Tajik is a redirect to this article. For other meanings, see Tajik (disambiguation).
The word Tajik (Persian تاجيک, DMG Tāǧīk; tdk. Тоҷик), in earlier forms also Tāzīk or Tāžīk with the original meaning "Arab", has been another name for "Persian" since the Middle Ages, especially in the Iranian- and Turkic-speaking parts of the Islamic world.
The name has its actual origin in the Arabic tribal name "Ṭayyiʿ". These had settled as the most prominent Arab group in Central Asia after the Muslim conquest of Persia. In the course of the Turkish and Mongol conquest of Central Asia, the name was first applied to all Muslims, but later specifically to the Persian-speaking and Iranian majority of the region's population.
Today, the term is understood to refer primarily to the Persian-speaking population of Central Asia, primarily Tajikistan, which is named after them. In a broader sense, the term is also extended at the political level to related neighbouring peoples in Afghanistan and China, but this is not always uniform. For example, the Hazara and Aimaks, who are also Persian-speaking, are not usually counted as "Tajiks", while non-Persian-speaking but Iranian peoples in China or Mountain Badakhshan are considered "Tajiks", e.g. the Tajiks of China.
As a self-designation, the literary Neo-Persian term Tajik, which originally had a pejorative use as a term for Persian or Iranian, has become increasingly acceptable, especially in the 20th century, due to modern boundaries and differentiation from Persians in modern Iran. Alternative names for the Tajiks include Persians from the East, Fārsīwān (Persian/Persian-speaking), and Dīhgān, which translates as "peasant or sedentary villager," by extension "settled" as a contrast to "nomadic."
In Sassanid and early Islamic times, the term Dīhgān was used for landowners and barons of "Noble Persian Blood".
