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Yaghnobi people (or Yagnobian people, Tajik яғнобиҳо /yaġnobiho/, یغنابيها) is the name of a people who live in mountainous Tajikistan. Sometimes they are viewed as a sub-ethnic group of the Tajiks. They live in the Sughd province of Tajikistan, in the valleys of the Yagnob, Kul and Varzob rivers. They speak the Yaghnobi language, a language that has its roots in the Sogdian language.

The 1926 and 1939 census data gives the number of Yaghnabi speakers as approximately 1,800. In 1955, M. Bogolyubov estimated the number of Yaghnabi native speakers as more than 2,000. In 1972, A. Khromov estimated 1,509 native speakers in the Yaghnob valley and about 900 elsewhere. The estimated number of Yagnobi people is approximately 25,000.^[1]

Contents 1 History 2 20th century 3 See Also 4 References 5 External links

Their traditional occupations were agriculture, growing produce such as barley, wheat, and legumes as well as breeding cattle, oxen and asses. There were traditional handicrafts including weaving which was mostly done by the men. The women worked on molding the earthenware crockery.^[2]

Some claim that the Yagnobian racial structure is different than that of the Tajiks, being more similar to the Northern European. The Yagnobi language is unintelligible to the Tajiks. This has given rise to a legend, that Yagnobians and other white-haired Pamirians are the descendants of the Greek armies under Alexander the Great. But authorities say that the Yagnobian people originated from the Sogdians, a people dominant in the area until the Arab conquests in the 8th century when Sogdiana was defeated. In that period Yagnobians settled in the high valleys. Also they are Sunni Muslims, and some elements of pre-Islamic religion (probably, Zoroastrianism) are still preserved.^[3]

Until the 20th century Yagnobians lived through their natural economy and some still do, as the area they originally inhabited is still remote from roads and electrical lines. The first negative contact with outer world occurred in the 1930s during the Great Purge, when some Yagnobians were exiled. But the real tragedy of the people were the 1957 and 1970 forced resettlings from Yagnob mountains to the flat semi-desert lowlands of Tajikistan.^[4][5]

Helicopters were sent to valleys as there was a threat of avalanche to evacuate the population. Some Yagnobians died of shock in helicopters as they were removed to the plains. The officials said that Yagnobians were needed to work on the cotton plantations on the plains. Therefore the Soviet Tajikistani bosses deceived and enslaved this minority people. Some Yagnobians rebelled, some even escaped back to the mountains, but officials destroyed all kishlaks (villages) in the valleys to prevent any attempts to return. They also tried to annihilate the ancient Yagnobian culture, destroying Yagnob religious books, the oldest of which was 600 years old^[6]. Pskon^[7], the biggest village on the Yaghnob River, was erased from the maps, Yagnobian ethnicity was abolished. Through change of climate and back-breaking work several hundred Yagnobians died.^[8]

Since 1983 the first families have begun to return to the Yagnob valley. The majority of those that remain on the plains tend to be assimilated with the Tajiks, as their children study in school in the Tajik language. The returnees keep the Yagnobi culture and language alive. Their children do not speak either Tajik, or Russian. The returnees live through the natural economy and the majority remain without roads and electricity.

• Yaghnobi language

1. ^ The Peoples of the Red Book - The Yaghnabis. Retrieved on November 25, 2006.
2. ^ (Russian) Большая Советская Энциклопедия
3. ^ According to http://www.pamirs.org Zoroastrian Designs on Embrodiary
4. ^ (Russian) Вокруг света - Страны - - Таджикистан - Последние из шестнадцатой сатрапии
5. ^ Loy, Thomas. From the mountains to the lowlands - the Soviet policy of "inner-Tajik" resettlement. Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften. Retrieved on August 6, 2006.
6. ^ Books were thrown into the Yaghnob river
7. ^ as some claim, this name means "treasure of knowledge"
8. ^ Loy, Thomas (July 18 2005). Yaghnob 1970 A Forced Migration in the Tajik SSR. Central Eurasia-L Archive. Retrieved on August 6, 2006.

• The Yaghnobis
• Yaghnubi language
• Central-Eurasia-L Archive
• The Yagbnabis
• Ethnolinguistic map of Tajikistan
• The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire