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The 'Zazas' are an Iranic (Aryan) ethnic group and an ethnic minority in Turkey. They primarily live in the eastern Anatolia provinces, such as Adıyaman, Aksaray, Batman, Bingöl, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Erzurum, Erzincan, Gumushane, Kars, Malatya, Mus, Sanli Urfa, Sivas, and Tunceli provinces. Since Zazas are part of Aryan or Iranic ethnic groups, the culture and language of Zazas show some similarities to Gilakis, Kurds, Mazandaranis, Persians, and other Iranic ethnic groups. ^[1]
[2]

Contents

Demographics

Historic roots of the Zaza people

Religion

Language

Notes

References

External links

Demographics

The exact number of Zaza people is unknown, due to an absence of recent and extensive census analysis. The fact that some Zazas have mixed into other regional ethnic groups has also contributed to the uncertainty. Many Zazas live outside their homeland. Apart from widespread suppression and wholesale evacuation of villages, the economically miserable situation of the Zaza areas forces the local population to emigrate into Turkish or European metropoles. There are many Zazas living in Turkish metros, such as Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir. Moreover, there are some Zaza diaspora both in Europe (mainly in Germany) and in other countries (U.S., Canada, etc.) According to estimated figures, the Zaza population should be somewhere between 2 to 4 million. ^[3]
According to a March 2007 survey published by a Turkish newspaper which is open to controversy of its objectivity, Kurds and Zazas together comprise an estimated 13.4% of the adult population, and 15.68% of the whole population in Turkey. Article on Konda survey in Turkish . The ethnic divisions of Turkey is highly controversial and often difficult to understand due to Turkification, historic interpretation of the sociological definition of ethnicity (e.g. the Alevi definition as ethnicity) and the Turkish governments suppression to other ethnicities in the region.

Historic roots of the Zaza people

Main articles: History of the Zaza people

The first mention of the word ''Zaza'' appears on the Behistun Inscription. The text of the inscription is a statement by Darius I of Persia. In the inscription Darius says, “there (is) a town Zazana by name along the Euphrates…” ^[4] However, the connection between the Zazas and the town Zazana referred to by Darius is questionable.
Linguistic studies shows that the Zazas might immigrated to their modern day homeland from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. Some Zazas use the word Dimli (Daylami) to describe their ethnic identity. The word Dimli (Daylami) also describes a region of Gilan Province in today’s Iran. Some linguists connect the word Dimli with the Daylamites in the Alborz Mountains near the shores of Caspian Sea in Iran and believe that the Zaza have migrated from Daylam towards the west. Today the Iranian languages are still spoken in southern regions of Caspian Sea (also called the Caspian languages) like Sangsarī, Māzandarānī, Tātī (Herzendī), Semnānī, Tāleshī, and they are grammatically and lexically very close to Zazaki; this supports the argument that Zazas immigrated to eastern Anatolia from southern regions of Caspian Sea.^[5] On the other hand, a recent genetic analyses claims that genetically Zazas are closer to Kurds.^[6] Zazas also live in a region close to the Kurds, who are also another Iranic ethnic group. But, historic sources such as the Zoroastrian holy book, Bundahishn, places the Dilaman (Dimila/Zaza) homeland in the headwaters of the Tigris, as it is today. This points to that the Dimila/Zaza migrated to the Caspian sea and not the other way around.
But the fact that Kirmancki (Zazaki) people call themselves "Kird" (Kurd), that the related Gurani speakers also consider themselves as Kurds, that the Gilaki people of Northern Iran was called "The Kurds of Tabaristan" in historical sources, and that both the Kirmancki and Kurmanci tribes of the Ottoman Empire is recorded as "Ekrad" (meaning Kurds in Arabic) and the fact that there are dousins of Kirmancki/Kurmanji mixed tribes indicates that the emigration has taken place 'from' Kurdistan 'to' Northern Iran.

Religion

Half of the Zazas are Alevis. The other half of them is Sunni Muslim. The Alevi-Zazas live in the northern part of the Zaza region, whereas the Sunni Zazas inhabit the southern Zaza region.

Language

Main articles: Zazaki language

The first written statements in the Zaza language were compiled by the linguist Peter Lerch in 1850. Two other important documents are the religious writings (Mewlıd) of Ehmedê Xasi of 1899, and of Usman Efendiyo Babıc (published in Damascus in 1933); both of these works were written in the Arabic alphabet.
Zazaki written in Latin letters only became popular in the diaspora after meager efforts in Sweden, France and Germany at the beginning of the 1980s. This was followed by the publication of magazines and books in Turkey, particularly in Istanbul. The efforts of Zaza intellectuals to advance the comprehensibility of their native language by alphabetizing were not fruitless: the number of publications in Zaza increased many times. The rediscovery of the native culture by Zaza intellectuals not only caused a renaissance of Zaza language and culture, it also triggered feelings among younger generations of Zazas (who unfortunately, rarely speak Zaza as a mother tongue anymore) in favor of modern western in the Zaza language, and thus their interest in the most important inheritance of their ancestors. In diaspora, a limited amount of Zaza-language broadcasts are realized. Moreover, after restrictions are removed on local languages in Turkey due to the pressure of the European Union, the state owned TRT television lanched a Zazaki TV program and a radio program on Fridays.

Notes

1. Ludwig Paul, The position of Zazaki among West Iranian languages
2. Krisztina Bodrogi, Competing Collective Identities among the Zazas The Muslim World 89, no. 3-4 (July-October 1999): 439-454
3. Duus (EDT) Extra, D. (Durk) Gorter, Guus Extra, ''The Other Languages of Europe: Demographic, Sociolinguistic and Educational Perspectives'', Multilingual Matters (2001). ISBN 1-85359-509-8. p. 415. Cites two estimates of Zaza-speakers in Turkey, 1,000,000 and 2,000,000, respectively.
Accessed online at Google book search.
4. Behistun Inscription in English
5. Ludwig Paul, The position of Zazaki among West Iranian languages, provenance unclear, accessed online at azargoshnasp.net 15 November 2006.
6.
Ivan Nasidze, Dominique Quinque, Murat Ozturk, Nina Bendukidze and Mark Stoneking, "MtDNA and Y-chromosome Variation in Kurdish Groups", ''Annals of Human Genetics'', July 2005, Volume 69 Page 401. Abstract accessed online 15 November 2006.

References

★ Raymond Gordon, Jr., Editor. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. Fifteenth Edition. (Classification of Zazaki Language.)

★ Bozdağ, Cem and Üngör, Uğur. ''Zazas and Zazaki''. (Religion and the recent situation of Zaza People.)

★ Paul, Ladwig. (1998) ''The Position of Zazaki Among West Iranian languages''. (Classification of Zazaki Language.)

★ Blau, Gurani et Zaza in R. Schmitt, ed., ''Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum'', Wiesbaden, 1989, ISBN 3-88226-413-6, pp. 336-40 (About Daylamite origin of Zaza-Guranis)

★ Extra, Guus. and Gorter Durk. ''The Other Languages of Europe''. (About Demography of Zazas.)

External links

★ zazaki.de - Zazas and Zazaki

★ zazaki-institut.de - Zazaki Language Institute (In German, Zazaki, and Turkish)

★ ZazaPress: journal of zaza language and culture (In Zazaki, Swedish, English and Turkish)

★ Iremet Publishing (iremet publishing was created in order to principally protect, develop and promote the Zaza language.)

★ zazaki.org

★ ethnologue

★ Ethnic Differentiation among the Kurds: Kurmancî, Kizilbash and Zaza

★ "Next: Free Zazaistan?" from World War 4 Report