Zazas
The Zazas, are an Iranian people who speak Zaza, an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-European language family. Zazas live primarily in the Eastern Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey. They live in parts of Bingöl, Elazığ, Erzincan, Erzurum, Malatya, Muş, Bitlis and Tunceli provinces in Eastern Anatolia and Adıyaman, Diyarbakır and Şanlıurfa provinces in Southeastern Anatolia. There are also found Zaza communities in provinces such as Kars and Ardahan in Northeastern Anatolia, Kayseri, Sivas and Aksaray in Central Anatolia and Tokat and Gümüşhane in Black Sea regions of Turkey. Outside Turkey, there exists a Zaza diaspora in Western Europe, particularly in Germany.
Zazas are mainly Muslims and mainly belonging to two sects: Sunni Islam and Alevism. This sectarian difference is reflected in the dialectal differences of the Zaza language; the northern dialect of the language is spoken by Alevi Zazas, the southern dialect by Hanafi Zazas, and the central dialect by Shafi Zazas. Zazas have a population of approximately 2-3 million. The language of the Zazas, the Zaza language belongs to the Northwestern Iranian branch of the Iranian languages and is closely related to Tati, Talysh, Sangsari, Semnani, Mazandarani and Gilaki.
Etymology and naming
The terms Dımli or Dımıli are often used for the Zaza people and their language.One theory claims that these terms evolved from the term Daylam or Daila. Alternatively this region is termed as Dailäm, Daylâm or Dailâm. Thus it is argued that the origin of the Zaza people lies in the province of Dailam or Daylam in ancient Persia and modern northern Iran, close to the southern Caspian Sea. According to Encyclopædia Iranica the endonym Dimlī or Dīmla was derived from Daylam region in Northern Iran, and appears in Armenian historical records as delmik, dlmik, which was proposed to be derived from Middle Iranian *dēlmīk meaning Daylamite. Scholars such as Friedrich Carl Andreas,, Karl Hadank, Ely Bannister Soane, Arthur Christensen, Richard N. Frye, Vladimir Minorsky, Ehsan Yarshater, Gernot Ludwig Windfuhr, Ferdinand Hennerbichler, William Burley Lockwood, David Neil MacKenzie and Garnik Asatrian are the proponents of the Daylam origin of Zazas and the Daylam thesis has been the most popular thesis regarding the origins of the Zaza people and the Zaza language since the first researchers of the Zaza language. Among their neighbors, the people are known mainly as Zāzā, which meant “stutterer” and was used as a pejorative.
Hadank and Mckenzie attribute relative abundance of sibilants and affricates in Zaza language to explain the semantic etymology of the name. However, significant historical and social evidence stands against this hypothesis. This hypothesis, initially proposed as a possibility and commonly used to distinguish the Zazas from the Kurds, does not account for the origins of other names such as Dunbuli or Dumbeli, from which the term Dimilî originates. This connection is supported by several evidences, including the use of the terms Dummel or Zaza in Kurdistan to refer to the Azerbaijani Dunbuli tribe, historical records of the Dunbuli tribe migrating to Dersim during the reign of Shah Ismail, and documented evidence that the Dunbuli tribe in Palu spoke Zazaki. In some regions, the term Dunbuli is still used to refer to the Zazas. The term Dimilî derives from the name of the Dunbulî, a Kurdish tribe documented since the 12th century. The name Dımli/''Dımıli and its derivations, is mainly used for southern Zaza. Zazas living in Aksaray, Şanlıurfa, Siverek, Diyarbakır, Çüngüş, Adıyaman, Gerger and Mutki name themselves as Dımli/Dımıli, and their language as Dımılki/Dımıli. Zazas living in Elazığ, Palu, Maden, Çermik, Bingöl and Koçgiri regions name themselves as Zaza and their language as Zazaki. The endonym Zaza is found in all dialects of the Zaza language. While almost all Zazas who speak the central dialect of Zaza define themselves as Zaza and name their language as Zazaki, in places such as Palu, Bingöl and Dicle, the endonym of Kırd, along with Zaza, is also found to a limited extent. A part of Alevi Zazas name themselves as Kırmanc and name their language as Kırmancki, even though the endonym Dımılki is also known among the older generation Alevi Zazas. A second part of Alevi Zazas living in regions such as Bingöl, Erzurum and Varto, instead of a special naming, name the Zaza language as "zonê ma" which means "our language" and they define themselves as "şarê ma", which means "our people''".
