descendants of the Alans, as other remnants of the Alans disappeared following Germanic, Hunnic and ultimately Slavic migrations and invasions.[38] Another group of Alans allied with Goths to defeat the Romans and ultimately settled in what is now called Catalonia (Goth-Alania).[39]

Some of the Saka-Scythian tribes in Central Asia would later move further southeast and invade the Iranian plateau, large sections of present day Pakistan/Afghanistan and finally deep into the northwestern portion of the Indian subcontinent; i.e. present day Punjab (Persian for land of five rivers) (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.[40]

The most dominant surviving Eastern Iranian peoples are represented by the Pashtuns, whose origins are generally believed to be from the Suleiman mountains in the Balochistan province of Pakistan, from which they began to spread until they reached as far west as Herat, north to areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan; and as eastward towards the Indus as well as adjacent areas of the Panjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan. The Pashto language shows affinities to the Avestan and Bactrian.

The modern Sarikoli in southern Xinjiang and the Ossetians of the Caucasus are remnants of the various Saka tribes. The modern Ossetians claim to be the descendants of the Alano-Sarmatians and their claims are supported by their Northeast Iranian language, while culturally the Ossetians resemble their Caucasian neighbors, the Kabardians and Circassians.[38] Various extinct Iranian people existed in the eastern Caucasus, including the Azaris, while some Iranian people remain in the region, including the Talysh[41] and the Tats[42] (including the Judeo-Tats,[43] who have relocated to Israel), 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

Starting with the reign of Omar in 634 CE, Muslim Arabs 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 people, including the Persians, Azaries, Kurds, Baluchis and Pashtuns, converted to Islam. The Iranian people would later split along sectarian lines as the Persians (and later the Hazara) adopted the Shi'a sect. As ancient tribes and identities changed, so did the Iranian people, many of whom assimilated foreign cultures and people.[44]

Later, during the 2nd millennium CE, the Iranian people 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 adjacent parts of Central Asia. Iranian influence spread to the Ottoman Empire, where Persian was often spoken at court, as well as in the Mughal Empire, a Mongol-Turkic (Uzbek) peoples, which began in Afghanistan and shifted to South Asia encompassing various regions which now make up parts of Pakistan. All of the major Iranian people 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 (just as Germans and Italians were beginning to formulate national identities of their own).

The following either partially descend from Iranian people or are sometimes regarded as possible descendants of ancient Iranian people:

Demographics

There are an estimated 150 to 200 million native speakers of Iranian languages, the five major groups of Persians, Lurs, Kurds, Baloch, and Pashtuns accounting for about 90% of this number.[59] Currently, most of these Iranian peoples live in Iran, the Caucasus (mainly Ossetia, other parts of Georgia, and Azerbaijan), Kurdish majority populated areas of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Due to recent migrations, there are also large communities of speakers of Iranian languages in Europe, the Americas, and Israel.

The following is a list of Iranian people with the respective groups's core areas of settlements and their estimated sizes (in millions):

People region population
Persians
Iran
Persian speakers in- Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan
60
60-70
Pashtuns
Afghanistan and Pakistan
32
48-50
Kurds
Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Turkmenistan, Israel and Lebanon
32
23-38
Baluchis Iran, Pakistan & Afghanistan
15
10
Gilakis & Mazanderanis Iran
07
5-10
Lurs & Bakhtiaris Iran
026
6
Laks[60]
Iran
010
0.5
Pamiri people
Tajikistan, China (Xinjiang),
Afghanistan
009
0.9
Talysh Azerbaijan, Iran
009
0.5
Ossetians
South Ossetia, Georgia,
Russia (North Ossetia), Hungary
007
0.7
Parsis Pakistan and India
001
0.1
Yaghnobi Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (Zerafshan region)
007
0.025
Kumzari Oman (Musandam)
007
0.021

Diversity

It is largely through linguistic similarities that the Iranian people have been linked, as many non-Iranian people have adopted Iranian languages and cultures. However, other common traits have been identified as well and a stream of common historical events have often linked the southern Iranian people, including Hellenistic conquests, the various empires based in Persia, Arab Caliphates and Turkic invasions.

Culture

Like other Indo-Europeans, the early Iranians practiced ritual sacrifice, had a social hierarchy consisting of warriors, clerics and farmers and poetic hymns and sagas to recount their deeds.[62]

Following the Iranian split from the Indo-Iranians, the Iranians developed an increasingly distinct culture. Various common traits can be discerned among the Iranian people. For example, the social event Norouz is an Iranian festival that is practiced by nearly all of the Iranian people as well as others in the region. Its origins are traced to Zoroastrianism and pre-historic times.

