dari (afghan persian)

Dear Foreros, When we say someone is dressed in a certain colour we say they are wearing x joRaa I.e. suit/ensemble. But how would you express the idea of a lady in red or men in black in the languages above? Similarly consider you are at a clothing store and a shop assistant asks what colour...

Hi. What does "سفید پنیرک" mean in the following verse? It is from a Dari song by گل پرنا. یارم جوانک شده قشنگ و شوخَک شده پشت لبش سیاه گشته سفید پنیرک شده Also, is this an idiom, or should be treated literally? Thank you.

Dear Foreros, I'm a little perplexed with the manner in which the term موعد and its plural form مواعد is meant to be used in Urdu (Persian as well). In Arabic it's usage is very clear in that it is an appointment or even a romantic date which nowadays can also be referred to as دیت in several...

The word " qati / kati " is often used in Tajik - usually as a postposition, but sometimes it can also be used as a preposition. The main meaning is an indication of compatibility or tooling. Here are a few examples. 1. Compatibility / reciprocity of action: Man kati rafiq-am ( rafiq-am-qati )...

Dear Foreros, The term that is used for to subscribe in Urdu other than the English subscribe when it concerns channels, magazines and so forth is ishtiraak karnaa. Ishtiraak is also used for this very purpose in Arabic. اشتراک ال ان (excuse the script) would mean subscribe now. However, would...

Hello, Is the vowel ی in the second syllable of پنجشیر (the name of a province in Afghanistan) pronounced as [iː] or [eː] in the standard Dari? Thank you in advance.

Hello, Is the vowel in the first syllable of هرات (the name of a city and a province in Afghanistan) pronounced as [a] or [e] in the standard Dari? Thank you in advance.

Does anyone know where the Herati negator "niyye" (= "nist") comes from? Going from "nist" to "niyye" is quite a dramatic sound change so I was wondering whether we are in fact dealing with a entirely separate word here.

Dear Foreros, Whilst doing a cursory search of the terms used for the branch of orthopaedics and its concomitant adjective in orthopaedic, it turns out that some Urdu lexicons have opted for a misnomer. This branch is associated with correcting bodily deformities and matters of a constitutional...

Salaam, Is there a Farsi/Dari or Arabic loan word or phrase for Divine retribution? Or maybe cosmic "payback?" I understand that qismat means fate or destiny (maybe also luck?), but I'm assuming that's probably not what I'm looking for. Tashakor!

Dear Foreros, Just for some context so that we can meet at an advanced stage of comprehension, top of mind relates to being front and center in one's cerebral attention, whereas if something is at the back of your mind, you are subconsciously wary of it, or it subliminally affects your decision...

Dear Foreros, I find this to be fairly odd in that whilst there are vogue terms in place for members of the White and black community in gora/gorii and kaalaa/kaalii no such term appears to be prominent for non-whites I.e. people of colour or brown people who are the most numerous in the...

Dear Foreros, As you may well know the aforementioned term/phrase has very little to do with actual fire but relates to being in the middle of the spray of bullets or cross-fire I.e. the use of artillery or guns towards a certain target. I have enquired in the past about terminology concerning...

Hi everybody. I'm a bit confused about the use of the present tense of باشیدن. Youssef Saeed in his "Persian: A Comprehensive Grammar" writes: "Conjugating the verb ‘to be’ as mi-bāsham, mi-bāshi, etc. is something you will never hear in spoken Persian, and all writers known for their ‘good’...

Dear Persophones, Young and old, this has been a subject which has been on my mind for a while and it pertains to the magically metaphorical and poetic nature of the language. Gher or Ger, whichever way you want to transliterate it (to avoid confusing the term with گھیر which is how some 2nd...

Dear Foreros, I was wondering whether there was a way to differentiate between a beehive I.e. an enclosed structure where bees reside out of sight with a honeycomb، the hexagonal wax structure where honey is stored? I am sure plenty of you already know this but you can buy boxes or bottles of...

