Farsiwan
Farsiwan
Name of Persian speakers, esp. in Afghanistan
Fārsīwān (Pashto/Persian: فارسیوان or its regional forms: Pārsīwān or Pārsībān,[1] "Persian speaker") is a contemporary designation for Persian speakers in Afghanistan and its diaspora elsewhere. More specifically, it was originally used to refer to a distinct group of farmers in Afghanistan[2][3][4][5] and urban dwellers. In Afghanistan, original Farsiwans are found predominantly in Herat and Farah provinces. They are roughly the same as the Persians of eastern Iran.[6] The term excludes the Hazāra and Aymāq tribes, who also speak dialects of Persian (Hazaragi and Aimaq).[7]
The Farsiwan are often mistakenly referred to as Tajiks.[1][8] Although the term was originally coined with the Persian lexical root (Pārsībān), the suffix has been transformed into a Pashto form (-wān) and is usually used by the Pashtuns to designate both the Tajiks and the Farsiwans.