Tajik

Title in Italian: "La letteratura tagica fra riforme e rivoluzioni (1870-1954). Con uno studio preliminare delle Ëddoštho [Memorie] di Sadriddin Ajnī e appendici bibliografiche"

The thesis focuses on the period of reforms and revolutions the Tajik intellectuals and men of letters experienced in the field of culture and literature from the second half of the 19th century, when Tsarist Russia penetrated in Turkestan, to the first Soviet decades (1870-1954).
In 1870, Ahmad Donish, one of the first reformers in the history of Modern Tajik literature, wrote the Risola dar nazmi tamaddun va taovun [Treatise on the organization and regulation of common decency], trying to persuade the emir of Bukhara of the need of reforms.
In 1954, Sadriddin Ayni, the author commonly regarded as the founder of Soviet Tajik literature, died of disease. His final major work, Yoddoshtho [Reminiscences; 1948-1954, uncompleted], to which a preliminary study is devoted to in this thesis, is a collection of lively short-stories where the author describes his childhood spent in two villages near Bukhara, his youth and schooldays in Bukhara city between 1882 and 1903, also depicting the social and economic situation of the Emirate with particular reference to the lowest social strata (petty farmers and craftsmen) living there.
The period under consideration in this thesis also marked the transition from the manuscript era to the periodical press age.
The reformers of the first two decades of the 20th century, the Jadids, turned newspapers and journals into an instrument of protest against the social, cultural, and spiritual degradation of the Bukhara Emirate. In the 1920s, magazines became a platform for the expression of a nascent Tajik nationalism, as in those years Tajikistan, rather than a Federal Republic of the Soviet Union, was an Autonomous Region within the Republic of Uzbekistan. Moreover, Soviet magazines became the first editorial space for the spreading of the Tajik realistic prose, since during the 1920s and the 1930s Tajik tales and novels were first published there in serial form, later in book form."

As one of the first studies on Afghan Masculinities and Gender inequality, the overall purpose of this research is to achieve an in-depth understanding of different notions of being a man in Afghanistan and how they contribute to gender inequality. A multi-method approach employed both quantitative and qualitative techniques to assess four different provinces (Nangarhar, Takhar, Bamyan, and Kabul) that manifested degrees of both conservatism and openness regarding gender issues.

Results affirmed that being a man refers to social roles, behaviours, and meanings prescribed in a particular context. This perception is clearly shown in the shared opinion among all groups in the Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), for older men and women as well as for younger men and women. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) in all provinces described that men should be considered the head of the household. A man has the responsibility to procreate, support, and protect the family and country. Afghan men are perceived to possess the qualities of being brave and honourable.

The majority of the respondents agreed that gender-based violence, although not right, is justifiable when women resist men's decisions. Most of the religious male key informants believed that Islamic rules permit beating a wife in case she is a "Nashiza" (rebellious/disobedient woman). The participants and informants in all provinces stated that women's responsibility is to manage their homes. Older respondents were more inclined to accept this norm compared to their younger counterparts. Moreover, data showed that female respondents with higher educational attainment had a lower inclination to agree with the norm that women should take care of domestic tasks. Higher educational attainment had little effect on Afghan men's responses.

The Sogdian language was once the lingua franca of the Silk Road. After the Arab invasion to Central Asia the language lost its prestige status and slowly diminished. Since the Samanid Empire Persian became the prestigious language and later became a new lingua franca of the region. Sogdian or its dialects, however, did not disappear completely – at first it was an adstrate language in former Sogdiana, later it transformed into a substrate language, that was replaced by local Persian/Tajik vernacular(s) – these varieties of Persian are to be met in the Upper Zarafshon region North-Western Tajikistan. The Upper Zarafshon (or Central) dialects of Tajik reflect many Eastern Iranian linguistic features that can be connected with vernaculars of Sogdiana such as Sogdian and its dialects and Yaghnobi, a language closely related to Sogdian. Eastern Iranian loans in the Central Tajik dialects show rather complicated linguistic situation in the mountainous parts of Sogdiana. It seems, that the Upper Zarafshon Tajik dialects reflect a lost Sogdian dialect related to Yaghnobi, but having features of its own. The paper will show possibilities of study of the lost Sogdian dialect of the old Sogdian region of pyttmʼn/Buttamān.

