Dari[b] (دری,Darī,[d̪ɐˈɾiː]), also known asDari Persian[c],Eastern Persian orAfghan Persian is thevariety of thePersian language spoken inAfghanistan.[6][7] Dari is theAfghan government's official term for the Persian language;[8][9] it is known as Afghan Persian or Eastern Persian in many Western sources.[10][11][12][13] The decision to rename the local variety of Persian in 1964 was more political than linguistic to support an Afghan state narrative.[14] Dari Persian is most closely related toTajiki Persian as spoken inTajikistan and the two share many phonological and lexical similarities. Apart from a few basics of vocabulary, there is little difference between formal written Persian of Afghanistan andIran; the languages are mutually intelligible.[15] Dari is the official language for approximately 30.6 million people in Afghanistan[16] and it serves as the common language for inter-ethnic communication in the country.[17]
Dari Persian served as the preferred literary and administrative language among non-native speakers, such as the Turco-Mongol peoples including theMughals,[23] for centuries before the rise of modern nationalism. Also, likeIranian Persian andTajiki Persian, Dari Persian is a continuation ofMiddle Persian, the official religious and literary language of theSasanian Empire (224–651 AD), itself a continuation ofOld Persian, the language of theAchaemenids (550–330 BC).[24][25] In historical usage,Dari refers to theMiddle Persian court language of theSassanids.[26]
Since 1964, it has been the official name in Afghanistan for the Persian spoken there. In Afghanistan, Dari refers to a modern dialect form of Persian that is thestandard language used in administration, government, radio, television, and print media. Because of a preponderance of Dari native speakers, who normally refer to the language asFarsi (فارسی, "Persian"), it is also known as "Afghan Persian" in some Western sources.[11][12]
There are different opinions about the origin of the wordDari. The majority of scholars believe thatDari refers to the Persian worddar ordarbār (دربار), meaning 'court', as it was the formal language of theSassanids.[8] The original meaning of the worddari is given in a notice attributed toIbn al-Muqaffaʿ (cited byIbn al-Nadim inAl-Fehrest).[28] According to him,Pārsī was the language spoken by priests, scholars, and the like; it is the language ofFars." This language refers toMiddle Persian.[8] As forDari, he says, "it is the language of the cities of Madā'en; it is spoken by those who are at the king's court. [Its name] is connected with presence at court. Among the languages of the people ofKhorasan and the east, the language of the people ofBalkh is predominant."[8]
Dari Persian spoken in Afghanistan is not to be confused with the language ofIran calledDari or Gabri, which is a language of the Central Iranian subgroup spoken in someZoroastrian communities.[29][30]
Dari comes fromMiddle Persian which was spoken during the rule of theSassanid dynasty. In general, Iranian languages are known from three periods, usually referred to as Old, Middle, and New (Modern) periods. These correspond to three eras in Iranian history, the old era being the period from some time before, during, and after theAchaemenid period (that is, to 300 BCE), the Middle Era being the next period, namely, the Sassanid period and part of the post-Sassanid period, and the New era being the period afterward down to the present day.[31][unreliable source][32]
The first person in Europe to use the termDeri forDari may have beenThomas Hyde in his chief work,Historia religionis veterum Persarum (1700).[33]
Dari orDeri has two meanings. It may mean the language of the court:
"the Zebani Deri (Zeban i Deri or Zaban i Dari = the language of Deri), or the language of the court, and the Zebani Farsi, the dialect of Persia at large (...)"[34][35]
It may also indicate a form of poetry used fromRudaki toJami. In the fifteenth century it appeared in Herat under the Persian-speakingTimurid dynasty. The Persian-language poets of theIndian Subcontinent who used the Indian verse methods or rhyme methods, likeBedil andMuhammad Iqbal, became familiar with thearaki form of poetry. Iqbal loved both styles of literature and poetry, when he wrote:
Uzūbat usually means 'bliss', 'delight', 'sweetness'; in language, literature and poetry,uzubat also means 'euphonious' or 'melodic'.
