Takistani

The Takestani Tats are the Tati-speaking people of Takestan and the Ramand plain south of Qazvin, the largest surviving block of the Tati language group of northwestern Iran. Takestan, known to its people as Siayden (Siadehan), is called the largest Tat city in the world; its speech, Siaydiniji, belongs with the Ramand dialects of Esfarvarin, Khiaraj, Khoznin, Danesfahan, Ebrahimabad, Sagezabad and Chal to the Southern Tati cluster first described by Ehsan Yarshater. Tati descends from the Northwestern Iranian speech once spoken across Azerbaijan and the Qazvin region before Turkic and Persian spread, and is related to Talysh and Zaza. Iran has perhaps 400,000 Tats of all varieties. Takestani Tats see themselves as a distinct people with a 3,000-year history, with language at the centre of that identity, while sharing Shia Islam and Iranian national identity with their Persian and Azerbaijani neighbours.

Takestan, literally 'land of vineyards', is one of Iran's main grape districts: some 35,000 hectares of vines, most of the crop dried into raisins and sultanas for export. Village life revolves around the vineyards, wheat and barley fields, and the qanats and wells that water them on the dry Qazvin plain. Families are close-knit and extended kin support each other at weddings, funerals and in hard times. Tati is the language of home and community among older and middle generations, while Persian dominates school and media and Azerbaijani is common in mixed towns. Local writers have compiled Tati dictionaries and Tati poetry, and Telegram and Instagram channels share Tati proverbs, songs and village news.

Takestani Tats are Twelver Shia. Muharram mourning, Ashura processions, Ramadan and visits to local shrines and imamzadehs structure the religious year. Folk practice includes vows (nazr), communal cooking of votive food, and Nowruz customs. No study documents secularisation among Tats specifically, but the proximity of Qazvin and Tehran exposes young people to the same secular trends as the rest of urban Iran.

No Scripture in Takestani is confirmed. Korpu included a 'Tati' New Testament among the 12 minority-language New Testaments dedicated in January 2024, but the variety is not named. Takestani Tats read Persian well, so Persian Bibles, satellite TV and online media are accessible. There is no known church or believer among them.

Tati is not one language but a chain of related Northwestern Iranian varieties scattered across northern Iran, survivors of the speech of Azerbaijan and the Qazvin region before Turkic and Persian replaced it. Linguists group them into a northern cluster near the Aras (Harzani, Karingani, Kalasuri, Khoynarudi), a central cluster in Khalkhal and Tarom (Shahrudi, Kajali, Koresh-e Rostam, Taromi), and a southern cluster from Takestan and Ramand to Eshtehard, Vafs and the Alvir-Vidar villages near Saveh. Speakers of all of them call themselves Tat and share Shia Islam, but they cannot always understand each other, and most clusters survive only in a few villages. Takestani, with its Ramand sister dialects, is the largest and most vigorous.