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This article is about the variety of Persian spoken in Afghanistan. For other uses, see Dari (disambiguation).

Dari
Dari Persian, Afghan Persian
دری
Dari in Persian script
(Nastaʿlīq style)
Pronunciation[daˈɾiː]
Native toAfghanistan
Native speakers
12.5 million (2000–2011)[1]
official, language of 50% of the Afghan population.[2][2][3][4]
DialectsKaboli, Mazari, Herati, Badakhshi, Panjshiri, Laghmani, Sistani, Aimaqi, Hazaragi[5]
Persian alphabet
Official status
Official language in
 Afghanistan
Regulated byAcademy of Sciences of Afghanistan
Language codes
ISO 639-3Variously:
prs – Dari, Afghan Persian
aiq – Aimaq
haz – Hazaragi
Glottologdari1249  Dari
aima1241  Aimaq
haza1239  Hazaragi
Linguasphere58-AAC-ce (Dari) + 58-AAC-cdo & cdp (Hazaragi) + 58-AAC-ck (Aimaq)
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Template:Contains Perso-Arabic text

Darī (Template:Lang-prs [daˈɾiː]) or Dari Persian (فارسی دری Fārsī-ye Darī [fɒːɾsije daˈɾiː]) or synonymously Farsi (فارسی Fārsī [fɒːɾsiː]) is a variation of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan.[6][7] Dari is the term officially recognized and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,[8][6] hence, it is also known as Afghan Persian in many Western sources.[2][9] This has resulted in a naming dispute. Many Persian speakers in Afghanistan prefer and use the name "Farsi" and say the term Dari has been forced on them by the dominant Pashtun ethnic group as an attempt to distance Afghans from their cultural, linguistic, and historical ties to the Persian-speaking world, which includes Iran, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.[10]

As defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, it is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan; the other is Pashto.[11] Dari is the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan and the native language of approximately 15–30%[2][3][4] of the population, serving as the country's lingua franca.[4] The Iranian and Afghan types of Persian are mutually intelligible, with differences found primarily in the vocabulary and phonology.

By way of Early New Persian, Dari Persian, like Iranian Persian and Tajik, is a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of the Sassanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids (550–330 BC).[12][13] In historical usage, Dari refers to the Middle Persian court language of the Sassanids.[14]

Name

Dari is a name given to the New Persian language since the 10th century, widely used in Arabic (compare Al-Estakhri, Al-Muqaddasi, and Ibn Hawqal) and Persian texts.[15]

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 the standard language used in administration, government, radio, television, and print media. Because of a preponderance of Dari native speakers, who normally refer to the language as Fārsi (فارسی; "Persian"), it is also known as "Afghan Persian" in some Western sources.[2][9]

There are different opinions about the origin of the word Dari. The majority of scholars believes that Dari refers to the Persian word dar or darbār (دربار), meaning "Court", as it was the formal language of the Sassanids.[6] 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).[16] According to him, "Pārsī was the language spoken by priests, scholars, and the like; it is the language of Fars." This language refers to the Middle Persian.[6] 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.”[6]

The Dari language spoken in Afghanistan is not to be confused with the language of Iran called Dari or Gabri, which is a language of the Central Iranian subgroup spoken in some Zoroastrian communities.[17][18]

Note: according to the CIA Fact Book, the percentage of Persian/Dari speakers in Afghanistan is 80%. 1a The CIA Fact Book writes: Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 80% (Dari functions as the lingua franca), Pashto (official) 47%,....

