Uzbeks O‘zbeklar
An Uzbek girl
Total population
21 to 27 million
Regions with significant populations
Uzbekistan 21. Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or Ўзбекистон Республикаси is a doubly 48 million [1] [2]  Afghanistan 2. Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/ officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ( Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت, 7 million [3]  Tajikistan 1. Tajikistan (təˈdʒɪkɨstæn or /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/ Тоҷикистон tɔʤikɪsˈtɔn or, Persian تاجیکستان‎ taajikestaan officially the Republic of 12 million [4]  Kyrgyzstan 711,000 [5]  Turkmenistan 450,000 [6]  Kazakhstan 371,000 [7]  Russia 126,000 [8]  Pakistan 80,000  China 14,800 [9]  Ukraine 13,000 [10]
Languages
Uzbek (western and eastern dialects)
Religion
Sunni Islam

The Uzbeks (Self designation sg. Kyrgyzstan (ˈkɻ̩gɪztɑn (AmE or /'kɝgəztan/ (BrE Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан; Russian: Киргизия or Киргизстан or Кыргызстан Turkmenistan ( Türkmenistan; also known as Turkmenia) is a Turkic country in Central Asia. Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Pakistan () officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia, Southwest Asia, Middle East and Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Uzbek ( O‘zbek tili or O'zbekcha in Latin script, Ўзбек тили in Cyrillic script; أۇزبېك ﺗﻴﻠی in Arabic Sunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. Sunni Islam is also referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘h (Arabic O‘zbek, pl. O‘zbeklar) are a Turkic people of Central Asia. The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern central and western Eurasia who speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east and from southern Russia in the north to northern Pakistan in the south They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or Ўзбекистон Республикаси is a doubly Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/ officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ( Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت, Tajikistan (təˈdʒɪkɨstæn or /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/ Тоҷикистон tɔʤikɪsˈtɔn or, Persian تاجیکستان‎ taajikestaan officially the Republic of Kyrgyzstan (ˈkɻ̩gɪztɑn (AmE or /'kɝgəztan/ (BrE Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан; Russian: Киргизия or Киргизстан or Кыргызстан Turkmenistan ( Türkmenistan; also known as Turkmenia) is a Turkic country in Central Asia. Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Xinjiang ( Uyghur: شىنجاڭ Shinjang;; Postal map spelling: Sinkiang; Turkish: Sincan, Sincan Uygur Özerk China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Smaller diaspora populations of Uzbeks from Central Asia are also found in Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, North America and Western Europe. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches Pakistan () officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia, Southwest Asia, Middle East and Western Europe at its most general meaning means 'all the countries in the West of Europe '

Name

The origin of the name Uzbek remains disputed. One view holds that it is eponymously named after Uzbeg Khan, although the nomadic Uzbeks were never entirely subject to him. Sultan Mohammed Öz-Beg, better known as Uzbeg or Ozbeg (1282&ndash1341 reign 1313&ndash1341 was the longest-reigning khan of the Golden An etymological argument states that the name means independent or the lord itself, from O'z (self) and Bek (a noble title of leadership) ^[11].

Origins

Although Altaic infiltration into Central Asia had started early,^[12] as late as the 13th century AD when Turkic-speaking and Mongol armies finally conquered the entire region, the majority of Central Asia's peoples were Iranic peoples such as Sogdians, Bactrians and, more ancient, the Saka–Massagetae tribes. The Turkic languages constitute a Language family of some thirty languages spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the The Iranian people are a collection of Ethnic groups defined along linguistic lines as speaking Iranian languages. History Hellenistic period The Sogdian Rock or Rock of Ariamazes a fortress in Sogdiana was captured in 327 BC by the forces of Alexander the Great The Bactrians were an Indo-European people originally of Bactria, situated in what is now modern northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and southern The Sakas ( English form of Old Iranian Sakā, Nominative plural masculine case; Ancient Greek Σάκαι, The Massageteans ( Massagetai; Massagetae or Massagetaeans were an Iranian people of antiquity known primarily from the writings of Herodotus It is generally believed that these ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples were linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups while the sedentary population finally adopted the Persian language, the traditional lingua franca of the eastern Islamic lands. A lingua franca (from Italian, literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology under Sabir and Italian below is any Language widely ^[13] The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an elite dominance process. ^[14][15] This process was dramatically boosted during the Mongol conquest when millions were either killed or pushed further south to the Pamir region. The Mongol Empire ( Mongolyn Ezent Güren or mn Их Mонгол улс Ikh Mongol Uls; 1206–1368 was the largest contiguous Empire

