KĀBOLI

KĀBOLI, the colloquial Persian spoken in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, and its
environs. It has been a common and prestigious vernacular for several centuries, since
Kabul was long ruled by dynasts of Iran (the Safavids) or India (the Mughals) for whom
Persian was the language of culture and administration. Historically, Turkestan and
Afghanistan (in particular the region of Kabul) were the sources of the Persianization of
northern India. Even though Pashtun rulers have controlled Kabul for most of the past
250 years, written Persian and its spoken variety, Kāboli, are still the common means of
communication between officials, merchants, and visitors in this cosmopolitan city.
Kāboli is often regarded (with some justification) as being identical with the contact
vernacular of the whole of Afghanistan, and is generally taught as such (cf. the
grammars of Farhadi, 1955, 1975; Glassman). From a broader, post-Soviet, perspective
Kāboli is a subtle variant of a widespread contact vernacular (Eastern Persian) that
extends across at least six international frontiers.

In Afghanistan there are several other major dialects of Persian centered on cities such
as Herāt, Farāh, Bādḡēs, and Mazār-e Šarif, and in regions such as Ghor, Hazārajāt,
Panjšēr, and Badakhshan. These are mutually comprehensible with Kāboli, and in the
case of frontier regions (esp. Herāt, Badakhshan) they have much in common with
adjacent dialects in Khorasan of Iran and southern Tajikistan (see AFGHANISTAN v.
LANGUAGES, 2. PERSIAN, EIr. I, pp. 505-10; HAZĀRA iv. HAZĀRAGI
DIALECT, EIr. XII, pp. 90-93). The salient differences between Persian and Kāboli (or
Persian of Afghanistan in general) lie in pronunciation and in some words of everyday
vocabulary (see below, Phonology and Lexis).

Persian in Afghanistan is generally called fārsi by Persian-speakers and pārsi in Pashto.

The standard written Persian of Afghanistan has officially been called Dari since 1964;
apart from a few basics of vocabulary, however (and more Indo-Persian calligraphic
styles in the Perso-Arabic script), there is little difference between formal written
Persian of Afghanistan and of Iran. The term “Dari” is often loosely used for the
characteristic spoken Persian of Afghanistan, but is best restricted to formal spoken
registers (poetry, speeches, newscasts, and other broadcast announcements). Written
Tajik Persian of the Soviet period (apart from its being written in Cyrillic, not Arabic,
characters) diverged appreciably from Dari, being based on a northern, Uzbek-
influenced variety of Persian and replete with Russian loanwords; since the late 1980s
the standards have tended to converge. Kāboli is considerably closer to spoken Tajik
Persian of Central Asia in pronunciation and some syntactic features than it is to spoken
Persian of Iran. In the following selective description, contrasts with Standard Persian
of Iran will be highlighted.

Phonology. The eight-vowel system of Kāboli is typical of eastern Persian dialects in

having lost length distinction. The qualitative distinction that remains additionally
distinguishes Stable vowels, which do not vary in quality even when unstressed (î, ê, â,
ô, û in Table 1, corresponding to the long vowels of Classical Persian), and Unstable
vowels, which may vary in quality when unstressed (a, i, u, historically the short
vowels).

Kāboli vowels exhibit considerable variation across dialect and even idiolect. Thus, â
may be more rounded [ɒ], as in the Panjšēr valley, or less so [ɑ], as in Kabul city.
Unstable i and u may be articulated lower, closer to Persian e and o (as they are
transcribed in some descriptions of Kāboli). The paired vowels î [i] and i [ɪ], û [u] and u
[ʊ], may share the same point of articulation and in fact differ in other features (tense
vs. lax, or long vs. short).