В данном сообщении вводятся в научный оборот Y-STR гаплотипы узбеков, уйгуров, таджиков, пуштунов, хазарейцев, моголов из базы данных Family Tree DNA. 37 гаплотипов были исследованы авторами статьи. Остальные 81 гаплотип публиковались ранее другими авторами, либо лежат в открытом доступе в базах данных Family Tree DNA. В статье исследованы также данные по роду барлас, разные части которого относятся к разным этносам (узбеки, моголы). Аргументирована мысль об изначальной принадлежности барласов к субкладу С2-F4002 (старкластер).
Ниже, в Приложении 1, приведены гаплотипы, использованные в этой работе.

This paper presents and analyses half a page of Uzbek text that appears in a Tajik-language prose work published at the turn of the 20th century. The Uzbek text was written by a Bukharan bilingual who had Bukharan Tajik as his native language but also possessed competence in Uzbek. The text is a rare example of an Uzbek text written in fully vocalized Hebrew script, and thus provides a rare glimpse into the Tajik-Uzbek bilingualism in the capital area of the emirate of Bukhara in the late 19th century.

Yaghnobi, an Eastern Iranian language spoken in northern Tajikistan, shares many important features with Sogdian and is generally believed to be descended from a nonliterary dialect of Sogdian. The language has historically been in intensive contact with Tajik and more recently with Russian; in addition, some features connecting Yaghnobi with the Pamir language area may be identified. Contact with Tajik has introduced thousands of lexical items, many of which have become an integral part of the Yaghnobi lexicon. There are also examples of Tajik grammatical loans: some of these features, such as the izafet construction or past participles in -gí, have become part of the Yaghnobi grammatical system, while other features, such as the direct object marker -ro or verbal imperfective prefix me-, are usually used in Tajik-dominated mixed speech communities. The intensity of language contact nowadays differs in the various areas inhabited by the Yaghnobis; the present article is based on material recorded in the Yaghnobi-speaking community in the Lower Varzob area, north of the Tajik capital Dushanbe.

Motherland by Shahzoda Nazarova

Called ‘taboo-breaking,’ ‘revolutionary,’ and ‘ahead of [her] time’ by reviewers, the literary works of Shahzoda “Samarqandi” Nazarova are among the most controversial to have emerged from Tajik society in recent years. Winner of the Best Female Author award at the
Eurasian Literary Book Festival 2016, Nazarova has been featured in BBC Persia’s ‘100 Most Influential Women.’ Brought to international recognition by her novels, Registan, Stockholm Syndrome and Motherland – ‘one of the highest picks of prose in Tajik literature’ -
A daring book about dreams and desires, Motherland is an exploration of what it means to be both a part of and apart from a culture. It is a commentary on the meaning of home and where this can be found: in a place, a person or in memories. Written in a poetic style that veers between dreamscapes, stream of consciousness and a sharp, forthright language, it is a ruminative, hard-hitting and poignant manuscript. A poetic narrative, Motherland is a reflection on human’s connection with nature and the collective memories of the people of Central Asia. From the hardships of the Soviet-era to the localised systems of control which
replaced the apparatus of the USSR, a distinctly political dimension is present throughout Nazarova’s novels, all of which remain banned in Uzbekistan.

Motherland

Mahtab is a young social misfit who is disillusioned with her life at university. Everything changes for her, however, when, having read an article about her mother, Aftab in a newspaper, a filmmaker decides to shoot a movie about her mother’s life.
The story begins with the arrival at Mahtab and her mother’s house of the Russian director, Mikhail Molnikov. Having been the honorary director of a collective farm and its first female tractor driver, the much-decorated Aftab is famous within the region. Mahtab is asked to play
the role of her mother’s younger self in the film, and in doing so discovers her love of the and. Vividly described, the endless fields peopled with cotton pickers toiling under the searing Uzbek sun form an integral part of the novel.
During the shoot, Mahtab falls in love with the director and starts to resent her mother, who is stronger than she and skilled at many tasks. Mahtab fails to live up to the director’s expectations, however. When she is asked to drive her mother’s tractor, she crashes into a canal, an accident which sees her lose her memory and internalise the role of her mother as her own, thus becoming an unreliable narrator.
Hospitalised in Moscow, she is taken care of by Natasha, remaining wholly unaware of the fact that Natasha is the director's fiancée and is carrying his baby. By the time Mahtab’s mental health begins to improve, Mikhail and Natasha have moved to Eastern Europe, where
their child is born. The film, The White Gold is eventually screened but is heavily censored, much to the disappointment of the cast and crew. After watching the movie repeatedly, Mahtab goes to look for Mikhail and Natasha, finding them living in a small apartment in Warsaw, where
Mikhail is dying of cancer.
Losing her virginity to a stranger in a hotel room, Mahtab is finally able to free herself from the clutches of the past and break through the iron curtain of taboo. Returning to her
homeland, she steps out of her mother’s shadow and starts fighting corruption in this patriarchal and religious society. In fact, Mahtab is following the same path as her ancestors during Soviet times, when great change and a more open society where men and women
would be treated as equals was promised, but never delivered.
A story about how Central Asian women have been suppressed by the traditions, religious values and customs of their societies, through the eyes of Aftab and her forebears we see how the USSR failed to bring equality and prosperity to all of its inhabitants. Through the eyes of Mahtab, we see that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, much, but ultimately very little has changed.

