Central Asia Research Platform

2019

"Tibet in Contemporary Chinese Politics: Consolidation of Social and Economic Control in Tibetan areas of the PRC", held at the CAS (Národní 3, Prague 1, room 206) on 16 October, 2019.

2018

 2017

„Spiritual Capital and Money Making: A Case Study based on Charlie Monastery of Ngawa County, Eastern Tibet.“, Prof. Yang Minghong (Sichuan University), 22.11. 2017, Jindřišská 27, Prague 1

„What factors determine carrying capacity? A case study from pastoral Tibet.“ Prof. Yonten Nyima (Sichuan University), 22.11. 2017 Jindřišská 27, Prague 1.

Summer School of Languages of Asian Strategic Regions organized by the Oriental Institute of the CAS

Ondřej Klimeš, Thomas Loy

In recent years, the Oriental Institute (OI) of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), in cooperation with the Institute of Asian Studies of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, has been organizing intensive courses in Asian languages, which are not usually taught at universities in the Czech Republic or abroad. Wedged between Russia, China, India, and the Middle East, the landlocked, linguistically diverse, and strategically important Central Asian states are encountering new challenges and opportunities. Understanding the region’s past and present requires familiarity with its many languages. To facilitate such expertise, the OI is offering instruction in the languages of Central Asia and nearby strategic or conflict-prone areas. The OI has been organizing summer courses in the premodern Turkic language, Chaghatay, since 2021. The focus was expanded to include Iranian languages, with courses in Sogdian in 2023 and Dari in 2024. In 2025, the Chaghatay language course will be held again this year, from 7 to 11 July, and a new course in Balochi will be held from 15 to 19 September.

Courses of Chaghatay

Chaghatay is a Turkic literary language used in Islamic Inner Asia from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, providing essential knowledge for direct insight into the history and present of Turkic and Islamic Central Asia. The name of the language is derived from the name of Chaghatay (1184–1242), the second son of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan (1162–1227), who bequeathed him rule over the territory of western Turkistan (today’s Central Asian states), parts of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and most of eastern Turkistan (today’s Uyghur region of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China).

After the ruling strata of the Chaghatay Khanate became Turkicized and influenced by Persian culture and Islam, the Turkic language of the Chaghatayid and post-Chaghatayid realm (in contemporary sources referred to simply as Türki, i.e., ‘Turkic’) gradually gained the prestige of Persian, the hitherto elite language of the area. The writer and statesman Ali Shir Nawa’i (1441–1501) advanced Chaghatay during the reign of the Timurids (1370–1507) with his monumental poetic works and scholarly treatises, such as the Judgment of Two Languages (Devereux 1966). Another monument of Chaghatay writing is the Baburnama, a memoir by which Zahiruddin Babur (1483–1530), the founder of the Mughal Empire (1526–1858), painted an exuberant account of life in medieval Central and South Asia (Thackston 1996).

Knowledge of Chaghatay is also essential for direct insight into the early modern history of Central Asia. For example, Muḥammad Ṣadiq Kashgari’s important work In Memory of the Saints (Taẕkira-i azizan), first translated into English by David Brophy, deals with the fractious period of the end of the rule of the Dzungars and Sufi sheikhs in East Turkistan and its incorporation into the Qing empire in the mid-18th century (Kashghari 2021).

Another important Chaghatay text is the chronicle Hamidian History (Tarikh-i Ḥamidi), named after the Ottoman sultan and caliph ʿAbdülḥamid II, who reigned from 1876 to 1909. It was written by Musa Sayrami (1836–1917) and first translated into English by Eric Schluessel. The book describes the uprising of the Turkic population of eastern Turkistan (in contemporary sources, known as the Six Cities [Altesheher] or Seven Cities [Yettesheher]) against the Qing government in 1864–1877. In addition to describing the rebellion, its failure, the reconquest of the region by Qing troops, and its re-annexation to the Chinese empire, the work is a monumental, timeless reflection on the position of man in the world and the state, a universal ‘drama of justice and tyranny’ depicting the local Turkic society at the turn of the old and new era (Sayrami 2023, xii).

The language and style of the Tarikh-i Ḥamidi are also a testament to the localization, vernacularization, and Turkification of the Chaghatay language during the 19th century. The chronicle is, therefore, a seminal work of Uyghur proto-national writing at the dawn of modernity. The earliest printed Uyghur periodicals of the 1930s attest to the latest stage in the development of Chaghatay, which is close to modern Uyghur (Sulaiman 2017). Chaghatay has undergone a similar evolution into a modern national language in present-day Uzbekistan, where it is generally referred to as Old Uzbek. Knowledge of Chaghatay is thus essential for understanding the development of Uyghur and Uzbek, the Karluk Turkic languages of which Chaghatay is a direct ancestor.