Dear Foreros, We've all been living through a global pandemic and the hysteria and consternation concerning everyone and sundry's medical records is something that has in some shape or form become a matter of public interest. The pandemic has given birth to novel nomenclature. You have levels...

Dear Foreros, Whilst I understand that statistics as a discipline is referred to as shumaariiyaat شماریات or I'lm E a'daad o shumaar علم اعداد وقار in Urdu and that statistics in terms of stats are referred to as a'daad o shumaar, what would you call an individual stat? In other words how...

Dear Foreros, I couldn't help but think that Apnaa waqt leN/lenaa/lo are calques. That being said just because they are doesn't ipso facto make them incorrect. However, would you consider them to be proper Urdu or mere word on word translations? In other words do use it or find it comical, in...

Dear Foreros, I would like your esteemed opinions on how a Feasibility Study or report is to be translated in the brotherly languages above. From the perspective of Urdu, here is what I already know. Report is generally referred to as just report or the more Urdu-friendly raporT although the...

What is the meaning of "Mudir Sahib"? Source: The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron

Dear Foreros, There are often terms that develop in a language through its own trajectorys and subtleties which means that they can be fairly untranslatable on occasion but would you say that were the case for being a fabulous 'sport' i.e. someone "who behaves in a good or specified way in...

Dear Foreros, The concept of a walk is important in every language and this is particularly poignant in Indo-European languages yet I cannot for the life of me think of a term that encapsulates the concept of a walk. What I mean by this is a walk as a noun not in the act of walking which can be...

Dear Foreros, I was at a complete loss when attempting to formulate a term for kind words. How would you go about describing the following in the languages above?: "Your kind words have given me great resolve and strength". Your assistance would be much appreciated, and do transliterate where...

Hello, In Iranian Persian, when the suffix ezāfe is added to a word that ends in a vowel, it is pronounced ye. I'd like to ask whether the y sound is omitted in the same context in Dari or not. I've seen that قلعه نو (the name of a city in Afghanistan) is often romanised as Qala-e Naw or Qala-i...

good morning, for years i have been trying to figure out the origin and where i can find more on this name that my great great grandmother registered with. the only names we know of her are mariom (which i think was written down the way they heared it which could have been maryaam because we...

Hi all! Does anybody have any information about old Persian Corpus? Is there a corpus like that?

Hi everybody! I've had this question for quite some time and before posting here I tried to find some rule about it, but I haven't been able to. Also, I don't think this is specific to Afghan Farsi but is also the case with Iranian Farsi. On several occasions I've read or heard sentences where...

I was reading Islamic Hadiths, and came across one when شهربانو, the daughter of یزدگرد was captured and saw Umar bin Al-Khattab, she said: آهْ بِيرُوجْ بَادَا هُرْمُزَ Or according to other copies of the hadith: آهْ بِيرُوزْ بَادْ هُرْمُزَ The translations I found states it means “روزگار هرمز...

Hello, A seemingly unassuming yet quite an interesting word which I've just noticed skimming through the pages of Persian dictionaries is this: پن pan, But, but then, now; yet, however. In Gujarati, a very similar word, પણ paɳ 'but, yet...' is used all the time and expresses the same...

Hi everybody. I hope you are all well in these trying times for humanity! I'm currently reading a book entitled "کتابفروش دیوانه: داستان‌های امروز افغانستان", where I came across a sentence describing a type of window, the so-called ارسی. The sentence goes like this: از جا برخاست مثل اینکه...

Greetings, I am not sure where, but I seem to remember a film in which a girl addresses her grandmother as “خانجون” (khānjun) – it was her paternal grandmother, by the way. I think the film was set in Tehrān. Do you have a word like that, by any chance, or have I misheard? Could it even be...

Hi everybody. Could somebody please explain what difference there is, if any, in meaning between the following sentences: ای قسم قالین هیچ وقت ارزان نمی‌باشه ای قسم قالین هیچ وقت ارزان نیس I would also very much like to understand when each of the two different forms in bold is used. Thanks...

