- The Iranian People-
The Iranian People;
The Iranian peoples [1] or Iranic peoples [2] are a diverse grouping of Indo-European
peoples[1][3] who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural
similarities.
The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-
Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC.[4][5] At their peak of
expansion in the mid-1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched
across the entire Eurasian Steppe, from the Danubian plains in the west to the Ordos
Plateau in the east and the Iranian Plateau in the south.[6]
The ancient Iranian peoples who emerged after the 1st millennium BC include the Alans,
the Bactrians, the Dahae, the Khwarazmians, the Massagetae, the Medes, the Parthians,
the Persians, the Sagartians, the Sakas, the Sarmatians, the Scythians, the Sogdians,
and likely the Cimmerians, among other Iranian-speaking peoples of Western Asia,
Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Eastern Steppe.
In the 1st millennium AD, their area of settlement, which was mainly concentrated in
the steppes and deserts of Eurasia,[7] was significantly reduced as a result
of Slavic, Germanic, Turkic, and Mongolic expansions; many were subjected
to Slavicization[8][9][10][11] and Turkification.[12][13] Modern Iranian peoples include the Baloch,
the Gilaks, the Kurds, the Lurs, the Mazanderanis, the Ossetians, the Pamiris,
the Pashtuns, the Persians, the Tats, the Tajiks, the Talysh, the Wakhis, the Yaghnobis,
and the Zazas. Their current distribution spreads across the Iranian Plateau, stretching
from the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south and from eastern
Anatolia in the west to western Xinjiang in the east—a region that is sometimes called
the Iranian Cultural Continent,[14] representing the extent of the Iranian-speakers and
the significant influence of the Iranian peoples through the geopolitical and cultural
reach of Greater Iran.[15]