The so-called majhul vowels ê and ô (which in Standard Persian have collapsed with
“long” î and û) are preserved (šîr ‘milk,’ but šêr ‘lion’), though not systematically (čôb
‘wood,’ but čûbî ‘wooden’). Many common Persian words thus sound quite different in
Kāboli, for example: Bêdil, ‘name of the poet Bidel,’ âlê ‘now’ (= Pers. hâlâ), firêftan
(firêb-) ‘to deceive,’ amêša ‘always,’ umêd ‘hope’; gôša ‘corner,’ rôz ‘day,’ pôšîdan ‘to
wear.’ Epenthetic vowels serve to break up consonant clusters; these may be realized as
phonetic schwa (ə) or be colored by their consonantal environment: ´qisəm for qism
‘sort, kind,’ ´pašum for pašm ‘wool.’ None of these differences is reflected in the Perso-
Arabic orthography.

In contrast with Persian, final -a is not raised to -e: parda ‘curtain,’ qissa ‘story,’ gufta
‘said,’ etc. (except for šanbê ‘Saturday’ and its compounds, five other days of the week;
‘Friday’ is juma); â is preserved before nasals: nân ‘bread,’ bâm ‘roof,’ sar-etân ‘your
head’; and diphthongs are fully preserved: paydâ ‘apparent,’ mayl ‘inclination, desire’
(not meil or mêl); qawm ‘people,’ dawra ‘era’ (not doure or dôre). There are a few
common exceptions: šêx ‘venerable elder, religious leader’ (< šayx), and the interjection
tôba! ‘I didn’t mean it/promise not to do it again!’ (< tawba ‘repentance’).

The consonant system corresponds to that of Persian, with the following exceptions: the
back velar or uvular stop q (found in words of Arabic and Turkish origin) and uvular
fricative ḡ are distinct phonemes (they have collapsed in Standard Persian): qazâ
‘decree, fate,’ tabaq ‘platter,’ aqâqû ‘skinny, withered’; ḡičak ‘stringed instrument,’
dâḡ-dâḡ ‘red-hot.’

Bilabial w replaces labio-dental Persian v: wâ-pas ‘back,’ mêwa ‘fruit,’ gaw ‘cow.’ In
some common words, w replaces non-initial b: e.g., aw ‘water,’ aftâwa ‘ewer,’ sawz
‘green,’ taw ‘fever’ (Pers. tab < Arab. tabb).

Flapped or trilled r is replaced by l in some words: dêwâl ‘wall,’ andêwâl ‘neighbor’

(< ham-dêwâr ‘sharing a wall’), sayl kardan ‘to look’ (< Arab. sayr ‘stroll, look
around’). In some high-frequency words, non-initial r is lost: byâdar ‘brother’
(< birâdar), kadan ‘to do,’ kadum ‘I did’ (< kardam).

The earlier Persian combination xw- (reduced in Standard Persian to x-) is retained in
some words: e.g., xwâstan ‘to ask, want’ (but not in xândan ‘to call, sing, read’); xwâr
‘wretched’; xwâr, xwar ‘sister’ (< xwâhar; see next).

The aspirate h is lost in all environments (except in formal and literary articulation): aft
‘seven,’ zanâ ‘women’ (pl. suffix -hâ), dê ‘village’ (< dih). This loss may trigger
compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel (cf. Persian): pêra:n ‘shirt’
(< pêrahan); usually when pre-consonantal h is lost, a preceding a (additionally) shifts
to â: šâr ‘town,’ qâr ‘anger, angry’ (< šahr, qahr). Intervocalic h is replaced by the
appropriate glide: mâyî ‘fish,’ âwû ‘gazelle.’

Glottal stops originating in Arabic ʿeyn or hamza are likewise replaced by lengthened
vowels (cf. Persian), or sometimes in the case of a preceding vowel a by the rounded
back vowel â: ya:nê ‘that means, i.e.,’ bâ:d ‘after,’ wâda or wâ:da ‘promise’ (< waʿda).
Unstable i before underlying ʿeyn, hamza, or h shifts to ê, and u to ô: êtirâz ‘objection’
(cf. dê, above), môr ‘seal, stone in signet ring.’

