Sartes

Sartes (Turki, Sart = "trader"), a term of wide application, but of no ethnical value, in Central Asia, being applied to peoples of Aryan and Mongol stock indifferently, and simply meaning, in the first instance artisans, townsfolk, traders, peasants, and then the settled populations generally, as opposed to the nomad element. The Iranian Tajiks, being always settled, were the first to be known as Sartes, hence the erroneous impression that the word had a racial meaning, implying an Iranian, in contradistinction to a "Turanian" people. There are Usbeg and other Tatar Sartes as well as Iranian Sartes in Bokhara, Khiva, and throughout Turkestan generally; but the vague use of the word and ignorance of its true meaning has caused great confusion in ethnological works treating of these regions.