Re: Why Beijing?


"Oliver Cromm" <lispamateur@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:qlmy9wumermk$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
* John Atkinson wrote:

[origin of "Persian"]

Indeed. Interesting, but irrelevant to present-day usage. Today, all
immigrants from that country call themselves "Iranian" or
"Iranian-Australian". Some of them are ethnic Persians; these have
Farsi as their native language, though not all Farsi-speakers would
self-identify as "Persians". Other immigrants from Iran -- Azaris,
Kurds, Assyrians, Hazaras, and so on -- are not ethnic Persians. Some
of these ethnic distinctions correspond to language groups, others to
religion etc. On the whole, the different Iranian ethnicities tend to
associate with their co-ethnics.

I don't understand the last sentence: do Azeris from Iran asscoiate
stronger with other Iranians or with people from Azerbaijan?

AFAIK, we haven't got any significant number of migrants from Azerbaijan here in Oz -- I've never come across any -- so I can't answer that.

In Iran, Azeris are the largest minority ethnic group -- estimates vary between 16 and 30 million (more than there are in Azerbaijan). They tend to be better integrated than other minorities, and there is a fair bit of intermarriage with Persians and not much discrimination (much less than in the Shah's time). Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is an Azeri, as is the great singer Googoosh. There is a significant separationist movement which makes a fair bit of noise, but apparently the proportion of Iranian Azeris supporting it is small.

John.

.