TAJIKS: IRANIAN PEOPLE OF THE CENTRAL ASIA
AND
TAJIKISTAN: IN THE 20 ANNIVERSARY OF ITS INDEPENDENCE

Situated at the heart of Central Asia, Tajikistan is the only
country with a Persian-language. Tajiks, who are thought to
be the natural heirs of Old Persians, Sogdians and Samanids
and representative of sedentary civilizations have carried
out their traditional lifestyles for centuries under the roof of
Islam along with neighboring Turkic peoples. With the
occupation of ‘Turkestan’ by Russians, a new process
started. The process beginning with the occupation of
‘Turkestan’ by Russians focused on the goal of creating a
socialist society after the October Revolution. During this
period, “Tajik” identity, like the other national identities,
was created by the Soviet social engineering of nationbuilding.

In the first article of this study, that consists of two articles,
the geography and the ethno-linguistic structure of the first
independent Iranian state established 992 years after the
collapse of the Samanid Dynasty and paradigms which the
present regime is built upon are evaluated in the light of the
information contained in the fundamental sources and
observations in the field. In this way it is aimed that the
Turkish readers will be better informed about Tajikistan and
understand the aspects of 1500 years l

Press release
Open Eurasian Literary Festival and Book Forum:

Shahzoda Nazarova Samarqandi And her “Stockholm Syndrome”, The most uncensored Tajik novel  19 November, 2017, on her birthday, and on the tenth anniversary of her first and most controversial novel ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, Shahzoda Nazarova, internationally acclaimed Tajik writer and poet, was invited to Stockholm, to launch her award winning novel ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.
Called ‘taboo-breaking… revolutionary” by RFE/RL, Stockholm Syndrome is one of the most controversial books to emerge from Tajik society in recent years. The story of a young woman’s struggle to choose between her career and motherhood, the novella shocked this traditional and conservative society. A remembrance of childhood and rumination upon challenges present and future, Nazarova’s work explores themes of immigration, identity and mental imbalance. Acclaimed as ‘ahead of its time’ by Persian reviewers, Stockholm Syndrome is an emotional tour de force.
Winner of the Best Female Author award at the Eurasian Literary Book Festival, Nazarova has been featured in BBC Persian’s “100 Most Influential Women.”
Brought to international recognition by her novel Motherland – ‘one of the highest picks of prose in Tajik literature,’(BBC Persian) - she is also the founder of Chashme Del, the first television programme in Samarkand to be broadcast in the Tajik language.
An avid campaigner against all forms of censorship, Nazarova has worked at newspapers in Samarkand and for the BBC Persian Service. Resident in Holland for the past eleven years, she is currently editor for the Central Asian and Afghanistan regions at Radio Zamaneh.

