Dari Language Services

Dari or Fārsī-ye Darī 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 in 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language. As defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, it is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan; the other is Pashto. Dari is the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan and the mother-tongue of approximately 50% of the population, serving as the country’s lingua franca. The Iranian and Afghan dialects of Persian are highly mutually intelligible, with differences 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. Phonology > Phonetically, Dari generally resembles a more formal and classical form of Persian (Farsi). The differences in pronunciation of Iranian and Afghan Persian can be considerable, although educated speakers generally have not that much difficulty understanding each other History > The origin of Dari comes from the 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. Cultural influence > Dari has contributed to the majority of Persian borrowings in other Asian languages, such as Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, 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. The sizable Persian component of the Anglo-Indian loan words in English and in Urdu therefore reflects the Dari pronunciation.