Terminal -n is frequently omitted, and other consonants are dropped in high-frequency

words (examples passim). Other sound changes are observed only in the context of
certain verb forms (see next).

Morphology. Nominal morphology and Noun Phrase syntax are essentially the same as
Persian, bearing in mind the phonological differences mentioned. Kāboli tends to retain
terminal -y after back vowels (as in Classical Persian): pây ‘foot, leg,’ jôy ‘stream,’ bûy
‘odor.’ The loss of h and the incidence of terminal vowels and semi-vowels (w and y)
results in some contractions and assimilations before the eżāfe particle -i (after a vowel,
-yi) or other enclitic
s and suffixes, e.g.: gulây safêd (< gul-hâ-yi safêd) ‘white flowers,’ xušûy bačêm
(< xušû-yi bača-im) ‘my son’s mother-in-law’), aw yak (< âb-i yax) ‘cold water,’ kôwâ
‘mountains’ (< kôh-hâ), pâyâ ‘feet’ (< pây-hâ), xânâ ‘houses’ (xâna-hâ).

The indefinite enclitic is -ê: bâḡ-ê ‘a garden,’ aspâ-ê ‘some horses.’ The object marker
(Pers. -râ) is -ra following a vowel, -a following a consonant: xâna-ra dîd ‘he saw the
house,’ čôb-a burîdum ‘I cut the stick’; it may also mark the indirect object: mara guft
‘he told me.’ Conjunctive phrases are linked by means of the enclitics -u (following a
consonant) or -w (following a vowel): safêd-u siyâ ‘black and white,’ pagâ-w bêgâ
(< pagâh . . .) ‘morning and evening.’

The comparative is formed by suffixing -tar to the adjective; this may be reduplicated
for emphasis: bêtartar (< bih-tar-tar) ‘much better,’ batartar (< bad-tar . . .) ‘much
worse.’ The preposition of comparison, az ‘from, than,’ is often expanded colloquially
to the circumpositional phrase az—kada, and -tar may be omitted: az tû kada kalân(tar)
as ‘he is bigger/older than you’ (cf. Tajik az tu dîda kalon[tar] ast). The superlative is
formed with -tarîn, and construed attributively as in Persian; predicatively, the
construction is that of a universal comparative: gôšt-i î qisəm murḡ az kull-i murḡâ kada
narmtar as ‘this is the tenderest chicken meat there is’ (lit. ‘this kind . . . is more tender
than all [others]’).

Pronouns. Personal pronouns are either independent or enclitic. See Table 2.

A speaker will often use the plural mâ ‘we’ to refer to him/herself alone, and mâ-w
šumâ for inclusive ‘we’ (= I and you). Plural šumâ is used instead of the familiar tû to
address an unfamiliar person. Accordingly, when it is intended to refer to more than one
person, explicit plural forms mâyâ ‘we,’ mâ mardum ‘we people,’ and šumâyâ ‘you all’
may be used. The 3rd Person forms represent the demonstratives în, înhâ ‘he/she (near
the speaker)/this one, they/these (people, things)’ and ân, ânhâ ‘he/she (distant)/it, that
one, they/those things.’

The enclitics, used for possessive and attributive constructions, are shown in their post-
consonantal form (dux´tar-im ‘my daughter’); following vowels, contractions and vowel
shifts occur, and the fused word-final plus connecting syllable assumes word stress:
ba´čêt ‘your son,’ xân´âšân ‘their houses.’ The enclitics may also function as direct or
indirect objects, with or without -ra: guftim ‘[s]he told me,’ mêzanêša ‘[s]he beats
him/her/it’ (mê-zana[d]-iš-ra); note the different stress in ´dîdiša ‘[s]he saw him/her/it’
(Preterit) and dîd´êša ‘[s]he has seen him/her/it’ (Perfect, = did´a-[ast]-iš-ra).

