Languages of Tajikistan

Tajik-language street signs in Dushanbe

Official| Persian Tajik (state)
Russian (interethnic)[1]
Recognised| Uzbek
Indigenous| Aimaqi; Bartangi; Bukhori; Ishkashimi; Khowar; Khufi; Kyrgyz; Oroshani; Parya; Pashto; Rushani; Sanglechi; Shughni; Uzbek; Uyghur; Wakhi; Yaghnobi; Yazgulyam
Minority| Armenian; Azerbaijani; Belarusian; Central Asian Arabic; Chinese; Crimean Tatar; Georgian; Dungan; Hazaragi; Tatar; Turkmen; Ukrainian
Immigrant| Dari
Foreign| Persian; Mandarin Chinese; Arabic (Islam in Tajikistan); English; French; German; Turkish
Signed| Russian-Tajik Sign Language
Keyboard layout|

ЙЦУКЕН (Russian)
ЙҚУКЕН (Tajik)

Source| [2]
Alphabet| Tajik
Tajik Braille

There are several languages of Tajikistan. Officially, the country recognizes Russian as the interethnic language and Tajik (a variety of Persian) as the state language. After these two, Uzbek is the next most popular.

Minority languages native to the area include Kyrgyz, Yaghnobi, Parya, and the various Pamir languages. Popular foreign languages to study include English and Chinese.

## Main languages

[edit]

The two official languages of Tajikistan are Russian as the interethnic language and Tajik as the state language, as understood in Article 2 of the Constitution: "The state language of Tajikistan shall be Tajik. Russian shall be the language of international communication."[1] Tajikistan is one of three former Soviet republics in Central Asia to have Russian as a de jure official language, along with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The highly educated part of the population of Tajikistan, as well as the intelligentsia, prefer to speak Persian — the pronunciation of which in Tajikistan is called the "Iranian style" — and Russian.

### Official languages

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#### Tajik

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Main article: Tajik language

The state (national) language (Russian: государственный язык, gosudarstvennyj jazyk; Tajik: забони давлатӣ, zabon-i davlatī) of the Republic of Tajikistan is Tajik, which is written in the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet. Tajik speakers have no problems communicating with Persian speakers from Iran and Dari speakers from Afghanistan, as the Tajik language, according to several linguists, is a variant of the Persian language. Several million native Tajik speakers also live in neighboring Uzbekistan and in Russia.[3]

#### Russian

[edit]

Soviet stamp of 1991 depicting the Mohammed Bashar Mausoleum, with text in Tajik and Russian

Main article: Russian dialects § Tajikistani Russian

According to article 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan,[1] Russian is recognized as the second official language of Tajikistan; the official language of inter-ethnic communication (Russian: язык межнационального общения, jazyk mežnacional'nogo obšenija; Tajik: забони муоширати байни миллатҳо, zabon-i muoširati bayn-i millatho). Russian had previously lost its official status after Tajikistan's independence in late 1991, which was then restored with the Constitution.[4][5]

Approximately 90% of the population of Tajikistan speaks Russian at various levels. The varieties of Russian spoken in Tajikistan are referred to by scholars as Tajik(istani) Russian[6] and it shares some similarities with Uzbek(istani) Russian — and Central Asian varieties of the Russian language in general — such as morphological differences and the lexical differences like the use of words урюк[7] for a wild apricot or кислушка for rhubarb.[8] Previously, from the creation of the Tajikistan SSR until Tajik became the official language of the Tajikistan Soviet Socialist Republic on July 22, 1989, the only official language of the republic was the Russian language, and the Tajik language had only the status of the “national language”.

Colloquial speech has retained almost all Russian borrowed elements (with the exception of words of purely Soviet semantics). Most borrowings, especially colloquial ones, change their phonetics and acquire a sound that is more suitable for the Tajik ear. In most cases, this means, first of all, a change of stress (in the Tajik language, a fixed stress on the last syllable) - картошка, майка; loss of a soft sign that is absent in Tajik - апрел, контрол, change of the sound "ц" to the sound "с" - сирк (цирк), консерт (концерт), frequent replacement of the sound "А" with the sound "О" - мошин (машина), the sound "Ы" for the sound "И" - вибор (выбор), disappearance of the ending to zero - конфет. However, a number of words remain unchanged: март, газета.[9]

### Significant minority languages

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#### Uzbek

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Apart from Russian, Uzbek is actually the second most widely spoken language in Tajikistan after Tajik. Native Uzbek speakers live in the north and west of Tajikistan.

