Dari (
Darī, ) or
Dari Persian ( -
Fārsīy e Darī, ), also known as
Eastern Persian, is a historical name for the
Persian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
and, in contemporary usage refers to the dialects of the
Persian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
that are spoken in
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
. It is the term officially recognized and promoted by the Afghan government for the language. As defined in the
Constitution of AfghanistanThe Constitution of Afghanistan became the official law of Afghanistan when the 2003 Loya jirga approved it by the consensus on January 4, 2004. It evolved out of the Afghan Constitution Commission mandated by the Bonn Agreement. The constitution provides for an elected President and National...
, Dari is an official language of Afghanistan next to Pashto. Dari also serves as the
lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or...
in Afghanistan.
http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=191&menu=004
Origin of the word "Dari"
There are different opinions about the origin of the word Dari. The majority of scholars believe that
Dari refers to the Persian word
darbār (
دربار), meaning
"Court", as it was the formal language of the Sassanids. This opinion is supported by medieval sources and early Islamic historians.
Geographical distribution
In Afghanistan Dari Persian ("Fārsi e Dari") is also simply called Persian ("Fārsi"). It is not to be confused with
DariDari is a Northwestern Iranian ethnolect spoken as a first language by estimated 8,000 to 15,000 Zoroastrians in and around the cities of Yazd and Kerman in central Iran...
or
GabriDari is a Northwestern Iranian ethnolect spoken as a first language by estimated 8,000 to 15,000 Zoroastrians in and around the cities of Yazd and Kerman in central Iran...
of
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
, a language of the Central Iran sub-group, spoken in some
ZoroastrianA Zoroastrian is an adherent to Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion that is based on the teachings and philosophies of Zoroaster....
communities.
Iranian languages have been and are still widely used in
Central AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
both by native speakers and as trade languages. Whereas in the past East Iranian languages, such as
BactrianThe Bactrian language is an extinct Eastern Iranian language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria. Linguistically, it is classified as belonging to the middle period of the East Iranian branch, and is related to medieval Sogdian and Khwarezmian languages.Because Bactrian was...
,
Sogdian- Overview :The Sogdian language is a Middle Iranian language that was spoken in Sogdiana , located in modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan ....
and
KhotaneseKhotanese is a form of the Sakan language once spoken in the Kingdom of Khotan. The language is preserved in the texts among the Dunhuang manuscripts, written in a script derived from the Brahmi. These texts have been deciphered and edited by Harold Bailey....
, and West Iranian languages, notably
ParthianThe Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlavanik, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern Greater Iran, to include a significant portion of Greater Khorasan....
and
Middle PersianMiddle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as Western Iranian language...
were prominent, New Persian has supplanted most of these languages. Only in the
Pamir MountainsThe Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction or knot of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges. They are among the world’s highest mountains and since Victorian times they have been known as the "Roof of the World", translated from...
there are still pockets of speakers of East Iranian languages left, such as
ShughniShughni is one of the Pamir languages of the Southeastern Iranian language group. Its distribution is in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan and Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan.- References :...
, Sarikoli, Yazgulami, and
Sanglechi-IshkashmiThe Ishkashimi language is one of the Pamir languages of the Southeastern Iranian language group. Its distribution is in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan and Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan....
, thanks to their relative isolation.
Dari Persian is considered to be a more archaic form of (New)
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
. It is the major language of Afghanistan, one of the two official languages (next to Pashto). In practice though it serves as the de facto
lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or...
among the various, different ethno-linguistic groups. Dari Persian dominates in the northern and western parts, and the capital, Kabul, in the east.
Dari Persian has contributed to the majority of Persian borrowings in South Asian languages, such as
HindiStandard Hindi, also known as High Hindi, Nagari Hindi or Literary Hindi is a standardised register of Hindi. It is one of the 22 languages with official status in India, and is used, along with English, for administration of the central government.Standard Hindi is a sanskritised register derived...
-
UrduUrdu is a Central Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of the two official languages of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of five Indian states...
, Panjabi,
BengaliBengali or Bangla is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages....
, etc., as it was the administrative,official and cultural language of the
Persocentric"Indo-Persian culture" refers to those Persian aspects that have been integrated into or absorbed into South Asian culture, and in particular, into North India and parts of modern-day Pakistan....