The predicative possessive phrase is, e.g., î paysa az mâ as/nês ‘this money is mine/not
mine.’

The demonstrative adjectives în, î ‘this’ and ân, û ‘that’ (pl. yâ ‘these,’ wâ ‘those’) form
various compounds: emphatic pronouns ênî and ûnû ‘this/that one (right here/there)’
and adjectives amî and amû (< ham-) ‘this/that same —,’ and doubly emphatic forms:
ênamî čawkî ‘this very seat,’ ûnamwâ ‘those very ones’; and adverbials such as amînja
‘right here,’ ´ittô ‘like this’ (în-tawr), ´uqqa ‘that much’ (ân-qadar), amissû ‘in this
direction.’

Interrogatives include kay, čî waxt ‘when?’ čan(d), čî qadar ‘how much,’ kudâm sû
‘which way?’ kudâm yakê ‘which one?’ Indefinite adjectives differing from Persian are
yagân and kudâm ‘some — (or other)’: kudâm šaxs âmada ‘someone came’; note also
hêč ‘no —, nothing’ and bâzê ‘some’ (Pers. baʿzi).

Prepositions. da ‘in, at’ (dar) is the most common locative, and ba introduces an
indirect object. Kāboli has also ´kati ‘with’: kati mâ (or amrâi mâ) ‘with me/us,’ kati
čâqû ‘with [= by means of] a knife.’ There is a postpositon wârî ‘like’: î qisəm sât wârî
muškil yâf(t) mêša ‘a watch like this is hard to find.’ Prepositions may combine with
adverbials to form complex prepositions, and with ki to form conjunctions: pêš az; pêš
az înki ‘before.’

Numerals. These are as in Persian, but note the following: yak ‘one,’ dû ‘two,’ sê
‘three,’ šaš ‘six,’ nô ‘nine,’ duwâzda ‘twelve,’ sêzda ‘thirteen,’ pinjâ ‘fifty,’ dû-sad
‘two hundred.’ The loss of h affects pronunciation in čâr ‘four,’ čil ‘forty,’ da ‘ten,’ aft
‘seven,’ abda [sic] ‘seventeen,’ aftâd ‘seventy,’ ašt ‘eight,’ ažda ‘eighteen,’ aštâd
‘eighty,’ azâr ‘thousand’ and their compounds. In combinations, the final velar of yak is
generally voiced: yag-azâr ‘one thousand,’ yag milyûn ‘one million,’ but yak sad ‘one
hundred.’ Yak jôra is ‘a pair, a couple.’ Copied from Anglo-Indian are darjan ‘dozen,
batch’; and from Hindi lak ‘100,000’ and baja ‘o’clock’ (čand baja-s?—panj baja
‘what time is it?—five o’clock’). Ordinal adjectives are formed with the suffix -um;
note awal ‘first,’ duwum ‘second,’ sêyum ‘third,’ nuwum ‘ninth,’ dawum ‘tenth’ (and ‘-
teen’ compounds).

Verb. As in Persian, conjugations are based on either the “Past” stem or the “Present”
stem of a verb. The personal endings of the Preterit are the same as those of the Present
(Table 3) with the exception of 3sg., where the ending is zero. Stress falls primarily on
the first syllable of a verb, but on the final syllable of a polysyllabic nominal
incorporated in a verb phrase.

In some common verbs, present stem forms are subject to contraction or other changes:
mêram, mêrum ‘I go,’ mêra ‘[s]he goes’ (raw-); mêgam ‘I say,’ mêga ‘[s]he says’ (gôy-
); namêša ‘it can’t be done’ (šaw-); mêtîn ‘you give’ (dê-, < dih-). The Past stem of
kardan ‘to do’ in Kāboli is usually pronounced kad-, and the final -d of the 3sg. Preterit
is often devoiced: ḡalat kat ‘he erred.’ Similarly treated are the final dental in two other
common verb forms, the past stem of bûdan ‘to be’ and šudan ‘to become’: xaw nabût
‘she wasn’t asleep,’ kalân šut ‘he grew up’; the Present tense form xât ‘will, is likely to’
is another example (see under Syntax).