Some Iranian cultures exhibit traits that are unique unto themselves. The Pashtuns adhere to a code of honor and culture known as Pashtunwali, which has a similar counterpart among the Baloch, called Mayar, that is more hierarchical.[63]

Religion

The early Iranian people worshipped various deities found throughout other cultures where Indo-European immigrants established themselves.[64] The earliest major religion of the Iranian people was Zoroastrianism, which spread to nearly all of the Iranian people living in the Iranian plateau. Other religions that had their origins in the Iranian world were Mithraism, Manichaeism, and Mazdakism, among others.

Modern speakers of Iranian languages mainly follow Islam. Some follow Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and the Bahá'í Faith, with an unknown number showing no religious affiliation. Overall the numbers of Sunni and Shia among the Iranian people are equally distributed. Most Kurds, Tajiks, Pashtuns, and Baluch are Sunni Muslims, while the remainder are mainly Twelver Shi'a, comprising mostly Persians in Iran, and Hazaras in Afghanistan. Zazas in Turkey are largely Alevi, while the Pamiri peoples in Tajikistan and China are nearly all Ismaili. The Christian community is mainly represented by the Armenian Apostolic Church, followed by the Russian Orthodox and Georgian Orthodox Ossetians followed by Nestorians. Judaism is followed mainly by Persian Jews, Kurdish Jews, Bukharian Jews (of Central Asia) and the Mountain Jews (of the Caucasus), most of whom are now found in Israel. The historical religion of the Persian Empire was Zoroastrianism and it still has a few thousand followers, mostly in Yazd and Kerman. They are known as the Parsis in the Indian subcontinent, where many of them fled in historic times following the Arab conquest of Persia, or Zoroastrians in Iran. Another ancient religion is the Yazidi faith, followed by some Kurds in northern Iraq, as well as the majority of the Kurds in Armenia.

Elements of pre-Islamic Zoroastrian and shamanistic beliefs persist among some Islamized groups today, such as the Tajiks, Pashtuns and Pamiri peoples.

Cultural assimilation

In matters relating to culture, the various Turkic-speaking minorities of Iran (notably the Azerbaijani people) and Afghanistan (Uzbeks and Turkmen) are often conversant in Iranian languages, in addition to their own Turkic languages and also have Iranian culture to the extent that the term Turko-Iranian can be applied.[65] The usage applies to various circumstances that involve historic interaction, intermarriage, cultural assimilation, bilingualism and cultural overlap or commonalities.

Notable among this synthesis of Turko-Iranian culture are the Azeris, whose culture, religion and significant periods of history are linked to the Persians.[66] Certain theories and genetic tests[67] suggest that the

Genetics

Two Y-DNA Haplogroups are supposed to be connected with Iranic people Haplogroup J2 and R1a1

J2 is commonly found in Jewish populations and Arab population and linked with Ancient Semitic cultures, such as the Mesopotamians. It is has a strong presence in North Africa as well.

R1 have more closely linked to Iranians, while R1b to Europeans.

J2a:

Haplogroup J2 especially the subcadle J2a is frequently found among almost all groups of Iranic people. In comparison with the Haplogroup R1a1, J2 is not only restricted to geographically eastern and western Iranic populations, but also found among north-western and south-western Iranic populations such as the Bakhtiaris and Mazanderani,[68][69] as well as geographically north-western Iranic Ossetians.[70] Despite its supposed origin in the fertile crescent, J2a is also found among Iranic populations in the east such as the Yagnobi which are of Soghdian origin[71] as well as the Parsis of India.[72] Beside the relatively high percentage among the Yagnobis in Central Asia, other Iranic populations tend to have a higher frequency of J2a when compared to neighboring Turkic populations. The relatively strong presence of J2a among Ossetians as well as Yagnobis proves distant from the supposed Mesopotamian origin region of J2, are carriers of this Haplogroup.

