70-461: The Butkara Stupa ( Pashto : بت کړه سټوپا) is an important Buddhist stupa near Mingora , in the area of Swat , Pakistan . It may have been built by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka , but it is generally dated slightly later to the 2nd century BCE. The stupa was enlarged on five occasions during the following centuries, every time by building over, and encapsulating, the previous structure. The stupa
140-453: A royal decree of Zahir Shah formally granted Pashto the status of an official language, with full rights to use in all aspects of government and education – despite the fact that the ethnically Pashtun royal family and bureaucrats mostly spoke Persian. Thus Pashto became a national language , a symbol for Pashtun nationalism . The constitutional assembly reaffirmed the status of Pashto as an official language in 1964 when Afghan Persian
210-660: A distinction between varieties of the Sistan region and the varieties in the Western group. However Encyclopaedia Iranica considers the Sistani dialect to constitute their own distinctive group, with notable influences from Balochi . Dari does not distinguish [ ɪ ] and [ ɛ ] in any position, these are distinct phonemes in English but are in un-conditional free variation in nearly all dialects of Dari. There are no environmental factors related to
280-901: A hand-mill as being derived from the Ancient Greek word μηχανή ( mēkhanḗ , i.e. a device). Post-7th century borrowings came primarily from Persian and Hindi-Urdu , with Arabic words being borrowed through Persian, but sometimes directly. Modern speech borrows words from English, French , and German . However, a remarkably large number of words are unique to Pashto. Here is an exemplary list of Pure Pashto and borrowings: naṛә́i jahān dunyā tod/táwda garm aṛtyā́ ḍarurah híla umid də...pə aṛá bāra bolә́la qasidah Dari Dari ( / ˈ d ɑː r i , ˈ d æ -/ ; endonym : دری [d̪ɐˈɾiː] ), Dari Persian ( فارسی دری , Fārsī-yi Darī , [fʌːɾˈsiːjɪ d̪ɐˈɾiː] or Fārsī-ye Darī , [fʌːɾˈsiːjɛ d̪ɐˈɾiː] ), or Eastern Persian
350-444: 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 Farsi ( فارسی , "Persian"), it is also known as "Afghan Persian" in some Western sources. There are different opinions about the origin of the word Dari . The majority of scholars believe that Dari refers to
420-518: A nearly identical categorization but considered varieties spoken in the Sistan region to constitute a distinct group. Takhar and the MOE only discussed vocabulary differences between the dialect groups and did not extensively discuss phonological differences between these groups. However there was a noticeable difference in the romanizations of the Western dialects and the South-Eastern dialects. Chiefly that
490-645: A promoter of the wealth and antiquity of Afghanistan's Pashto culture." From the 16th century, Pashto poetry become very popular among the Pashtuns. Some of those who wrote in Pashto are Bayazid Pir Roshan (a major inventor of the Pashto alphabet ), Khushal Khan Khattak , Rahman Baba , Nazo Tokhi , and Ahmad Shah Durrani , founder of the modern state of Afghanistan or the Durrani Empire . The Pashtun literary tradition grew in
560-522: A variety very similar to it, while others have attempted to place it closer to Bactrian . However, neither position is universally agreed upon. What scholars do agree on is the fact that Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language sharing characteristics with Eastern Middle Iranian languages such as Bactrian, Khwarezmian and Sogdian . Compare with other Eastern Iranian Languages and Old Avestan : Zə tā winə́m /ɐz dɐ wənən/ Az bū tū dzunim Strabo , who lived between 64 BC and 24 CE, explains that
630-460: A wide area in the west of Kabul which is mainly recognized as Dashti Barchi, and some regions near Herat . As a group, the Hazaragi varieties are distinguished by the presence of retroflex consonants and distinctive vocabulary. However it has been shown that Hazaragi is more accurately a sub-dialect of Dari rather than its own variety of Persian. Afghanistan's Ministry of Education does not make
700-657: Is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province , areas of Gilgit-Baltistan and in Islamabad . Pashto speakers are found in other major cities of Pakistan, most notably Karachi , Sindh, which may have the largest Pashtun population of any city in the world. Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in India , Tajikistan , and northeastern Iran (primarily in South Khorasan Province to
770-674: Is its conservative nature compared to, for example, the Tehrani dialect. This can be seen in its Phonology (e.g. it's preservation of "Majhul" vowels), Morhphonology and Syntax, and it's Lexicon. A further distinction may be made between varieties in and near Kabul and varieties in and near Afghan Turkistan. With dialects near Kabul exhibiting some influences from languages in southern Afghanistan and South Asia and dialects in Afghan Turkistan exhibiting more influence from Tajik . All South-Eastern varieties exhibited some influence from Uzbek . Despite