The Present subjunctive prefixes bi- or bu- to the stem, except in kadan, šudan, the verb
to be (bâš-), and composite or complex verbs: šâyad burum ‘maybe I’ll go,’ bâyad dûr
bâšan ‘they must be far away,’ gap (na-)zanêm ‘let’s (not) talk.’ The Imperative of a
simple verb is formed with bi- or (more frequently) bu-: byâr, byârên ‘bring’; bubî(n),
bubînên ‘see,’ bubaxšên ‘excuse (me),’ burô, burên ‘go’; but darwâza-ra wâ kô ‘open
the door.’ Stem-final consonants of common verbs are often omitted in 2sg.: ´bixi ‘get
up’ (< xêz-). For a polite request, xu (< xûb ‘good, well’) may precede the imperative:
baremâm yag dâna xu bigî (< bar-i mâ ham . . . bigir) ‘get one for me too, would you?’

Prefixed to the past stem, mê- forms habitual, progressive, and conditional tenses. There
is no periphrastic progressive tense (as in Persian or Tajik).

Complex and composite verbs are more numerous than simple verbs, as in Persian: e.g.,
gap zadan ‘to talk, speak,’ sayl kadan ‘to look, watch,’ faysala kadan ‘to decide.’ Some
common simple verbs are expanded into a composite of the stem, past participle, or
activity noun and the dummy auxiliary ka(r)dan: thus nivištan ‘to write’ > nivišta
kadan, lit. ‘to make written’; so also basta kadan ‘to close,’ kaw kadan ‘to sleep,’ duzi
kadan ‘to steal’ (Pers. dozdidan). The formation of transitivizing and causative verbs
(by addition of -ân- to the present stem) is very productive, e.g., xâwândan (< xwâb-)
‘to put to sleep, lay down, throw (in wrestling),’ xêzândan ‘to arouse, wake up (tr.)’
(< xêstan ‘to stand up, arise, awake’), šikinândan ‘to break, chop’ (< šîkastan ‘to break
[intrans.]’); these are sometimes formed on the Past stem: guzaštândan ‘to extend,
exceed.’

Some verb forms and meanings peculiar to Kāboli (often shared with Tajik) are: šištan
(šîn-) ‘to sit’ (causative šînândan, šândan); mândan ‘to put, place; let, allow’
(Imperative bân-, bânen ‘leave, put aside’; this verb is homophonous with the
intransitive mândan ‘to be left, remain, stay; become tired, weak’); têr/tîr šudan ‘to
pass, cross’; huš kadan ‘to be careful, watch out’; mayda kadan ‘to break (up), spoil’;
pâlîdan ‘to look for, search’; tayyâr kadan/šudan ‘to prepare, get ready’ (tr./intr.).

Syntax. Kāboli exhibits peculiarities especially in context-sensitive verbal forms and

idioms, which often extend into written Dari (and are also found in Tajik). Typical is the
preferred single-clause construction with t(aw)ânistan ‘to be able’ (where Persian uses a
dependant clause, also available in Kāboli): tura dîda mêtâna ‘[s]he can see you,’
âmada namêtânum ‘I can’t come.’ This same non-finite form (which may originate in
an infinitive) is used with other auxiliaries, e.g., raftan, to add a continuative mode:
majbûr šut kâr kada bura ‘he had to go on working’ (. . . kâr karda bu-raw-ad).
This “past participle” form is used, in literary Dari too, in the form bûda ‘being,’ with
reference to present or universal time, e.g.: Jâpân mamlakatê-st ki az čâr taraf ba-bahr
mahdûd bûda wa az jazâyir-i ziyâdê taškîl šuda-ast ‘Japan is a country that is
completely surrounded by sea, and consists of many islands’ (from an Afghan
schoolbook). Use of the Perfect tense (likewise often referring to present or universal
time) may signal a quotative or inferential mode, that is, the speaker has not witnessed
the event he mentions: šunîdam ki—xudâ nâ-xwâsta—nâjôr bûdên (< bûda-êd) ‘I heard
you were sick/I hear you’re sick’ (Perry, 2000, esp. pp. 231-32).

