The Lyuli/Mugat of Uzbekistan and the Indian Subcontinent:
In-Group Language, Ritual Practice, Migration Memory, and the Problem of South Asian Origins in Central Asia
Dr. Manish Kumar C. Mishra
Associate Professor, Department of Hindi
K. M. Agrawal College of Arts, Commerce and Science, Kalyan (West), Maharashtra, India
Abstract. The Lyuli/Luli of Uzbekistan, often discussed in specialist literature under names including Jugi, Multoni and Mugat, occupy a difficult position in the ethnographic and linguistic history of Central Asia. Their origins have repeatedly been connected with the Indian subcontinent, yet the evidentiary basis for that connection is uneven. This article places the strongest available evidence at the centre of the inquiry: the specialised in-group or secret speech used within Lyuli/Mugat communities alongside Tajik and Uzbek. Drawing on I. M. Oransky’s Soviet-era research as mediated through later specialist scholarship, Gernot Windfuhr’s synthesis of Iranian-area “Gypsy” dialects, Marushiakova and Popov’s ethnographic reassessment, recent Uzbek field research on Lyuli family rituals, and Bholanath Tiwari’s Tajuzbeki/Parya material as a comparative control, the study asks whether the in-group lexicon preserves a demonstrable Indic linguistic substrate. It argues that the published evidence does not support treating the Lyuli secret register as an intact Indo-Aryan language: the Jugi/Mugat material is described as Tajik-based, with specialised lexical substitution, and only a limited set of lexical items has been identified as Indian in origin. Moreover, Central Asian argot traditions such as Abdoltili and related Persian secret registers provide competing explanations for some non-Tajik vocabulary. Nevertheless, the Indic hypothesis cannot be dismissed. Ethnonyms such as Multoni, older migration traditions, the wider history of Indo-Aryan mobile populations, and the existence of demonstrably Indo-Aryan Parya/Tajuzbeki in the same broad region make systematic lexical comparison essential. The article concludes that the most plausible present model is one of linguistic stratification: a Tajik grammatical base carrying Iranian, Turkic and regional argot layers, with a possible older Indic residue whose historical significance must be established through regular sound correspondences, semantic fields and independently sourced vocabulary rather than isolated resemblance. Ritual, kinship and migration evidence can strengthen such a case only when it converges with linguistic findings.
Keywords: Lyuli; Luli; Mugat; Jugi; Multoni; Uzbekistan; secret language; argot; India; Indo-Aryan; Tajik; Parya; Tajuzbeki; migration; ritual; Central Asia.
Figure 1. A Lyuli community member in Uzbekistan. Photograph: Aleksandr Barkovsky. Source: Filip Noubel/Global Voices, “Life on the margins: The Lyuli people of Uzbekistan” (2020), republished by Uzbek Journeys/Adinkra. The photograph is used here as contemporary visual context, not as evidence of ancestry.
1. Introduction: from an origin claim to an evidentiary problem
The proposition that the Lyuli of Central Asia have an Indian connection appears frequently in popular writing and in parts of the scholarly literature. Yet “Indian origin” can mean several very different things: descent from a population that left the subcontinent; preservation of an Indo-Aryan language; retention of a small inherited vocabulary after language shift; historical contact with South Asian mobile groups; or merely the later application of an ethnonym associated with India. These propositions require different kinds of proof.
The present study therefore begins not with ancestry but with language. Contemporary Lyuli/Mugat communities in Uzbekistan participate primarily in Tajik- and Uzbek-speaking environments. Specialist linguistic literature, however, records an internal or secret register associated with Jugi/Mugat communities. Windfuhr’s Encyclopaedia Iranica synthesis classifies the Jugi of the Hissar Valley, whose endonym is given as Mugat, as having a Tajik base and cites Oransky’s 1961, 1964 and 1983 studies. The same survey records Luli in the Fergana area with the endonym Multani and a Tajik-based argot. These distinctions are crucial: “Lyuli” is not the name of one uniform Indo-Aryan language.
The research problem is thus narrower and stronger: does the specialised in-group lexicon contain a historically meaningful Indic residue, and if so, is that residue best explained by ancestry, contact, or participation in wider argot networks? This article treats ritual and migration traditions as independent evidence streams that can corroborate, but not substitute for, linguistic proof.
