Initial investigations into
Dari dialectology
AF-PAK LEARN Omaha
May 19, 2010
Corey Miller (cmiller@casl.umd.edu)
Najiba Moats
LANGUAGE RESEARCH IN SERVICE TO THE NATION
What is Dari?
Variety of Persian spoken in Afghanistan
– Can be contrasted with Farsi (Iran),
Tajik (Tajikistan)
– We are not referring to the following usages:
• Dialect of Zoroastrians spoken in Yazd and
Kerman, Iran and Bombay, India
• Literary form of Early New Persian
(9-12th centuries)
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Southwest Iranian
Languages Family Tree
Old Persian
Early New
Persian
Middle Persian
Farsi
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Dari
Tajik
What is dialectology?
• Study of variation in language associated
with geography
– Macro: national varieties of Persian
– Micro: regional varieties within Farsi, Dari, etc.
• Identification of dialect features associated
with different localities
– Words, pronunciations, grammatical features
– Shibboleths and stereotypes
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Benefits to understanding
dialectal structure of a language
• Better understanding of non-standard
language
• Ability to determine a speaker’s
provenance (à la Henry Higgins)
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How to describe Dari?
• Contrastive approach
– e.g. how does Dari differ from Farsi?
• Internal approach
– What are the popularly recognized dialects?
(cf. Perceptual Dialectology, Dennis Preston)
– Identify variables
• What lexical, phonological, syntactic and
morphological features characterize the different
dialects?
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Lexical variables
• Household items
– sugar: ‫ بوره‬/bura/ vs. ‫ شکر‬/ʃakar/
– butter: ‫ مسکه‬/maska/ vs. ‫ کره‬/kare/
• Western imports: from French or English?
– tie: ‫ نکتای‬/nektay/ vs. ‫ کراوات‬/krɑvɑt/
– Japan: ‫ جاپان‬/jɑpɑn/ vs. ‫ ژاپن‬/ʒɑpon/
• Same word different meaning
– maternal uncle, midwife: ‫ ماما‬/mɑmɑ/, ‫ دائ‬/dɑi/
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Phonological variables
• Dari is generally more “conservative”
– Preserves some distinctions (e.g. from Early
New Persian) that are lost or merged in Farsi
– Vowels
– Diphthongs
– Consonants
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Preservation of
“classical” vowel distinctions
• e~i
– ‫ شیر‬/ʃer/ vs. /ʃir/ lion, ‫ شیر‬/ʃir/ milk
– ‫ سیر‬/ser/ vs. /sir/ full, ‫ سیر‬/sir/ garlic
• o~u
– ‫ شور‬/ʃor/ vs. /ʃur/ salty
– ‫ صور‬/sur/ trumpet
Dari
Farsi
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i
e
i
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u
o
u
Preservation of diphthongs
• ay ~ e
– ‫ پیدا‬/paydɑ/ vs. /pedɑ/ find
– ‫ سیر‬/sayr/ vs. /ser/ walking
• aw ~ o
– ‫ جلو‬/jelaw/ vs. /jelo/ front
– ‫ چلو‬/čelaw/ vs. /čelo/ cooked rice
Dari
Farsi
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ay
e
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aw
o
National distinctions in domestic flux
Example word
Kabuli
Herati
Tehrani
‫ شیر‬lion
e
e/i
i
‫ پیدا‬find
ay
ay/e
e
‫ دوست‬friend
o
o/u
u
‫ جلو‬front
aw
aw/o
o
Adapted from Farhadi 1955
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Consonants /q/ ‫ ق‬and /ɣ/ ‫غ‬
• Dari maintains distinction
– ‫ )قار( قهر‬/qɑr/ anger vs. ‫ غار‬/ɣɑr/ hole
– Farsi has merged /q/ and /ɣ/ as /ɢ/ with
allophones [ɢ] initially and [ʁ] intervocalically
• Hodge 1957 reports q ~ ɣ distinction in Kerman,
Iran
– Both Dari and Farsi have allophone [x] in
certain contexts: ‫ وقت‬/waxt/, /vaxt/ time
Dari
Farsi
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ɣ
q
LANGUAGE RESEARCH IN SERVICE TO THE NATION
ɢ
Additional consonantal differences
• Consonantal ‫و‬
– ‫ نود‬ninety /nawad/ vs. /navad/
– ‫ آواز‬sound /ɑwɑz/ vs. /ɑvɑz/
• ‫ژ‬j~ʒ
– Farsi distinguishes ‫ ج‬/j/ and ‫ ژ‬/ʒ/
– Merged in Dari
• ‫ ژاله‬/jɑla/ vs. / ʒɑle/
• ‫ جوان‬/javɑn/ youth
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Additional vocalic difference
• vowel + “silent” ‫ه‬
– ‫ نامه‬/nɑma/ vs. /nɑme/ letter
– ‫ شکسته‬/ʃekasta/ vs. /ʃekaste/ broken
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Syntactic and Morphological Differences
• Morphology
– first person singular verbal suffix:
/om/ vs. /am/
• I go: /merom/ vs. /miram/
• Syntax
– formation of the present progressive:
I’m eating
• ‫ خورده میرم‬/xorda merom/
• ‫ دارم می خورم‬/dɑram mixoram/
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Methodology
• Unlikely that differences in national
varieties correspond exactly with political
boundaries (cf. Miller 1985)
• Use reported differences in national
varieties to establish isoglosses
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Fieldwork components
• Sociolinguistic interview
• Elicitation guides
– Phonology: reading wordlists
– Lexicon: “What do you put in your tea to make
it sweet?”
• Reading passage
– IPA Handbook Farsi adapted for Afghanistan
– Observe connected speech processes
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Interviews to-date
• Herat male
• Mazari Sharif female
(native language Uzbek)
• Bamian female (Hazaragi)
• Jalalabad male (native language Pashto)
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Plans going forward
• Conduct interviews with speakers from
additional regions
• Deepen coverage of individual regions
• “Standard”: determine existence,
description and where it is found
• Association of variables with localities:
isoglosses
• Determination and description of social
dialects
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References
• Farhadi, Abd-ul-Ghafur. 1955. Le persan
parlé en Afghanistan. Paris: Klincksieck
• Henderson, Michael Magnus Thyne. 1972.
Dari (Kabul Persian) Phonology. Madison,
WI: University of Wisconsin dissertation.
• Hodge, Carleton T. 1957. Some aspects of
Persian Style. Language 33.355-369.
• International Phonetic Association. 1999.
Handbook of the International Phonetic
Association. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
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References
• Miller, Corey. 1989. The United StatesCanadian border as a linguistic boundary:
The English language in Calais, Maine and
St. Stephen, New Brunswick. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard College undergraduate thesis.
• Nawid, Senzil. 1994. ‫بررسی مختصر گویشهای دری‬
‫کابل و فارسی تهران‬. Persian studies in North
America: studies in honor of Mohammad Ali
Jazayery. Bethesda, MD: Iranbooks.
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References
• Preston, Dennis R., editor. 1999.
Handbook of perceptual dialectology.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
• Rees, Daniel A. 2008. Towards protoPersian: An optimality theoretic historical
reconstruction. Washington, DC:
Georgetown University dissertation.
• Sayd, Mustafa Ajan. 2009. Dari-English
Dictionary. Hyattsville, MD: Dunwoody.
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References
.‫• فهرست واژه های متفاوت در فارسی افغانستان و ایران‬
http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%81%D9%87
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