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#1733084652766840-454: Is primarily spoken in the east, south, and southwest, but also in some northern and western parts of the country. The exact number of speakers is unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 45–60% of the total population of Afghanistan . In Pakistan , Pashto is spoken by 15% of its population, mainly in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern districts of Balochistan province. It
910-491: Is sugar – Rhyme method in Dari is sweeter Uzūbat usually means "bliss", "delight", "sweetness"; in language, literature and poetry, uzubat also means "euphonious" or "melodic". Referring to the 14th-century Persian poet Hafez , Iqbal wrote: شکرشکن شوند همه طوطیان هند Šakkar-šakan šavand hama tūtīyān-i Hind زین قند پارسی که به بنگاله میرود zīn qand-i Pārsī ki ba Bangāla mē-ravad English translation: All
980-555: Is taught poorly in schools in Pakistan. Moreover, in government schools material is not provided for in the Pashto dialect of that locality, Pashto being a dialectically rich language. Further, researchers have observed that Pashtun students are unable to fully comprehend educational material in Urdu. Professor Tariq Rahman states: "The government of Pakistan, faced with irredentist claims from Afghanistan on its territory, also discouraged
1050-704: Is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan . Dari Persian is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language; it is known as Afghan Persian or Eastern Persian in many Western sources. The decision to rename the local variety of Persian in 1964 was more political than linguistic to support an Afghan state narrative. Dari Persian is most closely related to Tajiki Persian as spoken in Tajikistan and
1120-464: Is the common language spoken in cities such as Balkh , Mazar-i-Sharif , Herat , Fayzabad , Panjshir , Bamiyan , and the Afghan capital of Kabul where all ethnic groups are settled. Dari Persian-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 . Dari Persian has contributed to
1190-618: 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." Dari Persian 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. Dari comes from Middle Persian which
1260-573: Is the second-largest provincial language of Pakistan , spoken mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of Balochistan . Likewise, it is the primary language of the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is at least 40 million, although some estimates place it as high as 60 million. Pashto is "one of the primary markers of ethnic identity" amongst Pashtuns. A national language of Afghanistan , Pashto
1330-402: The 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan , Dari Persian is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan; the other is Pashto . Dari Persian is the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan and the native language of approximately 25–55% of the population . Dari Persian serves as the lingua franca of the country and is understood by up to 78% of the population. Dari Persian served as
1400-549: The Indo-European language family , natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan . It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani ( افغانی , Afghāni ). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns , it is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan alongside Dari , and it
1470-615: The National Museum of Oriental Art and the City Museum of Ancient Oriental Art in Turin (M.A.O.). The oldest core strata (GSt 1) revealed a coin of Chandragupta Maurya and is therefore dated to the Ashokan period. A coin of Menander I was found in the second oldest stratum (GSt 2). A coin of Azes II was found under a plinth of the third stratum (GSt 3), which is therefore dated to the end of
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#17330846527661540-565: The Pashtun tribes spoke Pashto as their native tongue . King Amanullah Khan began promoting Pashto during his reign (1926–1929) as a marker of ethnic identity and as a symbol of "official nationalism" leading Afghanistan to independence after the defeat of the British Empire in the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. In the 1930s, a movement began to take hold to promote Pashto as a language of government, administration, and art with
1610-681: 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". Dari Persian has a rich and colorful tradition of proverbs that deeply reflect Afghan culture and relationships, as demonstrated through the works of Rumi and other literature. There are phonological, lexical, and morphological differences between Afghan Persian and Iranian Persian. For example Afghan Farsi has more vowels than Iranian Farsi. However, there are no significant differences in