Referring to the 14th-century Persian poetHafez, Iqbal wrote:
شکرشکن شوند همه طوطیان هند
Šakkar-šakan šavand hama tūtīyān-i Hind
زین قند پارسی که به بنگاله میرود
zīn qand-i Pārsī ki ba Bangāla mē-ravad
English translation:
All the parrots of India will crack sugar
Through this Persian Candy which is going to Bengal[37][38]
Hereqand-e Pārsī ('Rock candy of Persia') is a metaphor for the Persian language and poetry.
Persian replaced the Central Asian languages of the Eastern Iranic peoples.[39] Ferghana, Samarkand, and Bukhara were starting to be influenced by Dari, and were originallyKhwarezmian andSogdian-speaking areas duringSamanid rule.[40] Dari Persian spread around the Oxus River region, Afghanistan, and Khorasan after the Arab conquests and during Islamic-Arab rule.[41][42] The replacement of the Pahlavi script with the Arabic script in order to write the Persian language was done by theTahirids in 9th century Khorasan.[43] Dari Persian spread and led to the extinction of Eastern Iranian languages likeBactrian and Khwarezmian with only a tiny amount of Sogdian descendedYaghnobi speakers remaining, as the ancestors ofTajiks started speaking Dari after relinquishing their original language (most likely Bactrian) around this time, due to the fact that the Arab-Islamic army which invaded Central Asia also included some Persians who governed the region like theSassanids.[44] Persian was a prestigious high-ranking language and was further rooted into Central Asia by the Samanids.[45] Persian also phased out Sogdian.[46] The role of lingua franca that Sogdian originally played was succeeded by Persian after the arrival of Islam.[47][48][49]
Majority Dari Persian speaking regions of Afghanistan in green
Dari is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. In practice though, it serves as the de factolingua franca among the various ethnolinguistic groups.
Dari Persian is spoken by approximately 25–80% of thepopulation of Afghanistan.[11][20][50][51][52]Tajiks, who comprise 27–39% of thepopulation,[53][54][55] are the primary native speakers, followed byHazaras (9%) andAymāqs (4%). Moreover, whilePashtuns (37–48%)[56][54][57] natively speakPashto, those living in Tajik and Hazara dominated areas also use Dari Persian as their main or secondary language. Thus, non-native Persian speaking groups have contributed to the increased number of Persian speakers within Afghanistan. TheWorld Factbook states that about 80% of the Afghan population speaks Dari Persian.[11] About 2.5 millionAfghans in Iran andAfghans in Pakistan, part of the widerAfghan diaspora, also speak Dari Persian as one of their primary languages.[58]
Dari Persian dominates the northern, western, and central areas of Afghanistan, and is the common language spoken in cities such asBalkh,Mazar-i-Sharif,Herat,Fayzabad,Panjshir,Bamiyan, and the Afghan capital ofKabul where all ethnic groups are settled. Dari Persian-speaking communities also exist in southwestern and eastern Pashtun-dominated areas such as in the cities ofGhazni,Farah,Zaranj,Lashkar Gah,Kandahar, andGardez.
Dari Persian has contributed to the majority of Persian borrowings in severalIndo-Aryan languages, such asUrdu,Hindi,Punjabi,Bengali and others, as it was the administrative, official, cultural language of thePersianateMughal Empire and served as thelingua franca throughout theIndian subcontinent for centuries. Often based inAfghanistan, TurkicCentral Asian conquerors brought the language into South Asia.[59] The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianised Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties.[60] The sizable Persian component of the Anglo-Indian loan words in English and inUrdu therefore reflects the Dari Persian pronunciation. For instance, the wordsdopiaza andpyjama come from the Afghan Persian pronunciation; in Iranian Persian they are pronounceddo-piyāzeh andpey-jāmeh. Persian lexemes and certain morphological elements (e.g., theezāfe) have often been employed to coin words for political and cultural concepts, items, or ideas that were historically unknown outside the South Asian region, as is the case with the aforementioned "borrowings". Dari Persian has a rich and colorful tradition ofproverbs that deeply reflect Afghan culture and relationships, as demonstrated through the works ofRumi and other literature.[61][62][63]
There are phonological, lexical,[64] and morphological[32] differences between Afghan Persian and Iranian Persian. For example, Afghan Farsi has more vowels than Iranian Farsi.[65]
The phonology of Dari Persian as spoken in Kabul, compared with Classical Persian, is overall more conservative than the accent of Iran's standard register. In this regard Dari Persian is more similar to Tajiki Persian. The principal differences between standard Iranian Persian and Afghan Persian as based on the Kabul dialect are:
The merging ofmajhul vowels/eː,iː/ and/oː,uː/ into/iː/ and/uː/ respectively in Iranian Persian, whereas in Afghan Persian, they are still kept separate. For instance, the identically written wordsشیر 'lion' and 'milk' are pronounced the same in Iranian Persian as/ʃiːr/, but differently as/ʃeːr/ for 'lion' and/ʃiːr/ for 'milk' in Afghan Persian, similar to Tajiki Persian. The long vowel inزود "quick" andزور "strength" is realized as/uː/ in Iranian Persian, in contrast, these words are pronounced/zuːd/ and/zoːr/ respectively by Persian speakers in Afghanistan.