“Stockholm Syndrome’ was written in 2007 and translated into several regional languages, but have never been published in her homeland, Uzbekistan. Shahzoda Nazarova was on the black list set by Islam Karimov regime, alongside of other thousands of intellectuals, for objecting and opposing to censorship and repressions inside the country.
Stockholm Syndrome was translated by Daryoush Poor and edited by Stephen M. Bland and published by ‘The book is an exploration of what it means to be both a part of and apart from a culture. It’s a ruminative, hard-hitting and poignant commentary on the meaning of home and where this can be found: in a place, a person or in memories,’ commented the book’s British editor, author Stephen M. Bland.
Literary Figures from Tajikistan Recognised in the Capital of Sweden
On November 20th, 2017, awards were handed to Tajik writers in Stockholm, Sweden as part of the sixth chapter of the literary festival, Open Eurasian Literature Festival & Book Forum. The festival took place over four days in the heart of Sweden in the city famous for its rich culture.
A total of 14 events were held as part of the OEBF 2017, including presentations by authors from Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Israel, Great Britain, Bulgaria, Sweden and other countries. Roundtables and art exhibitions also took place. More than 300 people from 20 countries attended the festival.
Shahzoda Nazarova, the ‘Best Female Author, 2016, Official Book launch in Stockholm by OEBF and Literary Guild - Internationally acclaimed Tajik writers presenting their creative works at the OEBF festival was Shahzoda Nazarova from Samarkand, winner of the accolade, ‘Best Female Author, 2016 named after Marziya Zakiryanova. A writer who pens her works in Farsi, this year her book, Stockholm Syndrome was translated into English and presented at the ABF Cultural Center in the hall named after Swedish writer, Elsa Beskow.
As part of the closing ceremony for the Open Eurasian Literature Festival & Book Forum 2017, participants visited the two most important libraries in Stockholm, the International Library of Sweden and the Stockholm Public Library, donating their books In Tajik, Russian and English as a sign of friendship and cooperation between peoples, because fiction is the cultural and spiritual heritage of all mankind.


• Hardcover: 102 pages
• Author: Shahzoda Nazarova Samarqnadi
• Copy right: Shahzoda Nazarova
• Available translation for mega publishing: in English, in, Russian, Uzbek, Dutch,  languages
• Original written language: Persian, in both scripts
• To purchase rights contact: Red Intellect, a small publishing company in The Netherlands, www.redintellect.org
• Tell: 0031+614-20-60-50/ 00299-84-10-18
• Email: books@redintellect.org

This paper analyses New Persian words transcribed in Chinese script in huihuiguan zazi 回回館雜字, a New Persian-Chinese glossary compiled in Ming China. The analysis reveals a correspondence between the vowel contrasts of modern Tajik and those of the variety of New Persian whose words are recorded in the glossary. This paper also identifies, based on historical records, the variety as an early fifteenth-century New Persian which had diplomatic currency in the Timurid court in Samarkand.

Tacikistan’ın devlet dili olan Tacikçe, Farsça ve Derice gibi dillerin de mensup oldukları güney-batı İrani dillerin bir üyesidir. Tacikçe, yirminci yüzyılın başlarında bazı yazarlar ve bilginler tarafından Farsçanın Orta Asya lehçesi olarak tanımlanırdı. Tacikçenin bir Fars lehçesi olduğu yönündeki bu görüş, çağdaş Batı dilbiliminde de yaygındır. Tacikçenin kendi başına bir dil oluşturup oluşturmadığı konusundaki tartışmanın siyasi yönü vardır. Biz bu kitapta siyasi tartışmaya karışmayacağız. Elinizdeki kitapta tasvir edilen dil değişkesi, Sovyet dilbiliminde adı genellikle забони адабии ҳозираи тоҷик olarak geçen Tacik yazı dilidir. Kitabın bazı bölümlerinde, açıklamanın net olarak anlaşılmasını sağlamak üzere, yazı dilinin tasvirinin yanı sıra konuşma dilinin de tasvirine yer verilmiştir.

This paper provides facts and figures on the prevailing language situation in Central Asia, along with an overview of the legal status of different languages and data on language use in various spheres of public life. The paper is divided into four sections: basic facts and figures, historical and legal overview; language use in different spheres; media/culture. Data are provided on all five countries of post-Soviet Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The first three formant frequency (F1, F2, and F3) values of vowels produced by three Bukharan Eroni informants were measured. An analysis of the F1 and F2 values of the vowels indicated an apparent lack of sociolinguistic variation between the Eroni informants’ Bukharan Tajik vowel system and the Bukharan Tajik vowel system of the general (non-Eroni) population of Bukhara. It also revealed an apparent interlingual consistency between the informants’ Bukharan Tajik and Uzbek vowel systems.