History
Origins and early history
One of the most important theories regarding the origin of the Zazas is that they are originally Daylamites from the Daylam region. According to this theory, the Zazas migrated from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea to Eastern Anatolia along with other communities. Linguistic evidence put the urheimat of the Zaza language to Northern Iran, especially around the southern Caspian region due to the similarities between Zaza, Talysh, Gilaki and Mazanderani languages. The etymology of the endonym Dimlī and the historical records of migration from Daylam to Central Anatolia in Armenian sources are also cited as an evidence of Daylamite origins of the Zaza people. Academics propose that this migration event happened in 10th to 12th centuries AD. 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.Kurmanji-speaking Kurds and Zazas have for centuries lived in the same areas in Anatolia. 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".
The Zaza minstrel tradition goes back to the medieval period, when Zaza-speaking bards composed works both in their mother tongue and in Turkish.
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.As part of the denial of Kurds by Turkey, Zazas were referred to as "Highlander Turks" by the state, whereas Kurmanji Kurds were referred to as "Mountain Turks". In the 1920s and 1930s, Zazas played a key role in the rise of Kurdish nationalism with their rebellions against the Ottoman Empire and later the Republic of Turkey. Zazas participated in the Koçgiri rebellion in 1920, and during the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925, the Zaza Sheikh Said and his supporters rebelled against the newly established Republic because of its Turkish nationalist and secular ideology. Many Zazas subsequently joined the Kurmanji-speaking Kurdish nationalist Xoybûn, the Society for the Rise of Kurdistan, and other movements, where they often rose to prominence.
In 1937 during the Dersim rebellion, Zazas once again rebelled against the Turks. This time the rebellion was led by Seyid Riza and ended with a massacre of thousands of Kurmanji-speaking Kurds and Zaza civilians, while many were internally displaced due to the conflict.
Sakine Cansız, a Zaza from Tunceli, was a founding member of Kurdistan Workers Party, and like many Zazas joined the rebels, including the prominent Besê Hozat.
Following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, many intellectual minorities, including Zazas, emigrated from Turkey towards Europe, Australia and the United States.
Demographics and geographical distribution
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. More recent data from 2005 suggests that the Zaza-speaking population varies from approximately 2 to 4 million.According to a 2015 study that examined the demographics of the voting-age population in the Kurdish inhabited areas in Turkey 12.8% of the people ethnically identified as Zaza, which made Zaza the biggest ethnic identity after Kurdish in the region. Zaza speakers were more numerous compared to people who identify with the Zaza ethnic identity, showing that some Zaza speakers identified as other ethnicities, primarily Kurds.
Following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, many intellectual minorities, including Zazas, emigrated from Turkey towards Europe, Australia and the United States. The largest part of the Zaza diaspora is in Europe, predominantly in Germany.
Culture
Language
is the ancestral language of the Zaza people and belongs to the Northwestern Iranian branch of the Iranian languages. Zaza language is classified as a macrolanguage by international linguistic authorities. SIL International classifies Zaza language as a macrolanguage, including the varieties of Southern Zaza and Northern Zaza. Other international linguistic authorities, the Ethnologue and the Glottolog, also classify the Zaza language as a macrolanguage composed of two distinct languages: Southern Zaza and Northern Zaza. In terms of grammar, genetics and core vocabulary the Zaza language is closely related to Tati of Iran, Talysh, Semnani, Sangsari, Gilaki and Mazandarani languages spoken on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It is spoken in the east of modern Turkey, 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.A study published in 2015 that demographically analysed voting-age adults in the Kurdish inhabited regions of Turkey concluded that 96.2% of people who identified as Zaza, but not Kurdish in the region spoke Zazaki as their mother tongue. On the contrary only 58.4% of the surveyed Zaza people declared that their primary home language was Zazaki, and Turkish 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 was the dominant household language. Ziflioğlu states that many Zazas only speak Kurmanji.
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 of Ehmedê Xasi of 1898, and of Osman Efendîyo Babij; both of these works were written in Arabic script. The state-owned TRT Kurdî airs shows in Zaza. During the 1980s, the Zaza language became popular among the Zaza diaspora, followed by publications in Zaza in Turkey.