1680-519: The 1st century BCE or the beginning of the 1st century CE. The 4th stratum (GSt 4) contained late coins of Azes II and coins of the Kushan Kujula Kadphises . The in-situ seated Buddha (or Bodhisattva ) statue at Butkara is considered one of the earliest, if not the earliest, known iconographical statues of the Buddha in northwestern India. Van Lohuizen-de Leeuw considers that the statue dates to
1750-805: The 8th century, and they use the writings found in Pata Khazana . Pə́ṭa Xazāná ( پټه خزانه ) is a Pashto manuscript claimed to be written by Mohammad Hotak under the patronage of the Pashtun emperor Hussain Hotak in Kandahar ; containing an anthology of Pashto poets. However, its authenticity is disputed by scholars such as David Neil MacKenzie and Lucia Serena Loi. Nile Green comments in this regard: "In 1944, Habibi claimed to have discovered an eighteenth-century manuscript anthology containing much older biographies and verses of Pashto poets that stretched back as far as
1820-605: The Afghanistan Ministry of Education referring to this group as "South-Eastern" some of the varieties included are in the north. As seen in many Hazaragi varieties, certain Eastern Dialects have developed a system of retroflex consonants under pressure from Pashto. They are not widespread, however. The Kabuli dialect has become the standard model of Dari Persian in Afghanistan, as has the Tehrani dialect in relation to
1890-696: The Oxus River region, Afghanistan, and Khorasan after the Arab conquests and during Islamic-Arab rule. 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. Dari Persian spread and led to the extinction of Eastern Iranian languages like Bactrian and Khwarezmian with only a tiny amount of Sogdian descended Yaghnobi speakers remaining, as
1960-517: The Pashto Movement and eventually allowed its use in peripheral domains only after the Pakhtun elite had been co-opted by the ruling elite...Thus, even though there is still an active desire among some Pakhtun activists to use Pashto in the domains of power, it is more of a symbol of Pakhtun identity than one of nationalism." Robert Nicols states: "In the end, national language policy, especially in
2030-702: 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 Persian spoken throughout Afghanistan. Since 2003, the media, especially the private radio and television broadcasters , have carried out their Dari programs using the Kabuli variety. The Western group includes various varieties spoken in and around: Herat , Badghis , Farah and Ghor . Varieties in this group share many features with
2100-545: 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 ." This language refers to Middle Persian . As for Dari , he says, "it
2170-653: The Society's annual meeting in 1927. In 1955, Pashtun intellectuals including Abdul Qadir formed the Pashto Academy Peshawar on the model of Pashto Tolana formed in Afghanistan. In 1974, the Department of Pashto was established in the University of Balochistan for the promotion of Pashto. In Pakistan, Pashto is the first language around of 15% of its population (per the 1998 census). However, Urdu and English are
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2240-581: The ancestors of Tajiks started speaking Dari after relinquishing their original language (most likely Bactrian) around this time, due to the fact that the Arab-Islamic army which invaded Central Asia also included some Persians who governed the region like the Sassanids . Persian was a prestigious high-ranking language and was further rooted into Central Asia by the Samanids. Persian also phased out Sogdian. The role of lingua franca that Sogdian originally played
2310-511: The appearance of [ ɪ ] or [ ɛ ] and native Dari speakers do not perceive them as different phonemes (that is to say, the English words bet [b ɛ t] and bit [b ɪ t] would be nearly indistinguishable to a native Dari speaker). However, speakers in Urban regions of Kabul, Panjšir and other nearby provinces in southern and eastern Afghanistan tend to realize the vowel as [ ɪ ]. Speakers of Dari in central Afghanistan (i.e. Hazaragi speakers) tend to realize
2380-501: The backdrop to weakening Pashtun power following Mughal rule: Khushal Khan Khattak used Pashto poetry to rally for Pashtun unity and Pir Bayazid as an expedient means to spread his message to the Pashtun masses. For instance Khushal Khattak laments in : "The Afghans (Pashtuns) are far superior to the Mughals at the sword, Were but the Afghans, in intellect, a little discreet. If
2450-426: The creation of the Buddha image an approximately simultaneous phenomenon between the two geographical areas. This Buddhism -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Pashto Pashto ( / ˈ p ʌ ʃ t oʊ / PUH -shto , / ˈ p æ ʃ t oʊ / PASH -toe ; پښتو , Pəx̌tó , [pəʂˈto, pʊxˈto, pəʃˈto, pəçˈto] ) is an Eastern Iranian language in