The modern Uzbek language is largely derived from the Chagatai language, an Eastern Turkic language which gained prominence in the Mongol Timurid Empire. Uzbek ( O‘zbek tili or O'zbekcha in Latin script, Ўзбек тили in Cyrillic script; أۇزبېك ﺗﻴﻠی in Arabic The Chagatai language ( جغتای - Jaĝatāy; Uyghur: چاغاتاي Chaghatay; Uzbek: ﭼﯩﻐﻪتاي The Timurids, self-designated Gurkānī ( were a Persianate Central Asian Sunni Muslim dynasty The position of Chagatai (and later Uzbek) was further strengthened after the fall of the highly Persianized Timurids and the rise of the Shaybanid Uzbek Khaqanate that finally shaped the Turkic language and identity of modern Uzbeks, while the unique grammatical^[16] and phonetical features of the Uzbek language as well as the modern Uzbek culture reflect the more ancient Iranic roots of the Uzbek people. A Persianate society ( - Djāma-ye Pārsīzabān) is a society that is either based on or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature Abu 'I-Fath Muhammad, known in later centuries as Shaybani Khan (c ^{[13][17][18][19]}

History

Anicent History

In ancient times, various Altaic-speaking tribes began to move to the area between the Amu Darya (Oxus in Greek) and Syr Darya (Jaxartes in Greek) rivers. The Amu Darya (formerly Oxus River the Greeks (Ptolemeus called it Oxiana palus) is the longest river in Central Asia. Syr Darya (Сырдария Сирдарё Sirdaryoسيردريا also transliterated Syrdarya or Sirdaryo) is a River in Central Asia Some of these early tribes included the Huns who eventually occupied this region around the 3rd century BC and continued their conquests further south and west. The Huns were an early confederation of Central Asian equestrian nomads or semi-nomads with a Turkic core of aristocracy

13th-16th Century

Following Arab incursions into the region, Islam supplanted Buddhism and other religions in Central Asia (such as Nestorian Christianity), while local Iranian languages survived into the 2nd millennium. Nestorius Nestorius (c  386 &ndashc  451) was a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia in Antioch in Syria (modern What drastically changed the demographics of Central Asia was the invasion of the Mongols led by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Genghis Khan ( or;, Chinggis Khaan, ʧiŋgɪs χaːŋ Činggis Qaɣan; 1162–1227 born (meaning "ironworker" was the Mongol founder Numerous native populations were wiped out by the Mongols and a process of population replacement began in earnest. During this period numerous Turkic tribes began to migrate and ultimately replace many of the Iranian peoples who were largely killed, absorbed by larger Turco-Mongolian groups, and/or pushed further south and Central Asia came to be known as Turkestan. Turkestan (literally meaning "Land of the Turks" is a region in Central Asia, which today is largely inhabited by Turkic peoples. Much of modern Uzbekistan took shape during the reign of Tamerlane, a prominent Turkic conqueror who reigned over a vast empire from his capital at Samarkand. Timur also written Emir Timur or Amir Temur ( Chagatai: تیمور - Tēmōr " Iron " (1336 – 19 February 1405 among Samarkand (Samarqand Самарқанд سمرقند UniPers: "Samarqand" is the second-largest city in Uzbekistan and the capital of Later, between the 15th and 16th centuries, various nomadic tribes arrived from the steppes including the Kipchaks, Naymans, Kanglis, Kungrats, Manġits and others and these tribes were led by Muhammad Shaybani who was the Khan of the Uzbeks. The Manġit dynasty was an Uzbek family that ruled the Emirate of Bukhara from 1785 to 1920 Abu 'I-Fath Muhammad, known in later centuries as Shaybani Khan (c This period marked the beginnings of the modern Uzbek nationality and formation of an Uzbek state in what is today Uzbekistan, as these tribes were the first to use the name 'Uzbek'. This early Uzbek state challenged the Safavids and Mughals, for control over the land that is now modern Afghanistan. The Safavids ( صفوی) were an Iranian ref>Helen Chapin Metz The Mughal Empire ( Persian and self-designation گورکانی; مغلیہ سلطنت) was an Islamic imperial power which ruled most

Uzbeks of Turkestan visiting a place in Afghanistan in 1841. Turkestan (literally meaning "Land of the Turks" is a region in Central Asia, which today is largely inhabited by Turkic peoples. Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/ officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ( Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت,

