In Afghanistan Dari Persian ("Fārsi e Dari") is also simply called Persian ("Fārsi"), as are all languages in the Persian sub-group of languages.

Iranian languages are widely used language in Central Asia both by native speakers and as trade languages. Many of these languages are frequently mutually intelligible.

Dari Persian is a dialect of Persian, which forms a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, a subfamily of the Indo-European languages. There are three different phases in the development of Persian language: Old, Middle, and Modern. Old Persian and the Avestan language represents the old stage of development and were spoken in ancient Bactria.^{[citation needed]} The Avestan language is called Avestan because the sacred scriptures of Zoroastrianism, Avesta, were written in this old form. Avestan died out long before the advent of Islam and except for scriptural use not much has remained of it. Old Dari, however, survived and there are many written records of old Dari, in cuneiform called Maikhi, in Khorasan.^{[citation needed]} Old Dari was spoken until around the third century BC. It was a highly inflected language.

Modern Dari Persian is a major language of Afghanistan, and is spoken in the northern and western parts, and the capital, Kabul, in the east. Approximately 55% of the population of Afghanistan are native speakers.

Also, due to large emigration from Afghanistan, there are hundreds of thousands of Dari speakers around the world, notably in North America, Australia and many European countries. There are also a significant number of Dari speakers in Pakistan (mainly in NWFP) as well as native Persian/Dari dialect languages in Pakistani Balochistan, Chitral district and in the country's urban centres such asKarachi, Lahore and Islamabad. (Wikipedia).

This basic guide to the Dari language has been sourced from the CRE language pages for AID Workers, a fantastic resource. The original word document and MP3 for the course can be found at the bottom of the page. I have reproduced the content here in the hope it will become more discoverable to people searching and wanting to learn Afghan Dari. Please do not print or use this in any printed publication without seeking permission from Dr Bob from the CRE pages.

Update 2011 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: New downloadable material available from Pimsleur to learn Dari and learn Pashto: http://www.uso.org/operation-speak-easy.aspx Spoken and Written material available.