2520-405: The development of Greco-Buddhist architecture . An Indo-Corinthian capital representing a Buddhist devotee within foliage has been found which had a reliquary and a coin of Azes II buried at its base, securely dating the sculpture to earlier than 20 BCE. The nearby Hellenistic fortifications of Barikot are also thought to be contemporary. A large quantity of the artifacts are preserved in
2590-981: 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 Afghan and Iranian Persian. Likewise, the dialect of Persian in Eastern Iran, for instance in Mashhad , is quite similar to the Herati dialect of Afghanistan. In a paper jointly published by Takhar University and the Ministry of Education in 2018, researchers studying varieties of Persian from Iran to Tajikistan, Identified 3 dialect groups (or macro dialects) present within Afghanistan. In an article about various languages spoken in Afghanistan, Encyclopaedia Iranica identified
2660-502: The dialects of Persian spoken in Eastern Iran, and one may make many comparisons between the speech of Herat and Mashhad . The third group recognized by Afghanistan Ministry of Education is Hazaragi . Spoken by the Hazara people , these varieties are spoken in the majority of central Afghanistan including: Bamyan , parts of Ghazni , Daikundi, Laal Sari Jangal in Ghor province, 'uruzgan khas', in
2730-410: The different tribes would but support each other, Kings would have to bow down in prostration before them" Pashto is a subject–object–verb (SOV) language with split ergativity . In Pashto, this means that the verb agrees with the subject in transitive and intransitive sentences in non-past, non-completed clauses, but when a completed action is reported in any of the past tenses, the verb agrees with
2800-627: The east of Qaen , near the Afghan border). In India most ethnic Pashtun (Pathan) peoples speak the geographically native Hindi-Urdu language rather than Pashto, but there are small numbers of Pashto speakers, such as the Sheen Khalai in Rajasthan , and the Pathan community in the city of Kolkata , often nicknamed the Kabuliwala ("people of Kabul "). Pashtun diaspora communities in other countries around
2870-443: The eighth century. It was an extraordinary claim, implying as it did that the history of Pashto literature reached back further in time than Persian, thus supplanting the hold of Persian over the medieval Afghan past. Although it was later convincingly discredited through formal linguistic analysis, Habibi's publication of the text under the title Pata Khazana ('Hidden Treasure') would (in Afghanistan at least) establish his reputation as
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2940-547: The establishment of a Pashto Society Pashto Anjuman in 1931 and the inauguration of the Kabul University in 1932 as well as the formation of the Pashto Academy (Pashto Tolana) in 1937. Muhammad Na'im Khan, the minister of education between 1938 and 1946, inaugurated the formal policy of promoting Pashto as Afghanistan's national language, leading to the commission and publication of Pashto textbooks. The Pashto Tolana
3010-447: The field of education in the NWFP, had constructed a type of three tiered language hierarchy. Pashto lagged far behind Urdu and English in prestige or development in almost every domain of political or economic power..." Although Pashto used as a medium of instruction in schools for Pashtun students results in better understanding and comprehension for students when compared to using Urdu, still
3080-764: The fifteenth century it appeared in Herat under the Persian-speaking Timurid dynasty . The Persian-language poets of the Mughal Empire who used the Indian verse methods or rhyme methods, like Bedil and Muhammad Iqbal , became familiar with the araki form of poetry. Iqbal loved both styles of literature and poetry, when he wrote: گرچه هندی در عذوبت شکر است Garče Hendī dar uzūbat šakkar ast طرز گفتار دری شیرین تر است tarz-e goftār-e Darī šīrīn tar ast This can be translated as: Even though in euphonious Hindi
3150-399: The government of Pakistan has only introduced Pashto at the primary levels in state-run schools. Taimur Khan remarks: "the dominant Urdu language squeezes and denies any space for Pashto language in the official and formal capacity. In this contact zone, Pashto language exists but in a subordinate and unofficial capacity". Some linguists have argued that Pashto is descended from Avestan or
3220-401: The increased number of Persian speakers within Afghanistan. The World Factbook states that about 80% of the Afghan population speaks Dari Persian. About 2.5 million Afghans in Iran and Afghans in Pakistan , part of the wider Afghan diaspora , also speak Dari Persian as one of their primary languages. Dari Persian dominates the northern, western, and central areas of Afghanistan, and
