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Farsi, Dari, and Tajik | ||
Tags: Farsi/Persian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| lexington1 Newbie United States Joined 5825 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Persian | Message 1 of 6 28 June 2009 at 2:34am | IP Logged |
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I've just began learning Persian (out of Teach Yourself Persian by John Mace), and was wondering how similar the "Tajik" and "Dari" Persian of Afghanistan and Tajikistan is to the Farsi of Iran. Is it mutually intelligible like British and American English, or are they separate languages? How much will knowing Farsi help you in talking with Afghans or Tajiks? (I would like to study my Farsi in country in a few years, but given the political situations in Iran and Afghanistan, the thought has occurred to me that I might have to do it in Tajikistan. Would this be a workable alternative?)
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 2 of 6 28 June 2009 at 12:46pm | IP Logged |
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I am no expert on them, but everything I have heard or read is that they are essentially the same language. Tajik possibly picked up Russian loanwords in the Soviet period (as well as a Cyrillic alphabet), and there may be other variations, but not to the point of them being different languages, at least in a linguistic sense.
In Afghanistan, there is also Hazarajat, spoken by the Hazara people, but this too is a form of Persian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sprachefin Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5746 days ago 300 posts - 317 votes Speaks: German*, English, Spanish Studies: French, Turkish, Mandarin, Bulgarian, Persian, Dutch | Message 3 of 6 28 June 2009 at 9:25pm | IP Logged |
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With Tajik and the other types of Persian, it is mostly lone words from Russian as William said. Although with Dari and Standard Persian (Iranian Persian), it is slight difference in vocab, but quite a few differences in the pronunciation (cadence) of words. In Dari, the speech is quite formal (you refer to people as "brother" and "sister" and you use formalities not used in Iranian Persian).
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| spykel Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5827 days ago 40 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Scottish Gaelic | Message 4 of 6 01 July 2009 at 6:25pm | IP Logged |
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I asked a Dari-speaker from Afghanistan (Kabul area) a similar question a while ago. He said that he could
understand Iranian Persian quite well, but that Iranians struggled to understand him. So the intelligibility is asymmetrical. Not sure about Tajik. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7144 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 5 of 6 01 July 2009 at 10:31pm | IP Logged |
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I'm far from expert, but to the best of my knowledge, Tajik is further from Iranian Persian ("Farsi") than Dari is. There are a number of distinct verb forms in Tajik, probably derived from Uzbek, that have no counterpart in Farsi, or in Dari either, for that matter. Additionally, both Tajik and Dari conserve older vowel sounds, the so-called "majhul" or "unknown" vowels, that Farsi no longer has. (This is in addition to the borrowed vocabulary from Russian noted above.)
Accordingly, while most native speakers tend to treat them all as dialects of a single language, the continuum from one to another can be a stretch for non-native speakers, and I think it would probably be a mistake to think that a foreign learner of any one of them would be able to communicate easily in one of the others without a fair amount of adjustment and study of the differences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DavidW Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6526 days ago 318 posts - 458 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu | Message 6 of 6 02 July 2009 at 3:28pm | IP Logged |
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I saw the "the kite runner" with an iranian friend. I asked her afterwards if should understood it all, and she admitted she hadn't understood everything said, but at least got the gist. I also get by fairly well in (Iranian) Persian. I noticed there were significant differences in pronounciation, some variation in vocabulary, and also perhaps some verb endings differing.. but I got the impression with a few weeks exposure you could probably adapt your knowledge.
Personally, as a Brit with some knowledge of Farsi and iranian culture, I wouldn't hesitate to visit Iran, and I plan to, perhaps next year, although I hear the visa can be a problem. I'm sure you can find more information online from others who have visited. Edited by DavidW on 02 July 2009 at 3:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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