Yaghnobi

Yaghnobi is an Eastern Iranian language spoken by the Yaghnobi people in the Yaghnob Valley of Tajikistan's Sughd Province. It is a direct descendant of the ancient Sogdian language and belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family, closely related to other Sogdian languages while exhibiting unique features shaped by prolonged isolation and contact with Tajik Persian.

Most speakers live in Tajikistan, with a small diaspora elsewhere; estimates usually place speaker numbers in the low thousands. The language is endangered; transmission to children has declined as Tajik Persian dominates education and media, although some families maintain bilingual use and there are community efforts to foster literacy in Yaghnobi.

Historically, Yaghnobi has been written in Cyrillic script in Tajikistan, and linguistic descriptions have analyzed its phonology, morphology and syntax; dialect variation exists among villages in the Yaghnob valley.

As a cultural marker, Yaghnobi plays a role in local traditions and music; ongoing documentation and revitalization initiatives aim to support language maintenance and intergenerational transmission.