The Yagnobi people of the Yagnob River Valley in western Tajikistan are thought to be the last remaining speakers of the ancient Sogdian language.
Modern-day Tajikistan is a land-locked country nestled between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, and Afghanistan. Although today it is a relatively forgotten corner of the world, in the days of the Silk Road, the land that now encompasses Tajikistan was a hotbed of trade and commerce. Specifically, Ancient Sogdiana, located in what is today western Tajikistan, was home to the Sogdian people - fierce traders and merchants that for nearly 400 years between the 4th and 8th centuries CE cultivated the most prosperous civilization along the Silk Road.
After the dissolution of the Silk Road, the Sogdian people lived in relative obscurity until Joseph Stalin undertook a brutal campaign of extermination against them in the 1950s. Located deep in the rugged Zerafshon Mountains, Stalin forcibly relocated the Sogdian people to the Soviet cotton plantations in the plains, forcing them to work under brutal conditions and searing heat; many died as a result of these actions.
Following the dissolution of the USSR, the Sogdian people began migrating back to the mountainous homeland. Today, they occupy a rugged and remote corner of Tajikistan known as the Yagnob Valley, scraping out a living on farming potatoes sold at markets in the capital Dushanbe and other cities across Tajikistan. It took me two days and many hours along horribly bumpy dirt roads to reach them. They are referred to as Yagnobi people, however, they are the direct descendants of the Ancient Sogdians who once ruled this part of the world.
My main motivation for venturing to such a remote corner of the world was to hear their language. They still speak Sogdian, and to put that into perspective for you, when Alexander the Great plundered his way through Central Asia in the 4th century BCE, Sogdian is the tongue he would have primarily heard. The language has been preserved for over 2000 years, and I wanted to meet these extraordinary people and hear their ancient language.
