the newly established Republic because of its Turkish nationalist and secular ideology. Many Zazas subsequently joined the Kurmanji-speaking Kurdish nationalist Xoybûn, the Society for the Rise of Kurdistan, and other movements, where they often rose to prominence. In 1937 during the Dersim rebellion, Zazas once again rebelled against the Turks. This time the rebellion was led by Seyid Riza and ended with a massacre of thousands of Kurmanji-speaking Kurds and Zaza civilians, while many were internally displaced due to the conflict. Sakine Cansız, a Zaza from Tunceli, was a founding member of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and like many Zazas joined the rebels, including the prominent Besê Hozat. Following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, many intellectual minorities, including Zazas, emigrated from Turkey towards Europe, Australia and the United States. Demographics and geographical distribution The exact number of Zazas is unknown, due to the absence of recent and extensive census data. The last census on language in Turkey was held in 1965, where 150,644 people ticked Zaza as their first language and 112,701 as their second language. More recent data from 2005 suggests that the Zaza-speaking population varies from approximately 2 to 4 million. According to a 2015 study that examined the demographics of the voting-age population in the Kurdish inhabited areas in Turkey (Northeast, Central East and Southeast Anatolia statistical regions, n=1918) 12.8% of the people ethnically identified as Zaza, which made Zaza the biggest ethnic identity after Kurdish (73%) in the region. Zaza speakers were more numerous (15%) compared to people who identify with the Zaza ethnic identity, showing that some Zaza speakers identified as other ethnicities, primarily Kurds. Following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, many intellectual minorities, including Zazas, emigrated from Turkey towards Europe, Australia and the United States. The largest part of the Zaza diaspora is in Europe, predominantly in Germany. Culture Language Zaza is the ancestral language of the Zaza people and belongs to the Zaza–Gorani branch of the Iranian languages. It is spoken in the east of modern Turkey, with approximately 2 to 3 million speakers. There is a division between Northern and Southern Zaza, most notably in phonological inventory, but Zaza as a whole forms a dialect continuum, with no recognized standard. A study published in 2015 that demographically analysed voting-age adults in the Kurdish inhabited regions of Turkey (excluding diaspora) concluded that 96.2% of people who identified as Zaza, but not Kurdish in