The OI, in cooperation with the Institute of Asian Studies of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University has been organizing Chaghatay courses since 2021, when guest speakers Eric Schluessel (George Washington University) and Aysima Mirsultan (Staatsbibliothek Berlin) invited to talk about their research on the history of the Uyghur region in late 19th and early 20th century agreed to the audience’s spontaneous demand to read Chaghatay texts. (https://orient.cas.cz/export/sites/orientalni-ustav/.content/files/Lecture-Eric-Schluessel.pdf). On 21 September 2021, Aysima Mirsultan gave a lecture on “Language Features in Uyghur Legal Documents from the 19th and 20th centuries.”

In the following years, the teaching was conceived as a weekly intensive course. Eric Schluessel continues as the regular lecturer, partly using his Chaghatay textbook (Schluessel 2018) and partly using other texts and teaching materials. See, for example, materials from the Chaghatay 2.0 site, a project started by Arienne M. Dwyer of the University of Kansas and currently maintained by Indiana University (https://uyghur.linguistics.indiana.edu/ [visited 2 April 2025]). Classes run in the mornings from 9:00 to 12:30, with afternoons reserved for students’ self-study. 10–20 students from the Czech Republic and other European and non-European countries attended the course each year. This relatively strong interest shows the insufficient extent of systematic teaching of Chaghatay in universities around the world. This year, the intermediate-level Chaghatay language course, with a focus on texts from the Uyghur region, will be held from 7 to 11 July in the premises of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague Old Town (https://orient.cas.cz/cs/pro-verejnost/Summer-Course-of-Chaghatay-Intermediate/).

Courses of Afghan–Persian (Dari)

Persian is an Iranian Language. Iranian languages are spoken across a vast region that stretches from China to Turkey and from the Caucasus to Iraq and Pakistan. At the heart of this area lies Afghanistan. Among these languages, Persian has historically played a dominant role, once serving as a lingua franca and a prestigious literary language throughout Central Asia and India.

As a language of refined culture, governance, religion, and commerce, Persian had a profound influence on the literature and development of other major languages, including Ottoman Turkish, Chaghatay, Pashto, and Urdu. However, with the rise of colonialism and modern nationalism, Persian dominance waned. Its status shifted, eventually leading to the formation of three national variants: Farsi (Iran), Dari (Afghanistan), and Tajik (Tajikistan) (Fragner 1999; Spooner 2012; Fani & Schwartz 2022).

In Iran, the language retains its traditional name, Farsi, and remains the sole official language. However, over 40 million Iranians speak other languages at home, such as Azeri Turkish, Kurdish, and Balochi.

In Central Asia, Persian became known as Tojiki (Tajik) in the 1920s, when Soviet policies sought to forge a distinct Tajik national identity. Tajikistan became a Soviet republic in 1929, but key Persian cultural centers, such as Samarkand and Bukhara, remained in Uzbekistan, where Tajik was relegated to the private sphere. Over time, Soviet reforms changed the script from Arabic to Latin and then to Cyrillic and banned many Arabic elements in favor of Russian and colloquial forms. These changes distanced Tajik from Persian in Iran and Afghanistan. Today, Tajik remains the official language in Tajikistan but is still written in Cyrillic and shares informal space with Russian.

In 1964, Afghanistan officially adopted Dari as the formal name for Persian. Dari is also known as Afghan Persian (farsi-ye dari). The choice was mainly a political move to emphasize cultural independence from Iran. The name “Dari” likely derives from zabān-e darbāri (“language of the court”) and evokes the classical Persian of Khorasan. Despite its official name, many Afghans still refer to their language simply as Farsi.

Since the 1930s, Dari has shared national language status with Pashto. However, the use and knowledge of Persian and Pashto show significant differences. While most people in Afghanistan are fluent in Dari, non-Pashtun groups often do not speak or understand Pashto. Since the Taliban regained power in 2021, Pashto has regained prominence. However, as a rule of thumb, Walter N. Hakala’s observation from 2012 is still valid today: “Most Pashtuns speak Pashto and some also speak Dari, but many non-Pashtuns do not speak Pashto and many more speak Dari.”

Why is it important to engage with Persian and Dari in particular?

Afghanistan is among the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, and many people must navigate multiple languages daily (Hakala 2012). Among them, Persian/Dari continues to hold high cultural and social prestige, particularly in urban and educated settings.

While the spoken varieties of Dari vary widely by region, it remains the ideal gateway to understanding Afghanistan’s complex society. European academic programs, however, often focus solely on Iranian Farsi, neglecting the Persian variants of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Even decades of military involvement in Afghanistan did little to shift this focus.

A comprehensive study of Persian in Afghanistan remains lacking despite many detailed studies of minority languages. The Persian spoken in Afghanistan encompasses major urban dialects (Kabuli, Mazari, Herati), rural forms (Sistani, Badakhshi, Bamiyani), and ethnic/regional varieties such as Hazaragi, Aymaqi, and Firuzkuhi. War, displacement, and migration have further complicated the process of linguistic classification and mapping.

Differences in spoken Persian have real-world implications. For instance, many Iranian-born translators struggled to understand Afghan refugees who arrived in Europe after 2015 due to significant differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar—exacerbated by unfamiliarity with Afghan culture and society.

