Pamiri people

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Pamiri people

Pamiri is the name of an ethnic group that live in southern Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south....
, primarily in southeastern Tajikistan

Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east....
and in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia....
.

Pamiris are composed of people who speak the Pamiri languages, the indigenous language

Indigenous language

An indigenous language or autochthonous language is a language that is native language to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples but has been reduced to the status of a minority language....
s of Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia....
's Badakhshan region and in the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous province in Tajikistan, and adhere to the Ismaili

Ismaili

Ismailism is a branch of the Islam, and is the second largest part of the Shia Islam community, after the mainstream Twelvers . The Ismaili get their name from their acceptance of Ismail bin Jafar as the divinely appointed spiritual successor to Jafar al-Sadiq, wherein they differ from the Twelvers, who accept Musa al-Kazim, younger bro...
sect of Shia Islam

Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
. The Pamiris are loyal to Pamir Tokgöz, the head of the Pamiri community.

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Encyclopedia

Pamiri is the name of an ethnic group that live in southern Central Asia

Central Asia

Tajikistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia....
.

Ethnic Identity

The Pamiris are composed of people who speak the Pamiri languages, the indigenous language

Indigenous language

Afghanistan

Ismaili

Islam

Tajiks

Tajik is a general designation for a wide range of mostly Persian language peoples of Iranian peoples, with traditional homelands in present-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, southern Uzbekistan, north west Pakistan and western China....
, the majority population in Tajikistan. The Pamiris share close linguistic, cultural and religious ties with the people in Badakhshan Province

Badakhshan Province

Badakhshan is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, consisting of 28 Districts of Afghanistan. It is located in the north-east of the country, between the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya....
in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia....
, the Sarikoli

Sarikoli

The Sarikoli language is a member of the Pamir languages subgroup of the Southeastern Iranian languages spoken by Pamiris in China. It is officially referred to in China as the "Tajik language" although it is different from the Persian dialect which is official in Tajikistan....
speakers in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County

Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County

Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County is one of the counties of Kashgar Prefecture in western Xinjiang....
in Xinjiang

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of China of the People's Republic of China. It is a large, sparsely populated area, spanning over 1.6 million sq....
Province in China, the Wakhi

Wakhi

Wakhi may be:* The Wakhi language, the language of the majority of the people of Wakhan, also spoken by some Pamiri people* Wakhi people, an ethnic group in Wakhan, Afghanistan....
speakers in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia....
and the Wakhi

Wakhi

Gojal

Gojal, also known as Upper Hunza is the largest tehsil of the Northern Areas of Pakistan, it lies north of the Gilgit region and is situated close to the China border....
region of Northern mountainous areas of Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
. In the Pamiri languages the Pamiris refer to themselves as Pamiri or Badakhshoni, a reference to the historic Badakhshan

Badakhshan

Badakhshan is a region comprising parts of northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan. Badakhshan Province is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan....
region where they live.

History

In 1929 Gorno-Badakhshan was attached to the newly formed republic of Tajikistan, and since that point there has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the ethnic identity of the Pamiris. Tajik nationalists claim the Pamiris to be Tajiks and the Pamiri languages to be dialects of Tajik language

Tajik language

The Tajik language, or Tajik Persian, or Tajiki, is a modern variety of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. An Indo-European languages language of the Iranian languages language group, most speakers of Tajik live in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan....
. The Pamiris claim their own separate identity and there is a consensus amongst linguists

Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
that the Pamiri languages, while closely related to Tajik, are nevertheless a separate group of languages from it. During the Soviet period many Pamiris migrated to the Vakhsh River Valley and settled in Qurghonteppa Oblast

Qurghonteppa Oblast

Qurghonteppa Oblast was an administrative subdivision in Tajikistan until 1992, when it was merged with Kulob Oblast to create Khatlon Province....
, in what is today Khatlon Province. In the 1980s debate raged in Tajikistan about the official status of the Pamiri languages in the republic. After the independence of Tajikistan in 1991 Pamiri nationalism stirred and the Pamiri nationalist political party Lali Badakhshan

Lali Badakhshan

Lal'i Badakhshan was a political movement in Tajikistan. It represented separatist ambitions for the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province....
took power in Gorno-Badakhshan. Anti-government protests took place in the province's capital, Khorog

Khorog

The town of Khorugh , also transliteration as Khoroq, Khorogh, Khorog, or Xoroq) is the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan....
, and in 1992 the republic declared itself an independent country. This declaration was later repealed. During the Tajikistan Civil War

Tajikistan Civil War

The civil war in Tajikistan began in May 1992 when ethnic groups from the Garm, Tajikistan and Gorno-Badakhshan regions, which were underrepresented in the ruling elite, rose up against the national government of President Emomali Rahmonov, in which people from the Leninabad and Kulyab regions dominated....
from 1992–1997 the Pamiris were targeted for massacres, especially those living in the capital Dushanbe

Dushanbe

Dushanbe , population 679,400 people , is the Capital and largest city of Tajikistan. Dushanbe means "Monday" in Tajik language, and the name reflects the fact that the city grew on the site of a village that originally was a popular Monday marketplace....
and Qurghonteppa Oblast. During the civil war Pamiris in large backed the United Tajik Opposition

United Tajik Opposition

The United Tajik Opposition was an alliance of democratic, Liberalism and Islamist forces that fought in the Tajik Civil War from 1992 to 1997 against administration of President Emomali Rahmonov....
. In the early 1990s there was a movement amongst Pamiris to separate Gorno-Badakhshan from Tajikistan.

Religion

Pamiris are Nizari Isma'ili and follow the Aga Khan

Aga Khan

Aga Khan is the hereditary title of the Imam of the Nizari Muslims, the largest branch of the Ismaili followers of the Shia Islam faith. The Ismaili branch of Shia Islam affirms the Imamah of the descendents of Ismail ibn Jafar, eldest son of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq, while the mainstream Twelver Shi`ism branch of Shi`ism follows Ismail's you...
. The Aga Khan Foundation

Aga Khan Foundation

The Aga Khan Foundation is a non-denominational, non-governmental organization, international development founded in 1967 by Aga Khan IV....
became the primary non-governmental organization

Non-governmental organization

Non-governmental organization is a term that has become widely accepted for referring to a legally constituted, non-business organization created by natural or legal persons with no participation or representation of any government....
in Gorno-Badakhshan.