What is "farsiwan"

Fārsīwān (; or its regional forms: Pārsīwān or Pārsībān; "Persian-speaker") is a designation for Persian-speakers in Afghanistan, with diaspora in Iran, Pakistan and elsewhere abroad. More specifically, it is used to refer to a distinct group of farmers in Afghanistan and urban dwellers who are a subgroups of the Tajiks of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The term excludes the Hazāra and Aymāq tribes who also speak dialects of Persian, but are generally believed to be distinct from the Tajiks. In Afghanistan, the Farsiwan are found predominantly in Herat and Farah provinces. Locally, they are also known as Fārsī (or Pārsī; literally meaning "Persian") and are roughly the same as the Persians of Eastern Iran. Although the term was originally coined with Persian language's lexical root (Pārsībān), the suffix has been transformed into a Pashto form (-wān), and is usually utilized by the Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan to designate the Persian-speakers.

The cartographer Michael Izady does not make a Tajik specific distinction and defines Parsiwans as "urbanites of any ethnic background who speak only Persian and have lost all their ethnic and trial affiliations." In his 2013 study he found that 4.2% of Afghanistan's population were Parsiwans and that the group were historically the most likely ethnic group to be employed in the government as bureaucrats and that "most of what people in the West know about Afghanistan has come to them through these three Persian-sepaking minorities [Tajiks, Kizilbash and Parsiwans]."