19th and early 20th century

Within a few generations of Shaybani Khan's death, the Uzbek state broke up into three major khanates based in Bukhara, Khiva, and Kokand until the early 19th century. The Russian Empire eventually infiltrated Central Asia and the Khanates were annexed to the empire during the mid to late 19th century. The Russian Empire ( Pre-reform Russian: Pоссійская Имперія Modern Russian: Российская Империя translit: Rossiyskaya Until 1924, the bulk of the settled Turkic population of Russian Turkestan, who were of very heterogeneous descent, were known as Sarts by the colonial authorities, and only those groups speaking Kipchak dialects who had arrived in the region with Muhammad Shaybani Khan were called 'Uzbeks'. Russian Turkestan ( Russian: Русский Туркестан also known as Turkestansky Krai (Туркестанский край was Turkestan within Sart is a name for the settled inhabitants of Central Asia which has had shifting meanings over the centuries In 1924, when the new Uzbek SSR was created, the Soviets abolished the term 'Sart' and decreed that all settled Turkic speakers would henceforth be known as Uzbeks. The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Ўзбекистон Совет Социалистик Республикаси O`zbekiston Sovet Sotsialistik Respublikasi; Узбекская Uzbekistan, under Russian and then later Soviet administration, became multi-ethnic as populations from throughout the former Soviet Union moved (or were exiled) to Central Asia. Now, people of Uzbek nationality can be found with different characteristics, from light skinned to dark toned skin colors, from blue eyes to black eyes, from blonds to brunettes.

Language

The Uzbek language is an Altaic language and is part of Karluk group of Turkic languages. Uzbek ( O‘zbek tili or O'zbekcha in Latin script, Ўзбек тили in Cyrillic script; أۇزبېك ﺗﻴﻠی in Arabic The Turkic languages constitute a Language family of some thirty languages spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Modern Uzbek bears the closest resemblance to Uyghur, slightly less to Turkmen and to Turkish. Uyghur (/ ug-Latn Uyƣurqə/ug-Cyrl Уйғурчә, or / ug-Latn Uyƣur tili/ug-Cyrl Уйғур Turkmen ( Latin script: türkmen Cyrillic: түркмен ISO 639 -1 tk ISO 639-2 tuk is the name of the national language of Turkmenistan Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Modern Uzbek is written in wide variety of scripts including Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by After the independence of Uzbekistan from the former Soviet Union, the government decided to replace the Cyrillic script with a modified Latin alphabet, specifically for Turkic languages. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991

Modern Uzbek has also absorbed a considerable vocabulary and - to a much lesser degree - certain grammatical elements from non-Turk languages, most of all from Persian as well as Arabic and Russian among others. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages

Religion

Uzbeks come from a predominantly Sunni Muslim background, usually of the Hanafi school, but variations exist between northern and southern Uzbeks. Sunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. Sunni Islam is also referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘h (Arabic The Hanafi ( Arabic حنفي school is the oldest of the four schools of thought ( Madhhabs The majority of Uzbeks from the former USSR came to practice religion with a more liberal interpretation due to the official Soviet policy of atheism, while Uzbeks in Afghanistan and other countries to the south have remained more conservative adherents of Islam. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 However, with Uzbek independence in 1991 came an Islamic revival amongst segments of the population. People living in the area of modern Uzbekistan were first converted to Islam as early as the 8th century AD, as Arab troops invaded the area, displacing the earlier faiths of Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. The araB gene Promoter is a bacterial promoter activated by e L-arabinose binding Zoroastrianism (ˌzɔroʊˈæstriəˌnɪzəm is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices The Arab victory over the Chinese in 751, at the Battle of Talas, ensured the future dominance of Islam in Central Asia. Events By Place Europe Pepin the Short is elected as king of the Franks by the Frankish nobility marking the end of the The Battle of Talas in 751 CE was a conflict between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty for control

Genetic origins

Students of Uzbkistan

The modern Uzbek population represents varying degrees of diversity derived from the high traffic invasion routes through Central Asia. Once populated by Iranian tribes and other Indo-European people, Central Asia experienced numerous invasions emanating out of Mongolia that would drastically impact the region. The Iranian people are a collection of Ethnic groups defined along linguistic lines as speaking Iranian languages. Mongolia (mɒŋˈɡoʊliə, literally Mongol country/nation,) is a Landlocked Country in East According to recent Genetic genealogy testing from a University of Chicago study, the Uzbeks cluster somewhere between the Mongols and the Iranian peoples. Genetic genealogy is the application of Genetics to traditional genealogy. The Iranian people are a collection of Ethnic groups defined along linguistic lines as speaking Iranian languages.

