Khalaj people

The Khalaj (Bactrian: χαλασσ, romanized: Xalass; Persian: خلج‌ها, romanized: Xalajhâ) are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly reside in Iran. In Iran they still speak the Khalaj language, although most of them are Persianized.

Historically, the Khalaj who lived among Pashtuns were slowly Pashtunized. Due to this, the Khaljis of Delhi, originating from Khalaj migrants from Afghanistan into India, were often considered to be Pashtuns by other Turkic nobles. The Ghiljis, one of the largest Pashtun tribes, also derive their name from the Khalaj, and it is likely that the Khalaj initially formed the core of this tribe.

According to linguist Gerhard Doerfer, Mahmud al-Kashgari was the first person mentioning the Khalaj people in his Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk:

Turkologist Yury Zuev stated that *Qalaç resulted from *Halaç, owing to the sound-change of prothetic *h- to *q-, typical in many medieval Turkic dialects, and traced Halaç's etymology back to ala, alač, alaça "motley, piebald".

However, according to historian V. Minorsky, the ancient Turkic form of the name was indeed Qalaj (or Qalaç), but the Turkic /q/ changed to /x/ in Arabic sources (Qalaj > Xalaj).

Following al-Khwarizmi, Josef Markwart claimed the Khalaj to be remnants of the Hephthalite confederacy. The Hephthalites may have been Indo-Iranian, although there is also the view that they were of Turkic Gaoju origin. According to André Wink, the Khalaj were the remnants of Indo-European and Iranic nomads; the Kushans, Sakas and Hephthalites who became Turkicized and later merged with the Afghans. According to David Bivar, The Khalaj may originally have been Turkic-speaking and only federated with Iranian-speaking tribes in medieval times.

However, according to linguist Sims-Williams, archaeological documents do not support the suggestion that the Khalaj were the successors of the Hephthalites, while according to historian V. Minorsky, the Khalaj were "perhaps only politically associated with the Hephthalites."

The Khalaj might have later been incorporated into the Western Turkic khaganate, as Hèluóshī (賀羅施), mentioned besides Türgesh (Tūqíshī 突騎施), before regaining independence after the collapses of the Western Turkic and the Türgesh khaganates. Groups of the Khalaj people migrated into Persia beginning with the invasions of the Seljuq Turks, during the 11th century. From there, a branch of them migrated to the Azerbaijan region, where they supposedly picked up greater Oghuz influence in their language. However, the Khalaj are very few among Iranian Azerbaijanis today. Sometime shortly prior to the time of Timur (1336-1405), a branch of Khalaj migrated to the area southwest of Saveh in the Markazi Province, which is where a large branch of the Khalaj are located today. However, today, the Khalaj people also identify as Persians despite still speaking their local Turkic language. This is due to undergoing processes of Persianization and forceful assimilation starting in the mid 20th century.