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Not to be confused withZazi, an eastern IranianPashtun tribe.
According toEncyclopædia Iranica theendonymDimlī orDīmla was derived fromDaylam region in Northern Iran, and appears in Armenian historical records asdelmik,dlmik, which was proposed to be derived fromMiddle Iranian*dēlmīk meaningDaylamite. Among their neighbors the people are known mainly as Zāzā, which meant “stutterer” and was used as apejorative. Hadank and Mckenzie attribute relative abundance ofsibilants andaffricates in Zaza language to explain the semantic etymology of the name.[3]
History
Origins and early history
Linguistic evidence put theurheimat of the Zaza language to Northern Iran, especially around the southernCaspian region due to the similarities between Zaza,Talysh,Gilaki andMazanderani languages. The etymology of the endonymDimlī and the historical records of migration fromDaylam to Central Anatolia in Armenian sources are also cited as an evidence ofDaylamite origins of the Zaza people. Academics propose that this migration event happened in 10th to 12th centuries AD.[3][16] However, a study from 2005 does not support the Northern Iranian theory and rather proposes a closer link between Kurdish and Zaza-speakers compared to Northern Iranian populations.[17]
Kurmanji-speakingKurds and Zazas have for centuries lived in the same areas inAnatolia. Arakelova states that Zazas had not claimed a separate ethnic identity from Kurds and were considered a part of the Kurds by outsiders through history, despite "having a distinct national identity and ethnic consciousness".[16]
The Zazaminstrel tradition goes back to the medieval period, when Zaza-speaking bards composed works both in their mother tongue and in Turkish.[3]
Modern period
The earliest surviving literary works in the Zaza language are two poems with identical titles,Mawlūd, dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[3]
In 1937 during theDersim rebellion, Zazas once again rebelled against the Turks. This time the rebellion was led bySeyid Riza and ended with a massacre of thousands of Kurmanji-speaking Kurds and Zaza civilians, while many were internally displaced due to the conflict.[22]
The exact number of Zazas is unknown, due to the absence of recent and extensive census data. The last census on language in Turkey was held in 1965, where 150,644 people ticked Zaza as their first language and 112,701 as their second language.[27] More recent data from 2005 suggests that the Zaza-speaking population varies from approximately 2 to 4 million.[2]
According to a 2015 study that examined the demographics of the voting-age population in theKurdish inhabited areas in Turkey (Northeast,Central East andSoutheast Anatolia statistical regions, n=1918) 12.8% of the people ethnically identified as Zaza, which made Zaza the biggest ethnic identity after Kurdish (73%) in the region. Zaza speakers were more numerous (15%) compared to people who identify with the Zaza ethnic identity, showing that some Zaza speakers identified as other ethnicities, primarily Kurds.[28]
Following the1980 Turkish coup d'état, many intellectual minorities, including Zazas, emigrated from Turkey towardsEurope,Australia and theUnited States. The largest part of the Zaza diaspora is in Europe, predominantly in Germany.[5]
Zaza is the ancestral language of the Zaza people and belongs to theZaza–Gorani branch of theIranian languages. It is spoken in the east of modernTurkey, with approximately two to three million speakers. There is a division between Northern and Southern Zaza, most notably in phonological inventory, but Zaza as a whole forms a dialect continuum, with no recognized standard.[2]
A study published in 2015 that demographically analysed voting-age adults in theKurdish inhabited regions of Turkey (excluding diaspora) concluded that 96.2% of people who identified as Zaza, but not Kurdish in the region spoke Zazaki as theirmother tongue. On the contrary only 58.4% of the surveyed Zaza people declared that their primaryhome language was Zazaki, andTurkish was the second most popular home language with 38.3% of Zazas speaking it at their homes. 1.9% of the surveyed people who identified as Zaza expressed that their home language was Kurdish. Around 1.4% people belonging to Kurdish ethnic identity also spoke Zazaki as their mother language. Concerning Alevis, which were separately analysed, c. 70% spoke Zazaki, but Turkish (70%) was the dominant household language.[28] Ziflioğlu states that many[quantify] Zazas only speakKurmanji.[4][dubious –discuss]
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 ofEhmedê Xasi of 1898,[29] and ofOsman Efendîyo Babij; both of these works were written inArabic script.[30] The state-ownedTRT Kurdî airs shows in Zaza.[4] During the 1980s, the Zaza language became popular among the Zaza diaspora, followed by publications in Zaza in Turkey.[31]
Religion
Predominantly Zazas adhere toSunni Islam.[32] According to a 2015 study that examined the voting-age adults of the Eastern and Southern Anatolia 75.4% of the people who stated that they were ethnically Zazas belonged to theShafiʽi school of Islam, similar to Kurdish groups, but in contrast to local Turkish and Arab people who were majorityHanafi.[28] Shafi‘i followers among the Zaza people are mostlyNaqshbandi.[33]
