The Iranian peoples[1] or Iranic peoples[2] are a diverse grouping of peoples[1][3] who are identified by their usage of the
Iranian languages (branch of the
Indo-European languages) and other cultural similarities.
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:
Emmanuel Laroche (1957):
ara- "to fit" ("fitting", "proper"). Old Iranian arya- being descended from
Proto-Indo-Europeanar-yo-, meaning "(skillfully) assembler".[18]
Georges Dumézil (1958): ar- "to share" (as a union).
Harold Walter Bailey (1959): ar- "to beget" ("born", "nurturing").
Unlike the
Sanskritārya- (Aryan), the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning.[19][20] Today, the Old Iranian arya- remains in ethno-linguistic names such as Iran, Alan, Ir, and Iron.[21][16][22][23]
In the
Iranian languages, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of
Avesta.[24][a] 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.[25]
In royal Old Persian inscriptions, the term arya- appears in three different contexts:[20][21]
As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of
Darius I in the Bistun Inscription.
As the ethnic background of Darius the Great in inscriptions at
Rustam Relief and Susa (Dna, Dse) and the ethnic background of
Xerxes I in the inscription from Persepolis (Xph).
As the definition of the God of Iranians,
Ohrmazd, in the
Elamite version of the Bistun Inscription.
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".[26] Although Darius the Great called his language arya- ("Iranian"),[26] modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian[26] because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language.[27]
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".[20][28]
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").[20] 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).[29]
The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by the Greek sources.[20]Herodotus, in his Histories, remarks about the Iranian Medes that "Medes were called anciently by all people Arians" (7.62).[20][21] In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as Iranians.[30]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.[20]
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.
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.[20]
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. Some inhabitants of Iran are not necessarily ethnic Iranians by virtue of not being speakers of Iranian languages.
Iranian vs. Iranic
Some scholars such as John Perry prefer the term Iranic as the name for the linguistic family of this category (many of which are spoken outside Iran), while Iranian for anything about the country Iran. He uses the same analogue as in differentiating
German from
Germanic or differentiating
Turkish and
Turkic.[33] German scholar Martin Kummel also argues the same distinction of Iranian from Iranic.[34][35]
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 and the
Tian Shan on the east.
The Indo-Iranian migrations took place in two waves.[36][37] The first wave consisted of the Indo-Aryan migration through the
Bactria-Margiana Culture, also called "Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex," into the Levant, founding the
Mittani kingdom; and a migration south-eastward of the Vedic people, over the Hindu Kush into northern India.[38] The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BC from the Iranians,[39] whereafter they were defeated and split into two groups by the Iranians,[40] who dominated the Central Eurasian steppe zone[41] and "chased [the Indo-Aryans] to the extremities of Central Eurasia."[41] One group were the Indo-Aryans who founded the
Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria;[42] (
c. 1500 – c. 1300 BC) the other group were the Vedic people.[43]Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the
Wusun, an
Indo-EuropeanCaucasian people of
Inner Asia in
antiquity, were also of Indo-Aryan origin.[44]
The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave,[45] and took place in the third stage of the Indo-European migrations[38] from 800 BC onwards.
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 BC. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltavka settlements or close to Poltavka cemeteries, and Poltavka 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.[50] Allentoft et al. (2015) also found close
autosomal genetic relationship between peoples of
Corded Ware culture and Sintashta culture.[51]
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.[52] Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of
copper mining and
bronzemetallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture.[53]
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.[47] It is now recognised as a separate entity forming part of the 'Andronovo horizon'.[46]
The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local
Bronze AgeIndo-Iranian cultures that flourished c. 1800–900 BC in western
Siberia and the west
Asiatic steppe.[54] It is probably better termed an archaeological complex or
archaeological horizon. The name derives from the village of Andronovo (55°53′N55°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,[56] overlapping with the area of the earlier
Afanasevo culture.[57] 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.[56] 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.