Hello, fellow Foreros, I was wondering what the terms for Heroes (by extension also Heroines) and villains would be in the languages above given that I for one am at a loss. Platts offers the term Yal which sounds like a true match: P يل yal [by aphæresis, fr. Zend vīra; S. वीर], s.m. A hero, a...

Hi, What does پوھنتون mean and how is it pronounced? حملہ بر پوھنتون حملہ بر دانائی است An attack on...is an attack on wisdom. Thanks!

Hello Foreros, I wanted to know how the various onomatopoeia sounds for a dog's bark are spelt in Urdu (was also interested in whether Persian had a few of its own, please include tranliterations). The ones that I am familar with are bha'oo-bha'oo and ba'oo-ba'oo. Baba Platts also mentions...

Hi everybody. Any suggestions about what "خانه با سطر" may mean. It comes from a description of a house for sale. Thanks in advance.

What is the meaning of یک جهان سپاس? I heard this on an afgan tv show. Literally it means "one world, thanks", but I have seen it used as a farewell more so than something about one world. Thank You in advance,

Dear Foreros, We live in incredibly interesting times as the world braces for a lockdown and self-quarantine. But the question here is how would you refer to this phenomenon in the languages above. Quarantine itself is Qarantiina & Qaranteen in Urdu. Self-quarantine would thereby be...

سلام به همگی There's a phrase I keep hearing on TV and I can't quite understand its meaning . "jour sadman baashid" or "jour sahadman sare haal baashid". I would appreciate if someone could write this out for me and explain what each word means. I understand its like salomat baashid but don't...

Hi, My question has risen while reading news in English about the on-going Iranian parliamentary election. 'Many would-be candidates to the (Iranian) Parliament were disqualified.' What would be the right way to say 'a would-be candidate' i.e. a politician desiring to stand for elections but...

Hi everybody. I came across this sentence in Conversational Dari written "khud-e mudlr sAeb-a bugOyEn" in transliteration. I understand that the Colloquial Persian definite object marker رو or و is ره or ه in colloquial Dari. However, I know that گفتن doesn't take a direct object but rather an...

Hi guys, I found this Afghan story, دختر آفتاب و دیو سیاه. Anyway, there is a grammatical form that is irritating me, as in the following sentences: آن‌وقت همه‌جا تاریک می‌شد، تاریکِ تاریک؛ آن‌قدر تاریک که چشم چشم را دیده نمی‌توانست مرد‌ها و بچه‌ها نیز در کوچه‌ی آن‌ها جمع شده بودند تا شاید...

Salam. In Classical Persian and Iranian Persian, 'carpenter' is translated as نجار or چوب‌کار or درودگر (According to Lughatnama Dehkhoda). How is it translated in Afghan Dari Persian?

Salam I was in a German class. All my class-fellows were Afghans. One day, after some work, a class-fellow said "ببخشید" (sorry). I wanted to ask what is the reply to sorry in Afghan Persian. My father said that you should have replied "خواهش می‌کنم", but in my opinion its خواهش می‌کنم is just...

I was checking out the Wiktionary page for some basics about the verb باید، بایست، بایستی, which is discussed in Persian: باید, بایست. and came across باهاس bâhâs, which is mentioned as an alternative form of بایستی. I could not find it discussed here in the forum so decided to ask whether it is...

Salaam, Hoping I don't need to use this, but could someone give me the Dari and Pashtu words for "kidnapper?" (Please, transliterated from the original Arabic script into Roman/English script?). Kheylee mamnoonam. Ben

Salaam, Hoping that someone could transliterate into Roman script the original Persian names for "picture frame" and "picture frame shop." Tashakor. Thanks for your assistance. Ben

Salaam, I'm hoping to buy some traditional calligraphy, both secular and religious, in Kabul. Would "nastaleeq" be the appropriate word to let my Afghan friends know what I am looking for? Tashakor. Ben

Salaam, Hoping that someone could transliterate "Persian miniature painting" into the Roman script. The Persian original given on Wikipedia appears to be نگارگری ایرانی. Tashakor. Much appreciated. Ben