Tajik

• Tadjik
• Tadzhik (via Russian, obsolete)
• Taujik (obsolete)

From Classical Persian تاجیک (tājīk, “non-Turk (of Central Asia)”) (akin to تازی (tāzī), تازیک (tāzīk)), (ultimately) from Middle Persian tʾcyk' (tāzīg, “Arab”), (ultimately) from Arabic طَيِّئ (ṭayyiʔ, “name of an Arab clan”). See Tayy.

Popular folk etymology traces the word to Tajik тоҷ (toj, “crown”) (see Arabic تَاج (tāj), from Persian تاج (tâj, “crown”)), but this is false.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈtɑːd͡ʒɪk/, /tæˈd͡ʒiːk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːk

Tajik (plural Tajiks)

1. A member of the Persian-speaking people living mainly in Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
   • 2007, Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING (2018), page 48:

     “True that it would be preferable that you marry a local, a Tajik, but Rasheed is healthy, and interested in you.”

Refers to ethnicity, not nationality. Compare Tajikistani (“native or inhabitant of Tajikistan”).

Tajik (not comparable)

1. Of or pertaining to the Tajiks.

   Synonym: Tajiki

   • 2016 September 25, “Xinjiang – is this really China?”, in CNN‎^[1], page 2:

     A yurt houses a Tajik family along the Karakal Lake.

2. Of or relating to Tajiki Persian.

   Synonym: Tajiki

The first sense refers to ethnicity, not nationality. Compare Tajikistani (“of or relating to Tajikistan”).

Tajik

1. The Persian dialect spoken by Tajiks in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

   Synonyms: Tajiki, Tajiki Persian, Tajik Persian

The Tajiks of Afghanistan speak Dari Persian.

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Tajik terms
• Appendix:Tajik Swadesh list for a Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words in Tajik
• Wikipedia article on Tajiki Persian

• ISO 639-1 code tg, ISO 639-3 code tgk (SIL)
• Ethnologue entry for Tajik, tgk ⁠

• Kitja