Iranian peoples

Iranian peoples
Total population
c. 210–235 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
Iran and the Iranian Plateau, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Central Asia, Mesopotamia, northwestern South Asia, and as large immigrant communities in North America and Western Europe.
Languages
Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
Religion
Sunni Islam (including Sufis), Shia Islam, Christianity (Russian Orthodox,[2] Georgian Orthodox, Protestantism, and Catholicism), Irreligion, Zoroastrianism, Nestorianism, Judaism, Bahá'í, Paganism, and Yezidism.

The Iranian peoples[3] or Iranic peoples[4][5][6] are a diverse Indo-European ethno-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of the Iranian languages.[7][8]

Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia in the mid 2nd millennium BC.[9][10] At their peak of expansion in the mid 1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched across the Iranian Plateau and the entire Eurasian Steppe from the Great Hungarian Plain in the west to the Ordos Plateau in the east.[11] The Western Iranian Persian Empires came to dominate much of the ancient world from the 6th century BC, leaving an important cultural legacy, while the Eastern Iranian nomads of the steppe played a decisive role in the development of Eurasian nomadism and the Silk Route.[9]

Ancient Iranian peoples who emerged after 1000 BC include the Persians, Parthians, Medes, Scythians, Cimmerians, Alans, Bactrians, Dahae, Massagetae, Khwarezmians, Saka, Sarmatians, Sogdians, Sagartians and other peoples of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and the Iranian Plateau.

In the 1st millennium AD, their area of settlement was reduced as a result of Slavic, Germanic, Turkic and Mongol expansions and many being subjected to Slavicisation.[12][13][14][15] The Iranian peoples include Baloch, Kurds, Gilaks, Lurs, Mazanderanis, Ossetians, Pashtuns, Pamiris, Persians, Tajiks, Talysh people, Wakhis and Yaghnobis. Their current distribution spreads across the Iranian plateau, and stretches from the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south, and from Xinjiang in the east to eastern Turkey in the west[16]—a region that is sometimes called the Iranian cultural continent, and represents the extent of the Iranian languages and significant influence of the Iranian peoples through the geopolitical reach of Greater Iran.[17]

Name

The term Iran derives directly from Middle Persian Ērān (𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭) and Parthian Aryān.[18] The Middle Iranian terms ērān and aryān are oblique plural forms of gentilic ēr- (in Middle Persian) and ary- (in Parthian), both deriving from Old Persian ariya- (𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹), Avestan airiia- (𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀), and Proto-Iranian *arya-.[18][19]

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:

Unlike the Sanskrit ā́rya- (Aryan), the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning.[21][22] Today, the Old Iranian arya- remains in ethno-linguistic names such as Iran, Alan, Ir, and Iron.[23][24][25][26]

The Bistun Inscription of Darius the Great describes itself to have been composed in Arya [language or script].

In the Iranian languages, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of Avesta.[27][lower-alpha 1] 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.[28]

In royal Old Persian inscriptions, the term arya- appears in three different contexts:[22][23]

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".[29] Although Darius the Great called his language arya- ("Iranian"),[29] modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian[29] because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language.[30]

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".[24][31]

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").[22] 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).[32]

The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by the Greek sources.[22] Herodotus, in his Histories, remarks about the Iranian Medes that "Medes were called anciently by all people Arians" (7.62).[22][23] In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as Iranians.[33] 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.[22]

Strabo, in his Geographica, mentions the unity of Medes, Persians, Bactrians and Sogdians:[34]

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 Bactrian (a 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 Afghan province of Baghlan, clearly refers to this Eastern Iranian language as Arya.[35]

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.[36]

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. Many inhabitants of Iran are not necessarily ethnic Iranians by virtue of not being speakers of Iranian languages.

History and settlement

Indo-European roots

The Andronovo, BMAC and Yaz cultures have been associated with Indo-Iranians.

Proto-Indo-Iranians

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, the Tian Shan on the east.

