Iranianspeaking

Iranianspeaking refers to people who speak Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-Iranian subgroup of the Indo-European language family. The term covers a range of languages historically related to each other, including Persian (Farsi), Dari, Tajik, and many regional languages such as Kurdish, Balochi, Gilaki, Mazandarani, and Luri.

Geographically, Iranianspeaking communities are concentrated in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, with large diaspora communities in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Persian varieties—Farsi in Iran, Dari in Afghanistan, and Tajik in Tajikistan—are the most widely spoken members of the group and often serve as linguae francae across regions.

Scripts and writing systems vary: Persian (Farsi) and Dari use a variant of the Arabic script; Tajik uses Cyrillic script; Kurdish can be written in Latin or Cyrillic script depending on region. Some Iranian languages have their own orthographies or use adapted scripts.

Sociolinguistic status varies by country and community. In Iran, Persian is the official language and national lingua franca, while many minority Iranian languages are spoken regionally with varying levels of institutional support. In Afghanistan, Dari is an official language alongside Pashto; in Tajikistan, Tajik is the state language. Iranian languages show dialect continua and substantial regional variation, reflecting long histories and diverse communities across the region.