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 BC – 1100 BC) as a candidate for the development of Eastern Iranian culture.[citation needed]
Western Iranian peoples
During the 1st centuries of the 1st millennium BC, 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.[64] 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
Sogdians in the east.[29][65] Following the establishment of the
Achaemenid Empire, the Persian language (referred to as "Farsi" in Persian after being changed from Parsi) spread from Pars or
Fars Province (Persia) 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 dominated by the various
Assyrian empires. An alliance of the Medes with the
Persians, and rebelling
Babylonians,
Scythians,
Chaldeans, and
Cimmerians, helped the Medes to capture
Nineveh in 612 BC, which resulted in the eventual collapse of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire by 605 BC.[66] 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 BC and 605 BC, 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),[67] 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 BC), recording a proclamation by
Darius the Great.[68] In southwestern Iran, the
Achaemenid kings usually wrote their inscriptions in trilingual form (
Elamite,
Babylonian and
Old Persian)[69] while elsewhere other languages were used. The administrative languages were Elamite in the early period, and later
Imperial Aramaic,[70] as well as
Greek, making it a widely used
bureaucratic language.[71] 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.[71] 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.[71] 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.[71]
The early inhabitants of the Achaemenid Empire appear to have adopted the religion of
Zoroastrianism.[72] The
Baloch who speak a west Iranian language relate an oral tradition regarding their migration from
Aleppo,
Syria around the year 1000 AD, whereas linguistic evidence links
Balochi to
Kurmanji,
Soranî,
Gorani and
Zazaki language.[73]
Eastern Iranian peoples
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 BC) 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 southeasternmost 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 AD. 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.[8][9][11]
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.[74] 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.[75] 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[76] and
Sarmatia Asiatica[77] covering a combined area of 503,000 sq mi or 1,302,764 km2.
Throughout the 1st millennium AD, the large presence of the Sarmatians who once dominated Ukraine,
Southern Russia, and swaths of the
Carpathians, gradually started to diminish mainly due to assimilation and absorption by the
GermanicGoths, especially from the areas near the Roman frontier, but only completely 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), 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.[78] For instance, the Proto-Slavonic words for god (*bogъ), demon (*divъ), house (*xata), axe (*toporъ) and dog (*sobaka) are of
Scythian origin.[79]
The extensive contact between these Scytho-Sarmatian Iranian tribes in Eastern Europe and the (Early) Slavs included religion. After Slavic and Baltic languages diverged 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.[80]
The Sarmatians of the east, based in the
Pontic–Caspian steppe, became the
Alans, who also ventured far and wide, with a branch ending up in
Western Europe and then
North Africa, as they accompanied the Germanic
Vandals and
Suebi during their migrations. The modern
Ossetians are believed to be the direct descendants of the Alans, as other remnants of the Alans disappeared following Germanic,
Hunnic and ultimately Slavic migrations and invasions.[81]
Another group of Alans allied with Goths to defeat the Romans and ultimately settled in what is now called Catalonia (Goth-Alania).[82]
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.[83]
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,[84][85] and their claims are supported by their Northeast Iranian language, while culturally the Ossetians resemble their
North Caucasian neighbors, the
Kabardians and
Circassians.[81][86] Various extinct Iranian peoples existed in the eastern Caucasus, including the
Azaris, while some Iranian peoples remain in the region, including the
Talysh[87] and the
Tats[88] 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
The main
migration of
Turkic peoples occurred between the 6th and 10th centuries, when they spread across most of
Central Asia. The Turkic peoples slowly replaced and assimilated the previous Iranian-speaking locals, turning the population of Central Asia from being largely
Iranian into being primarily of East Asian descent.[89]
Starting with the reign of
Omar in 634 AD,
MuslimArabs 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.[90] The Iranian peoples would later split along sectarian lines as the Persians 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 AD, 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.
Iranian culture is today considered to be centered in what is called the Iranian Plateau, and has its origins tracing back to the
Andronovo culture of the late
Bronze Age, which is associated with other cultures of the
Eurasian Steppe.[99][100] It was, however, later developed distinguishably from its earlier generations in the Steppe, where a large number of Iranian-speaking peoples (i.e., the
Scythians) continued to participate, resulting in a differentiation that is displayed in
Iranian mythology as the contrast between
Iran and Turan.[99]
Like other Indo-Europeans, the early Iranians practiced ritual sacrifice, had a social hierarchy consisting of warriors, clerics, and farmers, and recounted their deeds through poetic hymns and sagas.[101] Various common traits can be discerned among the Iranian peoples. For instance, the social event of
Nowruz is an ancient Iranian festival that is still celebrated by nearly all of the Iranian peoples. However, due to their different environmental adaptations through migration, the Iranian peoples embrace some degrees of diversity in dialect, social system, and other aspects of culture.[1]
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 people from various western and eastern parts of the world.
