What is Central Asia?
As a general rule, Central Asia is thought of as the space between Iran and China where the old Silk Road ran. More to the points, it's all the "stans" that used to be part of the Soviet Union. For me, Central Asia is not about geography; it's about peoples. Specifically, it's about the Turkic and Iranian peoples who built empires; centers of arts, learning and commerce; and glorious mosques. It's about the creation of an Islamic civilization, or collection of civilizations, using Arabic words aplenty, of course, but while maintaining their own languages and building their own literatures.
For convenience's sake, the logo for this site depicts Central Asia as nations where Turkic (green) and Iranian (red) languages are the official language. The truth is much more complicated. A proper map would extend well into Xinjiang province in China, would include the Kurdish speaking parts of Iraq and, indeed, would have spatterings of red and green all across the globe. That said, Iran seems like worthy of inclusion in a map featuring the areas where Iranian languages predominate. Turkey is an odder case, as it marks the endpoint of a Turkic expansion that started in Mongolia, rather than a point of origin. Nonetheless, it is an important part of the east to west sweep of Turkic languages.
What's most intriguing about this zone is that as you go from east to west, or west to east, you find that the Turkic languages, and to a lesser extent the Iranian languages, exist along a continuum. No less than Josef Stalin tried to break up Central Asia into discreet nations and linguistic communities, yet the Uyghurs understand the Uzbeks easily and Turkish speakers would find many words in Kazakh that look awfully familiar. In other words, and much to the chagrin of the Chinese with their Uyghur population, if the Turks aren't 1,000 peoples then they are one. Likewise, from the Tajiks to the Iranians, there is a vast stretch of people whose language looks an awful lot like Farsi and who are bound together by their linguistic heritage and by the Muslim religion.
Central Asia is much in the news these days, but as I have already said, Central Asia today is not about geography: It's about Muslim peoples who speak not Arabic but Turkic and Iranian languages and who maintain their Muslim faith as they build modern societies. The results of the effort are mixed, but extremely important. Knowing about this region, the peoples who live there and the way they talk to one another, does not just give us clues as to who is involved when Uzbekistan, Afghanistan or Pakistan is in the news: It provides a key to understanding how, when and whether we can emerge from the "Great War on Terror" and find peace with these peoples as they find peace with themselves.
Please note: I am a Central Asia enthusiast, not an expert. My evaluation of the languages and cultural resources are from the standpoint of a student of language and culture using tools available in the West, not that of an old Central Asia hand. In other words, do your own reading before you do anything rash. That said, I hope that what is here will be of use. For more about me, see the “Who writes this?” page. And to help keep these pages accurate, if you're into Central Asian culture yourself, please feel free to leave comments about other resources available for those who share your interest.
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