2. Terminology: Lyuli, Luli, Jugi, Mugat and Multoni
The terminology surrounding Central Asian mobile and marginal communities is exceptionally unstable. Marushiakova and Popov emphasise that labels translated as “Gypsy” have been applied to heterogeneous groups with different histories and self-identifications. In Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Lyuli/Luli is widely used externally, while Mugat/Mughat appears as an endonym in important ethnographic and linguistic sources. Jugi/Joghi is another recurrent designation. Windfuhr lists the Hissar Valley Jugi with endonym Mugat and separately records Fergana Luli with endonym Multani.
The word Multani is especially provocative because it resembles the geographical adjective derived from Multan in the north-western subcontinent. Yet etymological transparency is not historical proof. Before treating Multoni/Multani as evidence of migration from Multan, researchers must establish the earliest attestation of the name, whether it was an endonym or exonym, what speakers themselves understood it to mean, and whether independent linguistic or historical evidence points to the same region.
Terminological discipline also protects the study from collapsing Parya into Lyuli. Parya/Tajuzbeki is a demonstrably Indo-Aryan language; Jugi/Mugat secret speech is described as Tajik-based. Their coexistence in the same broad Central Asian environment makes comparison valuable precisely because they are not linguistically identical.
3. The central evidence: an in-group language within a Tajik-Uzbek repertoire
The most important feature for the India-connection question is the existence of a specialised internal register. The term “secret language” must be used carefully. In linguistic anthropology, such registers often retain the grammar of the community’s ordinary language while replacing selected vocabulary so that outsiders cannot easily understand conversation. They are therefore not necessarily separate genealogical languages.
Windfuhr’s synthesis is explicit: Central Asian Jugi/Mugat in the Hissar Valley has a Tajik base. The Fergana Luli/Multani material is likewise described as an argot with a Tajik base. This means that the grammatical frame available in the published descriptions is Iranian, not Indo-Aryan. The crucial historical information, if any, lies in the substituted lexicon.
Marushiakova and Popov, summarising Oransky’s 1983 investigation, make an equally important caution: the Mugat secret language contains only a limited number of lexical borrowings identified as Indian in origin, and many such items also occur in the languages or argots of other communities in the region. That observation prevents the simple inference “secret language = surviving Indian language.” It instead demands lexical stratigraphy.
Figure 2. Stratigraphic model of Lyuli/Mugat linguistic repertoire. Source: author’s analytical synthesis based on Oransky as summarised by Windfuhr and Marushiakova & Popov.
4. What counts as evidence of an Indic substrate?
A credible Indic-substrate argument requires more than words that resemble Hindi. Chance resemblance, Persian vocabulary shared by Hindi and Tajik, travelling argot terms, and recent borrowing can all produce false positives. The strongest linguistic case would require recurrent sound correspondences across semantically conservative vocabulary, preferably supported by morphology or old grammatical residues.
Basic vocabulary has greater genealogical value than occupational jargon. Kinship terms, body parts, numerals, basic verbs, pronouns, common animals, water, fire, night, food and household vocabulary are particularly important. A cluster of such forms showing regular correspondence with one or more Indo-Aryan languages would be stronger than a larger list of specialised terms used in begging, performance or secret transactions.
Windfuhr notes that Iranian-area Gypsy dialects that demonstrably preserve Indic cores can retain everyday items corresponding historically to meanings such as work, nose, iron, night and horse. These examples are comparative diagnostics for the wider dialect continuum, not a Lyuli word list. The distinction is essential: they show what inherited Indic material can look like, but they must not be attributed to Mugat unless independently recorded there.
5. The Oransky corpus and why it is indispensable
I. M. Oransky’s work is the critical primary linguistic archive for this question. His series on the secret languages or argots of Central Asia included a 1964 study specifically devoted to the Jugi of the Hissar Valley and culminated in his 1983 monograph on Tajik-speaking ethnographic groups of that valley. Windfuhr cites these works as principal sources for the classification of Jugi/Mugat speech. Marushiakova and Popov specifically point to Oransky 1983: 103-147 when discussing the limited Indian-origin lexical component.
The next stage of research must therefore recover the original Russian corpus, transcribe every attested in-group form exactly, record its gloss and grammatical context, and preserve Oransky’s own etymological judgement separately from a modern reassessment. Without this step, any long “Lyuli-Hindi word list” assembled from secondary websites would be methodologically unacceptable.
