The Zazas () are an Iranian people who speak Zaza, an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-European language family. Zazas live primarily in the Eastern Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey. They live in parts of Bingöl, Elazığ, Erzincan, Erzurum, Malatya, Muş, Bitlis and Tunceli provinces in Eastern Anatolia and Adıyaman, Diyarbakır and Şanlıurfa provinces in Southeastern Anatolia. There are also found Zaza communities in provinces such as Kars and Ardahan in Northeastern Anatolia, Kayseri, Sivas and Aksaray in Central Anatolia and Tokat and Gümüşhane in Black Sea regions of Turkey. Outside Turkey, there exists a Zaza diaspora in Western Europe, particularly in Germany.
Zazas are predominantly adherent to Islam, divided internally between the Sunni school and Alevism. This sectarian division is manifested in the dialectal variations of the Zaza language; the northern dialect of the language is spoken by Alevi Zazas, the southern dialect by Hanafi Zazas, and the central dialect by Shafi Zazas. The Zaza population is estimated to be approximately 2 to 3 million. The language of the Zazas, the Zaza language belongs to the Northwestern Iranian branch of the Iranian languages and is closely related to Tati, Talysh, Sangsari, Semnani, Mazandarani and Gilaki.
Etymology and naming The terms Dımli or Dımıli are often used for the Zaza people and their language. According to the long-proposed theory these terms evolved from the term Dailam or Daila. Alternatively this region is termed as Dailäm, Daylâm or Dailâm. Thus it is proposed that the origin of the Zaza people lies in the province of Dailam or Daylam in ancient Persia and modern northern Iran, close to the southern Caspian Sea. According to Encyclopædia Iranica, the endonym Dimlī or Dīmla was derived from Daylam region in Northern Iran and appears in Armenian historical records as delmik, dlmik, which was proposed to be derived from Middle Iranian *dēlmīk meaning Daylamite. The theory that Dimlī or Dīmla is derived from Daylam and that Zazas are descendants of Daylamites has been supported by scholars such as Friedrich Carl Andreas, , Karl Hadank, Ely Bannister Soane, Arthur Christensen, Richard N. Frye, Vladimir Minorsky, Ehsan Yarshater, Gernot Ludwig Windfuhr, Ferdinand Hennerbichler, Walter Bruno Henning,William Burley Lockwood, , Clifford Edmund Bosworth, , David Neil MacKenzie, Garnik Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova:"The emergence of the Zazas on the present inhabited territories is connected with the waves of migrations from Daylam, the highlands of Gilan, during the 10-12 centuries which is reflected in their ethnonym - Dim(i)Iī. The theory of the Caspian origin of the Zazas is substantiated both linguistically (the Zaza language is a North-West Iranian dialect close to Talishi, Azari, Gilyaki, etc.) and historically (there are authentic historical data about the migration of the Daylamits to Central Anatolia)." and the Daylam thesis has been the most popular thesis regarding the origins of the Zaza people and the Zaza language since the first researchers of the Zaza language. Among their neighbors, the people are known mainly as Zāzā, which meant “stutterer” and was used as a pejorative. Hadank and Mckenzie attribute relative abundance of sibilants and affricates in the Zaza language to explain the semantic etymology of the name. Some have pointed out the phonetic similarity between the terms Dimili and Dunbuli. This connection is supported by several evidences, including the use of the terms Dummel or Zaza in Kurdistan to refer to the Azerbaijani Dunbuli tribe, historical records of the Dunbuli tribe migrating to Dersim during the reign of Shah Ismail, and documented evidence that the Dunbuli tribe in Palu spoke Zazaki. In some regions, the term Dunbuli is still used to refer to the Zazas. According to this view, the term Dimilî may derive from the name of the Dunbulî (also spelled Dumbulî), a Kurdish tribe documented since the 12th century. Karl Hadank, on the other hand, in his prominent work on Zaza, "Mundarten der Zâzâ" (1932), discusses the claimed relationship between Dimli and Dunbuli in detail over several pages, presents evidence from various historical sources and concludes that equating the Dunbuli with the Zaza is impossible, the term Dimli cannot be derived from the term Dunbuli and the Dimli people and the Dunbuli tribe are different. Eberhard Werner, in his anthropological work on Zazas also discusses the Dunbuli topic and concludes that there is little information as to whether the Dunbuli and the Dimili are the same and there is no single reference in Zaza oral traditions about the so-called Dunbuli move. Furthermore the Dunbuli tribe view fails to account for the linguistic affinities of the Zaza language which shares extensive parallels with the Caspian languages as well-documented in Iranian studies, therefore, it is challenged due to an absence of corroborating historical and linguistic data.