Mughal EmpireThe Mughal Empire was an Islamic and Persianate imperial power of the Indian subcontinent which began in 1526, invaded and ruled most of Hindustan by the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and ended in the mid-19th century...
and served as the
lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.Lingua franca is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic history or...
throughout the
Indian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent and other terms, is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a peninsula which extends southward into the Indian Ocean...
for centuries. The sizeable Persian component of the Anglo-Indian loan words in English therefore reflects Dari pronunciation, for instance
dopiazaDopiaza is a South-Asian curry dish. It is prepared with a large amount of onions, both cooked in the curry and as a garnish. Onions are added at two stages during cooking, hence the name...
(= Iranian Persian
do-piyāzeh "(having) two onions"),
gymkhanaGymkhana is a typical Anglo-Indian expression, which is derived from the Hindi-Urdu word for "racket court," is an Indian term which originally referred to a place where sporting events take place. The meaning then altered to denote a place where skill-based contests were held.In India, the term...
(-khana = Ir. Pers. khāneh "house"), pyjama (= Ir. Pers. pey-jāmeh "leg/foot garment",
Chicken tikkaChicken tikka ; /murɣ ʈikkɑː/) is a dish of South Asia.It is traditionally baked skewers with small pieces of chicken, usually boneless, in a clay based oven called tandoor, after marinating in spices and yogurt....
(tikka = Ir. Pers.
tekkeh "piece, chunk").
Phonology
The differences in pronunciation of Iranian and Afghan Persian can be considerable, on par with
ScottishScottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not include Scots depending on the observer.The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English...
and
CockneyThe term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
English, although, naturally, educated speakers have generally 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:
- 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.
- the treatment of the dipthongs of early Classical Persian "aw" (as "ow" in Engl. "cow") and "ay" (as "i" in Engl. "fine"), which are pronounced as [ow] (as in Engl. "low") and [ey] (as in Engl. "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 [naχeyr] in Iranian, and as [naχayr] in Afghan Persian.
- the high short vowels "i" and "u" tend to be lowered in Iranian Persian, as "e" (similar to "i" in Engl. "fit", "hit"), and "o" (as in Engl. "Ron"),
- the pronunciation of the labial consonant و, which is realized as a (voiced) dental fricative, similar to Engl. "v", but Afghan Persian still retains the (classical) bilabial pronunciation "w" (as in Engl.).
- the convergence of voiced uvular stop "q" (ق) and voiced velar fricative "γ" (غ) in Iranian Persian (presumably under the influence of Azeri Turkish), which is still kept separate in Dari,
- the realization of short final "a" (-ه) as "e" in Iranian Persian,
- the realization of short non-final "a" as [æ] in Iranian Persian.
Syntax
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
copulaIn linguistics, a copula , also called a "passive verb" or "linking verb", is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate . The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a link or tie that connects two different things.A copula is sometimes a verb or a verb-like part of speech...
form, viz. the 1st person singular present of the verb "būdan" 'to be').
Cultural influences from Iran on Dari
The cultural dominance of Iran (especially in the media and education) ensures that the specific features of Iranian Persian are also understood by many Dari speakers in Afghanistan. This is also (to a point) vice versa. The Persian variant of Afghanistan, which also shows some influence by speakers of Pashto on the colloquial level, usually able to be mutually understood by the Persian speakers of Iran.
History
The history of Dari is closely related to the birth and rise of New Persian as a literary language after the arrival of Islam. See the entry
Persian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
.
Political views on the language
Some people do not consider the Persian spoken in Afghanistan to be a separate dialect. They consider it to be just Persian.
Dari is used by certain scholars in Tajikistan and Iran, including
Mahmoud DowlatabadiMahmoud Dowlatabadi is an Iranian writer and actor. He is known as a realist writer of stories of immigration and rural life, in which he largely draws on his own experiences....
, to refer to the
Persian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
. It is also believed by some that
Dari Persian should not be called
Afghanistani Persian, because it already existed centuries before the creation of Afghanistan, or the use of the word
Afghanistani. Linguists prefer the terms
Western Persian (Farsi) for the spoken Persian in Tehran, and
Eastern Persian (Dari) for the Persian spoken in eastern
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
and
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
.
The language name of Afghanistan was officially changed from Farsi to Dari due to political reasons in 1964.
Further reading
- Lazard, G. "Darī - The New Persian Literary Language" in Encyclopædia Iranica
Encyclopædia Iranica is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times...
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