Tajik

Tajik (Тоҷикӣ) is a variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is the official language of Tajikistan, and a regional variant of Persian spoken in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Tajik is one of the two official languages of the Republic of Tajikistan (the other being Russian). Tajik is spoken by around 6.5 million people worldwide, making it the 97th most widely spoken language. The majority of Tajik speakers live in Tajikistan, but there are also sizable communities of Tajik speakers in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia and Pakistan. Tajik is also spoken by smaller communities in Iran and Tajikistan. Tajik is a variety of Persian, and as such is mutually intelligible with other varieties of Persian. Tajik is written in the Cyrillic script, as opposed to the Persian alphabet. The Tajik language has a rich literary tradition, and was the literary language of the Persians in Central Asia for centuries. Tajik literature reached its peak in the 16th century, with the works of such writers as Ali-Shir Nava'i and Abdurrahim Munshi. Tajik is a member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is closely related to other Iranian languages such as Persian, Pashto and Dari. Tajik is spoken in a variety of dialects, which can be divided into two main groups: the northern dialects, spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and the southern dialects, spoken in Afghanistan. The dialects of Tajikistan are more similar to those of Uzbekistan, while the dialects of Afghanistan are more similar to those of Iran. The standard dialect of Tajik is based on the dialect of the city of Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. Tajik is also spoken in a number of other countries, including Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Iran.