In the Indo-Iranian context, the occurrence of J2a in South Asia is limited to caste populations, with the highest frequencies found among northern areas of South Asia.[73][74] Compared with R1a1, J2a shows a more conservative distribution, stronger limited to Indo-Iranian origin groups.[73]

R:

Many Haplotypes of Y-chromosomal Haplogroup R have been found throughout the Iranian Plateau, and it has been suggested that this Haplogroup may have had it's origins in Iran. Cambridge University geneticist Toomas Kivisild has suggested  : "Given the geographic spread and STR diversities of sister clades R1 and R2, the latter of which is restricted to India, Pakistan, Iran, and southern central Asia, it is possible that southern and western Asia were the source for R1 and R1a differentiation."(Kivisild et al. 2003). A similar conclusion was given by population geneticist Miguel Regueiro in the Journal of Human Heredity (Regueiro et al. Human Heredity vol. 61 (2006), pp. 132–143)

Genetic studies conducted by Cavalli-Sforza have revealed that Iranians have weak correlation with Near Eastern groups, and are closer to surrounding Indo-Europeans speaking populations.[75] This study is partially supported by another one, based on Y-Chromosome haplogroups.[76]

The findings of this study reveal many common genetic markers found among the Iranian people from the Tigris river of Iraq to the Indus of Pakistan. This correlates with the Iranian languages spoken from the Caucasus to Kurdish areas in the Zagros region and eastwards to western Pakistan and Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan in Central Asia. The extensive gene flow is perhaps an indication of the spread of Iranian-speaking people, whose languages are now spoken mainly on the Iranian plateau and adjacent regions.

Another recent study of the genetic landscape of Iran was completed by a team of Cambridge geneticists led by Dr. Maziar Ashrafian Bonab (an Iranian Azarbaijani).[77] Bonab remarked that his group had done extensive DNA testing on different language groups, including Indo-European and non Indo-European speakers, in Iran.[67] The study found that the Azerbaijanis of Iran do not have a similar FSt and other genetic markers found in Anatolian and European Turks. However, the genetic Fst and other genetic traits like MRca and mtDNA of Iranian Azeris were identical to Persians in Iran. Azaris of Iran also show very close genetic ties to Kurds.[78]

See also

Literature and further reading

References

  1. ^
    • Iran: Library of Congress, Library of Congress – Federal Research Division. "Ethnic Groups and Languages of Iran". http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Iran.pdf. Retrieved 2009-12-02.  (Persian and Caspian dialects-65% Kurdish 8%-Luri/Bakhtiari 5%- Baluchi 2%):80% of the population or approximately 63 million people.
    • Afghanistan: CIA Factbook Afghanistan: unting Pashtuns, Tajiks, Baluchs, 21 million
    • Tajiks of Central Asia counting Tajikistan and Uzbekistan 10-15 million
    • Kurds and Zazas of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq based on CIA factbook estimate 22 million
    • Pakistan counting Baluchis+Pashtus+Afghan refugrees based on CIA factbook and other sources: 35 million.
    • Ossetians, Talysh, Tats, Kurds of the Caucasus and Central Asia: 1-2 million based on CIA factbook/ethnologue.
    • Tajiks of China: 50,000 to 100,000
    • Iranian speakers in Bahrain, the Persian Gulf , Western Europe and USA, 3 million.
  2. ^ The Ossetians of the Caucasus are Orthodox Christians
  3. ^ R.N Frye, "IRAN v. PEOPLES OF IRAN" in Encycloapedia Iranica. "In the following discussion of “Iranian peoples,” the term “Iranian” may be understood in two ways. It is, first of all, a linguistic classification, intended to designate any society which inherited or adopted, and transmitted, an Iranian language. The set of Iranian-speaking peoples is thus considered a kind of unity, in spite of their distinct lineage identities plus all the factors which may have further differentiated any one group’s sense of self."
  4. ^ J. Harmatta in "History of Civilizations of Central Asia", Chapter 14, The Emergence of Indo-Iranians: The Indo-Iranian Languages, ed. by A. H. Dani & V.N. Masson, 1999, p. 357
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  8. ^ "Amazons in the Scythia: new finds at the Middle Don, Southern Russia". Taylorandfrancis.metapress.com. http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(povz2d45y5bwkg555qirhyru)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,8,11;journal,15,25;linkingpublicationresults,1:104736,1. Retrieved 2009-06-21. 
  9. ^ "Secrets of the Dead, Casefile: Amazon Warrior Women". Pbs.org. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_amazon/index.html. Retrieved 2009-06-21. 
  10. ^ Runciman, Steven (1982). The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28926-2. 
  11. ^ Oxford English Dictionnary: "Aryan from Sanskrit Arya 'Noble'"
  12. ^ Gershevitch, I. (1968). "Old Iranian Literature". Iranistik. Hanbuch Der Orientalistik – Abeteilung – Der Nahe Und Der Mittlere Osten. 1. Brill Publishers. p. 203. ISBN 9004008578. : page 1
  13. ^ "Farsi-Persian language" — Farsi.net . Retrieved 4 June 2006.
  14. ^ a b c "Article in 1911 Britannica". 58.1911encyclopedia.org. http://58.1911encyclopedia.org/I/IR/IRAN.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-21. 
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