Dari

"Dari" redirects here. For other uses, see Dari (disambiguation).

Dari (Afghan Persian)
دری
File:Dari lang.jpg
Native to	Afghanistan
Region	Central Asia, Middle East, South Asia
Native speakers	12-15 million, as first language (Tajiks 8-10 m; Hazaras 2.5-3 m; Aymāqs 1-1.5 m; Pashtuns (unknown))
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Southwestern Iranian Persian Dari (Afghan Persian)
Dialects	Kaboli, Mazari, Herati, Badakhshi, Panjshiri, Laghmani, Sistani, Aimaqi, Hazaragi
Official status
Official language in	Afghanistan
Regulated by	Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan
Language codes
ISO 639-1	fa
ISO 639-2	per (B) fas (T)
ISO 639-3	Variously: prs – Dari, Afghan Persian aiq – Aimaq haz – Hazaragi

Dari (Persian: دری Darī, pronounced [dæˈɾi]) or Fārsī-ye Darī (Persian: فارسی دری, [fɒːɾsije dæˈɾi]) in historical terms refers to the Persian court language of the Sassanids. In contemporary usage, the term refers to the dialects of modern Persian language spoken in Afghanistan, and hence known as Afghan Persian in some Western sources. It is the term officially recognized and promoted by the Afghan government for the Persian language.

As defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, Dari is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, the other is Pashto. It is the mother-tongue of about half of Afghanistan's population, and it also serves as the lingua franca in the country. The Iranian and Afghan dialects of Persian are highly mutually intelligible. Differences are found primarily in the vocabulary and phonology.

Dari, spoken in Afghanistan, should not be confused with Dari or Gabri of Iran, a language of the Central Iranian sub-group, spoken in some Zoroastrian communities.

History and origin of the word

Dari is the name given to the New Persian literary language at a very early age and was widely used in Arabic (cf. Al-Estakhri, Al-Muqaddasi, and Ibn Hawqal) and Persian texts.

There are different opinions about the origin of the word Dari. The majority of scholars believe that Dari refers to the Persian word dar or darbār (دربار), meaning "Court", as it was the formal language of the Sassanids. The original meaning of the word dari is given in a notice attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (cited by Ibn al-Nadim in Al-Fehrest). According to him, "Pārsī was the language spoken by priests, scholars, and the like; it is the language of Fars." It is obvious that this language refers to the Middle Persian. As for Dari, 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 of Khorasan and the east, the language of the people of Balkh is predominant.”

The literary New Persian, which was called Dari, originally developed in Khorasan and Transoxiana and gradually supplanted the Parthian language in Greater Iran.

Iranian^[a] languages have been and are still widely used in Central Asia both by native speakers and as trade languages. Whereas in the past, East Iranian languages, such as Bactrian, Sogdian and Khotanese, and West Iranian languages, notably Parthian and Middle Persian were prominent. New Persian (Dari) has supplanted most of these languages.

^a Note that the term Iranian as used here is a linguistic term and does not refer to the nation of Iran.

Geographical distribution

Dari, which is also simply called Farsi (Persian) by its native-speakers, is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan (the other being Pashto). In practice though, it serves as the de facto lingua franca among the various ethno-linguistic groups.

Dari is spoken by ca. 50% of the population as first language. Tajiks and Farsiwans who comprise approximately one-third of the population are the primary speakers, followed by Hazaras and Aymāqs who comprise 10 to 15 percent of the population. Moreover, a number of Dari-speaking Pashtuns also live in Kabul and other Dari-speaking cities.

Dari dominates in the northern, western and central areas of Afghanistan, and is the native language of most of the larger cities, including the capital of the country, Kabul. Other important Dari-speaking cities are Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, and Ghazni. Smaller Dari-speaking communities also exist in southern Pashtun-dominated areas such as in the cities of Kandahar, Laghman, Gardez and Jalalabad.

Cultural influence

Dari has contributed to the majority of Persian borrowings in South Asian languages, such as Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, etc., as it was the administrative, official and cultural language of the Persocentric Mughal Empire and served as the lingua franca throughout the Indian subcontinent for centuries. The sizeable Persian component of the Anglo-Indian loan words in English and in Hindi and/or Urdu therefore reflects the Dari pronunciation. For instance dopiaza or pyjama come from the Dari pronunciation, while in the Iranian Persian they're pronounced do-piyāzeh and pey-jāmeh.

The cultural dominance of Iran (especially in the media) ensures that the specific features of Iranian Persian are also understood by many Dari speakers in Afghanistan. The opposite is also true, to a point. The Persian variant spoken in Afghanistan, though subject to many influences from the Pashto language on the colloquial level, is usually understood by the Persian speakers of Iran.