The Classical Persian high short vowels/i/ and/u/ tend to be lowered in Iranian Persian to[e] and[o], unlike in Dari where they might have both high and lowered allophones.
The treatment of thediphthongs of early Classical Persian "ay" (as "i" in English "size") and "aw" (as "ow" in Engl. "cow"), which are pronounced[ej] (as in English "day") and[ow] (as in Engl. "low") in Iranian Persian. Dari, on the other hand, is more like ancient Persian, e.g.نخیر 'no' is realized as/naχejr/ in Iranian but/naχajr/ in Afghan Persian, andنوروز 'Persian New Year' is/nowruːz/ in Iranian but/nawroːz/ in Afghan Persian. Moreover,[ow] is simplified to[o] in normal Iranian speech, thereby merging with the lowered Classical short vowel/u/ (see above). This does not occur in Afghan Persian.
The pronunciation of the labial consonantو, which is realized as avoiced labiodental fricative[v] in standard Iranian, is still pronounced with the classical bilabial pronunciation[w] in Afghanistan;[v] is found in Afghan Persian as an allophone of/f/ before voiced consonants and as variation of/b/ in some cases, along with[β].
The convergence of thevoiced uvular stop[ɢ] (ق) and thevoiced velar fricative[ɣ] (غ) in some dialects of Iranian Persian (presumably under the influence of Turkic languages likeAzeri andTurkmen)[66] is absent in Dari, where the two are still kept separate.
[a] and[e] in word-final positions are distinguished in Dari, whereas[e] is a word-final allophone of/æ/ in Iranian Persian.
The dialects of Dari spoken in Northern, Central, and Eastern Afghanistan, for example inKabul,Mazar, andBadakhshan, have distinct features compared toIranian Persian. However, the dialect of Dari spoken in Western Afghanistan stands in between the Afghan and Iranian Persian. For instance, theHerati dialect shares vocabulary and phonology with both Afghan and Iranian Persian. Likewise, the dialect of Persian in Eastern Iran, for instance inMashhad, is quite similar to the Herati dialect of Afghanistan.
In a paper jointly published by Takhar University and the Ministry of Education in 2018, researchers studying varieties of Persian from Iran to Tajikistan, Identified 3 dialect groups (or macro dialects) present within Afghanistan.[5] In an article about various languages spoken in Afghanistan,Encyclopaedia Iranica identified a nearly identical categorization but considered varieties spoken in the Sistan region to constitute a distinct group.[4]
Takhar and the MOE only discussed vocabulary differences between the dialect groups and did not extensively discuss phonological differences between these groups. However, there was a noticeable difference in the romanizations of the Western dialects and the South-Eastern dialects. Chiefly that the vowel diacritic "pesh" (Kasrah) was romanized with an "i" for South-Eastern dialects but as an "e" for western dialects. This is presumably due to a difference in quality, however the paper itself did not explain why the vowels were transliterated differently.