History

Dari comes from Middle Persian which was spoken during the rule of the Sassanid 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 the Achaemenid period (that is, to 300 BC), 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 afterwards down to the present day.[19][20][21]

But it is thought that the first person in Europe to use the term Deri for Dari was Thomas Hyde, at Oxford, in his chief work, Historia religionis veterum Persarum (1700).[22]

Dari or Deri has two meanings:

  • 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 (...)"[23][24]
  • Dari, sometimes Araki-Methods (Iraqi), is a form of poetry used from Rudaki to Jami. In 1500 AD it appeared in Herat in the Persian-speaking Timurid dynasty, and the Persian poems of the Indian poets of the Mughal Empire who used the Indian verse methods or rhyme methods like Bedil and Muhammad Iqbal, became familiar with the Araki methods. Iqbal loved both styles of literature and poetry, when he wrote:

گرچہ هندی در عذوبت شکر است 1[25]

garcheh Hindi dar uzūbat2 shakkar ast

طرز گفتار دری شیرین تر است

tarz e goftar e Dari shirin tar ast

Translation according to literature and poetry: Even though in euphonious Hindi* is sugar – Rhyme method in Dari (Persian) is sweeter *

Qandi Parsi or [Ghand e Parsi] (Rock candy of Parsi) is a metaphor for the Persian language and poetry.

This poem is a poetic statement of the poet Iqbal with respect to the poetry of the 14th century Persian poet Hafez:

شکرشکن شوند همه طوطیان هند

Shakkar shekan shavand hameh totiyāneh Hend

زین قند پارسی که به بنگاله می‌رود

zeen qandeh Pārsi keh beh Bengāleh meravad

English translation:

All the parrots of India will crack sugar

Through this Persian Candy which is going to Bengal[26][27]

Persian replaced the Central Asian languages of the Eastern Iranics.[28] Ferghana, Samarkand, and Bukhara were starting to be linguistically Darified in originally Khorezmian and Soghdian areas during Samanid rule.[29] Dari Persian spread around the Oxus River region, Afghanistan, and Khorasan after the Arab conquests and during Islamic-Arab rule.[30][31] The replacement of the Pahlavi script with the Arabic script in order to write the Persian language was done by the Tahirids in 9th century Khorasan.[32] The Dari Persian language spread and led to the extinction of Eastern Iranian languages like Bactrian, Khwarezmian with only a tiny amount of Sogdian descended Yaghnobi speakers remaining among the now Persian-speaking Tajik population of Central Asia, due to the fact that the Arab-Islamic army which invaded Central Asia also included some Persians who governed the region like the Sassanids.[33] Persian was rooted into Central Asia by the Samanids.[34] Persian phased out Sogdian.[35] The role of lingua franca that Sogdian originally played was succeeded by Persian after the arrival of Islam.[36]

Persian was a major language of government and diplomacy until the middle of the 1700s. Subsequently the strength of Persia declined relative to the industrializing states of Europe (many of whom pursued imperialist policies in the regions where Persian was spoken).

Table of the important terms of the Persian poets

This table gives information how many times the poets of the Persian literature wrote the terms Iran, Turan, Parsi, Farsi, Dari, Khorassan and Pahlevi. It is worth mentioning that many of Nazm ( = Poem نظم) yi Dari or Dastan i Dari (tale of Dari), Tarz e Guftar e Dari (طرز گفتار دری style of Dari convers) have spoken. Nazm (verse form) and Nassir (نثر = novel, short story etc.) and درامه drama) - the three genres of literature. New Persian literature begins with Poems of Rudaki.