During the 2024 summer school, we concentrated on various written sources from Afghanistan from the late 19th and 20th centuries (printed and handwritten). After a general introduction to Persian in Afghanistan, the most important Persian-speaking regions and groups in the country, the differences between standard and colloquial language, and the social hierarchy of the spoken language, work began on specific texts and listening examples.

We read and translated manuscripts from different decades, ranging from personal letters and communications with and within state authorities to legal documents, newspaper articles, and examples of modern literature. We also discussed parallels and differences between the forms used in Iranian Persian. Different handwriting styles and developments in Afghan printing were introduced and discussed. In the second part, we listened to Persian recordings recorded in Afghanistan or with Afghans. The topics covered here ranged from everyday experiences and cooking to official news announcements and online clips.

In teaching, we made ample use of a new textbook for learning Dari (Rzehak & Aswar 2021). The lessons took place daily from 9:00 to 14:00. In the afternoons, the students independently prepared the texts and sound files that were to be read, analyzed, and translated together in class the next day. The language of instruction was Dari/Farsi and English. The teachers were Ahmad Azizy and Thomas Loy.

 Outlook on the summer school Balochi (15–19 September) 2025:

The Balochi (also spelled Baluchi) language is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken in southwestern Pakistan, south-eastern Iran, southwestern Afghanistan, and parts of Oman. It has 7–8 million speakers and exists in several dialects (Western, Eastern, Southern), each with distinct features and significant phonological and lexical differences. While Arabic script is standard in Iran and Pakistan, Latin script is occasionally used. Despite its rich oral tradition, Balochi remains underrepresented in official and educational contexts (Jahani & Korn 2009).

In preparation for the 2025 Balochi summer school, the workshop “Balochistan Matters

Political and Cultural History of the Baloch in the Last 50 Years” was organized by Thomas Loy on 24 and 25 September 2024 at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague.

Literature:

Devereux, Robert (trans.). Judgment of Two Languages; Muhakamat Al-Lughatain by Mir 'Ali Shir Nawāi; Introduction, Translation and Notes. Leiden: Brill, 1966.

Fani, Aria, and Kevin L. Schwartz. “Persianate Pasts; National Presents: Persian Literary and Cultural Production in the Twentieth Century.” Iranian Studies 55.3 (2022), 605–609.

Fragner, Bert G. 1999. Die “Persophonie”: Regionalität, Identität und Sprachpolitik in der Geschichte Asiens. Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1999.

Hakala, Walter N. “Languages as a Key to Understanding Afghanistan’s Cultures.” Education about ASIA, 17.2 (2012), 42–46.

Jahani, Carina and Agnes Korn. “Balochi.” In Iranian Languages, edited by Gernot Windfur.  London: Routledge, 2009, 634–692.

Kashghari, Muḥammad Ṣadiq.In Remembrance of the Saints. The Rise and Fall of an Inner Asia Sufi Dynasty, translated by David Brophy.New York: Columbia University Press, 2021.

Rzehak, Lutz. “Spoken Persian in Afghanistan: The Colloquial Standard of Dari.” In The Handbook of Persian Dialects and Dialectology, edited by Korangy, Alireza and Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiary. Singapore: Springer, 2025, 203–228.    

Rzehak, Lutz. “Hazaragi and Linguistic Behaviour of the Hazaras.” In The Handbook of Persian Dialects and Dialectology, edited by Korangy, Alireza and Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiary. Singapore: Springer, 2025, 72–97.

Rzehak, Lutz. “How Tajik was Made into a National Language.” In Tajik Linguistics, edited by Shinji Ido and Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. 2023, 1–43.

Rzehak, Lutz and Bidollah Aswar. Dari-Persisch. Lehr und Übungsbuch mit Lösungen, Audio und Videomaterial. Wiesbaden: Reichert. 2021.

Sayrami, Musa. The Tarikh-i Ḥamidi. A Late-Qing Uyghur History, translated by Eric Schluessel. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023.

Schluessel, Eric: An Introduction to Chaghatay. A Graded Textbook for Reading Central Asian Sources. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, 2018.

Spooner, Brian. “Persian, Farsi, Dari, Tajiki: Language Names and Language Policies.” In Language Policy and Language Conflict in Afghanistan and Its Neighbors, edited by Harold F. Schiffman. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012, 89–120.

Sulaiman, Äsäd: “From Eastern Turki to Modern Uyghur: A Lexicological Study of Prints from the Swedish Mission Press in Kashgar (1892–1938).” In Kashgar Revisited. Uyghur Studies in Memory of Ambassador Gunnar Jarring, edited by: Ildikó Bellér-Hann, Birgit N.Schlyter, Jun Sugawara. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2017, 58–79.

Thackston, Wheeler M. (trans.). The Baburnama. Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor. New York, Oxford University Press, 1996.

Dr. Thomas Loy: loy@orient.cas.cz

Dr. phil. Jarmila Ptáčková: ptackova@orient.cas.cz