James Baquet

Tajikistan is another of the Central Asian countries the name of which is composed of two elements. “Tajik” refers to the people who live there (the Tajiks) and the word “-stan” means “place of” or “country.” This latter element gives Tajikistan and neighbors such as Afghanistan (located to the south), Uzbekistan (west and north), Kyrgyzstan (north), and others more distant — such as Pakistan and Kazakhstan — the nickname “the ‘Stans.” China lies to Tajikistan’s east.

Tajikistan’s area places at the 94th out of 196 in the world, and its population at the 95th out of 195. Density, however, is the 159th out of 255. About 85 percent of the people are ethnic Tajiks and speak the Tajik language (a variety of Persian), though many also speak Russian as a second language. The country was part of the Russian Empire from 1864 until that empire fell; after a period of upheaval, it emerged as a Soviet Socialist Republic in 1929, and remained so until independence in 1991. Nearly 14 percent of the population are Uzbek; the remainder are Kyrgyz and others.

Being dominated by another culture was not a new experience for Tajiks. In ancient times, the area was occupied by the Oxus and Andronovo cultures in the Bronze Age, followed successively by the Achaemenid or First Persian Empire; the Sasanian (Neo-Persian) Empire, the Hephthalite Empire, a tribal confederation, the Samanid Empire of Sunni Islamic Iranians, the Mongol Empire and the Timurid dynasty, descended from the Turko-Mongol conqueror Timur.

Religious influences through the ages included Buddhism, Nestorianism (a form of Christianity eventually condemned as heretical by the mainstream church), Zoroastrianism (one of the world’s oldest extant religions), Manichaeism (another Persian religion) and Islam, which prevails today.

The country’s one UNESCO World Heritage Site is the city of Sarazm, a Neolithic town dating back to the fourth millennium B.C. It was discovered in 1976. Excavation began in 1977.

Since independence, the economy has grown. Though the constitution is secular, the overwhelming Muslim majority dominates the national conversation.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. so large it can’t be beaten

2. controls, is in charge of

3. in existence

4. what the people of a country talk about

5. number of something in an area

6. came out

7. digging to uncover

8. the second of two things mentioned

9. group of countries (for example) with a single ruler

10. going against an accepted teaching