The people of Afghanistan and Tajikistan have maintained a somewhat purer form of the Indo-European Aryan language and call it Dari-e Tajiki in Tajikistan and Dari in Afghanistan. Afghanistan`s Dari was the official religious and literary language of (Sassanian empire), Dari has contributed to the majority of Persian borrowings in other Asian languages, such as Urdu, Punjabi,Gujarati,etc.as it was the administrative, official, cultural language of the Mughal Empire and served as the lingua franca throughout the South Asian subcontinent for centuries. The Dari language has a rich and colorful tradition of proverbs that deeply reflect Afghan culture and relationships. Today Dari is spoken primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan. It was the language of the court of many of the Indian kings till the British banned its use, after occupying India in the 18 century. The Mogul kings of India had made Dari their court language. Engraved and filled with gold on walls of Delhi's Red Fort is the sentence "Agar Ferdows dar jahan ast hamin ast o hamin ast o hamin ast"; - 'If there is a paradise on earth it is here it is here it is here.' The Dari language spoken by the Zarathushties of Yazd and Kerman in Iran. In fact the Zarathushti Dari is not understood by Farsi speaking people and is a language that has no script and has not been written. Children learn it as a mother tongue and it has been preserved in this fashion for centuries. The Zarathushties of Kerman born after 1940's do not speak Dari, because their parents, who thought that by speaking Dari their children would develop a Farsi accent unique to Dari speakers and thus be recognized as Zarathushti in school and thus be harassed by the Muslims, did not teach them Dari. Fortunately the Zarathushties of Yazd have maintained a strong link with this language and every child learns and speaks this language. Persian (Farsi) was not the original language of Iran: Iran had lost its original language. Elamite (ایلامی) was the primary language in present-day Iran from 2800--550 BC. During the Persian Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded Elam (کشور ایلام قدیم), when the Elamite (ایلامی) language remained among those in official use. Elamite is generally accepted to be a language isolate. Elamite is traditionally thought to be a language isolate, and completely unrelated to the neighbouring Semitic, Sumerian (also an isolate), and the later Indo-European Aryan languages that came to dominate Iran. A minority of scholars have proposed that the Elamite language could be related to the Munda Language of India, some to Mon--Khmer of Cambodia and some to the modern Dravidian languages of India and Sri Lanka such as Tamil and Malayalam.

• published: 13 Oct 2014
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