The Yaghnob Valley is a valley in north-west Tajikistan, between the southern slope of the Zarafshan Range and the northern slope of the Gissar Range.
The valley is formed by the Yaghnob River and belongs to the Zarafshan basin. It lies between 2,500 and 3,000 metres above sea level and is virtually inaccessible for six months of the year.
Yaghnobi is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in the upper valley of the Yaghnob River in the Zarafshan area of Tajikistan by the Yaghnobi people. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has sometimes been called Neo-Sogdian in academic literature. There are some 12,500 Yaghnobi speakers, divided into several communities. The principal group lives in the Zafarobod area. There are also resettlers in the Yaghnob Valley. Some communities live in the villages of Zumand and Kůkteppa and in Dushanbe or its vicinity.
Most Yaghnobi speakers are bilingual in Tajik, a dialect of Persian. Yaghnobi is mostly used for daily family communication, and Tajik is used by Yaghnobi-speakers for business and formal transactions. A Russian ethnographer was told by nearby Tajiks, long hostile to the Yaghnobis, who were late to adopt Islam, that the Yaghnobis used their language as a "secret" mode of communication to confuse the Tajiks. The account led to the assumption by some that Yaghnobi or some derivative of it was used as a secret code.
The Yaghnobi (Yaghnobi: yaγnōbī́t or suγdī́t; Tajik: яғнобиҳо, yağnobiho/jaƣnoʙiho) are an Eastern Iranian people residing in Tajikistan's Sughd region, specifically in the valleys of the Yaghnob, Qul, and Varzob rivers.
Yaghnobi is spoken in the upper valley of the Yaghnob River in the Zarafshan area of Tajikistan by the Yaghnobi people, and is also taught in some schools. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has often been called Neo-Sogdian in academic literature. The Yaghnobi are considered to be descendants of the Sogdian-speaking peoples who once inhabited most of Central Asia beyond the Amu Darya River in what was ancient Sogdia.
The Yaghnob (Tajik: Яғноб) is a river in Ayni District of Sughd Region, Tajikistan. Together with the Iskander Darya, it forms the Fan Darya, a major left tributary of the Zeravshan.
The source of the Yaghnob is in the Matcha Mountains, where the Zarafshan and the Gissar Ranges merge. The Yaghnob is mainly fed by glaciers and snow fields. The river flows from the east to the west, south of and parallel to the upper Zeravshan River, through the Yaghnob Valley, a remote location populated by the Yaghnobi people speaking the eponymous Yaghnobi language. The main village in the valley is Anzob. It joins the east-flowing Iskander Darya to form the Fan Darya which flows north to join the Zeravshan at Ayni. The main road north from Dushanbe follows the lower Yaghnob and the Fan Darya. Before the Soviets blasted a road through, the upper valley was geographically isolated due to the presence of a deep gorge, contributing to the limited interaction with outside populations.