Persian, Farsi, Dari and Tajik are often listed as four languages. They are better understood as one language with three national standards. Here is what each name means and how different the varieties really are.
Persian or Farsi?
These are two names for the same thing. Fârsi is what the language is called in the language itself, in the way that German is Deutsch and Spanish is español. "Persian" is the name English has used for centuries, and it is the form recommended for English by the Academy of Persian Language and Literature in Tehran, partly because it keeps the link to the long history of "Persian literature", "Persian carpets" and "Persian poetry".
In everyday English both words are used and both are understood. If you want to be careful, say "Persian" when you write in English and "Fârsi" when you speak the language.
Three countries, three official names
| Country | Official name | Script |
|---|---|---|
| Iran | Persian (Fârsi) | Persian alphabet, right to left |
| Afghanistan | Dari | Persian alphabet, right to left |
| Tajikistan | Tajik (Tojikī) | Cyrillic, left to right |
Persian is also spoken by communities in Uzbekistan, especially in Samarkand and Bukhara, and by a large diaspora in Europe, North America, the Gulf states and Australia. Counting people who use it as a second language, the total is usually put at more than a hundred million speakers.
Dari
Dari is the Persian of Afghanistan, where it is one of the two official languages alongside Pashto and serves as the common language between different communities. The name is an old one: "Dari" appears in early medieval texts as a word for the Persian of the royal court. It became the official name in Afghanistan in the constitution of 1964. Many Afghans still simply call their language Fârsi.
Tajik
Tajik is the Persian of Tajikistan. During the Soviet period its writing was changed from the Persian alphabet to Latin and then, at the end of the 1930s, to Cyrillic, which is still used today. A Tajik and an Iranian can talk to each other, but neither can read the other's newspaper without learning a second alphabet.
How well do speakers understand each other?
Quite well. The comparison people often make is with British, American and Australian English, or with the Spanish of Madrid and Mexico City, although the gap is somewhat wider, especially for Tajik. Educated speakers follow each other's news broadcasts without much trouble. Fast, informal street speech takes some getting used to.
Pronunciation
Dari and Tajik have kept some older vowel distinctions that Iranian Persian lost. The classic example is the pair of words that Iranians both pronounce shir: in Afghanistan "milk" is shir but "lion" is shēr, with a different vowel. To Iranian ears, Dari often sounds a little like the Persian of classical poetry.
Vocabulary
Each country borrowed from different neighbours. Iranian Persian took many words from French, Tajik from Russian, and Dari from Pashto and English.
| Meaning | Iran | Afghanistan | Tajikistan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thank you | mersi, mamnun | tashakor | rahmat |
| Hospital | bimârestân | shafâkhâna | bemorkhona |
| Hello | salâm | salâm | salom |
| How are you? | chetori? | chetor asti? | shumo chī khel? |
The core of the language, the grammar and the great majority of everyday words, is the same.
A shared literature
The strongest argument for calling this one language is its literature. The poets every Persian speaker grows up with came from across the whole region, long before today's borders existed. Rudaki, often called the father of Persian poetry, was born in what is now Tajikistan. Rumi was born in the region of Balkh, in or near today's Afghanistan, and spent most of his life in Konya in present-day Turkey. Ferdowsi wrote the national epic, the Shâhnâme, in Tus in north-eastern Iran. Hafez and Saadi lived in Shiraz. All of them are read, memorised and quoted in Tehran, Kabul and Dushanbe alike.
Where Persian comes from
Persian is an Indo-European language, a distant cousin of English, German and Hindi, and a closer relative of Kurdish, Pashto and Balochi. It is not related to Arabic or Turkish, although it has borrowed many words from Arabic and lent many to Turkish, Urdu and Hindi. Scholars divide its history into three stages: Old Persian, carved in cuneiform by the Achaemenid kings around 2,500 years ago; Middle Persian, the language of the Sasanian empire; and New Persian, which emerged about eleven centuries ago and has changed remarkably little since. A modern reader can follow poetry written a thousand years ago with far less effort than an English speaker needs for Beowulf.
Which word should you use?
- Writing in English about the language in general: Persian.
- Talking about the variety of a particular country: Iranian Persian, Dari, Tajik.
- Talking to someone from Afghanistan or Tajikistan: use the name they use. Most will say Dari or Fârsi, Tajik or Tojikī, and all will know what you mean.
In a chat room
Persian chat rooms bring Iranians, Afghans and sometimes Tajiks into the same conversation, often for the first time. The differences in accent and vocabulary are a favourite topic, and usually a friendly one. If you meet a word you do not know, ask. It is one of the easiest ways to start a conversation, and you may learn the word your own grandparents used.