Dari

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Dari language

Dari (Persian: دری‎‎ [dæˈɾiː]) or Dari Persian (Persian: فارسی دری‎‎ [fɒːɾsije dæˈɾiː]) is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognized and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language. Hence, it is also known as Afghan Persian in many Western sources.

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 native language of approximately 25–50% of the population, serving as the country's lingua franca. 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). In historical usage, Dari refers to the Middle Persian court language of the Sassanids.

Zoroastrian Dari language

Zoroastrian Dari (Persian: دری زرتشتی or گویش بهدینان‎‎ lit. BEHDĪNĀN DIALECT) is a Northwestern Iranianethnolect spoken as a first language by an estimated 8,000 to 15,000 Zoroastrians in and around the cities of Yazd and Kerman in central Iran. The ethnolect is often overlooked by linguists because the region is predominantly Muslim and because Dari is primarily spoken (rarely written). Dari is a Persian dialect.

Dari is also known as Behdināni or pejoratively as Gabri (sometimes Gavrŭni or Gabrōni). Dari has numerous dialects. there are certain differences compared to new Persian, though it is still a Persian dialect related to middle Persian Pahlavi.

Genealogy

Genealogically, Dari Persian is a member of the Northwestern Iranian language subfamily, which includes several other closely related languages, for instance, Zazaki and Balochi. These Northwestern Iranian languages are a branch of the larger Western Iranian language group, which is in turn a subgroup of the Iranian language family.