Dari

In the course of the constitution of Iran and Afghanistan as nation states, these states established a standard variety of Persian as the official language of their state in the early 20th century. This was oriented towards the educated usage of the capital, i.e. Tehran and Kabul respectively. For Persian, which is common in Central Asia, the Soviet state elaborated a third standard variety, Tajik, based on the usage of Samarkand. This language essentially coincides with the standard Persian of Afghanistan, as well as Iran, but differs in that the traditional Arabo-Persian script was replaced first by Latin, and later by Russian. With the creation of the Tajik ASSR in 1929, this language was given a fixed territory.

The designation of the standard Afghan variety of Persian as Dari belongs to this process of nationalization of Persian.

Dari is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan (the other being Pashto). In practice, however, it serves as the de facto lingua franca among the various ethnolinguistic groups.

Dari is spoken as a mother tongue by approximately 25-50% of the population of Afghanistan, with other Persian dialects such as Hazaragi. Overall, 80% of Afghanistan's population is proficient in Persian. Tajiks, who make up about 27% of the population, are the main speakers. Hazara (9%) and Aimāiqen (4%) also speak Persian, but other dialects intelligible to Dari speakers. In addition, many Pashtuns living in Tajik and Hazaristan use Dari as their mother tongue. The World Factbook states that 80% of the Afghan population is proficient in the Dari language. About 2.5 million Afghans in Iran and Afghans in Pakistan, who are part of the Afghan diaspora, speak Dari as one of their main languages. Migrants from Afghanistan in Western countries also often speak Dari, and Persian is one of the main migrant languages in some German cities such as Hanover or Hamburg.

Dari dominates the northern, western and central areas of Afghanistan and is the common language in cities such as Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, Fayzabad, Punjshir, Bamiyan and the Afghan capital Kabul, where all ethnic groups settle. Dari-speaking communities also exist in areas in the southwest and east of Pashtun, such as the cities of Ghazni, Farah, Zaranj, Lashkar Gah, Kandahar, and Gardez.

Dialect Continuum

The dialects of Dari spoken in northern, central and eastern Afghanistan, for example in Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif and Herat, have different characteristics compared to Iranian Persian. The dialect of Dari spoken in western Afghanistan is little different from Iranian dialects. For example, the dialect of Herat shares vocabulary and phonology with Dari and Iranian Persian. Similarly, the Persian dialect in eastern Iran, for example in Mashhad, is quite similar to the Afghan Herati dialect.

The Kabuli dialect has become the standard model of Dari in Afghanistan, as has the Tehrani dialect in relation to Persian in Iran. Since the 1940s, Radio Afghanistan has broadcast its Dari programs in Kabuli Persian. Since 2003, the media, especially the private radio and television stations, have been conducting their Dari programs using the Kabuli variety.