The Talking Tajik Phrasebook

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Tajik translation. Tajik uses a Cyrillic alphabet. Below the Cyrillic, we’ve provided a phonetitc transliteration in Latin script.

In the center column for each row is a play button. The recorded file will feature first English, then the Tajik in three versions: one slow, one with each syllable broken out, and a last version that will be spoken as it might be overheard in a conversation between native speakers.

10 Facts About Tajik

1. Status: Tajik is an Iranian language related to Persian. Some argue that Tajik is in fact a dialect of Persian rather than an independent language. However, Tajik has had a unique historical experience, with heavy influence from both Arabic and Russian and is a major component to the Tajik national identity.
2. Speakers: Today, Tajik has an estimated 18 million speakers. Approximately 10 million of these live outside of Tajikistan. There is a native minority in Uzbekistan and many other Tajik speakers live throughout other Central Asian countries and Russia. Inside Tajikistan, Russian remains an official “interethnic” language and is still taught in Tajik schools, meaning that many Tajiks are bilingual.
3. Foreign Influences: Tajik’s strong Arabic and Russian influence can be seen in the pronunciation of some letters as well as many loan words. Loan words have traditionally held irregular grammatical forms that follow the original Arabic or Russian rules. There is an active effort in Tajikistan, supported by the government, to replace loan words with Tajik equivalents.
4. Gender: Tajik has no grammatical gender. The single third-personal singular pronoun “вай” can mean “he,” “she,” or “it.” Another pronoun, “ӯ,” can be used to refer to specifically animate subjects, but can still mean either “he” or “she.” Names of people are typically gender specific and there are ways to gender nouns, but the gender of a noun does not further affect the grammar of the language.
5. Adjective Use: In Tajik, adjectives are typically placed after the nouns they modify.
6. Showing Respect: To show respect in Tajik, plural forms are used to refer to individuals.
7. No Cases: Tajik has no case system and instead relies on prepositions and postpositions to indicate relationships between nouns.
8. Simple Pronouns: Because Tajik has no case system, it has only a single set of pronouns: ман (I/me), ту (you), шумо (a polite form of you), ӯ / вай (he/him; she/her; it), мо (we/us); шумоён (a plural form of you), and онҳо (they/them).
9. Showing Possession: There are no possessive pronouns in Tajik. Instead, possession is shown by attaching a suffix to the noun that indicates the item owned. For example, if a book is yours, you would attach the suffix -ам to the word for book, китоб, and say “китобам,” which means “my book.” The other suffixes to use are -ат (your), -аш (his/her/its), -амон (our), and ашон (their). There is also a plural form of “your” that is used for second-person groups or to indicate respect for an individual, -атон.
10. Diverse Dialects: Tajik has many dialects. Tajik speakers have historically been spread throughout Central Asia, separated by great distances. Tajikistan itself is a country of particularly challenging mountainous geography which has created many isolated communities. Because of this, there are at least four families of dialects spoken within Tajikistan itself. The numerous Tajiks in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan also speak a specific dialect. Also, the Bukharan Jews, although named for a city in Uzbekistan, traditionally speak a dialect of Tajik that has been heavily influenced by Hebrew. The information below represents Tajik as typically spoken in Dushanbe, the capital.

Unique Characters in Tajik

Tajik uses a Cyrillic alphabet similar to Russian, but with several unique characters or pronunciations. These include:

Ғ – This is a Cyrillic “Г” with an extra bar. The Cyrillic “Г” is the equivalent to the English hard “g” sound. Like these letters, “Ғ” is a voiced uvular fricative, but is gently rolled at the back of the throat. The result is something that sound much like a Russian “X” or a very roughly pronounced “GH” from the English word “knight,” but rolled with a quality similar to the pronunciation of “R” in Spanish or French.

Ӣ – is equivalent to the English “EE” as in “feet.” This letter makes the same sound as another Tajik letter, И, but is held slightly longer.

Ӯ – is similar to sound that “U” makes in the word “put,” but is formed from deeper in the throat.

Ҳ – is almost equivalent to the English “H” sound, although often pronounced with slightly more force. Note that the letter is a Cyrillic “X” with a descender or “tail.”

Ҷ – is equivalent to the English “J” sound, as sound “jump” or “job.”

Ъ – is guttural stop in Tajik, like the hyphen in the word “uh-oh.” The letter before this symbol sounds slightly longer, generally accompanied by a drop in intonation.

Since independence, there have been discussions of moving Tajik to a Latin script, like that used in English, or a Persian/Arabic script. Currently it does not appear likely that a change will be made in a near future.

Survival Basics for Tajik

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Introductions in Tajik

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Asking Directions

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Shopping

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Counting

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