Zaza people

The **Zazas** (also known as 'Dîmili') are an Iranic people in eastern Turkey who traditionally speak the Zaza language, a western Iranian language written in the Latin script. Their heartland consists of Adıyaman and Bingöl provinces and parts of Elazığ, Tunceli, Erzincan and Diyarbakır provinces. 

Following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, many intellectual minorities, including Zazas, emigrated from Turkey towards Europe, Australia and the United States. The largest part of the Zaza diaspora is in Europe, predominantly in Germany.

## Etymology and naming 
According to *Encyclopædia Iranica* the endonym *Dimlī* or *Dīmla* was derived from Daylam region in Northern Iran, and appears in Armenian historical records as *delmik*, *dlmik*, which was proposed to be derived from Middle Iranian **dēlmīk* meaning Daylamite. Among their neighbors the people are known mainly as Zāzā, which meant “stutterer” and was used as a pejorative. Hadank and Mckenzie attribute relative abundance of sibilants and affricates in Zaza language to explain the semantic etymology of the name.

## History 
### Origins and early history 
Linguistic evidence put the urheimat of the Zaza language to Northern Iran, especially around the southern Caspian region due to the similarities between Zaza, Talysh, Gilaki and Mazanderani languages. The etymology of the endonym *Dimlī* and the historical records of migration from Daylam to Central Anatolia in Armenian sources are also cited as an evidence of Daylamite origins of the Zaza people. Academics propose that this migration event happened in 10th to 12th centuries AD. Ziflioğlu states that many Zazas only speak Kurmanji.

The first written statements in the Zaza language were compiled by the linguist Peter Lerch in 1850. Two other important documents are the religious writings of Ehmedê Xasi of 1898, and of Osman Efendîyo Babij; both of these works were written in Arabic script. The state-owned TRT Kurdî airs shows in Zaza. During the 1980s, the Zaza language became popular among the Zaza diaspora, followed by publications in Zaza in Turkey.

### Religion 
Predominantly Zazas adhere to Sunni Islam. According to a 2015 study that examined the voting-age adults of the Eastern and Southern Anatolia 75.4% of the people who stated that they were ethnically Zazas belonged to the Shafiʽi school of Islam, similar to Kurdish groups, but in contrast to local Turkish and Arab people who were majority Hanafi. and various scholars consider Zazas as distinct ethnic group, distinct from the Kurds, and treat them as such in their academic work. 

According to Kehl-Bodrogi and Arakelova "in spite of their distinct national identity and ethnic consciousness, Zazas never claimed their separate existence, as they have for centuries been surrounded by the Kurds, the people with a homogenous language and close culture. Therefore, in the ‘outer world’ they have always been under the shadow of the Kurdish ethnic and national prevalence, and during the last century and a half, it has been totally suppressed by the Kurd’s political strivings manifested in numerous movements". However, some scholars consider them to be a separate ethnic group, and treat them as such in their academic work.

According to a national survey conducted by KONDA Research and Consultancy in 2019 around 1.5% of the population state "Zaza" as their ethnic identity, thus forming the fourth largest ethnic identity in the country. According to a 2015 survey conducted in Turkish Kurdistan among voting-age adults, the majority of the Zazaki-speakers ethnically identified as "Zaza" in contrast to other options such as Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic.
## Genetics 
A 2005 study genetically examined three different groups of Zaza (n= 27) and Kurmanji speakers in Turkey and Kurmanji speakers in Georgia. In the study, mtDNA HV1 sequences, eleven Y chromosome bi-allelic markers and 9 Y-STR loci were analyzed to investigate lineage relationship among these Iranian-speaking groups. According to study 8 different Y-DNA haplogroups have been identified among the Zaza speakers; I* (33.3%), R1a1a (25.9%), E* (11.1%) and R1* (11.1%) being the most prevalent ones.  Haplogroups P1 and J2, which were found to be prevalent among differing Kurdish populations, were absent in Zaza speakers. Y chromosome data showed somewhat different patterns, indicating some effect of geography. Kurmanji speakers and Zaza speakers in Turkey, who are geographic neighbours, were found to be closer to each other compared to the Georgian and Turkmen Kurds according to Y-DNA data.

MtDNA data indicates close relationships among Zaza speaking groups from Turkey and Kurdish people from Georgia, Iran and Eastern Turkey, meanwhile the examined Kurmanji speakers in Turkey and Turkmenistan were different from these groups and each other maternally. Geographic neighbours of Zazas from South Caucasus are also found to be similar concerning mtDNA results. It was stated that there was no clear geographic or linguistic pattern concerning matrilineal origins of examined Iranian-speakers.

Another phenomenon found in the research was that Zazas are closer to Kurdish groups (matrilineally South Caucasian groups, patrilineally Kurmanji speakers in Turkey) rather than peoples of Northern Iran, where ancestral Zaza language hypothesized to be spoken before its spread to Anatolia. It was also stated that "the genetic evidence of course does not preclude a northern Iranian origin for the Zazaki language itself."

## See also 
*Minorities in Turkey

## Notes 
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## Further reading
* *I. International Symposium on Zaza Language* (2011)
* *II. International Symposium on Zaza History and Culture* (2012)
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* Faruk İremet, "Zonê Ma Zazaki" (Dilimiz Zazaca), (Our language Zaza and Zazas
*Did a Genocide Take Place in the Dersim region of Turkey in 1938? ÖI Boztas - Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2015 - academia.edu
* Munzur Çem, "Kirmanjki (Zazaki) Speaking Kurds And Their Ethnic Identity" . Institute Kirmancki (Zazaki)