WAS THE PRE-SOVIET CITY ETHNIC? ON THE PALETTE OF THE
IDENTITY OF BUKHARA IN EARLY 20th CENTURY Ghaybullah Babayarov, Eldar Аsаnоv
In Bukhara, in the beginning of the 20th century there were very diverse identities that were religious, ethnic, tribal, local or class in nature. In the course of turbulent political events, tribal groups and sedentary communities in the region united into larger alliances, which, however, were still far from the concept of a nation. These enlarged groups gave rise to the traditional for Central Asia of the 16th – 19th centuries identities that we call ethnic. These identities were radically revised in the beginning of the 20th century within the framework of Soviet nationality policy. Some of them received official recognition and were filled with national content, i.e. their understanding has been revised; others, on the contrary, were ignored and incorporated into other identities. The largest ethnic groups of the Bukhara Emirate – Uzbeks and Tajiks – began to be considered nations, and these names acquired slightly different connotations.

https://lincom-shop.eu/epages/57709feb-b889-4707-b2ce-c666fc88085d.sf/en_GB/?ObjectID=4131503

Some Iranian languages have been in intensive contact with Turkic languages for many centuries. Tajik and Uzbek are representative of the languages that have co-existed in the Iranian-Turkic language contact in Central Asia. Uzbek is a Turkic language that has Chaghatay as its literary predecessor and is the 'state language' of the republic of Uzbekistan. Tajik, on the other hand, is a South-West Iranian language which is genetically closely related to such Iranian languages as Persian and Dari. Most Tajik speakers are in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; within the latter Samarkand and Bukhara are particularly densely populated by Tajik speakers. The cohabitation of Tajik speakers with Uzbek speakers has made Tajik-Uzbek bilingualism the norm in much of this area. Bukhara is one of the cities where Tajik-Uzbek bilingualism is most pronounced; virtually all Tajik speakers in Bukhara are bilingual in Tajik and Uzbek.

This book contains transcriptions of recordings of the Tajik language used by Bukharans who have had no formal education in/of Tajik. A large number of linguistic features of Bukharan Tajik are considered to have emerged or have been retained under the influence of Uzbek.

Before he passed away, Academic Muhammadjon Shakuri Bukhori (1926-2012) spoke about his experiences with the Soviet system. The following article, dealing with the Tajiki language law and the struggle for making Tajiki an independent national language is one of ten articles dealing with aspects of Academic Shakuri's final thoughts. The article is taken from Hikayaha-i Akanda as Hayat, (stories brimful with life) Dushanbe, 2014, pp.23-48.

Published in the volume entitled: Abdurahman Jami and Cultural Values of His Era, which is dedicated to the 600th anniversary of Abd al-Rahman Jami celebrated in the Republic of Tajikistan in 2014. This word addresses problems of historical, cultural, artistic, and aesthetic values of the era of the great thinker and humanist.

https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/titel_1137.ahtml

This book analyses ‘incomplete sentences’ in languages that utilise distinctively agglutinative components in their morphology. In the grammars of the languages dealt with in this book, there are certain types of sentences which are variously referred to as ‘elliptical sentences’ (Turkish eksiltili cümleler), ‘incomplete sentences’ (Uzbek to‘liqsiz gaplar), ‘cutoff sentences’ (Turkish kesik cümleler), etc., for which the grammarians provide elaborated semantic and syntactic analyses. The current work attempts to present an alternative approach for the analysis of such sentences. The distribution of morphemes in incomplete sentences is examined closely, based on which a system of analysis that can handle a variety of incomplete sentences in an integrated manner is proposed from a morphological point of view. The linguistic data are taken from Turkish, Uzbek, Japanese, and (Bukharan) Tajik.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S002510031300011X
Standard Tajik, or Modern Literary Tajik as it was called during the Soviet era, was established in the nineteen twenties and thirties based largely on the dialects of the Bukhara-Samarkand area, which was at the time the undisputed cultural centre of the Tajik-speaking population. Dushanbe, the current capital of Tajikistan, was then a small village with a population of only a few hundred and had no cultural heritage comparable to that of Bukhara or Samarkand. Bukharan Tajik, whose phonology is described in this paper, is a variety of Tajik that played a particularly influential role in the phonological standardization of Tajik, which took place for the most part in 1930. For instance, the Scientific Conference of Uzbekistan Tajiks of 1930 resolved that the dialect of Bukhara must be the designated basis of the sound and orthography of literary Tajik (вaroji tajjorī вa kanfiransijaji ilmiji istalinoвod 1930: 2). In August the same year, the Linguistic Conference held in the then newly established Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic also adopted a similar resolution that establishes the ‘language of the Tajiks of Samarkand and Bukhara’ as the reference point in establishing the literary (i.e. standard) pronunciation (Halimov 1974: 126). According to Bergne (2007: 82), ‘the same Linguistic Conference of 22 August 1930 in Stalinabad decided that the phonetic base for the language had better be the dialect of Bukhara’. Thus, the Bukharan Tajik of today is the direct descendant of the variety of Tajik which served as a primary basis of standard Tajik phonological norms; and hence differs little from standard Tajik phonologically and phonetically.