The early Iranian peoples practiced the
ancient Iranian religion, which, like
that of other Indo-European peoples, embraced various male and female deities.[103] Fire was regarded as an important and highly sacred element, and also
a deity. In ancient Iran, fire was kept with great care in
fire temples.[103] Various annual festivals that were mainly related to agriculture and herding were celebrated, the most important of which was the New Year (Nowruz), which is still widely celebrated.[103]Zoroastrianism, a form of the ancient Iranian religion that is still practiced by some communities,[104] was later developed and 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. The various religions of the Iranian peoples are believed by some scholars to have been significant early philosophical influences on
Christianity and
Judaism.[105]
Nowadays, most Iranian people follow Islam (Sunnism, followed by Shi'ism), with minorities following Christianity, Judaism,
Mandaeism, Iranian religions and various levels of irreligion.[citation needed]
Iranian languages were and, to a lesser extent, still are spoken in a wide area comprising regions around the
Black Sea, the
Caucasus,
Central Asia,
Russia and the
northwest of China.[106] This population was linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups, while the sedentary population eventually adopted the
Persian language, which began to spread within the region since the time of the Sasanian Empire.[106] The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an "elite dominance" process.[107][108] Moreover, various Turkic-speaking ethnic groups of the Iranian Plateau are often conversant also in an Iranian language and embrace Iranian culture to the extent that the term Turko-Iranian would be applied.[109] A number of Iranian peoples were also intermixed with the
Slavs,[9] and many were subjected to
Slavicisation.[10][11]
The following either partially descend from or are sometimes regarded as descendants of the Iranian peoples.
Azerbaijanis: In spite of being native speakers of a Turkic language (
Azerbaijani Turkic), they are believed to be primarily descended from the earlier Iranian-speakers of the region.[99][1][110][111][112] They are possibly related to the ancient Iranian tribe of the
Medes, aside from the rise of the subsequent
Persian and
Turkic elements (changing of the native Iranian language) within their area of settlement,[113] which, prior to the spread of Turkic, was Iranian-speaking.[114] Thus, due to their historical, genetic and cultural ties to the Iranians,[115] the Azerbaijanis are often associated with the Iranian peoples. Genetic studies observed that they are also genetically related to the Iranian peoples.[116]
Turkmens: Genetic studies show that the Turkmens are characterized by the presence of local Iranian mtDNA lineages, similar to the eastern Iranian populations, but modest female
MongoloidmtDNA components were observed in Turkmen populations with the frequencies of about 20%.[117]
Uzbeks: The unique grammatical and phonetical features of the
Uzbek language,[118] as well as elements within the modern Uzbek culture, reflect the older Iranian roots of the Uzbek people.[106][119][120][121] According to recent genetic genealogy testing from a University of Oxford study, the genetic admixture of the Uzbeks clusters somewhere between the Iranian peoples and the Mongols.[122] Prior to the
Russian conquest of Central Asia, the local ancestors of the Turkic-speaking Uzbeks and the Persian-speaking Tajiks, both living in Central Asia, were referred to as Sarts, while Uzbek and Turk were the names given to the nomadic and semi-nomadic populations of the area. Still, as of today, modern Uzbeks and Tajiks are known to their Turkic neighbors, the
Kazakhs and the
Kyrgyz, as Sarts. Some Uzbek scholars also favor the Iranian origin theory.[123][page needed] However, another study, conducted in 2009, claims that Uzbeks and Central Asian Turkic peoples cluster genetically and are far from Iranian groups.[124]
Uyghurs: Contemporary scholars consider modern Uyghurs to be the descendants of, apart from the ancient Uyghurs, the Iranian
Saka (
Scythian) tribes and other Indo-European peoples who inhabited the
Tarim Basin before the arrival of the Turkic tribes.[125]
The
Hazaras are a Persian-speaking ethnic group native to, and primarily residing in, the mountainous region of Hazarajat, in central Afghanistan. Although the origins of the Hazara people have not been fully reconstructed, genetic analysis of the Hazara indicate partial Mongol ancestry. Invading Mongols (Turco-Mongols) and Turkic invaders mixed with the local indigenous Turkic and Iranian populations. for example Qara'unas settled in what is now Afghanistan and mixed with the local populations. A second wave of mostly Chagatai Turco-Mongols came from Central Asia, associated with the Ilkhanate and the Timurids, all of whom settled in Hazarajat and mixed with the local populations. Phenotype can vary, with some noting that certain Hazaras may resemble peoples native to the Iranian plateau.[126][127]
Croats and
Serbs: Some scholars suggest that the Slavic-speaking Serbs and Croats are descended from the ancient
Sarmatians,[128][129] an ancient Iranian people who once settled in most of southern European Russia and the eastern
Balkans, and that their ethnonyms are of Iranian origin. It is proposed that the Sarmatian Serboi and alleged Horoathos tribes were assimilated with the numerically superior Slavs, passing on their name. Iranian-speaking peoples did inhabit parts of the Balkans in late classical times, and would have been encountered by the Slavs. An archaeogenetic IBD study found that the Slavs make a specific and recognisable genetic cluster which "was formed by admixture of a Baltic-related group with East Germanic people and
Sarmatians or
Scythians".[130] Although previous direct linguistic, historical, or archaeological proof for such a theory is lacking.[b]
Shirazis: The Shirazi are a sub-group of the
Swahili people living on the
Swahili coast of
East Africa, especially on the islands of
Zanzibar,
Pemba, and
Comoros. Local traditions about their origin claim they are descended from merchant princes from
Shiraz in Iran who settled along the Swahili coast.
