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Concept
Yaghnobis
Summary
The Yaghnobi people (Yaghnobi: yaγnōbī́t or suγdī́t; яғнобиҳо, yağnobiho/jaƣnoʙiho) are an East Iranian ethnic minority in Tajikistan. They inhabit Tajikistan's Sughd province in the valleys of the Yaghnob, Qul and Varzob rivers. The Yaghnobis are considered to be descendants of the Sogdian-speaking peoples who once inhabited most of Central Asia beyond the Amu Darya River in what was ancient Sogdia.
They speak the Yaghnobi language, a living Eastern Iranian language (the other living members being Pashto, Ossetic and the Pamir languages). Yaghnobi is spoken in the upper valley of the Yaghnob River in the Zarafshan area of Tajikistan by the Yaghnobi people, and is also taught at schools. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has often been called Neo-Sogdian in academic literature.
The 1926 and 1939 census data gives the number of Yaghnobi language speakers as approximately 1,800. In 1955, M. Bogolyubov estimated the number of Yaghnobi native speakers as more than 2,000. In 1972, A. Khromov estimated 1,509 native speakers in the Yaghnob valley and about 900 elsewhere. The estimated number of Yaghnobi people is approximately 25,000.
The Sogdian language is one of the Iranian languages, along with Bactrian language, Khotanese Saka, Persian language, Tajik language, Pashto language, the Kurdish languages and Parthian language. It possesses a large historic literary corpus.
Their traditional occupations were in agriculture, growing produce such as barley, wheat, and legumes as well as breeding cattle, oxen and asses. There were traditional handicrafts including weaving which was mostly done by the men. The women worked on moulding earthenware crockery.
The Yaghnobi people originated from the Sogdians, a people dominant in the area until the Muslim conquests in the 8th century when Sogdiana was defeated. In that period Yaghnobis settled in the high valleys.
The ancient Sogdians fled to the Yaghnob Valley to escape the medieval Arab Caliphate, and their direct descendants, the Yaghnobi, lived there in peaceful isolation until the 1820s.
Official source
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