The periphrastic Future is not normally used in Kāboli, future time being expressed by
the Present tense with adverbial cues. Colloquially, however, a reduced form xât of 3sg.
xwâhad ‘he/she/it will’ has been partially grammaticized as an adverb, ‘perhaps,
probably’: followed by a personal verb in either Present or Past tense, it expresses
inference, speculation, or doubt: rafta xât bûdan (= bûdand) ‘they will (probably) have
gone’; xât (ki) biškina ‘it might break’; xêsta xât bâša? ‘will she have woken/gotten up
(I wonder)?’ ittô naxât bûd/. . . bâša ‘I don’t think so; I doubt it’ (Perry, 2002).

Lexis. Compound words are built mostly with the aid of suffixes, some of which are
more productive than their Standard Persian counterparts: môtar-wân ‘driver, trucker’ (-
bân), afta-wâr ‘weekly,’ šîr-yax-wâlî ‘ice-cream vendor’ (an agentive suffix copied
from Hindi). The diminutives -ak/-gak supply a range of nuances, such as sympathy
(mazlûmak ‘poor wretch’), contempt (bê-kâra-gak ‘good-for-nothing’), and endearment
(čûča-gak-im ‘my dear little chick’).

A number of everyday words peculiar to Afghan Persian are unknown or have quite
different forms and/or meanings in Standard Persian, e.g.: bača ‘boy’ (not ‘child,’
which is kôdak), mâmâ ‘maternal uncle,’ lâlâ ‘elder brother,’ jilaw ‘bridle,’ sarak
‘road,’ daryâ ‘river,’ ba:r ‘sea’ (< Arab. bahr), bûra ‘(granulated) sugar,’ maska
‘butter,’ murč ‘pepper,’ tarkârî ‘vegetables,’ alâyda ‘separate, apart,’ diq ‘unhappy,
bored, annoyed,’ dilčasp ‘interesting,’ girang ‘heavy,’ kalân ‘big, great, old,’ mayda
‘small; crushed, broken’ (cf. mayda kadan ‘to break [up], spoil’; pûl-i mayda ‘small
change’).

Arabic is the oldest and most pervasive source of borrowed vocabulary, though some
loans have been differently distributed in the Persian dialects (some later Arabisms in
Kāboli are copied from Indo-Persian or Central Asian usage): hissa ‘province, region,’
ittifâq ‘union, unity,’ madaniyat ‘civilization.’ Other loanwords include a few official or
prestige terms from Pashto (puhantûn ‘university’), and several Hindi terms (čawkî
‘seat,’ têl ‘[vegetable or mineral] oil, gasoline’). Names of foreign countries and
Western terms may take forms (written and spoken) appreciably different from those in
Persian, having been borrowed mostly through English rather than French: jâkit
‘jacket,’ tikit ‘ticket’; jâpân instead of žâpon ‘Japan’; niktây ‘necktie’ instead of kirâvât;
brêk ‘brake’ instead of turmuz (from Russian, though the latter is also used in northern
Afghanistan).

In recent decades new terminology has been introduced through the media from Iran,
where Persian morphology still supplies the bulk of official neologisms despite an
Islamic ideology at home and a constant influx of English from abroad. Examples are
nihâd ‘institution’ and nihâdîna ‘institutionalized’; fan-âwarî ‘technology’; wâ-kuniš
‘reaction.’

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(Rawan Farhadi and J. R. Perry)

Originally Published: September 15, 2009

Last Updated: February 12, 2013

This article is available in print.

Vol. XV, Fasc. 3, pp. 276-280