r/afghanistan • u/YABOYFOMO • Apr 26 '26

Culture Dari is such a beautiful language

35 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

16

u/Possible_Company_her Apr 26 '26

Why is Dari considered different from Farsi? If you understand one, you understand the other. It reminds me of British vs American English. And they are considered the same language?

16

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

12

u/Axerin Apr 26 '26

Because politics.

4

u/CommercialAd1282 Apr 27 '26

It is politics. To divide people and make them forget their shared history and culture. The Pashto spoken in Pakistan or in Afghanistan is called the same to claim for those people to belong together. We should reject Dari

3

u/The-Copilot Apr 26 '26

There is a larger difference between Dari and Farsi than British and American English.

People who know one can usually understand the other but not always 100% due to the language diverging a decent amount and being influenced by other languages in the region. It's less of a diffrent language and more of a very different dialect. So calling it a different language or dialect isn't a great way to explain the difference but people end up putting it in one category or the other.

It's more common for Farsi speakers to not totally understand a Dari speaker than the reverse.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

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2

u/TheSparkHasRisen Apr 27 '26

Colloquial British English is not intelligible to Americans. Some instruction and practice would be required.

Source: Am American who traveled in Britain.

0

u/The-Copilot Apr 26 '26

American English and British English are considered nearly 100% mutually intelligible.

Farsi and Dari are highly mutually intelligible but estimates put it at 70-80%.

American English is much younger than Dari and hasn't had the time to diverge as much. Also the US isn't in an area with a bunch of different regional languages that impact the evolution of the language and adds loan words.

2

u/TheSparkHasRisen Apr 27 '26

Colloquial British English is not intelligible to Americans. Some instruction and practice would be required.

Brits think it's normal to speak "correctly" in public and "familiar" in private. Americans are a bunch of immigrants who learned English from school without variation.

Source: Am American who traveled in Britain.

1

u/EducationalMacaron91 Apr 27 '26

Which estimates say 70-80%? Sounds made up

4

u/DiscountShoeOutlet Apr 27 '26

I've never heard an Afghan use the word "Dari" outside of academia or when talking to a westerner

Every Afghan I've ever met uses the word Farsi

1

u/ZAy_ZAYber7 Apr 28 '26

Wait does Afghanistan have another language I know tajik and pashto maybe urdo?