The Indo-Iranians interacted with the Bactria-Magiana Culture, also called "Bactria-Magiana Archaeological Complex". Proto-Indo-Iranian arose due to this influence.[37] The Indo-Iranians also borrowed their distinctive religious beliefs and practices from this culture.[37]

The Indo-Iranian migrations took place in two waves.[38][39] The first wave consisted of the Indo-Aryan migration into the Levant, founding the Mittani kingdom, and a migration south-eastward of the Vedic people, over the Hindu Kush into northern India.[40] The Indo-Aryans split-off around 1800-1600 BCE from the Iranians,[41] where-after they were defeated and split into two groups by the Iranians,[42] who dominated the Central Eurasian steppe zone[43] and "chased [the Indo-Aryans] to the extremities of Central Eurasia."[43] One group were the Indo-Aryans who founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria;[44] (c. 1500–1300 BCE) the other group were the Vedic people.[45] Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun, an Indo-European Caucasian people of Inner Asia in antiquity, were also of Indo-Aryan origin.[46]

The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave,[47] and took place in the third stage of the Indo-European migrations[40] from 800 BCE onwards.

Sintashta-Petrovka culture

According to Allentoft (2015), the Sintashta culture probably derived from the Corded Ware Culture.

The Sintashta culture, also known as the Sintashta-Petrovka culture[48] or Sintashta-Arkaim culture,[49] is a Bronze Age archaeological culture of the northern Eurasian steppe on the borders of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, dated to the period 2100–1800 BCE.[50] It is probably the archaeological manifestation of the Indo-Iranian language group.[51]

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 BCE. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltovka settlements or close to Poltovka cemeteries, and Poltovka 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.[52] Allentoft et al. (2015) also found close autosomal genetic relationship between peoples of Corded Ware culture and Sintashta culture.[53]

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.[54] Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture.[55]

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.[49] It is now recognised as a separate entity forming part of the 'Andronovo horizon'.[48]

Andronovo culture

Map of the approximate maximal extent of the Andronovo culture. The formative Sintashta-Petrovka culture is shown in darker red. The location of the earliest spoke-wheeled chariot finds is indicated in purple. Adjacent and overlapping cultures (Afanasevo culture, Srubna culture, BMAC) are shown in green.

The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Bronze Age Indo-Iranian cultures that flourished c. 1800–900 BCE in western Siberia and the west Asiatic steppe.[56] It is probably better termed an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon. The name derives from the village of Andronovo (55°53′N 55°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,[58] overlapping with the area of the earlier Afanasevo culture.[59] 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.[58] 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.

Scythians and Persians

From the late 2nd millennium BCE to early 1st millennium BCE the Iranians had expanded from the Eurasian Steppe, and Iranian peoples such as Medes, Persians, Bactrians, and Parthians populated the Iranian plateau.[60][61]

Scythian tribes, along with Cimmerians, Sarmatians and Alans populated the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Scythian and Sarmatian tribes would quickly spread as far west as the Great Hungarian Plain, while mainly settling in Ukraine, Southern European Russia, and the Balkans,[62][63][64] while other Scythian tribes, such as the Saka, spread as far east as Xinjiang, China. 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, 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.

Western and Eastern Iranians

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 (c. 1500 BCE – 1100 BCE) as a candidate for the development of Eastern Iranian culture.

Western Iranian peoples

Geographical extent of Iranian influence in the 1st century BCE. The Parthian Empire (mostly Western Iranian) is shown in red, other areas, dominated by Scythia (Eastern Iranian), in orange.
Achaemenid empire at its greatest extent
Persepolis-Persian guards
Geographic distribution of modern Iranian languages
Bronze Statue of a Parthian nobleman, National Museum of Iran.
The Eastern Iranian dialect continuum shown in Eastern Europe right next to the area of the Balto-Slavic dialect continuum (purple); the latter with proposed material cultures correlating to speakers of Balto-Slavic in the Bronze Age (white). Red dots = archaic Slavic hydronyms
Archaeological cultures in Eastern-Central Europe at the beginning of the Iron Age, showing the location of the "Proto-Scythian culture", alongside the Balto-Slavic cultures (Lusatian, Milograd and Chernoles) C. 750 BC.
Scythian and related archaeological groups in circum- Pontic region, c. 7th to 3rd centuries BC

During the 1st centuries of the 1st 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.[65] 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.[32][66] 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.

