KHALAJ (Iran)

Family
Western-(Oghuz)-Turkic languages

Country
Iran

Language code
KLJ

Continent
Southwest Asia

Genetic affiliation
Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Azerbaijani

Geographical region
Northeast of Arak in Central Province

Population
17,000 and decreasing (1968)

Bilingual in
Farsi

Status
Needs survey

Remarks
Not a dialect of Azerbaijani, as previ- ously supposed. An independent language distinct from other extant Turkish languages (Doerfer 1971). Most are bilingual in Farsi; some children know only Farsi

Total speakers
17,000 or fewer

Religion
Muslim