The linguistic landscape of Central Asia is far more complex than you probably realize. The region is dominated by Indo–European languages in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, while Turkic languages reign supreme throughout Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan. But many of these countries also exhibit remarkable linguistic diversity, with dozens of languages spoken within their borders. The many languages of Central Asia also feature various dialects, sometimes mutually intelligible with their parent language and sometimes not. But perhaps one of the most unique dialects in the vast region is Bukharian, a Jewish dialect of Tajik.
Jewish dialects exist in a number of languages, including Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Persian, Aramaic, and Tat—the phenomenon arose when a worldwide Jewish diaspora formed following the Jewish–Roman wars of the first century. Bukharian is the variety that developed in the Tajik-speaking world, with Tajik itself constituting a standardized variety of Persian. Today, the language is spoken by an estimated 60,000 to 115,000 people in various countries—in fact, most Bukharian speakers are located outside of Tajikistan. Few translation companies are willing to work with this unique but endangered language—but we here at TranslationServices.com are proud to present our new Bukharian translation services.
Looking for high-quality Bukharian translation services? Reach out to our team today to see a free quote!
Discovering Bukharian, the Jewish dialect of Tajik
Despite Bukharian being based on the Tajik variety of Persian, few Bukharian speakers today live in Tajikistan—most are in Uzbekistan or Israel, with a handful also residing in Afghanistan and the United States. The language’s roots are in the southern Uzbek city of Bukhara, with the nearby city of Samarkand also traditionally housing many Bukharian speakers. Today, several thousand Bukharian speakers remain in Uzbekistan, but the majority now live in Israel, where Bukharian is spoken by tens of thousands alongside other Jewish languages, such as Hebrew and Yiddish. In the US—particularly in New York City—a movement to revive Bukharian has been gaining momentum, with a growing number of youths learning the language.
Bukharian’s grammar is largely rooted in Classical Persian, specifically developing from the Tajik branch of the language, but it features far more Hebrew loanwords than Persian proper. Bukharian has also incorporated loanwords from Uzbek, Russian, and Arabic, making its lexicon rather distinct from typical Persian. Nonetheless, Bukharian retains mutual intelligibility with Tajik, meaning that speakers of both languages can understand the respective other without any formal studying.
Our team is here for all your Bukharian translation needs.
If you’ve been having difficulty finding a reliable Bukharian translation service, your troubles are over. Translation firms that cater to Bukharian are rare, but we here at TranslationServices.com are proud to work with this unique Jewish language. To ensure a well-rounded Bukharian translation team that can handle the needs of diverse clients, we’ve hired translators from across the Bukharian-speaking world, including Israel, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and the US. Since our translators are skilled at both translating from Bukharian to English and from English to Bukharian, we’re confident that we can seamlessly accommodate your Bukharian translation project.
What kind of Bukharian translation services are you looking for? We’re limited by the relatively low number of speakers, but nonetheless, we strive to offer a diverse range of translation services to accommodate different types of projects. If you’re interested in translating traditional literature from Bukharian to English, for example, we’d love to help—and the same applies if you’d like to translate educational materials or contemporary media from English to Bukharian, which are great ways to support this endangered language. For business translation, academic translation, literary translation, localization, and more, you can count on our team of passionate Bukharian translators to provide seamless, high-quality work.
Don’t wait to get started with your Bukharian translation project! If you reach out to our team today, we can get started right away.