The Southeastern group constitutes varieties spoken in and aroundKabul,Parwan,Balkh,Baghlan,Samangan,Kunduz,Takhar,Badakhshan and others.[5] A distinctive character of this group is its conservative nature compared to, for example, the Tehrani dialect. This can be seen in its Phonology (e.g. its preservation of "Majhul" vowels), Morhphonology and Syntax, and its Lexicon. A further distinction may be made between varieties in and near Kabul and varieties in and near Afghan Turkistan. With dialects near Kabul exhibiting some influences from languages in southern Afghanistan and South Asia and dialects in Afghan Turkistan exhibiting more influence fromTajik. All Southeastern varieties exhibited some influence fromUzbek.[4] Despite the Afghanistan Ministry of Education referring to this group as "Southeastern" some of the varieties included are in the north.
As seen in manyHazaragi varieties, certain Eastern Dialects have developed a system of retroflex consonants under pressure from Pashto. They are not widespread, however.[4]
TheKabuli dialect has become the standard model of Dari Persian in Afghanistan, as has theTehrani dialect in relation to the Persian in Iran. Since the 1940s,Radio Afghanistan has broadcast its Dari programs in Kabuli Dari, which ensured the homogenization between the Kabuli version of the language and other dialects of Dari Persian spoken throughout Afghanistan. Since 2003, the media, especially theprivate radio and television broadcasters, have carried out their Dari programs using the Kabuli variety.
The Western group includes various varieties spoken in and around:Herat,Badghis,Farah andGhor.[5] Varieties in this group share many features with the dialects of Persian spoken in Eastern Iran, and one may make many comparisons between the speech of Herat andMashhad.[4]
The third group recognized by Afghanistan Ministry of Education isHazaragi. Spoken by theHazara people, these varieties are spoken in the majority of central Afghanistan including:Bamyan, parts ofGhazni, Daikundi, Laal Sari Jangal in Ghor province, 'uruzgan khas', in a wide area in the west of Kabul which is mainly recognized as Dashti Barchi, and some regions nearHerat.[5] As a group, the Hazaragi varieties are distinguished by the presence ofretroflex consonants and distinctive vocabulary.[4][67] However it has been shown that Hazaragi is more accurately a sub-dialect of Dari rather than its own variety of Persian.[68]
Afghanistan's Ministry of Education does not make a distinction between varieties of the Sistan region and the varieties in the Western group. However Encyclopaedia Iranica considers theSistani dialect to constitute their own distinctive group, with notable influences fromBalochi.[4]
A glottal stop /ʔ/ only appears in words of Arabic origin.
A flap sound /ɾ/ may be realized as a trill sound [r], in some environments, mostly word-final position; otherwise, they contrast between vowels wherein a trill occurs as a result of gemination (doubling) of [ɾ], especially in loanwords of Arabic origin. Only [ɾ] occurs before and after consonants; in word-final position, it is usually a free variation between a flap or a trill when followed by a consonant or a pause, but flap is more common, only flap before vowel-initial words.
As in many other languages,/n/ is realized as bilabial[m] before bilabial stops and as velar[ŋ] before velar stops.
Dari does not distinguish [ɪ] and [ɛ] in any position, these are distinct phonemes in English but are in un-conditionalfree variation in nearly all dialects of Dari.[70][71][72] There are no environmental factors related to the appearance of [ɪ] or [ɛ] and native Dari speakers do not perceive them as different phonemes (that is to say, the English words bet [bɛt] and bit [bɪt] would be nearly indistinguishable to a native Dari speaker). However, speakers in Urban regions of Kabul,Panjšir and other nearby provinces in southern and eastern Afghanistan tend to realize the vowel as [ɪ].[69][73] Speakers of Dari in central Afghanistan (i.e.Hazaragi speakers) tend to realize the vowel in proximity to, or identically to, [i], unless the following syllable contains a high-back vowel.[74][75][76] Speakers in western Afghanistan (such as in the Herat or Farah province) and some rural regions in the Kabul province (not the city) most commonly realize the vowel as [ɛ].[77][78] Additionally, in some varieties of Dari, the phoneme [ɛ] appears as an allophone of [a].[70]
Successive governments of Afghanistan have promoted New Persian as anofficial language of government since the time of theDelhi Sultanate (1206–1526), even as those governments were dominated by Pashtun people.Sher Ali Khan of theBarakzai dynasty (1826–1973) first introduced thePashto language as an additional language of administration. The local name for the Persian variety spoken in Afghanistan was officially changed from Farsi to Dari, meaning "court language", in 1964.[80][81][82] Zaher said there would be, as there are now, two official languages, Pashto and Farsi, though the latter would henceforth be named Dari. Within their respective linguistic boundaries, Dari Persian and Pashto are the media of education.