Alevism is the second largest Islamic sect among Zazas with 14.8% adhering it, and Zazas had the highest Alevi percentage among any group by far, being followed by Turks (5.4%) and Kurds (3.1%). It was also reported that around 70% of the Alevis spoke Zazaki as their mother language. Zaza Alevis predominantly live aroundTunceli Province. Hanafism, which is the biggest Islamic school in both Turkey and among the Turkish and Arabic people in the region, is being adhered by 9.8% of the Zaza population.[28] Historically, a smallChristian Zaza population existed inGerger.[34]
Identity
According to Kehl-Bodrogi and Arakelova Zazas never claimed a separate existence from Kurds and largely consider themselves Kurds.[8][9] However, some scholars consider them to be a separate ethnic group, and treat them as such in their academic work.[35]
According to a national survey conducted byKONDA Research and Consultancy in 2019 around 1.5% of the population state "Zaza" as theirethnic identity, thus forming the fourth largest ethnic identity in the country.[36][37] According to a 2015 survey conducted in Turkish Kurdistan among voting-age adults, the majority of the Zazaki-speakers ethnically identified as "Zaza" in contrast to other options such as Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic.[28]
Politically, Zazas belonging to Alevism and Sunnism generally hold widely different views from each other. Since2002 elections Sunni Zazas mostly voted for rulingJustice and Development Party both nationally and locally, meanwhile Alevi Zazas have shown wide support for left-wing or Kurdish-oriented parties, namely HDP and CHP. For the presidential elections Sunni Zazas were reported to be voting forRecep Tayyip Erdoğan, in contrast to the Alevis who mostly supported HDP's candidate Selahattin Demirtaş. Alevi-majorityTunceli is the only province in Turkey that has ever elected a mayor belonging to theCommunist Party of Turkey.[40]
The first Zaza-oriented political party in the history of Turkey was established in 2017 under the name "Zaza People's Party" and later changed its name toDemocracy Time Party (Turkish:Demokrasi Zamanı Partisi) due to legal restrictions on ethnicity-based parties.[41]
Zaza nationalism is an ideology that supports the preservation of Zaza people between Turks and Kurds in Turkey. Turkish nationalistHasan Reşit Tankut proposed in 1961 to create a corridor between Zaza-speakers andKurmanji-speakers to hastenTurkification. In some cases in the diaspora, Zazas turned to this ideology because of the more visible differences between them andKurmanji-speakers.[42] Zaza nationalism was further boosted when Turkey abandoned its assimilatory policies which made some Zazas begin considering themselves as a separate ethnic group.[43] In the diaspora, some Zazas turned to Zaza nationalism in the freer European political climate. On this,Ebubekir Pamukchu, the founder of the Zaza national movement stated: "From that moment I became Zaza."[44] Zaza nationalists fear Turkish and Kurdish influence and aim at protecting Zaza culture and language rather than seeking any kind ofautonomy within Turkey.[45]
According to researcher Ahmet Kasımoğlu, Zaza nationalism is a Turkish andArmenian attempt to divide Kurds.[46]
Genetics
A 2005 study genetically examined three different groups of Zaza (n= 27) andKurmanji speakers in Turkey andKurmanji speakers in Georgia. In the study,mtDNA HV1 sequences, elevenY chromosome bi-allelic markers and 9Y-STR loci were analyzed to investigate lineage relationship among these Iranian-speaking groups. According to study 8 differentY-DNA haplogroups have been identified among the Zaza speakers;I* (33.3%),R1a1a (25.9%),E* (11.1%) andR1* (11.1%) being the most prevalent ones. HaplogroupsP1 andJ2, which were found to be prevalent among differing Kurdish populations, were absent in Zaza speakers. Y chromosome data showed somewhat different patterns, indicating some effect of geography. Kurmanji speakers and Zaza speakers in Turkey, who are geographic neighbours, were found to be closer to each other compared to the Georgian and Turkmen Kurds according to Y-DNA data.[17]
MtDNA data indicates close relationships among Zaza speaking groups from Turkey and Kurdish people from Georgia, Iran and Eastern Turkey, meanwhile the examined Kurmanji speakers in Turkey and Turkmenistan were different from these groups and each other maternally. Geographic neighbours of Zazas fromSouth Caucasus are also found to be similar concerning mtDNA results. It was stated that there was no clear geographic or linguistic pattern concerning matrilineal origins of examined Iranian-speakers.[17]
Another phenomenon found in the research was that Zazas are closer to Kurdish groups (matrilineally South Caucasian groups, patrilineally Kurmanji speakers in Turkey) rather than peoples ofNorthern Iran, where ancestralZaza language hypothesized to be spoken before its spread toAnatolia. It was also stated that "the genetic evidence of course does not preclude a northern Iranian origin for the Zazaki language itself."[17]
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Werner, Eberhard (2020). "Orality and Folklore: Reflections on the Folktale Tradition of the Zaza People". In Korangy, Alireza (ed.).Kurdish Art and Identity: Verbal Art, Self-definition and Recent History. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 169–190.doi:10.1515/9783110599626-008.ISBN9783110599626.S2CID241696408.