Zaza, Southern

The Southern Zazas are the Sunni Muslim branch of the Zaza people of eastern Türkiye, speakers of Southern Zazaki or Dimli (diq), a Northwestern Iranian language related more closely to the Gorani, Talysh and Caspian languages of Iran than to Kurdish. Most scholars derive the name Dımli from the Daylam region south of the Caspian Sea and think Zaza-speaking tribes reached the upper Euphrates and Tigris between the 10th and 12th centuries; others see them as native to Anatolia. The name Zaza was first used by neighbours and may once have meant 'stammerer', but it is now the common self-name; the Shafi'i Zazas of Bingöl, Palu and Dicle also call themselves Kırd, and the Hanafi Zazas of Çermik, Çüngüş, Siverek and Gerger call themselves Dımıli. Linguists divide Zazaki into a Northern dialect spoken by Alevis (kiu, a separate people group) and a Central (Bingöl-Palu, Shafi'i) and Southern (Çermik-Siverek, Hanafi) dialect, which together form Southern Zazaki; its sub-dialects include Dumbuli, Hazzu, Kori, Motki and Sivereki. Whether the Zazas are Kurds is disputed: many Sunni Zazas call themselves Kurds and have been leaders of Kurdish movements, from Sheikh Said in 1925 to several Kurdish politicians today, while a Zaza movement treats them as a people of their own. All Zazas number about 2-4 million, of whom roughly four in five are Sunni.

Southern Zaza society is built on the patrilineal extended family and, especially around Siverek, on tribes (aşiret) led by aghas, though the tribal system is weaker than it was. Marriages are arranged between families, often between cousins, with a bride price, and weddings last days with drum (davul) and shawm (zurna) music and the halay line dance; the Eagle Dance is a Bingöl speciality. Visiting and long tea sessions bind relations, and a guest must call on every household. Oral culture is rich: folk tales, feud narratives, laments for the dead and love songs about exile and poverty, while the written tradition began with religious poems, the mewlids of Ehmedê Xasî (1899) and Osman Efendiyo Babıj (1906, printed 1933). The Sunni spring festival Kormışkan and the New Year Serra Newe/Gağand mark the year. Food is that of eastern Anatolia: bulgur, tava, kavurma, stuffed meatballs (içli köfte), dolma and flatbread, with Bingöl honey and cheese. Many Zazas under 60 now speak Turkish at home, and a 2015 survey found only 58% of Zazaki speakers still used it in the family.

Southern Zazas are Sunni Muslims. Those of the Central area (Bingöl, Palu, Hani, Lice, Dicle, Eğil, Ergani, Mutki) follow the Shafi'i school like the Kurds, while those of Çermik, Çüngüş, Siverek, Gerger, part of Maden and Aksaray follow the Hanafi school like the Turks. Sufi orders, above all the Naqshbandi, shaped religious life: sheikh families such as that of Sheikh Said of Palu commanded wide loyalty, and their descendants and the madrasa-trained mullahs (mela) still carry weight. Recitation of the mewlid, the poem on the Prophet's birth, at births, deaths and the Prophet's birthday is a central rite, and Zazaki mewlids are still printed in Arabic script. Folk practice includes visits to saints' tombs (ziyaret) for healing and fertility, vows and sacrifices, amulets written by mullahs and protection against the evil eye. Village life is devout and conservative, but urban migrants and the young are more secular, and a few have turned to Shia Islam. Unlike the Alevi Zazas of Dersim they pray in mosques and keep the Ramadan fast.

Southern Zazaki has Scripture portions only: the Gospel of Luke and Psalm 23, translated in the Çermik-Siverek-Gerger dialect with the Bible Society in Turkey and Wycliffe, available as text and audio on Bible.is and YouVersion and in the free app Încîla Lûqa (Dimlî/Zazakî), released in 2021, with a Luke gospel film. A New Testament in a standardised form is in progress. There is no Jesus Film in Southern Zazaki, though one exists in Northern Zazaki, and Global Recordings Network has no recordings of its own in the language. Most Southern Zazas read and understand Turkish, in which the full Bible and Christian media are freely available. Christians in the area once included Zazaki-speaking Armenian and Syriac villages around Gerger, almost all gone. Known believers number a few dozen, and there is no fellowship in their own language.

In February 1925 Sheikh Said, a Zaza-speaking Naqshbandi sheikh whose family came from Palu and Hınıs, led a rising against the new secular Turkish Republic that began at Piran (today Dicle) and spread to the walls of Diyarbakır. It mixed Kurdish national aims with anger at the abolition of the caliphate. The army crushed it within two months; Sheikh Said was hanged in Diyarbakır on 29 June 1925 with 47 followers, and the repression that followed, including deportations and the closing of Sufi lodges, fell heavily on the Sunni Zaza districts of Palu, Hani, Lice and Bingöl.