Differences between Iranian and Afghan Persian

Phonology

Dari is considered to be a more archaic form of Persian (Farsi). The differences in pronunciation of Iranian and Afghan Persian can be considerable, on par with Scottish and Cockney English, although educated speakers generally have no difficulty understanding each other (except in the use of certain lexical items or idiomatic expressions). The principal differences between standard Iranian Persian, based on the dialect of the capital Tehran, and Afghan Dari, as based on the Kabul dialect, are:

1. The absence of the so-called "majhul" vowels in Iranian Persian, viz. the originally long "ē" / "ī" and "ō" / "ū", still kept separate in Afghan Persian, have merged into "ī" and "ū" respectively. For instance, the identically written words شیر 'lion' and 'milk' are pronounced the same in Iranian Persian, viz. [šīr], but [šēr] for 'lion' and [šīr] for 'milk' in Afghan Persian. The long vowel in زود 'quick' and زور 'strong' is realized as [ū] in Iranian Persian, in contrast, these words are pronounced as [zūd] and [zōr] respectively by Persian speakers in Afghanistan.
2. The treatment of the diphthongs of early Classical Persian "aw" (as "ow" in Engl. "cow") and "ay" (as "i" in English "fine"), which are pronounced as [ow] (as in Engl. "low") and [ey] (as in English "hey!", "day") in Iranian Persian. Dari, on the other hand, is more archaic, e.g. نوروز 'Persian New Year' is realized as [nowrūz] in Iranian, and [nawrōz] in Afghan Persian, and نخیر 'no' is uttered as [naχejr] in Iranian, and as [naχajr] in Afghan Persian.
3. The high short vowels "i" and "u" tend to be lowered in Iranian Persian, as "e" (similar to "i" in English "fit", "hit"), and "o" (as in British English "Ron").
4. The pronunciation of the labial consonant و, which is realized as a voiced labiodental fricative [v], but Afghan Persian still retains the (classical) bilabial pronunciation [w].
5. The convergence of voiced uvular stop [q] (ق) and voiced velar fricative [ɣ] (غ) in Iranian Persian (presumably under the influence of Turkic languages like Azeri), is still kept separate in Dari.
6. The realization of short final "a" (-ه) as [e] in Iranian Persian.
7. The realization of short non-final "a" as [æ] in Iranian Persian.

Syntax

Basically, in Afghanistan people will not use the continuous tense in the simple present. They will only add the می (mi) as a prefix to the present stem of the verb. Example: “I am eating bread” would be: من نان می‌خورم (man nan mikhuram). On the other hand, the syntax of Dari Persian does not differ greatly from Iranian Persian. One of the major grammatical differences is expressing the continuous tense. In Iranian Persian, the auxiliary verb “to have” (داشتن [dāštan]) is placed before the main finite verb (with prefix "mī-") to indicate a continuous action. In Dari, on the other hand, a periphrastic construction with the expression "dar hāl-i" (at the moment of) is used instead: the main verb appears in the infinitive. A sentence like "I am going" would be thus expressed as "man dāram mīr(av)am" in Iran, whereas in Afghanistan this would be "man dar hāl-i raftan hastam" ("hastam" is a copula form, viz. the 1st person singular present of the verb "būdan" 'to be').

Dialect continuum

The dialects of Dari spoken in Northern, Central and Eastern Afghanistan, for example in Kabul, Mazar, and Badakhshan, have distinct features compared to Iranian Persian. However, the dialect of Dari spoken in Western Afghanistan stands in between the Afghan and Iranian Persian. For instance, the Herati dialect shares vocabulary and phonology with both Dari and Iranian Persian. Likewise, the dialect of Persian in Eastern Iran, for instance in Mashhad, is quite similar to the Herati dialect of Afghanistan.

The Kabuli dialect has become the standard dialect of Dari in Afghanistan, as has the Tehrani dialect in relation to the Persian in Iran. Since the 1940s, Radio Afghanistan has been broadcasting its Dari programs in the Kabuli dialect, which ensured the homogenization between the Kabuli dialect and other dialects of Dari spoken throughout Afghanistan. Since 2003, the media, especially the private radio and television broadcasters, have carried out their Dari programs in the Kabuli dialect.

Political views on the language

The native-speakers of Dari usually call their language Farsi. However, the term Dari has been officially promoted by the government of Afghanistan due to political reasons, and enjoys equal official status alongside Pashto in Afghanistan. The local name for Persian language was officially changed from Farsi to Dari in 1964. In respective linguistic boundaries, Dari is the medium of education with Pashto being taught as a second language.

See also

• Middle Persian
• Persian language
• Samanids

Further reading

• Lazard, G. "Darī - The New Persian Literary Language" in Encyclopædia Iranica Online Edition.
• Sakaria, S. (1967) Concise English - Afghan Dari Dictionary Ferozsons, Kabul, OCLC 600815
• 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

External links

• Dari alphabet from Afghanistan Online