Iranian languagesThe Iranian languages, also called Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian languages are grouped in three stages: Old Iranian (until 400 BCE), Middle Iranian (400 BCE – 900 CE) and New Iranian (since 900 CE). The two directly-attested Old Iranian languages are Old Persian (from the Achaemenid Empire) and Old Avestan (the language of the Avesta).
Sogdian languageThe Sogdian language was an Eastern Iranian language spoken mainly in the Central Asian region of Sogdia (capital: Samarkand; other chief cities: Panjakent, Fergana, Khujand, and Bukhara), located in modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; it was also spoken by some Sogdian immigrant communities in ancient China. Sogdian is one of the most important Middle Iranian languages, along with Bactrian, Khotanese Saka, Middle Persian, and Parthian. It possesses a large literary corpus.
Ossetian languageOssetian (ɒˈsɛti.ən , ɒˈsiːʃən , oʊˈsiːʃən ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (irōn ӕvzag), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. It is the native language of the Ossetian people, and is one of the few Iranian languages spoken in Europe; it is a relative and possibly a descendant of the extinct Scythian, Sarmatian, and Alanic languages. It is distantly related to Pashto.
Arabic scriptThe Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin alphabet), the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the third-most by number of users (after the Latin and Chinese scripts). The script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Quran, the holy book of Islam.
DariDari (ˈdɑːri,_ˈdæ-; endonym: دری d̪ɐˈɾiː), also known as Dari Persian (Dari: فارسی دری, , fʌːɾˈsiːjɪ d̪ɐˈɾiː or , fʌːɾˈsiːjɛ d̪ɐˈɾiː), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language; it is known as Afghan Persian or Eastern Persian in many Western sources. As Professor Nile Green remarks, "the impulses behind renaming of Afghan Persian as Dari were more nationalistic than linguistic" in order to create an Afghan state narrative.
Tajik languageTajik, also called Tajiki Persian or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely related to neighbouring Dari of Afghanistan with which it forms a continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of the Persian language. Several scholars consider Tajik as a dialectal variety of Persian rather than a language on its own.
TajikistanTajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It has an area of and an estimated population of 9,750,065 people. Dushanbe is the country's capital and largest city. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, China to the east and is separated narrowly from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. Tajiks form the ethnic majority in the country and the historical Tajik homeland lies in present-day Tajikistan as well as parts of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
Samanid EmpireThe Samanid Empire (Sāmāniyān), also known as the Samanian Empire, Samanid dynasty, Samanid amirate, or simply as the Samanids, was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, of Iranian dehqan origin. The empire was centred in Khorasan and Transoxiana; at its greatest extent encompassing Persia and Central Asia, from 819 to 999. Four brothers—Nuh, Ahmad, Yahya, and Ilyas—founded the Samanid state. Each of them ruled territories under Abbasid suzerainty.
SogdiaSogdia or Sogdiana was an ancient East Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Empire, and listed on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great. Sogdiana was first conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, and then was annexed by the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great in 328 BC.
AlansThe Alans (Latin: Alani) were an ancient and medieval Iranian nomadic pastoral people of the North Caucasus – generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the Alans with the Central Asian Yancai of Chinese sources and with the Aorsi of Roman sources. Having migrated westwards and becoming dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, the Alans are mentioned by Roman sources in the .