The article is devoted to the history of development of Tajik feature films in 50th of the XX century. Influence of the traditions of Tajik theatre on the cinema is considered and key films of the period of the formation of Tajik fiction cinema are discussed as well.

https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/jjl/5/1/article-p81_4.xml

The present article describes the vowel chain shift that occurred in the variety of Tajik spoken by Jewish residents in Bukhara. It identifies the chain shift as constituting of an intermediate stage of the Northern Tajik chain shift and accordingly tentatively concludes that in the Northern Tajik chain shift Early New Persian ā shifted before ō did, shedding light on the process whereby the present-day Tajik vowel system was established. The article is divided into three parts. The first provides an explanation of the variety of Tajik spoken by Jewish inhabitants of Bukhara. The second section explains the relationship between this particular variety and other varieties that have been used by Jews in Central Asia. The third section deals specifically with the vowel system of the variety and the changes that it has undergone since the late 19th century.

این جستار یکی از افسانه های قوم ایرانی یغناب، باشنده در کشور جمهوری تاجیکستان است که آن را سیاوش مرشدی از روی کتاب «فولکلور یغناب» (به خط سیریلک و لاتین) تألیف طغای مراد یارزاده  خط برگردان و بازنویسی به فارسی کرده است و در دو ماهنامه چیستا (مهر و آبان 1390، ردیف 286 و 287، شماره 1 و 2 ، ص50 - 53) چاپ کرده است. حواشی از برگردان کننده در زمینه لغت شناسی و واژگان تطبیقی ایرانی یادداشت شده است.

Identity is a key term in anthropology but it is also a contested one, dealing with the question of who we are in relation to others. It relates, on the one hand, to categories of the individual or sameness with oneself and, on the other, to collective distinctions of otherness. It is both a practice and a process of cognitive classification. It is fluid and transcending boundaries but, to a certain degree, has to be stable in order for others to identify one as theirs. Furthermore, it is at the same time a public discourse and an obvious phenomenon in the world and is thus an object of inquiry if not an analytical category. Most prominent among the many identity aspects we employ is probably the ethnic one, which hinges on a bundle of markers used to distinguish each other in presumed cultural terms, always embedded in power games that try to secure political support and loyalty. Identity is a key term in anthropology today but it is also one full of ambiguities. It is, on the one hand, both new and old, some might even say outdated. And it is, on the other hand, omnipresent and seemingly self-explanatory but also highly contested, accused of being fashionable and lacking analytical precision. It is new as it became prominent in the discipline only during the 1970s and has since experienced a remarkable popularity. At the same time, the very concept behind it, namely the question of who we are in relation to others, socially, culturally, and biologically-can be said to be as old as the engagement with anthropological questions themselves. And it is precisely due to this omnipresence and its multiple meanings that identity-in a frequently expressed opinion-has become something of a black box for the unexplainable in human behaviour and social interaction (Brubaker and Cooper 2000). Let us begin with the critique. As with many anthropological concepts, identity is not only a concept that is shared with other disciplines, sociology and psychology in particular, but also one that simultaneously carrying a lay understanding that often interferes with the academic usage. It is thus a classical case of what Anthony Giddens (1976) has called the "dual hermeneutics" of the social sciences. We do not "own" our concepts but have to share them with popular and political discourses. In popular usage, however, concepts often prevail that have largely been abandoned in academia or have fundamentally changed their meaning

Současný Tádžikistán je lingvisticky bohatý region – kromě úřední tádžičtiny a ruštiny jakožto lingvy franky zde máme 13 východoíránských a dva turkické jazyky, okrajově též lokální cikánské a arabské dialekty. Tádžická nářečí a toponyma poskytují data k poznání situace před dominancí tádžičtiny. Příspěvek nastíní možnosti studia minulých (íránských) jazyků Tádžikistánu na základě studia tádžických dialektů a jejich srovnáním se současnými východoíránskými jazyky.