| Group |
Iranian (with Kurdish,
Talysh etc.), Southwest Iranian (with Persian,
Tati etc.) |
| Geography |
The area of the language includes Tadjikistan itself and in the neighbouring
provinces of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. The approximate number
of Tadjik native speakers exceeds 7 million people. |
| History |
Together with Dari and Modern Persian Tadjik
is the offspring of the Classical Persian (Farsi) language which spread
over Central Asia since the 9th century. Though written Persian was not
subject to significant changes, the colloquial speech gradually acquired
dialectal traits due to contacts with Turkish and other native peoples.
After the 16th century one can already state the existance of the independent
Tadjik tongue. |
| Phonetics |
Phonetics include 6 vowels and 24 consonant phonemes. |
| Nominal Morphology |
In ancient times, Tadjik was a flective language, but this was lost
and today's language is totally analytical, no gender or case exist. The
case relations between parts of speech are expressed by means of syntax.
A lot of analytical constructions are in use in the system of the verb
whose tense forms are closely tied with the aspect. There are indicative,
imperative, subjunctive, suppositive moods. Another mood acts like the
perfect tense. |
| Lexicon |
Many words derived from Arabic and Dari do
not break the original Iranian base of the vocabulary. |
| Writing |
Cyrillic alphabet, Latin
alphabet (Tadjikistan), Arabic based script (Afghanistan) |
| Close Contacts |
The closest relative of Tadjik is Dari, spoken all over Afghanistan;
Tadjik is developing in close contact with Uzbek, Kyrgyz and some other
Turkish languages of Central Asia. |
| Sample |
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| Picture |
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| More info |
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