Sart

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Historical term for settled inhabitants of Central Asia

title: "Sart" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["turkic-peoples-of-asia", "ethnic-tajik-people", "uzbeks"] description: "Historical term for settled inhabitants of Central Asia" topic_path: "general/turkic-peoples-of-asia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sart" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Historical term for settled inhabitants of Central Asia ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Sartscrop.jpg" caption="Two Sart men and two Sart boys in the early 20th century"] ::

Sart was a term used in the history and ethnography of Iran and Central Asia. The term was commonly applied to sedentary Turks and Tajiks in Central Asia. Usually bilingual in Turkic and Persian, they belonged to the same cultural tradition and occupied the same economic role.

The Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Turkmen, being proudly devoted to their rural, nomadic ways of life and values, strongly disliked the highly Persianized speech of Turkic by the Sarts. This instance is comparable to the prejudice the 11th century Turkic scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari had displayed toward Sogdianized urban Turks. Meanwhile, the Persian Tajik dialect had been adopting Turkic vocabulary and syntax, which caused it to shift away from standard Persian.

Origin

There are several theories about the origin of the term. It may be derived from the Sanskrit sārthavāha (सार्थवाह), meaning "merchant, trader, caravan leader", a term supposedly used by nomads to describe town-dwellers, according to Vasily Bartold, Gerard Clauson, and most recently Richard Foltz.

Rashid al-Din Hamadani in the Jami' al-tawarikh writes that Genghis Khan commanded for Arslan Khan, prince of the Karluks, to be given the title "Sartaqtai", which referred to Uyghurs and Uzbeks.

Footnotes

References

  • Owen Lattimore. (1973) "Return to China's Northern Frontier." The Geographical Journal, Vol. 139, No. 2 (Jun., 1973), pp. 233–242.
  • {{Citation | last=Ostroumov | first=Nikolai Petrovich | title=Значение Названия "Сарт" | publisher= | place=Tashkent | year=1884 | url =
  • {{Citation | last=Ostroumov | first=Nikolai Petrovich | title=Сарты – Этнографические Материалы | publisher= | place=Tashkent | year=1890 | page = 7
  • {{Citation | last =Breel | first =Yuri | author-link =Yuri Bregel | publication-date =1978 | title =The Sarts in the Khanate of Khiva | periodical =Journal of Asian History | series = | publication-place =Wiesbaden | publisher =O. Harrassowitz | volume =12 | issue = | pages =121–151 | url = | issn =0021-910X | doi = | oclc = | accessdate =
  • {{Citation | last =Subtelny | first =Maria Eva | author-link = | editor-last =Manz | editor-first =Beatrice | publication-date =1994 | contribution =The Symbiosis of Turk and Tajik | title =Central Asia in historical perspective | publication-place =Boulder CO USA | publisher =Westview Press | series =The John M. Olin critical issues series | isbn =0-8133-8801-5 | doi = | oclc = | accessdate = | year =1998
  • {{Citation | last1 =Nava'i | first1 =Ali Shir | author-link = | last2 =Devereaux | first2 =Robert | author2-link = | publication-date =1966 | title =Muhakamat al-Lughatayn | edition = | volume = | series = | publication-place =Leiden | publisher =Brill | pages = | page = | id = | isbn = | doi = | oclc = | url = | accessdate =
  • {{Citation | last =Arat | first =Reşit Rahmeti | author-link = | publication-date =1947 | title =Kutadgu bilig | edition = | volume =87 | series = Türk Dil Kurumu | publication-place =Istanbul | publisher =Millî Eğitim Basımevi | page =571 | id = | isbn = | doi = | oclc = | url = | accessdate =
  • {{Citation | last =Thackston | first =Wheeler | author-link =Wheeler Thackston | publication-date =2002 | year =2002 | title =The Baburnama : memoirs of Babur, prince and emperor | edition = | volume = | series = | publication-place =New York | publisher =The Modern Library | pages =5, 156 | id = | isbn =0-375-76137-3 | doi = | oclc = | url =https://archive.org/details/babarinizam00babu/page/5 | accessdate = | url-access =registration
  • {{Citation | last1 = Ṭabīb | first1 = Rashīd al-Dīn | author-link =Rashid-al-Din Hamadani | last2 =Thackston | first2 =Wheeler | author2-link =Wheeler Thackston | publication-date =1978 | title = Rashiduddin Fazlullah's Jamiʻuʾt-tawarikh = Compendium of chronicles | edition = | series =Sources of Oriental languages and literatures | volume =4 | publication-place =Cambridge MA USA | publisher =Harvard University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations | page =78 | id = | isbn = | doi = | oclc = | url = | accessdate =

References

  1. Golden, Peter B. ''An Introduction to the History of Turkic Peoples'' (1992). p. 150
  2. Foltz, Richard ''A History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East'' Note 27 for Chapter 4 [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ff2ZDwAAQBAJ&dq=sart+sarthavaha+merchant&pg=PT244]
  3. Dagiev, Dagikhudo. (2013). "Regime Transition in Central Asia: Stateness, Nationalism and Political Change in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan". Taylor & Francis.

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turkic-peoples-of-asiaethnic-tajik-peopleuzbeks