Sindhis: Though today the Balochis are only 3.6% of
Sindh's population, the population is actually higher, nearly 40%, most of whom don't speak Balochi anymore.[131] Many Balochis such as the
Zardaris and the African Baloch
Makranis came to Sindh to find jobs and eventually founded the city of
Karachi.[132] The
Talpur Dynasty was an ethnic Baloch
Sindhi speaking dynasty that ruled much of Sindh and parts of Balochistan during the
British colonial period. It was believed that the first Baloch came to Sindh during the
Little Ice Age. The Baloch in Sindh are known as the Baruch (ٻروچ).[citation needed]
Recent population genomic studies found that the genetic structure of Iranian peoples formed already about 5,000 years ago and show high continuity since then, suggesting that they were largely unaffected by migration events from outside groups. Genetically speaking, Iranian peoples generally cluster closely with
European and other
Middle Eastern peoples. Analyzed samples of Iranian
Persians,
Kurds,
Azeris,
Lurs,
Mazanderanis,
Gilaks and
Arabs cluster tightly together, forming a single cluster known as the CIC (Central Iranian cluster). Compared with worldwide populations, Iranians (CIC) cluster in the center of the wider West-Eurasian cluster, close to Europeans, Middle Easterners, and South-Central Asians. Iranian Arabs and Azeris genetically overlap with Iranian peoples. The genetic substructure of Iranians is low and homogeneous, compared with other "1000G" populations. Europeans, and certain South Asians (specifically the Parsi minority) showed the highest affinity with Iranians, while Sub-Saharan Africans and East Asians showed the highest differentiation with Iranians.[133]
Paternal haplogroups
Regueiro et al (2006)[134] and Grugni et al (2012)[135] have performed large-scale sampling of Y chromosome haplogroups of different ethnic groups within Iran. They found that the most common paternal haplogroups were:
J1-M267; commonly found among
Semitic-speaking people, was rarely over 10% in Iranian groups.
J2-M172: is the most common Hg in Iran (~23%); almost exclusively represented by J2a-M410 subclade (93%), the other major sub-clade being J2b-M12. Apart from Iranians, J2 is common in northern Arabs, Mediterranean and Balkan peoples (Croats, Serbs, Greeks, Bosniaks, Albanians, Italians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Turks), in the Caucasus (Armenians, Georgians, Chechens, Ingush, northeastern Turkey, north/northwestern Iran, Kurds, Persians); whilst its frequency drops suddenly beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India.[136] In Europe, J2a is more common in southern Greece and southern Italy; whilst J2b (J2-M12) is more common in Thessaly, Macedonia and central – northern Italy. Thus J2a and its subgroups within it have a wide distribution from Italy to India, whilst J2b is mostly confined to the Balkans and Italy,[137] being rare even in Turkey. Whilst closely linked with Anatolia and the Levant; and putative agricultural expansions, the distribution of the various sub-clades of J2 likely represents a number of migrational histories which require further elucidation.[136][138]
R1a-M198: is common in Iran, more so in the east and south rather than the west and north; suggesting a migration toward the south to India then a secondary westward spread across Iran.[139] Whilst the Grongi and Regueiro studies did not define exactly which sub-clades Iranian R1a haplogrouops belong to, private genealogy tests suggest that they virtually all belong to "Eurasian" R1a-Z93.[140] Indeed, population studies of neighbouring Indian groups found that they all were in R1a-Z93.[141] This implies that R1a in Iran did not descend from "European" R1a, or vice versa. Rather, both groups are collateral, brother branches which descend from a parental group hypothesized to have initially lived somewhere between central Asia and Eastern Europe.[141]
R1b – M269: is widespread from Ireland to Iran, and is common in highland West Asian populations such as Armenians, Turks and Iranians – with an average frequency of 8.5%. Iranian R1b belongs to the L-23 subclade,[142] which is an older than the derivative subclade (R1b-M412) which is most common in western Europe.[143]
Haplogroup G and subclades: most concentrated in the Caucasus,[144] it is present in 10% of Iranians.[135]
Haplogroup E and various subclades are frequently found among Middle Easterners, Europeans, northern and eastern African populations. They are present in less than 10% of Iranians.