At first, the Western Iranian peoples in the Near East were absolutely dominated by the various Assyrian empires. An alliance with the Medes, Persians, and rebelling Babylonians, Scythians, Chaldeans, and Cimmerians, helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BCE, which resulted in the eventual collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by 605 BC.[67] 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 BCE and 605 BCE, 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),[68] 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 BCE), recording a proclamation by Darius the Great.[69] In southwestern Iran, the Achaemenid kings usually wrote their inscriptions in trilingual form (Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian)[70] while elsewhere other languages were used. The administrative languages were Elamite in the early period, and later Imperial Aramaic,[71] as well as Greek, making it a widely used bureaucratic language.[72] 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.[72] 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.[72] 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.[72]

The early inhabitants of the Achaemenid Empire appear to have adopted the religion of Zoroastrianism.[73] The Baloch who speak a west Iranian language relate an oral tradition regarding their migration from Aleppo, Syria around the year 1000 CE, whereas linguistic evidence links Balochi to Kurmanji, Soranî, Gorani and Zazaki language.[74]

Eastern Iranian peoples

Hormizd I, Sassanian coin

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 BCE) 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 southeastern-most 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 CE. 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.[12][13][15]

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.[75] 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.[76] 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 [77] and Sarmatia Asiatica [78] covering a combined area of 503,000 sq mi or 1,302,764 km2.

Throughout the first millennium AD, the large presence of the Sarmatians who once dominated Ukraine, Southern European Russia, and swaths of the Balkans, gradually started to diminish mainly due to assimilation and absorption by the Germanic Goths, especially from the areas near the Roman frontier, but only completely and climactically 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) and the Balkans, 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.[79] For instance, the Proto-Slavonic words for god (*bogъ), demon (*divъ), house (*xata), axe (*toporъ) and dog (*sobaka) are of Scythian origin.[80]

A further point on behalf of the extensive contact between these Scytho-Sarmatian Iranian tribes in Eastern Europe and the (Early) Slavs is to be shown in matters regarding religion. After Slavic and Baltic languages diverged –- also evidenced by etymology –- 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.[81]

The Sarmatians of the east, based in the North Caucasus, 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.[82] Another group of Alans allied with Goths to defeat the Romans and ultimately settled in what is now called Catalonia (Goth-Alania).[83]

Silver coin of the Indo-Scythian king Azes II (reigned c. 35–12 BCE). Buddhist triratna symbol in the left field on the reverse.
Scythian horseman, Pazyryk, detail from a carpet, c. 300 BCE

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.[84]

The most dominant surviving Eastern Iranian peoples are represented by the Pashtuns, whose origins are generally believed to be from the province of Ghor, 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. The Pashto language shows affinities to the Avestan and Bactrian.

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,[85][86] and their claims are supported by their Northeast Iranian language, while culturally the Ossetians resemble their North Caucasian neighbors, the Kabardians and Circassians.[82][87] Various extinct Iranian peoples existed in the eastern Caucasus, including the Azaris, while some Iranian peoples remain in the region, including the Talysh[88] and the Tats[89] (including the Judeo-Tats,[90] 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 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. The Iranian peoples 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 peoples, many of whom assimilated foreign cultures and peoples.[91]

Later, during the 2nd millennium CE, 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 spread to the neighbouring Ottoman Empire, where Persian was often spoken at court (though a heavy Turko-Persian basis there was set already by the predecessors of the Ottomans in Anatolia, namely the Seljuks and the Sultanate of Rum 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 (just as Germans and Italians were beginning to formulate national identities of their own).

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.[92] Currently, most of these Iranian peoples live in Iran, Afghanistan, the Caucasus (mainly Ossetia, other parts of Georgia, Dagestan, and Azerbaijan), Iraqi Kurdistan and Kurdish majority populated areas of Turkey, Iran and Syria, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. There are also Iranian peoples living in Eastern Arabia such as northern Oman and Bahrain.

