Tajik

The Tajik people are an ethnic group of Central Asia. They are the largest ethnic group in Tajikistan, a former Soviet Republic, and the second largest in Afghanistan (next to the Pashtun) and Uzbekistan (next to the Uzbeks). The term Tajik also refers to the language spoken by Tajiks. Originally a dialect of Farsi, the Tajik spoken in Tajikistan is now often considered a separate language (забони тоҷикӣ or زبان تاجیکی), due to the influence of Russian and the cyrillic alphabet and, to a lesser extent, neighbouring Turkic languages.

Tajiks are almost exclusively Muslim, mostly Sunni but with some Shia. One of their strongholds in Afghanistan is in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul; Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Afghan resistance leader, was called the Lion of the Panjshir (which literally means "five lions"). Tajiks also live in China, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and a considerable number have also emigrated to Russia, Europe and North America, particularly during and after the civial war.