Two large – scale papers by Haber (2012)[145] and Di Cristofaro (2013)[146] 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:
R1a (subclade not further analyzed) was the predominant haplogroup, especially amongst Pashtuns, the Baloch and Tajiks.
The presence of "East-Eurasian" haplogroup
C3, especially in Hazaras (33–40%), in part linked to Mongol expansions into the region.
The presence of haplogroup J2, like in Iran, of 5–20%.
A relative paucity of "Indian"
haplogroup H (< 10%).
A 2012 study by Grugni et al. analyzed the haplogroups of 15 different ethnic groups from Iran. They found that about 31.4% belong to J, 29.1% belong to R, 11.8% belong to G, and 9.2% belong to E. They found that Iranian ethnic groups display high haplogroup diversity, compared to other Middle Easterners. The authors concluded that the Iranian gene pool has been an important source for the Middle Eastern and Eurasian Y chromosome diversity, and the results suggest that there was already rather high Y chromosome diversity during the Neolithic period, placing Iranian populations in between Europeans, Middle Easterners and South Asians.[147]
^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".[24]
^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."
^
abBrzezinski, 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.
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abcAdams, 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.
^
abAtkinson, Dorothy; Dallin, Alexander; Lapidus, Gail Warshofsky, eds. (1977). Women in Russia. Stanford University Press. p. 3.
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^
abcSlovene Studies. Vol. 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.
^Roy, Olivier (2007).
The New Central Asia: Geopolitics and the Birth of Nations. I.B. Tauris. p. 6.
ISBN978-1-84511-552-4. The mass of the Oghuz who crossed the Amu Darya towards the west left the Iranian Plateau, which remained Persian and established themselves more to the west, in Anatolia. Here they divided into Ottomans, who were Sunni and settled, and Turkmens, who were nomads and in part Shiite (or, rather, Alevi). The latter were to keep the name 'Turkmen' for a long time: from the thirteenth century onwards they 'Turkised' the Iranian populations of Azerbaijan (who spoke west Iranian languages such as Tat, which is still found in residual forms), thus creating a new identity based on Shiism and the use of Turkish. These are the people today known as Azeris.
^Emmerick, Ronald Eric (23 February 2016).
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^Frye, Richard Nelson (2005). Greater Iran. Mazda. p. xi.
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abcMacKenzie, David Niel (1998).
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^Laroche. 1957.
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aristocracy"), Latin ars "art", etc.
^G. Gnoli, "Iranian Identity as a Historical Problem: the Beginnings of a National Awareness under the Achaemenians", in The East and the Meaning of History. International Conference (23–27 November 1992), Roma, 1994, pp. 147–67.
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^MacKenzie D.N. Corpus inscriptionum Iranicarum Part. 2., inscription of the Seleucid and Parthian periods of Eastern Iran and Central Asia. Vol. 2. Parthian, London, P. Lund, Humphries 1976–2001
^R.W. Thomson. History of Armenians by Moses Khorenat’si. Harvard University Press, 1978. Pg 118, pg 166
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^N. Sims-Williams, "Further notes on the Bactrian inscription of Rabatak, with the Appendix on the name of Kujula Kadphises and VimTatku in Chinese". Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies (Cambridge, September 1995). Part 1: Old and Middle Iranian<Studies, N. Sims-Williams, ed. Wiesbaden, pp 79-92
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^R. Hallock (1969), Persepolis Fortification Tablets; A. L. Driver (1954), Aramaic Documents of the V Century BC.
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