The absence of a fully reproduced Oransky lexicon in the sources presently available to this article is itself a finding. This paper therefore does not invent sample Lyuli forms. It establishes the analytical framework and identifies the primary corpus that must be digitised before a definitive lexical-statistical conclusion can be made.
6. Abdoltili and the regional argot hypothesis
The strongest competing explanation for unusual Mugat vocabulary is not Uzbek or Tajik alone but the long history of specialised Persian and Central Asian argots. Anna Troitskaya’s classic work on Abdoltili described the argot of guilds of artists and musicians in Central Asia. Later scholarship connects such secret registers with religious storytellers, mendicant dervishes and occupational networks. Martin Schwartz’s Encyclopaedia Iranica article on Loterai likewise traces how exotic substitutive vocabularies entered Persian underworld argots and, subsequently, argots of marginal groups in Iran and Central Asia.
This matters because a lexeme of apparent Indic shape may have travelled through an argot network rather than through biological descent or continuous community language. A word can be old and genuinely Indian in ultimate origin yet still fail to prove that the modern users’ ancestors spoke an Indo-Aryan language. The route of transmission must be established.
Consequently, every proposed Indic etymology should pass an exclusion sequence: first Tajik/Persian, then Uzbek/Turkic, then known Abdoltili/Loterai and regional argot parallels, then Parya and Indo-Aryan comparisons. Only after these alternatives are tested should the word be classified as probable inherited Indic, possible Indic, borrowed Indic through argot, or uncertain.
7. Parya/Tajuzbeki as a positive control
Bholanath Tiwari’s Tajuzbeki provides a uniquely useful comparative control. Tiwari documented an Indo-Aryan language in Soviet Central Asia whose later international name is Parya. His book contains grammatical description and a substantial Tajuzbeki-Hindi dictionary, and his comparisons extend to Haryanvi, Punjabi, Braj, Rajasthani, Tajik and Uzbek. Later Parya scholarship independently confirms the Indo-Aryan classification.
Parya therefore answers a methodological question: what does a genuinely Indo-Aryan linguistic survival in the Tajik-Uzbek environment look like? It preserves not merely isolated words but an inherited grammatical system. Its Tajik contact features are layered onto that system. If Lyuli/Mugat secret speech instead has Tajik grammar and only a limited specialised Indic lexicon, the two communities represent different linguistic histories.
This contrast creates a powerful hypothesis. Parya may represent language maintenance, whereas Lyuli/Mugat may represent language shift with lexical retention, or alternatively a Tajik-speaking population that acquired Indic-derived argot items through regional networks. The lexical corpus must decide between these possibilities.
8. A proposed lexical-forensic method
Each attested Mugat/Lyuli in-group item should be entered into a relational corpus with the original spelling/transcription, source, date, location, speaker information where available, exact meaning, sentence context and the ordinary Tajik/Uzbek equivalent. Comparison should then proceed through a fixed language sequence rather than selective resemblance hunting.
The Indo-Aryan comparison should include Parya/Tajuzbeki, Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi, Haryanvi, Rajasthani and Hindi, with Romani and Domari used as additional comparative branches where appropriate. The Iranian side should include Tajik, Persian and Dari; Uzbek should represent the main Turkic contact language; and Abdoltili/Loterai materials should represent specialised regional argots.
An etymological confidence code should accompany every entry: A = probable inherited Indic; B = possible Indic; C = Iranian; D = Turkic; E = regional argot/occupational borrowing; F = uncertain. Crucially, “uncertain” must remain a legitimate outcome. The purpose is to test an Indian connection, not manufacture one.
Figure 3. Proposed lexical-forensic workflow. Source: author’s research design.
9. Ritual evidence: useful only when culturally discriminating
Recent fieldwork in Uzbekistan provides a second evidence stream. Ruziyeva’s 2026 study of Lyuli family rituals is based on field records from Surkhandarya settlements collected in 2022 and 2023 and examines birth, marriage and funeral practices. Such material is valuable because life-cycle rituals can preserve community boundaries and historical memory even after language shift.