The endonym Dımli/Dımıli and its derivations are primarily used for Southern Zaza. Zazas living in places such as Aksaray, Şanlıurfa, Siverek, Diyarbakır, Çüngüş, Adıyaman, Gerger and Mutki refer to themselves as Dımli/Dımıli, and refer to the Zaza language as Dımılki/Dımıli. At the same time, the same endonym Dımıl(ki) is also used in various regions among northern Alevi Zazas for the Zaza language. Zazas living in Elazığ, Palu, Maden, Alacakaya, Arıcak, Çermik, Bingöl, Varto, and Sivas-Koçgiri regions refer to themselves as Zaza and refer to the Zaza language as Zazaki. The endonym Zaza is found in all dialects of the Zaza language. While almost all Zazas who speak the central dialect of Zaza refer to themselves as Zaza and refer to their language as Zazaki, in places such as Palu, Bingöl and Dicle, the endonym of Kırd, along with Zaza, is also found to a limited extent. A part of Alevi Zazas refer to themselves as Kırmanc and refer to their language as Kırmancki, even though the endonym Dımılki is also known among the older generation Alevi Zazas. A second part of Alevi Zazas living in regions such as Bingöl, Erzurum and Varto, instead of a special designation, refer to the Zaza language as "zonê ma" which means "our language" and they refer to themselves as "şarê ma", which means "our people".
History
Origins and early history
The most important theory regarding the origins of the Zazas is that they are originally Daylamites from the Daylam region. Since the first modern studies on the Zaza language and Zazas, this theory has been substantiated by many different scholars.: "The people call themselves Dimlī or Dīmla, apparently derived from Deylam...The Deylamite origin of the Dimlīs is also indicated by the linguistic position of Dimlī." :"The emergence of the Zazas on the present inhabited territories is connected with the waves of migrations from Daylam, the highlands of Gilan, during the 10-12 centuries which is reflected in their ethnonym - Dim(i)Iī. The theory of the Caspian origin of the Zazas is substantiated both linguistically (the Zaza language is a North-West Iranian dialect close to Talishi, Azari, Gilyaki, etc.) and historically (there are authentic historical data about the migration of the Daylamits to Central Anatolia)."
: "History as well as similar political, social and cultural developments point to one origin that is the region of Daylam. : "Their own designation for themselves and their language is Dimlī, .... deriving from *Dailamī, i.e. of the province Daylam, or Gilan, to the south-west of the Caspian Sea."
Koymaz, Alina (2005). Das Volk und die Sprache der Zaza – vom Aussterben bedroht?. Eine wissenschaftliche Untersuchung BA-Vertiefungsseminar Linguistik Sommersemester 2005. s. 5. ...sollen die Zaza ursprünglich in den Gebieten Daylam, Mazandaran und dem Gebirge Demave an der Südwest-Küste des Kaspischen Meeres beheimatet gewesen sein... ...Zazaki may still have been spoken at this period around the ancient region of Daylam south of the Caspian Sea. In the west Zazaki was driven more to the north and northwest by Kurdish, but still remained in contact with the northern chain of NW dialects (Āz.-Tāl.-Semn.- Casp.) for some time." Andranik, (1900). Tersim (Dersim), Tblisi p. 161.
: "Consequently, after Muslim conquest, Daylamite dynasties controlled majority area of the contemporary Iran and Iraq. During the Daylamites' expansion, Zaza and other Daylamite groups migrated to the west."
. According to this theory, the Zazas migrated from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea to Eastern Anatolia, along with other communities. The etymology of the endonym Dimlī and the historical records of migrations and raids of Daylamites to Anatolia in Armenian sources are also adduced as an evidence of Daylamite origins of the Zaza people. Scholars believe that the Zaza-speaking populations relocated from their Daylamite ancestral homeland in northern Iran to their contemporary Anatolian settlements between the 9th/10th and 12th centuries AD, during the extensive Daylamite expansion. During this era, the Daylamites extended their territorial control by launching raids into adjacent regions and migrating deeper into Western Asia. This expansive movement took Daylamite factions well beyond the Caspian littoral. After traversing the borders of Iran, the Daylamites penetrated Azerbaijan, Armenia, Arran, Bagrevand, Vaspurakan and Anatolia. Their military campaigns and subsequent territorial conquests extended across a broad geographical continuum, spanning the Black Sea littoral of Lazica and Georgia, modern-day Azerbaijan and Armenia, regions of modern-day Iraq and Syria, including Aleppo and several eastern and southeastern Anatolian localities, namely Van, Kars, Ağrı, Kapetron, Erzurum, Manzikert, Diyarbakır, Mayyāfāriqīn (Silvan) and Harpoot.:"The theory of the Caspian origin of the Zazas is substantiated both linguistically (the Zaza language is a North-West Iranian dialect close to Talishi, Azari, Gilyaki, etc.) and historically (there are authentic historical data about the migration of the Daylamits to Central Anatolia)."