Zaza

The Zazas, who call themselves Dimli, are an Iranian people of the eastern Anatolian highlands, settled around Harput, Palu, Gerger and the Dersim mountains. Their Zaza language belongs to the Northwestern Iranian branch and shares its closest features with the Caspian languages, pointing to an origin in Daylam on the southern shore of the Caspian.

Medieval Armenian sources call them delmik or dlmik, meaning Daylamite, and trace Daylamite bands raiding and settling westward from the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Dunbuli tribe recorded at Palu still spoke Zazaki when it moved into Dersim under Shah Ismail in the early sixteenth century.

The people are divided between Sunni and Alevi Islam, a split reflected in their dialects. Their medieval bards composed in both Zaza and Turkish, and an Armenian dictionary printed in 1621 described them as a distinct Parthian nation.