page_title: Lurs
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Lurs / History
context_page_description: Lurs or Lurish people are an Iranian people living mainly in western and south-western Iran. Their population is estimated at around five million. They occupy Lorestan, Kohkiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Khuzestan and Fars, Bushehr, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Hamadan, Ilam, and Isfahan provinces.
  The Lur people mostly speak the Luri language, a Southwestern Iranian language related to Persian. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Luri language is the closest living language to Archaic and Middle Persian. According to the linguist Don Still, Lori-Bakhtiari like Persian is derived directly from Old Persian. Michael M. Gunter states that Lur people are closely related to the Kurds but that they "apparently began to be distinguished from the Kurds 1,000 years ago."
  Lurs are the demographic majority of the provinces of Kohkiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Lorestan, and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari. Half of Khuzestan's population is Lur and 30% of Bushehr's population is Lur.
context_section_description: Lurs are a mixture of aboriginal Iranian tribes, originating from Central Asia and the pre-Iranic tribes of western Iran, such as the Kassites (whose homeland appears to have been in what is now Lorestan) and Gutians. In accordance to geographical and archaeological matching, some historians argue that the Elamites to be the Proto-Lurs, whose language became Iranian only in the Middle Ages. Michael M. Gunter states that they are closely related to the Kurds but that they "apparently began to be distinguished from the Kurds 1,000 years ago." He adds that the Sharafnama of Sharaf Khan Bidlisi "mentioned two Lur dynasties among the five Kurdish dynasties that had in the past enjoyed royalty or the highest form of sovereignty or independence."  In the Mu'jam Al-Buldan of Yaqut al-Hamawi mention is made of the Lurs as a Kurdish tribe living in the mountains between Khuzestan and Isfahan. The term Kurd according to Richard Frye was used for all Iranian nomads (including the population of Luristan as well as tribes in Kuhistan and Baluchis in Kirman) for all nomads, whether they were linguistically connected to the Kurds or not.
caption: Relief of an Elamite noblewoman
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