There are an estimated 150 to 200 million native speakers of Iranian languages (including 70 million in Iran as of 2006), the five major groups of Persians, Lurs, Pashtuns, Kurds and Baloch accounting for about 90% of this number.
Historically they have called themselves Tajik to distinguish themselves, first, from the Qashqai a nomadic Turkic tribe that have been their neighbors for at least two centuries, and secondly from the Lurs, who lived in the west range of the Dena mountains long before them.