Zaza people
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 1 to 3 millions | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 TurkeyDiaspora: Approx. 300,000 Australia,Austria,Belgium,France,Germany,Netherlands,Sweden,Switzerland,United Kingdom,United States. |
|
| Languages | |
| Zaza, Turkish, Kurdish | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam,Alevism |
The Zazas (also known as Kird, Kirmanc or Dimili) are a people in eastern Anatolia who natively speak the Zaza language. Their heartland, the Dersim region, consists of Tunceli, Bingöl provinces and parts of Elazığ, Erzincan and Diyarbakır provinces. The majority of Zazas consider themselves ethnic Kurds, part of the Kurdish nation, and they are often described as Zaza Kurds.
The exact number of Zazas is unknown, due to the absence of recent and extensive census data. The most recent official statistics concerning native language are available for the year 1965, where 147,707 (0.5%) chose Zaza as their native language in Turkey. It is also important to note that many Zazas only learned Kurdish (Kurmanji), as it was believed that the Zaza language was just a Kurdish offshoot. According to a KONDA survey from March 2007, Kurds and Zazas together comprise an estimated 13.4% of the adult population and 15.68% of the whole population in Turkey.
While almost all linguists agree that the Zaza language is not a Kurdish dialect but rather an independent language just like Gorani, they also agree on the fact that Zazas and Kurds are ethnically and culturally linked. Ludwig Paul also mentions that the ethno-cultural point is the decisive factor for the question of the ethnic identity of Zaza speakers. A scientific report from 2005 concluded that Zazas are very similar to Kurds genetically. Zaza and Kurdish languageas belong to the Indo-European languages family.
Linguistic studies shows that the Zazas may have immigrated to their modern-day homeland from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. Some Zazas use the word Dimli (Daylami) to describe their ethnic identity. The word Dimli (Daylami) also describes a region of Gilan Province in today’s Iran. Some linguists connect the word Dimli with the Daylamites in the Alborz Mountains near the shores of the Caspian Sea in Iran and believe that the Zaza have migrated from Daylam towards the west. Today, Iranian languages are still spoken in southern regions of the Caspian Sea (also called the Caspian languages), including Sangsari, Mazanderani, Tati, Semnani, and Talysh, and they are grammatically and lexically very close to Zaza; this supports the argument that Zazas emigrated from the southern regions of the Caspian Sea reaching eastern Anatolia.
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