From the 3d century B. C. , Central Asia experienced nomadic expansions of Altaic-speaking East Asian-looking people, and their incursions continued for hundreds of years, beginning with the Hsiung-Nu (who may be ancestors of the Huns), in 300 B. C. , and followed by the Turks, in the 1st millennium A. D. , and the Mongol expansions of the 13th century. High levels of haplogroup 10 and its derivative, haplogroup 36, are found in most of the Altaic-speaking populations and are a good indicator of the genetic impact of these nomadic groups. The expanding waves of Altaic-speaking nomads involved not only eastern Central Asia, where their genetic contribution is strong, as is shown in figure 7d but also regions farther west, like Iran, Iraq, Anatolia, and the Caucasus, as well as Europe, which was reached by both the Huns and the Mongols. In these western regions, however, the genetic contribution is low or undetectable (Wells et al. 2001), even though the power of these invaders was sometimes strong enough to impose a language replacement, as in Turkey and Azerbaijan (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). The difference could be due to the population density of the different geographical areas. Eastern regions of Central Asia must have had a low population density at the time, so an external contribution could have had a great genetic impact. In contrast, the western regions were more densely inhabited, and it is likely that the existing populations were more numerous than the conquering nomads, therefore leading to only a small genetic impact. Thus, the admixture estimate from northeast Asia is high in the east, but is barely detectable west of Uzbekistan. ^[20]

An Uzbek man from Uzbekistan.

The Uzbek population, according to this study, shows substantial Caucasoid admixture. The Caucasian race, sometimes the Caucasoid race, is a term of Racial classification, coined around 1800 by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach for the " The Uzbeks display a much closer genetic relationship with Turkic roots traits than with Iranic populations to the south and west. Another study out of Uzbekistan corroborates this genetic evidence as to the origins of the modern Uzbeks and other regional Turk peoples:

These migrations are reflected in the DNA, too, and it is clear that despite the majority of modern Central Asians speaking Turk languages, they derive much of their genetic heritage from the Turkic conquering hero Tamerlane. Timur also written Emir Timur or Amir Temur ( Chagatai: تیمور - Tēmōr " Iron " (1336 – 19 February 1405 among ^[21]

The Turkic people as a whole share common languages and many common cultural traits, but do not have common origins. The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern central and western Eurasia who speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family The Uzbeks are descended to a large degree from Turkic invaders whose invasions span literally millennia from the first millennium CE with the early migrations of the Göktürks to later invasions by the Uzbeks themselves during the early and mid period of the 2nd millennium. Göktürks ( Turkish: Gök Türkler) were a Turkic people of ancient Central Asia. Throughout the centuries, these migrating Altaic peoples began to outnumber the native Iranian people of Central Asia and appear to have assimilated the vast majority through intermarriage, while mainly the Tajiks survived albeit with some Turk intermingling as well. Tajik ( - Tādjīk; UniPers: Tâjik; Cyrillic: Тоҷик is a term generally applied to Persian-speaking people of Thus, in the case of Uzbekistan and most other Central Asian states, it was not only a process of language replacement, such as what took place in Turkey and Azerbaijan, but also a mass migration and population replacement that helped to shape the modern Turk people of Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states.

Notes

References

• Allworth, Edward. The Modern Uzbeks: From the 14th Century to the Present, Hoover Institution Press (July, 1990).
• Calum MacLeod, Bradley Mayhew “Uzbekistan. Golden Road to Samarkand” page31.
• Critchlow, James. Nationalism in Uzbekistan: Soviet Republic's Road to Sovereignty, Westview Press (October, 1991).
• Noble, Ivan. BBC News, DNA analysis tracks Silk Road forbears
• Rashid, Ahmad. The Resurgence of Central Asia : Islam or Nationalism? Zed Books (April 15, 1995)
• Zerjal, Tatiana, et. al. A Genetic Landscape Reshaped by Recent Events: Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 71:466-482, 2002.
• Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Part 9, pages 483-489
• Uzbek Diaspora

See also

• Sarts
• Uzbek language
• Turkic peoples
• Timurid dynasty
• Mongol invasion of Central Asia

External links