Counted according to sources from these Internet sites[37][38]
Name of Poet of Persian century Use of Iran Use of Turan Parsi (Persian) Farsi (Arabised) Dari (Court Language) Greater Khorasan Pahlavi Middle Persian
Rudaki 9th and 10th 1 6
Farrukhi Sistani 9th 10th 16 1 15 Parsa’i 10 1
Abū-Sa'īd Abul-Khayr 10th 1 2
Ferdowsi 10th and 11th 800 + 150 + 100+ 2 25 29
Asadi Tusi 11th 51 5 1 1 loghat ye fors =
Masud Sa'd Salman 11th 23 2 19 Nazm o Nassr Dari 13
Manuchehri 11th 5 3 4
Fakhruddin As'ad Gurgani 11th 15 10 12 Parsa’i 2 1 28 3
Nasir Khusraw 11 th 1 1 19 2 79 2
Mahsati 11th and 12th 1 1
Anwari 12th 13 3 2 1 20
Khaqani 12th 2 1 4 1 2 Nazm e Dari 40 180
Nizami Ganjavi 12 th 37 2 12 3 Nazm and Dastan 25 6
Amir Khusrow 13 th 14th 2 7 6 13
Saadi Shirazi 13th 1 1 6+ 7
Rumi 13 th 14th 1 1 29 6
Hafez 14th 6 9 2 Nazm ye Dari
Ubayd Zakani 14th 1 1 4 1
Muhtasham Kashani 16th 12 9 3 4
Saib Tabrizi 17th 10 7 3 5
Muhammad Iqbal 19th-Died 1938 19 4 3 1 Tarz e 1
Parvin Etesami 19th/died 1941 2 Parsa’i

Geographical distribution

Dari, which is sometimes called Farsi (Persian), 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 natively by about twenty-five percent to about eighty percent population of Afghanistan as a primary language.[2][39][4][40][41] Tajiks, who comprise approximately 27% of the population, are the primary speakers, followed by Hazaras (9%) and Aymāqs (4%). Moreover, many Pashtuns living in Tajik and Hazara concentrated areas also use Dari as a first language. The World Factbook states that eighty percent of the Afghan population speaks the Dari language.[2] About 2.5 million Afghans in Iran and Afghans in Pakistan, part of the wider Afghan diaspora, also speak Dari as one of their primary languages.[42]

Dari dominates the northern, western and central areas of Afghanistan, and is the common language spoken in cities such as Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat, Fayzabad, Panjshir, Bamiyan, and the Afghan capital of Kabul where all ethnic groups are settled. Dari-speaking communities also exist in southwestern and eastern Pashtun-dominated areas such as in the cities of Ghazni, Farah, Zaranj, Lashkar Gah, Kandahar, and Gardez.

Cultural influence

Dari has contributed to the majority of Persian borrowings in other Asian languages, such as Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, etc., as it was the administrative, official, cultural language of the Persocentric Mughal Empire and served as the lingua franca throughout the South Asian subcontinent for centuries. Often based in Afghanistan, Turkic Central Asian conquerors brought the language into South Asia.[43] The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties.[44] The sizable Persian component of the Anglo-Indian loan words in English and in Urdu therefore reflects the Dari pronunciation. For instance, the words dopiaza and pyjama come from the Dari pronunciation; in the Iranian Persian they are pronounced do-piyāzeh and pey-jāmeh. Persian lexemes and certain morphological elements (e.g., the ezāfe) 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". The Dari language has a rich and colorful tradition of proverbs that deeply reflect Afghan culture and relationships, as demonstrated by U.S. Navy Captain Edward Zellem in his bilingual books on Afghan Dari proverbs collected in Afghanistan.[45][46]

Differences between Iranian and Afghan Persian

There are phonological, lexical,[47] and morphological[21] differences between Afghan Persian and Iranian Persian. There are no significant differences in the written forms, other than regional idiomatic phrases.

Phonology

The principal differences between standard Iranian Persian, based on the dialect of the capital Tehran, and Afghan Persian, as based on the Kabul dialect, are:

  1. The merging of majhul 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 words شیر 'lion' and 'milk' are pronounced the same in Iranian Persian as /ʃiːr/, but /ʃeːr/ for 'lion' and /ʃiːr/ for 'milk' in Afghan Persian. The long vowel in زود "quick" and زور "strong" is realized as /uː/ in Iranian Persian, in contrast, these words are pronounced /zuːd/ and /zoːr/ 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 "ice"), which are pronounced [ow] (as in Engl. "low") and [ej] (as in English "day") in Iranian Persian. Dari, on the other hand, is more archaic, e.g. نوروز 'Persian New Year' is realized as /nowruːz/ in Iranian and /nawroːz/ in Afghan Persian, and نخیر 'no' is /naχejr/ in Iranian and /naχajr/ in Afghan Persian. Moreover, [ow] is simplified to [o] in normal Iranian speech, thereby merging with the short vowel /u/ (see below). This does not occur in Afghan Persian.
  3. The high short vowels /i/ and /u/ tend to be lowered in Iranian Persian to [e] and [o].
  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]; [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].
  5. The convergence of voiced uvular stop [ɢ] (ق) and voiced velar fricative [ɣ] (غ) in Iranian Persian (presumably under the influence of Turkic languages like Azeri and Turkmen),[48] 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.
  8. [a] and [e] in word-final positions are separate in Dari, [e] is a word-final allophone of /æ/ in Iranian Persian.

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 model of Dari in Afghanistan, as has the Tehrani 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 spoken throughout Afghanistan. Since 2003, the media, especially the private radio and television broadcasters, have carried out their Dari programs using the Kabuli variety.

Political views on the language

Successive governments of Afghanistan have promoted New Persian as an official language of government since the time of the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526), even as those governments were dominated by Pashtun people. Sher Ali Khan of the Barakzai dynasty (1826–1973) first introduced the Pashto 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.[49][50] Within their respective linguistic boundaries, Dari and Pashto are the media of education.

