On Sat, 28 Jul 2001, Philipp Reichmuth wrote:
> >> - Tajik: better remove the [3], there have been plans to reintroduce
> >> Arabic script as well; in addition, it should be noted that Tajik and
> >> Farsi are so closely related to each other that I am not sure whether
> >> listing them separately makes sense
>
> VI> They are approximately as close to each other as Russian,
> VI> Belorussian and Ukranian: people undestand each other well, but
> VI> first sentence is enough to tell where it is from.
>
> As far as I know from second-hand and (limited) first-hand experience,
> Russian speakers don't understand Ukranian that well (You would know
> better, probably, but I hesitate to ask a linguist informant about
> layman's impressions, given their better understanding of linguistic
> processes.)? The comparison to Norwegian/Swedish/Danish makes sense,
> especially given the influx of Turkish/Russian loans and Turkish
> syntax into Tajik where Farsi would borrow from Arabic.
The loan words that make Farsi different from Dari or Tajiki, are mainly
modern or scientific words, not old words. In the current state, Farsi
uses made-up or English/French words, and not Arabic words anymore. What
you describe, has only been the situation of more than 70 years ago.
Just a note as a native Persian speaker: Without any exposure to Afghani
people, I completely understand written Dari. I came to one of their
websites, which was written for the Dari speakers, and had no problem
understanding it. Most of them even looked completely Farsi. That is the
same about Tajiki. I have seen Tajik modern poems transcribed to Farsi,
and apart from one or two words that were hard to get at the first
thought, and I found the meaning in a "Farsi" dictionary, I had no
problem. I think that the vast amount of common cultural heritage of
Persian poets and writers, have helped a lot in keeping the languages
similiar.
But that is different when it comes to spoken Persian: I have problems
understanding understanding when someone talks Dari or Tajiki. But that is
also minor. It's the accent I can't get, not the words. Vladimir is right,
you can find the birthplace of the speaker as soon as the first word, but
that is also the same about Farsi speakers who have grown up in different
parts of Iran. I can usually find that a girl lives in Isfahan or Tabriz
from her first sentence.
If you get back to the "one-language one-army" model, you may be able to
guess why there are three names for the language Persian. (Please note
that I'm not making any academic comments here, this is just what I think
as a native Persian speaker. Vladimir is much more experienced than me in
academic matters.)
roozbeh
