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Dari, the variety of the Persian language, is one of the official languages of Afghanistan? The other official language is Pashto. Dari serves as Afghanistan’s lingua franca, spoken by approximately 25-50% of the population.
Dari has two meanings: a form or poetry used from poets Rudaki and Jami and the language of the court. The majority of scholars believe that Dari refers to the Persian word
darbār
or dar, which means “Court”. The origin of Dari derives from the Middle Persian, which was spoken during the rule of the Sassanid dynasty from 224 – 651 AD.
The northern, western, and central areas of Afghanistan are where Dari is most commonly spoken. Cities where Dari is spoken include: Herat, Bamiyan, Fayzabad, Mazar-i-Sharif, Panjshir, and the capital of Kabul. Dari-speaking communities also exist in eastern and southwestern Pashtun-dominated areas including the cities of: Zarani, Kandahar, Ghazni, Lashkar Gah, Gardez, and Farah. As Dari is a dialect of the Persian language, the number of Persian speakers in the United States is 391,113 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, October 2015.
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