Yet ritual comparison is vulnerable to false equivalence. Henna, Islamic marriage, circumcision, shrine visitation, postpartum restrictions or communal mourning are distributed widely across South Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia. Their presence cannot by itself demonstrate Indian ancestry. A ritual becomes historically discriminating when a distinctive sequence, term, kinship role, song text and prohibition occur together and correspond closely to a particular South Asian tradition.
The best unit of comparison is therefore the ritual-linguistic bundle: a ritual action plus its indigenous term, the persons authorised to perform it, the associated kinship relation, song or formula, and the rule governing participation. Such bundles should be compared first with neighbouring Uzbek and Tajik practice, then with Afghan/Persian traditions, and only then with South Asian ethnography.
10. Birth, marriage and death as comparative domains
Birth rituals should be documented through pregnancy taboos, delivery assistance, postpartum seclusion, naming, first feeding, protection from the evil eye, and the roles of maternal and paternal kin. Marriage research should record clan/endogamy rules, partner selection, age, bride and groom terminology, negotiations, exchanges, wedding songs, henna, residence after marriage and conflict-resolution practices. Funeral research should distinguish Islamic requirements from community-specific mourning, memorial meals, grave visitation and gendered roles.
The comparison must avoid anachronism. A custom shared by Lyuli and present-day Indians may have spread through Islamicate networks or may be a common Eurasian family practice. Conversely, a custom that has disappeared in India could still preserve an older connection. Historical ethnography is therefore more valuable than contemporary visual similarity.
Ruziyeva’s Surkhandarya field sites are particularly relevant because the region also belongs to the wider geography in which Parya and other transborder communities have been documented. This does not establish a Parya-Lyuli relationship, but it makes southern Uzbekistan a high-value field zone for comparative work.
11. Endogamy, kinship and the preservation of identity
Endogamy can preserve social identity even when language changes. Marushiakova and Popov’s broader work on Central Asian communities stresses the importance of internal boundaries and the danger of assuming that populations grouped together by outsiders share one origin. A field-based Lyuli study should therefore treat marriage networks as historical data.
Genealogies across three or four generations could reveal whether clans have been locally stable, whether marriages link Uzbekistan with Tajikistan or Afghanistan, and whether particular lineages preserve different origin traditions. Kinship terminology should be recorded in both ordinary Tajik/Uzbek speech and the in-group register. If conservative Indic kin terms survive specifically in the secret vocabulary, they would carry more historical weight than occupational jargon.
Comparison with Indian jati, biradari or gotra systems must remain structural rather than terminological. Similar endogamy can arise independently in many societies. The evidentiary question is whether distinctive kinship vocabulary, descent rules and marriage prohibitions converge with linguistic and migration evidence pointing to the same South Asian region.
12. Multoni/Multani and the Multan hypothesis
Windfuhr’s geographical listing records Fergana Luli with the endonym Multani. This is one of the most suggestive pieces of evidence for a north-western South Asian connection because Multan is a major historical centre in the Punjab-Saraiki zone. But suggestiveness must not be confused with proof.
A rigorous Multan hypothesis would require at least three independent convergences: historical attestation of the ethnonym before modern popular etymology; a significant lexical layer aligning with Punjabi/Saraiki or neighbouring north-western Indo-Aryan languages; and migration traditions or archival evidence linking the community to Multan, Punjab, Sindh or adjacent routes through Afghanistan. If only the name survives, the inference remains weak.
The term should nevertheless guide targeted comparison. Saraiki and Punjabi must be included in the lexical database, not merely Standard Hindi. This is a major methodological improvement over popular India-origin arguments that compare every unfamiliar word only with Hindi.
13. Visual and material culture: evidence with strict limits
Photographs of Lyuli communities are useful for documenting settlement, clothing, domestic environments, work, schooling and ritual settings. They are not evidence of biological or ethnic origin. The 2020 photographic work of Aleksandr Barkovsky, published through Global Voices, provides contemporary visual context and records community life in Uzbekistan, including Surkhandarya and Tashkent. Such material should be read alongside ethnography rather than physiognomically.
Material-culture comparison should focus on objects with traceable histories: tattoo motifs, jewellery forms, ritual implements, musical instruments, textile techniques, amulets and occupational tools. Marushiakova and Popov note that forehead tattooing among some Mugat subdivisions, particularly in the Qarshi region, has previously been invoked as evidence of Indian links. They caution, however, that the Indian-origin argument remains difficult and open to contradictory interpretation.