## Language Composition

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[10]

| Tajikistan Native Language Composition

language |  | percent
Tajiki Persian |

| 84.4%
Uzbek |

| 11.9%
Kyrgyz |

| 0.8%
Russian |

| 0.5%
Other |

| 2.4%

## Other minority languages

[edit]

In fourth place (after Tajik, Russian and Uzbek) by number of native speakers are various Pamir languages, whose native speakers live in Kuhistani Badakshshan Autonomous Region. The majority of Zoroastrians in Tajikistan speak one of the Pamir languages. Pamiri often view the exclusion of their languages from educational and official spheres in favour of Tajik as threatening intentional and gradual assimilation. The only support for their languages is from the private Aga Khan foundation. Moreover, Pamiris rarely occupy higher positions of power than first deputy and are not present in law enforcement and security owing to suspicions of anti-government sympathies — such as during the Tajikistani Civil War — and more favourable views towards Russia and Russians contextualised in the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.[11]

Native speakers of the Kyrgyz language live in the north of Kuhistani Badakshshan Autonomous Region.

Yagnobi language speakers live in the west of the country. The Parya language of local Romani people (Central Asian Romani [ru]) is also widely spoken in Tajikistan. Tajikistan also has small communities of native speakers of Persian, Arabic, Pashto, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Turkmen, Kazakh, Chinese, Ukrainian.[12]

## Foreign languages

[edit]

Among foreign languages, the most popular European language is English, which is taught in schools in Tajikistan as one of the foreign languages. Some young people, as well as those working in the tourism sector of Tajikistan, speak English at different levels. Of the European languages, there are also a number of native speakers of German[citation needed] and French.[citation needed]

Many among the Uzbek population learn Turkish in addition to Russian.

Additionally, Mandarin Chinese has grown to become a popular language of study.[13]

## See also

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* Demographics of Tajikistan

## References

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1. ^ a b c "Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan".
2. ^ Power, Justin M. "The origins of Russian-Tajik Sign Language
Investigating the historical sources and transmission of a signed language in Tajikistan". Justin M Power.
3. ^ "Tajik language". Britannica. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
4. ^ "The status of the Russian language in Tajikistan remains unchanged – Rahmon". RIA – RIA.ru. 22 October 2009. Archived from the original on 2 October 2016. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
5. ^ "В Таджикистане русскому языку вернули прежний статус". Lenta.ru. Archived from the original on 5 September 2013. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
6. ^ "Russian: A Monocentric or Pluricentric Language". Colloquia Humanistica. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
7. ^ "Урюк". Lingvolive. ABBYY Lingvo. Retrieved 28 February 2021.[permanent dead link]
8. ^ "Кислушка (ревень)". Lingolive. ABBYY Lingvo. Retrieved 28 February 2021.[permanent dead link]
9. ^ Карина, Рахим-заде. "Взаимопроникновение русского и таджикского языков в разговорной речи населения Душанбе". Studentlib.com. ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ИНСТИТУТ РУССКОГО ЯЗЫКА имени А.С.ПУШКИНА. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
10. ^ "Tajikistan Languages - Demographics". www.indexmundi.com. Retrieved 2023-11-06.
11. ^ "Nationless Ethnic Groups of Tajikistan" (PDF). United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Retrieved 18 December 2021.
12. ^ Sen Nag, Oishimaya (August 2017). "What Languages Are Spoken In Tajikistan". World Atlas. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
13. ^ БАТЕНКОВА, Елена (20 April 2021). "СЕГОДНЯ – МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ ДЕНЬ КИТАЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА. Насколько и почему он популярен в Таджикистане?". Таджикистан 24. Retrieved 4 December 2021.

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Languages of Tajikistan

Official language|

* Tajik (state)
* Russian (interethnic)

Significant
minority|

| Uzbek|

* Northern Uzbek language
* Southern Uzbek language

|

Indigenous languages|

| Pamir|

* Aimaqi
* Bartangi
* Bukhori
* Ishkashimi
* Khowar
* Khufi
* Oroshani
* Parya
* Pashto
* Rushani
* Sanglechi-Ishkashimi
* Shughni
* Wakhi
* Yaghnobi
* Yazgulyam

|

Regional/Minority
languages|

* Armenian
* Azerbaijani
* Belarusian
* Central Asian Arabic
* Chinese
* Crimean Tatar
* Georgian
* Dungan
* Hazaragi
* Kyrgyz
* Parya
* Pashto
* Tatar
* Turkmen
* Ukrainian

Families|

* East Slavic languages
* French Sign Language
* Iranian languages
* Turkic languages

Mixed-speech|

* Iranian style
* Russian-Tajik mixed speech
* Tajik-Uzbek mixed speech
* Tajik-Pamiri mixed speech

Signs|

* Russian Sign Language

Foreign languages|

* Farsi
* Mandarin Chinese
* Arabic
* English
* French
* German
* Turkish

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