See also

References

  1. ^ Dari, Afghan Persian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Aimaq at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Hazaragi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "CIA – The World Factbook, "Afghanistan", Updated on 8 July 2010". Cia.gov. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  3. ^ a b "Afghanistan v. Languages". Ch. M. Kieffer. Encyclopædia Iranica, online ed. Retrieved 10 December 2010. Persian (2) is the language most spoken in Afghanistan. The native tongue of twenty five percent of the population ...
  4. ^ a b c d "Dari". UCLA International Institute: Center for World Languages. University of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
  5. ^ "Iranica, "Afghanistan: v.Languages", Table 11". Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  6. ^ a b c d e Lazard, G. "Darī – The New Persian Literary Language", in Encyclopædia Iranica, Online Edition 2006.
  7. ^ Afghanistan Digital Library
  8. ^ Declassified Airgram Department of State May 1964 Farsi-Dahri(sic) to be official language
  9. ^ a b "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: prs". SIL International. 18 January 2010. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  10. ^ Dari Or Farsi? Afghanistan's Long-Simmering Language Dispute, Radio Free Europe, November 7, 2017
  11. ^ "The Afghans – Language Use". United States: Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL). 30 June 2002. Archived from the original on 4 May 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ Lazard, Gilbert 1975, “The Rise of the New Persian Language”
  13. ^ in Frye, R. N., The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 4, pp. 595–632, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  14. ^ Frye, R. N., "Darī", The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Brill Publications, CD version
  15. ^ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/dari
  16. ^ Ebn al-Nadim, ed. Tajaddod, p. 15; Khjwārazmī, Mafātīh al-olum, pp. 116–17; Hamza Esfahānī, pp. 67–68; Yāqūt, Boldān IV, p. 846
  17. ^ ""Parsi-Dari" Ethnologue". Ethnologue.org. 19 February 1999. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  18. ^ ""Dari, Zoroastrian" Ethnologue". Ethnologue.org. 19 February 1999. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  19. ^ "Farsi, the most widely spoken Persian Language, a Farsi Dictionary, Farsi English Dictionary, The spoken language in Iran, History of Farsi Language, Learn Farsi, Farsi Translation". Farsinet.com. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
  20. ^ "Persian alphabet, pronunciation and language". Omniglot.com. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
  21. ^ a b UCLA, Language Materials Projects. "Persian Language". Iranchamber.com. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
  22. ^ Thomas Hyde (1760). Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum Religionis Historia. E Typographeo Clarendoniano. Retrieved 12 July 2013.
  23. ^ John Richardson, London, 1777 pg. 15
  24. ^ * John Richardson (1810). Sir Charles Wilkins, David Hopkins (ed.). A vocabulary, Persian, Arabic, and English: abridged from the quarto edition of Richardson's dictionary. Printed for F. and C. Rivingson. p. 643. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
  25. ^ "تمهید". Ganjoor (in Persian). Ganjoor. 2013. Retrieved 12 July 2013.
  26. ^ Jafri, Sardar (January–February 2000). "Hafiz Shirazi (1312-1387-89)". Social Scientist. 28 (1/2). Social Scientist: 12–31. doi:10.2307/3518055. Retrieved 12 July 2013.
  27. ^ Abbadullah Farooqi (2013). "THE IMPACT OF KHAWAJA HAFIZ ON IQBAL'S THOUGHT". Iqbal. Government of Pakistan. Retrieved 12 July 2013.
  28. ^ Kirill Nourzhanov; Christian Bleuer (8 October 2013). Tajikistan: A Political and Social History. ANU E Press. pp. 27–. ISBN 978-1-925021-16-5.
  29. ^ Kirill Nourzhanov; Christian Bleuer (8 October 2013). Tajikistan: A Political and Social History. ANU E Press. pp. 30–. ISBN 978-1-925021-16-5.
  30. ^ Ira M. Lapidus (22 August 2002). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press. pp. 127–. ISBN 978-0-521-77933-3.
  31. ^ Ira M. Lapidus (29 October 2012). Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 255–. ISBN 978-0-521-51441-5.
  32. ^ Ira M. Lapidus (29 October 2012). Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 256–. ISBN 978-0-521-51441-5.
  33. ^ Paul Bergne (15 June 2007). The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic. I.B.Tauris. pp. 5–. ISBN 978-1-84511-283-7.
  34. ^ Paul Bergne (15 June 2007). The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic. I.B.Tauris. pp. 6–. ISBN 978-1-84511-283-7.
  35. ^ Josef W. Meri; Jere L. Bacharach (2006). Medieval Islamic Civilization: L-Z, index. Taylor & Francis. pp. 829–. ISBN 978-0-415-96692-4.
  36. ^ Sigfried J. de Laet; Joachim Herrmann (1 January 1996). History of Humanity: From the seventh century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. UNESCO. pp. 468–. ISBN 978-92-3-102812-0.
  37. ^ http://www.ganjnama.com/search/
  38. ^ http://ganjoor.net/
  39. ^ "AFGHANISTAN v. Languages". Ch. M. Kieffer. Encyclopædia Iranica, online ed. Retrieved 10 December 2010. Persian (2) is the language most spoken in Afghanistan. The native tongue of twenty five percent of the population ...
  40. ^ "Languages of Afghanistan". SIL International. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 2005. Archived from the original on 30 January 2009. Retrieved 16 September 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  41. ^ "Dari language". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 December 2010.
  42. ^ "Dari language, alphabet and pronunciation". Omniglot.com. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
  43. ^ "South Asian Sufis: Devotion, Deviation, and Destiny". Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  44. ^ Sigfried J. de Laet. History of Humanity: From the seventh to the sixteenth century UNESCO, 1994. ISBN 9231028138 p 734
  45. ^ Zellem, Edward. 2012. "Zarbul Masalha: 151 Afghan Dari Proverbs". Charleston: CreateSpace.
  46. ^ Zellem, Edward. 2012. "Afghan Proverbs Illustrated". Charleston: CreateSpace.
  47. ^ "Ethnologue report for language code: prs". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
  48. ^ A. Pisowicz, Origins of the New and Middle Persian phonological systems (Cracow 1985), p. 112-114, 117.
  49. ^ Willem Vogelsang, "The Afghans", Blackwell Publishing, 2002
  50. ^ Declassified, Zaher said there would be, as there are now, two official languages, Pashto and Farsi, though the latter would henceforth be named Dari.

Further reading

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