The standard Persian variety spoken in Iran, with a rich literary tradition rooted in classical poetry and modern expression.
Tajik
The Persian variety spoken in Tajikistan, written in Cyrillic script with unique vocabulary influenced by Central Asia.
Shareable facts
Frequently asked questions
What language is Tajik?
Tajik is a dialect of the Persian language.
Where is Tajik spoken?
Tajik is primarily spoken in Tajikistan.
Which region is Tajik associated with?
Tajik is part of the Central Asia region on DialectAtlas.
How many people speak Tajik?
Tajik is spoken by approximately 8,000,000 people.
Is Tajik endangered?
Tajik is not currently classified as endangered. It has a stable speaker community with active intergenerational transmission.
What are the other dialects of Persian?
Persian also includes Farsi, Dari, Hazaragi, Kabuli, Herati. Each variety has its own vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural context.
Other Persian dialects
See on the atlas →The Persian variety spoken in Afghanistan, sharing deep roots with Farsi while carrying its own vocabulary and pronunciation.
A distinctive Persian dialect of the Hazara people, with its own verb forms, vocabulary, and cultural identity rooted in central Afghanistan.
Kabuli Persian · Kabuli Dari · Kābolī
The Dari variety of Kabul and the prestige basis of standard Afghan Persian as used in broadcast, government, and education. Sociolinguistically dominant across most of eastern and central Afghanistan, with several million speakers.
Herati Persian · Herati Dari · Herātī
The Dari of Herat and the Hari Rud valley in western Afghanistan. Transitional between Kabuli Dari and the Khorasani Persian of north-eastern Iran, with strong Iranian features in vocalism and lexicon. Around two million speakers.
Nearby dialects
See on the atlas →154 km away
The largest Pamir Iranian language, spoken across Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan and the Afghan Pamir. Forms a dialect cluster with Rushani, Bartangi, and Roshorvi.
221 km away
An eastern Iranian language of the Yaghnob valley in Tajikistan. The only living descendant of Sogdian, the lingua franca of the medieval Silk Road; critically endangered.
283 km away
A Pamir Iranian language spoken across the Wakhan Corridor where Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and China meet. One of the most archaic Iranian languages, retaining features of Old Iranian lost everywhere else.
323 km away
A Karluk Turkic language and the most-spoken Turkic language after Turkish. The official language of Uzbekistan, with substantial communities across Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Caucasus.
410 km away
A language isolate spoken in the Hunza, Yasin, and Nagar valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan, northern Pakistan. Around 100,000 speakers; the most-spoken language isolate of Asia.
457 km away
A cluster of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in eastern Afghanistan, especially Kapisa, Laghman, and Nangarhar. Linguistically a Dardic language, sister to Kashmiri rather than to Hindi.
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Sources & corpora
Data on Tajik from open scholarly databases. Each link opens the source in a new tab.