The latest issue of the Reporting Central Asia section of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting features an interesting article about the decline of Turkmen identity in Iran. According to Muhammad Tahir’s report, the number of people speaking in the Turkmen language has dropped dramatically, most notably among the young, who perceive Farsi as a symbol of modernity. Though the report suggests that the size of the Turkmen minority in Iran may number anything upwards of two to three million people, there is little evidence to substantiate this statistic or the extent to which these individuals are still in contact with their native cultural and linguistic heritage. Indeed, there is little available literature on this area, though the German linguist Karl H. Menges book “The Turkic Languages and Peoples” has some revealing insights into the distribution of Turkmen speakers in the regions of Northern Iran. The following extract is from an article by Menges entitled “Research in the Turkic Dialects of Iran (Preliminary Report on a Trip to Persia)” (Oriens, Vol. 4, No. 2. (Dec. 31, 1951), pp. 273-279.):

Turkmen. The Turkmen language is very little known and rather neglected by the explorers (cf. K. H. Menges, “Einige Bemerkungen zur Vergleichenden Gramraatik des Turkmenischen”, in Archiv Orientalni XI; 7 ff.; Prague, 1939). Turkmen dialects are found in the West of the prov. of Xorasan and in the prov. of Gurgan. I noted texts in the Dujodzi, Atabaj (Aq-Atabaj) and Dza’farbaj dialects. I did not find any Noxurly, reported to be on the northernmost frontier points of Iran (Gujnuk Mountains, in Dojduq, Jany-Qala, on the upper Tschandyr River), nor any Guklan (supposed to live in the Alburz Mts.). All of these tribes, the Dujodzi excepted, are (were) also found in Soviet Turkmenistan; however, Turkmen dialect samples seem to have never been published, neither in Russia nor in another country, despite the fact that specimens of Turkmen have been collected (e.g. by Potseluyevsky who used them in his remarks on the Turkmen language). Like my Qasqa’i texts, so the texts in Turkmen dialects I noted will be the first specimens to become known. The similarity of these Turkmen dialects with those of the Soviet Union is very close and proves of the existence of permanent linguistic contacts with Russian Turkestan, especially the SSR Turkmenistan, which were interrupted only about the beginning of enforced collectivization and denomadisation in the Republics of Russian Turkestan (1931ft.).

The IWPR article pins the cause of the deteriorating status of the Turkmen language among minority communities on Iranian state censorship. This is said to be a response to Tehran’s wariness about separatist movements cropping up across Iran, and indeed a Turkmen-language newspaper, Sahra, was closed down as recently as two months ago. Meanwhile, the government of Turkmenistan has failed to address the problem, possibly in deference to the paramountcy of amicable diplomatic relations.