History of the Zaza people

It is generally believed that the Zazas immigrated to their modern day homeland from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. Some Zazas use the word Dimli (Daylami) to describe their ethnic identity. The word Diml (Daylam) also describes a region of Gilan Province in today’s Iran. Zazaki language also shows similarities with Gilaki, Mazanderani and others spoken by the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. But some historian say zazas didn't immigrate from lands of daylem. They are rest of old persians after the grand defeat to Alexander the Great. Dimili comes from dümbüllü, old main zaza tribe that had been live in region of Diyarbakır.

In 21th century there were two great zaza rebellion. First, it was named Shaikh Said rebillion.Shaikh Said and his armed supporter rose against to Turkish Government in 1925. Second, it was named Dersim rebellion. It rose in 1937-1938 against to Turkish Government. But some historian say that Dersim was not a rebellion. There were not efficient armed man for rebel. It was a genocide that Turkish Government did to Alevis. The Turkish bureaucrat, İhsan Sabri Çağlayangil confessed that we used to poisoned gases on Kurdish Alevis of Dersim in the caves. And before death one soldier confessed that Alevis of Dersim were throwing stone while we used to machine gun.

Paul Ludwig’s study

German linguist Paul Ludwig's study on the Zazaki language draws four conclusions about the history and language of the Zazas.^[1] According to him:

1. In ancient times (approximately late 2nd millennium B.C.) there was a continuum of closely related Northwestern Iranian dialects spoken from the northwest to the northeast of present Iran which like Turks (as they are Turks and are falsely historicly claimed^{[by whom?]} to be Kurds), came from middle Asia.
2. Later, but still in pre-Achaemenian times, the forefathers of the Kurds and Baluchis of today were the first to split off and move south and southeast, respectively. Possibly Zazaki was still spoken in this period around the ancient region of Daylam, south of the Caspian Sea.
3. Centuries later, maybe during the rise of the Parthians, and the accompanying movement of various tribes from the ancient province of Parthia, the Goran and Zaza tribes made their home in northern Mesopotamia, forming the furthermost western link in the chain of Northwestern Iranian people.
4. Centuries later, maybe during the Sassanid period, all Northwestern dialects were influenced and superseded by Middle Persian. In the west, Zazaki was driven more to the north and northwest by Kurdish, but still remained in contact with the northern chain of Northwest dialects (Azari, Talysi, Sangiseri, Mazanderani, Gilaki) for some time.

The Zazaki and Parthian languages

According to another study conducted by Prof. Dr. Jost Gippert, a linguist for Indo-European languages from Frankfurt University, Zazaki and Parthian, an extinct middle Iranian language, show strong similarities [2]. According to him, Zazaki’s roots probably come from Parthian, to which Zazaki shows interesting phonetical, morphological, and lexical similarities.

See also

• Zaza people
• Zazaki language

References