3290-784: The introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. The sizable Persian component of the Anglo-Indian loan words in English and in Urdu therefore reflects the Dari Persian pronunciation. For instance, the words dopiaza and pyjama come from the Afghan Persian pronunciation; in Iranian Persian they are pronounced do-piyāzeh and pey-jāmeh . Persian lexemes and certain morphological elements (e.g.,
3360-652: The language of the Achaemenids (550–330 BC). In historical usage, Dari refers to the Middle Persian court language of the Sassanids . 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. Since 1964, it has been the official name in Afghanistan for the Persian spoken there. In Afghanistan, Dari refers to
3430-473: The late 1st century BCE to the early 1st century, as it was discovered in the GSt 3 stratum that contained a coins of Azes II . More conservative estimates date it to the 1st-2nd century CE, roughly at the same time the first known statues of the Buddha were made in the art of Mathura . Probably the earliest known statue of the Buddha in the art of Mathura is the " Isapur Buddha ", dated to circa 15 CE. This would make
3500-449: The latter would henceforth be named Dari. Within their respective linguistic boundaries, Dari Persian and Pashto are the media of education. The term continues to divide opinion in Afghanistan today. While Dari has been the official name for decades, "Farsi" is still the preferred name to many Persian speakers of Afghanistan. Omar Samad , an Afghan analyst and ambassador, says of the dispute: This debate pits those who look at language as
3570-435: The majority of Persian borrowings in several Indo-Aryan languages , such as Urdu , Hindi , Punjabi , Bengali and others, as it was the administrative, official, cultural language of the Persianate Mughal Empire and served as the lingua franca throughout the Indian subcontinent for centuries. Often based in Afghanistan , Turkic Central Asian conquerors brought the language into South Asia. The basis in general for
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#17330846527663640-413: The native elements of the lexicon are related to other Eastern Iranian languages . As noted by Josef Elfenbein, "Loanwords have been traced in Pashto as far back as the third century B.C., and include words from Greek and probably Old Persian". For instance, Georg Morgenstierne notes the Pashto word مېچن [mečә́n] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 4) ( help ) i.e.
3710-439: The parrots of India will crack sugar Through this Persian Candy which is going to Bengal Here qand-e Pārsī (" Rock candy of Persia") is a metaphor for the Persian language and poetry. Persian replaced the Central Asian languages of the Eastern Iranics. Ferghana, Samarkand, and Bukhara were starting to be linguistically Darified in originally Khorezmian and Soghdian areas during Samanid rule. Dari Persian spread around
3780-465: The possessed in the genitive construction, and adjectives come before the nouns they modify. Unlike most other Indo-Iranian languages, Pashto uses all three types of adpositions —prepositions, postpositions, and circumpositions. *The retroflex rhotic or lateral, tends to be a lateral flap [ 𝼈 ] at the beginning of a syllable or other prosodic unit, and a regular flap [ ɽ ] or approximant [ ɻ ] elsewhere. In Pashto, most of
3850-403: The post-Sassanid period, and the New era being the period afterward down to the present day. The first person in Europe to use the term Deri for Dari may have been Thomas Hyde in his chief work, Historia religionis veterum Persarum (1700). Dari or Deri has two meanings. It may mean the language of the court: It may also indicate a form of poetry used from Rudaki to Jami . In
3920-417: The preferred literary and administrative language among non-native speakers, such as the Turco-Mongol peoples including the Mughals , for centuries before the rise of modern nationalism. Also, like Iranian Persian and Tajiki Persian , Dari Persian is a continuation of Middle Persian , the official religious and literary language of the Sassanian Empire (224–651 AD), itself a continuation of Old Persian ,
3990-444: The subject if it is intransitive, but with the object if it is transitive. Verbs are inflected for present, simple past, past progressive, present perfect, and past perfect tenses. There is also an inflection for the subjunctive mood . Nouns and adjectives are inflected for two genders (masculine and feminine), two numbers (singular and plural), and four cases (direct, oblique, ablative, and vocative). The possessor precedes
4060-480: 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. Zaher said there would be, as there are now, two official languages, Pashto and Farsi, though
4130-417: The tribes inhabiting the lands west of the Indus River were part of Ariana . This was around the time when the area inhabited by the Pashtuns was governed by the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom . From the 3rd century CE onward, they are mostly referred to by the name Afghan ( Abgan ). Abdul Hai Habibi believed that the earliest modern Pashto work dates back to Amir Kror Suri of the early Ghurid period in
