Arghu branch
Khalaj
A Turk people of central Iran whose language preserves features lost elsewhere in the Turk language family.
Khalaj / Halaçlar
The Khalaj are recorded by Muslim geographers from the 9th and 10th centuries onward, at first mainly in the Ghazna region of what is now Afghanistan. Groups of Khalaj moved west with the Seljuk migrations of the 11th century, and the largest surviving community lives today in the mountain villages of Markazi province in central Iran. The Khalaj of Iran are Shiʿi Muslims.
Their language was little studied until expeditions from the University of Göttingen led by the Turcologist Gerhard Doerfer, beginning in 1968, documented it in detail. Doerfer showed that Khalaj is not a dialect of the neighbouring Oghuz speech but forms a separate group within the Turk languages.
Khalaj keeps sounds and forms that most Turk languages lost long ago, such as an initial h- and old vowel length — the word for ‘foot’ is hadaq, against ayaq in nearby Oghuz speech. Today Khalaj speakers are bilingual in Persian, which has strongly influenced the language.
- Language
- Khalaj, a Turk language with many archaic features, linked by linguists to the Arghu speech of the medieval sources
- Branch
- Arghu
- Homeland
- Central Iran — the villages of Markazi province between Qom, Ashtian and Tafresh, south-west of Saveh
- Also living in
- Small groups bearing the Khalaj name elsewhere in Iran, including Fars; villages named Halaç in Türkiye
Key dates
9th–10th centuries
Muslim geographers record the Khalaj; the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam (982–983) places most of them in the Ghazna region.
11th century
Khalaj groups move westward into Iran with the Seljuk migrations.
1290–1320
The Khalji dynasty, whose name is linked to the Khalaj, rules the Delhi Sultanate.
1968
The first Göttingen expedition led by Gerhard Doerfer begins the systematic documentation of Khalaj.
Heritage
- The Khalaj language itself, valued by linguists for its archaic features
- Folk tales and songs recorded in the field and published as Folklore-Texte der Chaladsch (1994)
- Village life in the uplands of Markazi province, the area sometimes called Khalajestan
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Ḵalaj i. Tribe” (P. Oberling) and “Ḵalaj ii. Language” (M. Knüppel)
- G. Doerfer, Grammatik des Chaladsch (Harrassowitz, 1988)
- G. Doerfer and S. Tezcan, Folklore-Texte der Chaladsch (Harrassowitz, 1994)