Dari

This paper discusses the use of Persian in comparison with Dari, a dialect of Persian language used in Kerman, one of the cities of Kerman Province located in southeast Iran. It is based on a random selection of 47 subjects from different sex, age, and occupational groups of Zoroastrian people with different levels of education in seven domains, i.e. family, friendship, neighborhood, transaction, education, government, and employment. In this study, the subjects were asked to determine which language they use in different domains on Likert’s 4-point scale. After collecting the data by the use of a questionnaire with 30 situations in the seven domains and analyzing them, the researcher concluded that there is a Persian-Dari diglossia in Zoroastrian speech community in which Dari functions as the Low language whereas Persian is the High one. As a matter of fact, Dari has been restricted to family domain and the young generation has lost it to a large extent.

The present study aimed to investigate diachronic changes in the frequency and function of marked syntactic structures, namely passive constructions, preposing, and cleft sentences that manifest information structural elements in Persian. The study examined these structures across three periods of Persian, i.e., Middle Persian, Dari, and Modern Persian. The data for Middle Persian is sourced from The Mēnōg-ī Khrad and Oshnar-I Dana, while for Dari, Tārīkh-i Bayhaqī and Safarnāma by Nasir Khusraw are used. For Modern Persian, written resources from various genres, such as short stories and scientific articles, are analyzed. The samples from each period are analyzed to determine the function and frequency of marked syntactic structures, which are then compared to identify any potential changes in their usage over time. The findings indicated that the frequency and function of these syntactic structures have changed over time. The findings suggested that passive constructions were commonly used across all three periods to present the patient as the pragmatic topic and maintain the topic-focus order. However, in modern Persian, passive construction was also used to emphasize the patient as the focus. Cleft constructions were not found in Middle Persian, but the increase in frequency of cleft constructions in Dari can be attributed to the fact that in this period, cleft sentences were used similarly to preposing, in order to observe the principle of separation of role and reference, rather than focusing on specific elements. Nonetheless, in modern Persian, cleft constructions were used to exclude other possibilities and emphasize the selected element as the focus. Preposing structures were used to present an element as the topic and provide new information about it. This study contributes to our understanding of language change and provides insights into the evolution of Persian syntax over time.