4200-411: The two official languages of Pakistan. Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and north Balochistan . Yet, the primary medium of education in government schools in Pakistan is Urdu. The lack of importance given to Pashto and its neglect has caused growing resentment amongst Pashtuns. It is noted that Pashto
4270-414: The two share many phonological and lexical similarities. Apart from a few basics of vocabulary, there is little difference between formal written Persian of Afghanistan and Iran ; the languages are mutually intelligible. Dari Persian is the official language for approximately 35 million people in Afghanistan and it serves as the common language for inter-ethnic communication in the country. As defined in
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#17330846527664340-520: The vowel diacritic "pesh" ( Kasrah ) was romanized with an "i" for South-Eastern dialects but as an "e" for western dialects. This is presumably due to a difference in quality, however the paper itself did not explain why the vowels were transliterated differently. The South Eastern group (also referred to the Southern and Eastern group) constitutes varieties spoken in and around Kabul , Parwan , Balkh , Baghlan , Samangan , Kunduz , Takhar , Badakhshan and others. A distinctive character of this group
4410-494: The vowel in proximity to, or identically to, [ i ], unless the following syllable contains a high-back vowel. Speakers in western Afghanistan (such as in the Herat or Farah province) and some rural regions in the Kabul province (not the city) most commonly realize the vowel as [ ɛ ]. Additionally, in some varieties of Dari, the phoneme [ ɛ ] appears as an allophone of [a]. Successive governments of Afghanistan have promoted New Persian as an official language of government since
4480-437: The world speak Pashto, especially the sizable communities in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia . Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari Persian . Since the early 18th century, the monarchs of Afghanistan have been ethnic Pashtuns (except for Habibullāh Kalakāni in 1929). Persian, the literary language of the royal court, was more widely used in government institutions, while
4550-585: The written forms, other than regional idiomatic phrases. The phonology of Dari Persian as spoken in Kabul, compared with Classical Persian, is overall more conservative than the accent of Iran's standard register. In this regard Dari Persian is more similar to Tajiki Persian. The principal differences between standard Iranian Persian and Afghan Persian as based on the Kabul dialect are: 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,
4620-457: Was excavated by an Italian mission (IsIOAO: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente), led by archaeologist Domenico Faccenna from 1956, to clarify the various steps of the construction and enlargements. The mission established that the stupa was "monumentalized" by the addition of Hellenistic architectural decorations during the 2nd century BCE, suggesting a direct involvement of the Indo-Greeks , rulers of northwestern India during that period, in
4690-468: Was later incorporated into the Academy of Sciences Afghanistan in line with Soviet model following the Saur Revolution in 1978. Although officially supporting the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a "sophisticated language and a symbol of cultured upbringing". King Zahir Shah (reigning 1933–1973) thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933 that officials were to study and utilize both Persian and Pashto. In 1936
4760-453: Was officially renamed to Dari . The lyrics of the national anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto. In British India , prior to the creation of Pakistan by the British government, the 1920s saw the blossoming of Pashto language in the then NWFP : Abdul Ghafar Khan in 1921 established the Anjuman-e- Islah al-Afaghina (Society for the Reformation of Afghans) to promote Pashto as an extension of Pashtun culture; around 80,000 people attended
4830-420: 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
4900-677: Was succeeded by Persian after the arrival of Islam. Dari Persian is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. In practice though, it serves as the de facto lingua franca among the various ethnolinguistic groups. Dari Persian is spoken by approximately 25-80% of the population of Afghanistan . Tajiks , who comprise 27-39% of the population , are the primary native speakers, followed by Hazaras (9%) and Aymāqs (4%). Moreover, while Pashtuns (48%) natively speak Pashto , those living in Tajik and Hazara dominated areas also use Dari Persian as their main or secondary language. Thus, non-native Persian speaking groups have contributed to
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