The correct procedure is therefore distributional: determine whether the same motif or practice occurs among neighbouring Tajiks and Uzbeks, in Afghanistan and Iran, and in identifiable South Asian communities. Only a distinctive distribution aligned with linguistic evidence would materially strengthen an origin hypothesis.
14. Three historical models
The available evidence supports three competing models. Model A proposes that Lyuli/Mugat ancestors spoke an Indo-Aryan language and later shifted to Tajik, preserving only a secret lexical residue. Model B proposes that the community was already Iranian-speaking when its specialised register developed and that Indic-looking words entered through regional occupational and argot networks. Model C combines both processes: an older South Asian-connected population underwent language shift while its in-group vocabulary was repeatedly remodelled by Persian/Tajik, Abdoltili-type argot, Uzbek and later Russian contact.
At present, Model A cannot be demonstrated because the published descriptions do not show a surviving Indo-Aryan grammatical base comparable to Parya. Model B is strongly plausible because Tajik-based argot and regional secret-language transmission are directly documented. Model C is also plausible because a limited Indic lexical component is acknowledged by specialist scholarship and because broader historical traditions continue to point southward. Distinguishing B from C is the central linguistic task.
This is a more productive conclusion than simply declaring the Lyuli “Indian.” It specifies exactly what evidence would change the judgement: a robust corpus of conservative vocabulary with regular Indo-Aryan correspondences and a historical distribution that cannot be explained by argot borrowing.
Figure 4. Three competing explanations for the in-group lexicon. Source: author’s synthesis of the evidence reviewed here.
15. Research design for Uzbekistan fieldwork
A future field project should sample multiple settlements rather than treating the Lyuli as homogeneous. High-value locations include Surkhandarya sites documented in recent ritual research, Fergana because of the historical Multani label, the Qarshi region because of older tattooing evidence, and selected urban communities in Tashkent and Samarkand/Bukhara where migration and language shift may differ.
Interviews should begin with self-identification: preferred group name, clan/subgroup, languages used with parents, spouse, children and outsiders, and whether an internal speech register exists. Elicitation should then cover a standard 200-item basic vocabulary list, a 100-item kinship/ritual list, numerals, pronouns, core verbs, body parts and spontaneous narratives. A separate session can collect secret/argot vocabulary, with community consent and explicit agreement about what may be published.
Ritual documentation should use audio/video only with informed consent. Women’s wedding songs, lullabies, blessings, curses, children’s rhymes, mourning expressions and ritual formulae may preserve older lexical material not present in everyday Tajik. The ethical principle is essential: a “secret language” should not be publicly exposed simply because researchers can record it. Community preferences must govern access, anonymisation and publication.
16. Evidence matrix and present conclusions
The current evidence permits several firm statements. First, Jugi/Mugat in-group speech has been described in specialist linguistic literature as Tajik-based argot rather than as a surviving full Indo-Aryan language. Second, scholarship nevertheless recognises a limited Indian-origin lexical component. Third, the historical significance of that component is uncertain because comparable words can circulate through regional argots. Fourth, the Multani ethnonym and wider traditions of southern origin make a South Asian connection plausible enough to warrant systematic testing. Fifth, Parya/Tajuzbeki proves independently that Indo-Aryan-speaking populations did become established in the Tajik-Uzbek zone, but Parya cannot simply be equated with Lyuli/Mugat.
The ritual evidence is potentially corroborative but presently less discriminating than the linguistic evidence. Birth, marriage and funeral practices documented in Surkhandarya show cultural continuity and adaptation, but individual parallels with India must first be excluded as common Uzbek, Tajik, Persianate or Islamic practices.
The strongest research strategy is therefore cumulative. No single word, ethnonym, tattoo, wedding custom or migration story should carry the conclusion. A South Asian origin becomes historically persuasive only if linguistic, historical, ritual and genealogical evidence independently converge on compatible routes and regions.
17. Conclusion
The Lyuli/Mugat question is not solved by the fact that many community members speak Tajik or Uzbek, nor by the existence of a secret vocabulary. Language shift and argot formation are both historically common. The scholarly task is to identify the layers inside that repertoire.
