Sarikoli language

Sarikoli is officially referred to as "Tajik" (Chinese: 塔吉克语, Tǎjíkèyǔ) in China.^[6] However, it is distantly related to Tajik (a form of Persian) as spoken in Tajikistan because Sarikoli is an Eastern Iranian language, closely related to other Pamir languages largely spoken in the Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan and Afghanistan, whereas Persian is a Western Iranian language and the official language of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, having historically been the most dominant Iranian language.^[7] It is also referred to as Tashkorghani,^[8] after the ancient capital of the Sarikoli kingdom—now the Tashkurgan (or Taxkorgan) Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, China. However, the usage of the term Tashkorghani is not widespread among scholars.^{[citation needed]}

The earliest written accounts in English are from the 1870s which generally use the name "Sarikoli" to refer to the language, but some written accounts since that time may use a different pronunciation derived from transcribing Chinese phonetics of the term into English as "Selekur(i)".^[9] Modern Chinese researchers often mention Sarikoli and Tajik names in their papers.^[10][3]

This section does not cite any sources. (February 2022)

The number of speakers is around 35,000; most reside in the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Southern Xinjiang Province, China and the Chitral District of Pakistan, specifically the Broghil Valley.^[5] The Chinese name for the Sarikoli language, as well as the usage of Sarikol as a toponym, is Sàléikuòlèyǔ (萨雷阔勒语). Speakers in China typically use Chinese and Uyghur to communicate with people of other ethnic groups in the area.

The language has no official written form. Linguist Gao Erqiang, publishing in China, used IPA to transcribe the sounds of Sarikoli in his book and dictionary,^[1] while Tatiana N. Pakhalina, publishing in Russia, used an alphabet similar to that of the Wakhi language in hers.^[11][12] The majority of Sarikoli-speakers attend schools using Uyghur as the medium of instruction.^{[citation needed]}

Although to a large extent the Sarikoli lexicon is quite close to those of other Eastern Iranian languages, there are a large number of words unique to Sarikoli and the closely related Shughni that are not found in other Eastern Iranian languages like Wakhi, Pashto or Avestan.

The following text is a paragraph from Gao Erqiang's "Tajik-Chinese Dictionary" (1996), talking about the significance of the development of a writing system for the language of Tajiks of Xinjiang, both in Chinese and Sarikoli. The Sarikoli text is written in the "Pinyin" developed by Gao Erqiang for use in the dictionary. Below, the text is also transcribed in an equivalent Persian alphabet.^[1]