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 peoples that speak Iranian languages with the respective groups's core areas of settlements and their estimated sizes (in millions):

People region population
Persian-speaking peoples
Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, the Caucasus, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan 72–85
Pashtuns
Afghanistan, Pakistan 35–50
Kurds
Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Israel, Lebanon 40–45
Baluchis
  • Rakhshani
  • Makorani
 Pakistan, Iran, Oman,[96] Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, UAE 20–30
Gilakis and Mazanderanis Iran 5–10
Lurs and Bakhtiaris Iran, Kuwait, and Oman[97] 6
Laks[93] Iran -
Pamiri people
Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China (Xinjiang), Pakistan 0.9
Talysh
Azerbaijan, Iran 1.5
Ossetians
South Ossetia, Georgia,
Russia (North Ossetia), Hungary		 0.7
Yaghnobi Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (Zerafshan region) 0.025
Kumzari Oman (Musandam) 0.021
Zoroastrian groups in India
India

Culture

Haft Seen in Toopkhaneh Sq. of Tehran, Nouruz 2013

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, Armenians, Caucasians, Chinese, Turks and Arabs. The various religions of the Iranian people, including Zoroastrianism, Mithraism and Manichaeism, are believed by some scholars to have been significant early philosophical influences on Christianity and Judaism.[98]

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.[99]

Kurds celebrating. Fire is the symbol of Nowruz
Traditional costume for Nowruz in Kazakhstan

Following the Iranian split from the Indo-Iranians, the Iranians developed an increasingly distinct culture. Various common traits can be discerned among the Iranian peoples. For example, the social event Norouz is an Iranian festival that is practiced by nearly all of the Iranian peoples 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.[100]

Religion

The early Iranian peoples worshipped various deities of found throughout Proto-Indo-Iranian religion where Indo-European immigrants established themselves.[101] The earliest major religion of the Iranian peoples was Zoroastrianism, which 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.

Mazari Sharif's Blue Mosque in Afghanistan is a structure of cobalt blue and turquoise minarets, attracting visitors and pilgrims from all over the world. Many such Muslim architectural monuments can be attributed to the efforts of the Iranian peoples who are predominantly followers of Islam today.

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 peoples are equally distributed. Most Kurds, Tajiks, Pashtuns, and Baloch 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 Yezidi faith of the ethno-religious group of the Yazidi people, followed by Yazidi people in northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and in Armenia.

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

Cultural assimilation

In matters relating to culture, the various Turkic-speaking ethnic groups 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.[102] 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.[103] Certain theories and genetic tests[104] suggest that the Azeris are genetically more Iranian than Turkic.

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

Genetics

A Tajik woman holding her child
Pamiri girl in Afghanistan

Regueiro et al (2006)[115] and Grugni et al (2012)[116] have performed large-scale sampling of different ethnic groups within Iran. They found that the most common Haplogroups were:

Three Kurdish children from Bismil Province, Turkey

Two large – scale papers by Haber (2012)[128] and Di Cristofaro (2013)[129] 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:

Internal diversity and distant affinities

Overall, Iranian-speaking populations are characterized by high internal diversity. For Afghanistan, "It is possibly due to the strategic location of this region and its unique harsh geography of mountains, deserts and steppes, which could have facilitated the establishment of social organizations within expanding populations, and helped maintaining genetic boundaries among groups that have developed over time into distinct ethnicities" as well as the "high level of endogamy practiced by these groups".[130] The data ultimately suggests that Afghanistan, like other northern-central Asian regions, has continually been the recipient rather than a source of gene flow. Although, populations from Iran proper are also diverse, J2a-M530 likely spread out of Iran, and constitutes a common genetic substratum for all Iranian populations, which was then modified by further differential gene flows.[127] In Iran, language was a greater determinant of genetic similarity between different groups,[131] whereas in Afghanistan and other areas of northern central Asia, this was not the case.[132]

Overall in Iran, native population groups do not form tight clusters either according to language or region. Rather, they occupy intermediate positions among Near Eastern and Caucasus clusters.[133][134] Some of the Iranian groups lie within the Near Eastern group (often with such as the Turks and Georgians), but none fell into the Arab or Asian groups. Some Iranian groups in Iran, such as the Gilaki's and Mazandarani's, have paternal genetics (Y-DNA) virtually identical to South Caucasus ethnic groups,[135] while the small Iranian Baloch ethnic group, being the only outliers who have heavy pulls towards South Asia.

In Afghanistan, Iranian population groups such as the Pashtuns and Tajiks occupy intermediate positions amongst northwestern South Asian ethnic groups, such as along the Baloch, Brahui, Kashmiri's and Sindhi's, with a small minor pull towards West Asia.[136][137]

Iranians are only distantly related to Europeans as a whole, predominantly with southern Europeans like Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Croatians, Italians, Bosniks, Spaniards, Macedonians, Portuguese, and Bulgarians, rather than northern Europeans like Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Irish, Scottish, English, Finns, Estonians, Welsh, Latvians, and Lithuanians.[138][139] Nevertheless, Iranian-speaking Central Asians do show closer affinity to Europeans than do Turkic-speaking Central Asians.[140]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 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".[27]

Citations

  1. ↑
    • Iran: Library of Congress, Library of Congress – Federal Research Division. "Ethnic Groups and Languages of Iran" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-12-02. (Persian and Caspian dialects-65% Kurdish 8%-Luri/Bakhtiari 5%- Baluchi 4%):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 Syria, Lebanon and Iraq based on CIA factbook estimate 18 million
    • Zazas of Turkey, based on CIA factbook estimate 4 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.
    • Pakistan counting Baluchis+Pashtus+Afghan refugees based on CIA factbook and other sources: 71 million.
  2. ↑ The Ossetians of the Caucasus are Orthodox Christians
  3. ↑ R.N Frye, "IRAN v. PEOPLE OF IRAN in Encyclopedia 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. ↑ Mehrdad R. Izady (1992). The Kurds: A Concise Handbook. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-8448-1727-9.
  5. ↑ Michael M. Gunter (4 November 2010). Historical Dictionary of the Kurds. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7507-4.
  6. ↑ The Encyclopedia Americana: The International Reference Work, Volume 15
  7. ↑ Waldman & Mason 2006, p. 692
  8. ↑ "IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS". Encyclopædia Iranica. Bibliotheca Persica Press. 15 December 2006. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
  9. 1 2 Beckwith 2009, pp. 58–77
  10. ↑ Mallory 1997, pp. 308–311
  11. ↑ 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."
  12. 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.
  13. 1 2 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.
  14. ↑ Women in Russia. Stanford University Press. 1977. p. 3. (..) 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. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  15. 1 2 Slovene Studies. 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.
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  117. 1 2 Sengupta et al. Polarity and Temporality of High-Resolution Y-Chromosome Distributions in India Identify Both Indigenous and Exogenous Expansions and Reveal Minor Genetic Influence of Central Asian Pastoralists. AJHG 78; 2. 2006
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  121. ↑ "Family Tree DNA - Genetic Testing for Ancestry, Family History & Genealogy".
  122. ↑ New Y-chromosome binary markers improve phylogenetic resolution within haplogroup R1a1. Horolma Pamjav et al. AJPA DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22167. 2012
  123. ↑ Pamjav; 2012. "Inner and Central Asia is an overlap zone for the R1a1-Z280 and R1a1-Z93 lineages. This pattern implies that an early differentiation zone of R1a1-M198 conceivably occurred somewhere within the Eurasian Steppes or the Middle East and Caucasus region as they lie between South Asia and Eastern Europe"
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  125. ↑ Myres; et al. (2011). "A major Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b Holocene era founder effect in Central and Western Europe". European Journal of Human Genetics. 19: 95–101. PMC 3039512 Freely accessible. PMID 20736979. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.146.
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  134. ↑ "West Asian and European clusters, PCA plot". Retrieved 19 April 2014.
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  137. ↑ "Major admixture in India took place ~4.2-1.9 thousand years ago (Moorjani et al. 2013)". Retrieved 19 April 2014.
  138. ↑ Grugni (2012)p="Iranian groups do not cluster all together, occupying intermediate positions among Arab, Near Eastern and Asian clusters"
  139. ↑ Grugni, Viola; Battaglia, Vincenza; Kashani, Baharak Hooshiar; Parolo, Silvia; Al-Zahery, Nadia; Achilli, Alessandro; Olivieri, Anna; Gandini, Francesca; Houshmand, Massoud; Sanati, Mohammad Hossein; Torroni, Antonio; Semino, Ornella (18 July 2012). "Ancient Migratory Events in the Middle East: New Clues from the Y-Chromosome Variation of Modern Iranians". PLOS ONE. 7 (7): e41252. PMC 3399854 Freely accessible. PMID 22815981. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0041252 – via PLoS Journals.
  140. ↑ Dr Cristofaro, 2013

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Further reading

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