Upon the conquest of the lands past the Indus, the Muslim armies gathered and prepared for their battles.  The strength of the communication between them could be the determinant of their fate.  Thus was laid the foundations of the Urdu language.  It began with Muhammad bin Qasim, the Arab who entered what is now Pakistan proclaiming the message of the One God and his final messenger in the 700’s CE.  For the next thousand years many Arab, Persian, and Turkish armies conquered the region; some for worldly gains and others who sought benefit in the life to come.  A language that constituted all languages that came into power came to be known as ‘Urdu’, meaning camp, referring to history of the language how it came to existence through the army camps or as Rekhta (ریختہ), meaning molded or mixed.

The language of the Muslims of Central and Southern Asia was Persian for the time between 1000 CE and 1700 CE.  It was the language of the government, literature, and education.  After the 1700’s, Urdu emerged as the dominating force replacing Persian gradually.  Urdu, however, could be considered as a derivative of Persian as its vocabulary remained over 70% Farsi.  Urdu differentiated itself from its predecessor with additional grammatical usages and a greater influence of Arabic.  The most renowned Urdu literature is written by Mirza Assadullah Ghalib and Allama Iqbal and their works are read until today.

The fall of the Urdu language began in the late 1800’s.  Coincidentally it was the same time when the Muslims lost control of the region to the British after ruling (majority) Hindu India for over 1200 years.  The imperialist power gave great importance to the spread of English and chose Hindustani as the medium language for the average man.  Hindustani was the language mixed between Urdu and Hindi (with the scale slanted heavily towards the latter).  It was used as a tool to merge the Hindus and the Muslims into a single identity.  At this point the leaders and educated among the Muslims knew that if they didn’t create their own state, they would soon be loosing their religion, culture, and identity.

Persian is the language spoken in Iran and Afghanistan and in some other countries that had Persian cultural influences. In fact, Persian was the official language of the Muslim rulers in Indian subcontinent before the arrival of the British. Persian is also known as Dari or Farsi. In fact, Dari is the name of the language spoken by a majority of Afghan people, and it is also recognized by the Afghan government as its official language. Farsi is the language of the people of Iran, and it is also referred to as Persian language. However, many people, especially people in the western world confuse between Dari and Farsi because of their similarities. This article attempts to highlight the differences between these two languages.

Dari

Dari is the official Afghan language spoken and understood by a vast majority of the population. The other prominent language spoken by Afghans happens to be Pashto. Western world often calls this language Afghan Persian because of the phonetic similarities and grammatical overlapping with the Farsi language, the official language of Iran. Dari is spoken by nearly 5 million people in Afghanistan and happens to be the common language of communication. Though there is no unanimity as to the origin of the word Dari, many scholars are of the view that the word may have come from the fact that the language was used in the Darbar (Persian word for court) of the Sassanid Empire during the 3rd and 4th centuries.

Farsi

Farsi, also called Persian, is the official language of Iran. The language belongs to the group of Indo-European languages and makes use of Arabic alphabet instead of Latin script. It is more similar to Hindi and Urdu than English. Most of the words in Farsi have been derived from Arabic though there are lots of English and French words in Farsi. There is a province called Fars in Central Iran and is referred to as the cultural capital of the country. The name of the Farsi language is believed to have originated with this place.

What is the difference between Dari and Farsi?

• Technically speaking, Dari is no more than a dialect of the Farsi or the Persian language.

• Farsi is also spoken by people in Afghanistan, and Dari is a variety of Farsi.

• Those who are scholars of Farsi say that the version of the Persian language spoken in Iran can be termed as western Persian or western Farsi whereas Dari, the language spoken in Afghanistan can be termed as the eastern variety of Farsi. Interestingly, there is another variant of Farsi that is spoken in Tajikistan. It is termed as Tajiki Persian.

• The alphabet used in both Farsi and Dari remains the same Arabic alphabet though in a modified form.

• If one looks the vowels, he finds that the vowel system in Dari is different, and there are some consonants in Dari that are not found in Farsi at all.

• As far as spoken versions of Dari and Farsi are concerned, the main difference is in the pronunciation.

• To a westerner, if he listens carefully, there is less stress on accents in Dari than in Farsi.

This blog is a continuation of the previous three blogs and will be the fourth and last one that highlight the facts about the two languages:

• Hindi, as recognized by the Constitution of India, is the official language (in addition to English) of the Republic of India, and the common second language of Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname.
• In Pakistan, Urdu is spoken as a mother tongue by a majority of people in cities such as, Karachi and Hyderabad in the southern province of Sindh.
• In spite of its status as the national language, only 8% of Pakistanis speak Urdu as their first language, with about 48% speaking Punjabi.
• The separation between Hindi and Urdu is largely a political one; before the partition of India into India and Pakistan, spoken Hindi and Urdu were considered the same language, Hindustani. Since the partition, Standard Hindi has developed by replacing many words of Persian origin with Sanskrit words.
• Hindi and Urdu presently have four standard literary forms: Standard Hindi, Urdu, Dakkhini (Dakhini), and Rehkta. Dakhini is a dialect of Urdu from the Deccan region of south-central India, chiefly from Hyderabad, that uses fewer Persian words. Rehkta is a form of Urdu used chiefly for poetry.
• On the colloquial level, there is little difference between Hindi and Urdu. They sound similar, they have the same grammar and they both developed from the Khariboli dialect of North India. Khariboli, in turn, developed from Madhaydeshi which derived from Prakrit which derived from Sanskrit. So, essentially, both Urdu and Hindi evolved from Sanskrit. They are both members of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages.
• Hindi became one of the official languages of India on January 26, 1965 and it is a minority language in a number of countries, including Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Arab Emirates.

Reference:  thewordcollector2.tumblr.com