Tajik Persian (zabån-e fårsi-e tåjiki; as transliterated from Cyrillic, zaboni forsi-i tojikī) is the New Persian dialect of Central Asia, a descendant together with Persian of Iran (fårsi) from the spoken Middle Persian of the Sasanian Empire at the time of the Arab Muslim conquest of 640–712 C.E. The Arabic alphabet and vocabulary were instrumental in the rise of this language, which, in the form of Classical Persian, furnished a common idiom for writers of Iran, India, and Central Asia over many centuries. This survey …