The published evidence currently points to a Tajik grammatical base for Jugi/Mugat secret speech, supplemented by specialised vocabulary. Only a limited portion has been identified by specialists as Indian in origin, and regional argot traditions such as Abdoltili/Loterai offer a serious competing transmission route. It would therefore be methodologically wrong to describe the internal register as an intact “Indian language.” At the same time, it would be equally premature to dismiss the Indian connection: Multani nomenclature, acknowledged Indic lexical items, broader migration traditions and the presence of other Indo-Aryan populations such as Parya in Central Asia keep the hypothesis historically viable.
The most defensible present conclusion is a stratified one. Lyuli/Mugat linguistic history appears to have been formed in Central Asia through prolonged Tajik and Uzbek contact and participation in specialised in-group speech traditions. Beneath or within those layers there may survive an older Indic residue. Whether that residue reflects direct ancestry, earlier language shift, or secondary argot borrowing remains the central unresolved question.
This unresolved status is not a weakness. It defines a precise research programme. Recover Oransky’s original 1964 and 1983 corpora; digitise every form; compare them systematically with Tajik, Uzbek, Abdoltili, Parya/Tajuzbeki, Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi, Haryanvi, Rajasthani, Hindi, Romani and Domari; and test the linguistic results against independently documented kinship, ritual and migration histories. Only then can the India-Lyuli connection move from plausible tradition to demonstrable historical argument.
Table 1. Linguistic evidence hierarchy
Evidence | Historical value | Required caution |
Inherited grammar / morphology | Very high | Not presently demonstrated for Lyuli/Mugat secret register |
Regular sound correspondences in basic vocabulary | High | Requires original corpus and multiple cognates |
Kinship/body-part/basic-verb vocabulary | High to moderate | Must exclude Iranian/Turkic/argot borrowing |
Ritual vocabulary | Moderate | May diffuse across religious/cultural networks |
Occupational/secret jargon | Low to moderate | Especially prone to inter-group borrowing |
Single similar word | Low | Chance resemblance and travelling vocabulary |
Appearance or visual similarity | None for linguistic ancestry | Must not be used as genealogical evidence |
Table 2. Comparative corpus architecture
Comparison layer | Languages/registers | Purpose |
Local base | Tajik, Uzbek, Russian | Identify ordinary contact vocabulary |
Iranian historical | Persian, Dari | Test older Iranian sources |
Regional argot | Abdoltili, Loterai-type materials | Test secret-language transmission |
Central Asian Indo-Aryan control | Parya/Tajuzbeki | Positive control for Indo-Aryan survival |
North-western South Asia | Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi | Test Multan/Punjab hypothesis |
Western/Central Indo-Aryan | Haryanvi, Rajasthani, Hindi | Broader genealogical comparison |
Mobile Indo-Aryan diaspora | Romani, Domari | Test wider historical parallels |
Table 3. Present evidential status
Proposition | Assessment |
Lyuli/Mugat communities commonly use Tajik/Uzbek | Established |
Jugi/Mugat has a specialised in-group/secret register | Established in specialist literature |
The documented Hissar Jugi/Mugat register has a Tajik base | Established in Windfuhr’s synthesis of Oransky |
Some secret-register vocabulary has been identified as Indian in origin | Established, but described as limited |
All unusual vocabulary is inherited from India | Not supported |
Regional argot traditions contributed to specialised vocabulary | Strongly plausible / documented regionally |
Multani proves direct migration from Multan | Not established |
Lyuli/Mugat once spoke the same language as Parya | Not established |
An older Indic residue may survive after language shift | Plausible hypothesis requiring corpus proof |
Ritual similarities alone can prove Indian ancestry | No |
References
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Marushiakova, Elena, and Vesselin Popov. 2015. “Central Asian Gypsies: Identities and Migrations.” Sprawy Narodowościowe / Nationalities Affairs, no. 46. DOI: 10.11649/sn.2015.031.
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Source-critical note
This article deliberately distinguishes evidence from hypothesis. No Lyuli/Mugat lexical form has been invented or inferred from Hindi resemblance. The published secondary sources establish the existence and Tajik base of the Jugi/Mugat argot and report a limited Indic-origin component, but a definitive word-by-word analysis requires direct consultation and transcription of Oransky’s original 1964 and 1983 lexical data. Tiwari’s Tajuzbeki is used as a comparative Indo-Aryan control, not as evidence that Parya and Lyuli are the same community. Contemporary photographs are used only for visual context and never as evidence of ancestry.