The term continues to divide opinion in Afghanistan today. While Dari has been the official name for decades, "Farsi" is still the preferred name to many Persian speakers of Afghanistan.Omar Samad, an Afghan analyst and ambassador, says of the dispute:[83]
This debate pits those who look at language as a shared heritage that includes thinkers, writers, and poets of the Farsi language against those who believe that Dari has older roots and provides a distinct identity that cannot be confused with Iran's claim.
^Sistani is subsumed as part of the Western varieties by Afghanistans Ministry of Education and Takhar University, but considered a distinct dialect by the Encyclopaedia Iranica.
^"Kāboli".Encyclopaedia Iranica.Archived from the original on 29 April 2011. Retrieved9 August 2021.Persian in Afghanistan is generally called fārsi by Persian-speakers and pārsi in Pashto. The standard written Persian of Afghanistan has officially been called Dari since 1964; apart from a few basics of vocabulary, however (and more Indo-Persian calligraphic styles in the Perso-Arabic script), there is little difference between formal written Persian of Afghanistan and of Iran. The term "Dari" is often loosely used for the characteristic spoken Persian of Afghanistan, but is best restricted to formal spoken registers (poetry, speeches, newscasts, and other broadcast announcements).
^"The Afghans – Language Use". United States: Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL). 30 June 2002. Archived fromthe original on 4 May 2011. Retrieved24 October 2010.
^"Afghanistan v. Languages".Ch. M. Kieffer.Encyclopædia Iranica, online ed.Archived from the original on 29 April 2011. Retrieved10 December 2010.Persian (2) is the most spoken languages in Afghanistan. The native tongue of twenty five percent of the population ...
^"AFGHANISTAN v. Languages".Ch. M. Kieffer.Encyclopædia Iranica, online ed.Archived from the original on 29 April 2011. Retrieved10 December 2010.Persian (2) is the language most spoken in Afghanistan. The native tongue of twenty five percent of the population ...
^Mobasher, Mohammad Bashir.Political Laws and Ethnic Accommodation: Why Cross-Ethnic Coalitions Have Failed to Institutionalize in Afghanistan. Diss. 2017, p. 42. Link:[1]
^Rees, Daniel A. (2008).Towards Proto-Persian: An Optimality Theoretic Historical Reconstruction. Ph.D. dissertation. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Georgetown University.
^Neghat, Muhammad Nassim (1993).Dari-English Dictionary. Omaha: University of Nebraska.
^Efimov, V. A. (2008).Xazara. In V. A. Efimov (ed.), Sredneiranskie i novoiranskie Jazyki: Moskva: Izdatel'stvo Firma Vostočnaya Literatura RAN. pp. 344–414.
Sakaria, S. (1967)Concise English – Afghan Dari Dictionary, Ferozsons, Kabul,OCLC 600815
Farhadi, A. G. R.('Abd-ul-Ghafur Farhadi)(Abd-ul-ghafûr Farhâdi) (1955)Le Persan Parlé en Afghanistan: Grammaire du Kâboli Accompagné d'un Recueil de Quatrains Populaires de la Région de Kâbol, Centre national de la recherche scientifique or Librairie C. Klincksieck, Paris.
Farhadi, Rawan A. G. (1975)The Spoken Dari of Afghanistan: A Grammar of Kaboli Dari (Persian) Compared to the Literary Language, Peace Corps, Kabul,OCLC 24699677
Ioannesyan, Youli (2009).Afghan folktales from Herat: Persian Texts in Transcription and Translation. Amherst:Cambria Press. pp. 1–22.ISBN978-1-60497-652-6.
Harold F. Schiffman Language Policy and Language Conflict in Afghanistan and Its Neighbors (Brill's Studies in South and Southwest Asian Languages) BRILL, Leiden, 1.ed, 2011ISBN978-90-04-20145-3
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