Member of the majority ethnic group in Tajikistan. Tajiks also live in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan and western China. The Tajiki language belongs to the West Iranian sub-branch of the Indo-European family, and is similar to Farsi; it is written in the Cyrillic script. The Tajiks have long been associated with neighbouring Turkic peoples and their language contains Altaic loan words. The majority of the Tajik people are Sunni Muslims; there is a Shiite minority in Afghanistan.
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