Is Tajik different than Farsi?

73% GOOD (22 votes)

I'm in Tajikistan at the moment, have spent 8 months learning basic Tajik, also called Tajiki.  Because my original study was in the literary form of the language, many Tajiks say that I speak better Farsi than Tajik.  But I  don't speak Farsi!   I can understand a little of what Iranians say, but they have a completely different accent and use different vocabulary even from literary Tajik.  Then there is Dari in Afghanistan.   Many people say these are all one language, Persian, but in my experience they're really not.  In Tajik, the bigger difference seems to be between literary Tajik, which is similar to both Farsi and Dari to the point that many Tajiks call them once language, and the street dialects of Tajik, which are sometimes unintelligible from the literary.

Comentários

vincent profile picture vincentOctober 2016
Thanks for your question, very interesting
Arashkamangir profile picture ArashkamangirJuly 2016
All are same with diffrent accent. I live is shiraz iran. The center of pars. In iran there are more than 100 types of persian accent which all are nice but the best accent is shirazi . And tajik is one of the persian accent by the way There is a small town near shiraz that the pepoal call them tajiks.
Georgiev profile picture GeorgievAugust 2015
I'm not a native tajik/persian speaker, but i know enough that the languages of Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan are the same. Colloquial persian language in every of these countries is different than written/literate/official/formal language. The language people speak in the streets is called slang/jargon. It's a simplified version of the language. Now, you have to note that Tajik and Dari, even as official languages of the respected countries, are as a dialect form of the persian language /parsi or farsi/. What some of the other members wrote as an examples of the differencies in these "three" languages are actually colloquial forms of the persian language. I'm still at a beginners level of learning persian, but along with afghani and irani songs, for example, i also listen to a lot of tajiki one's. i'm a big fan of Nigina Amonqulova. What i wanted to say is that i understand both tajiki accent and irani (tehrani) accent. To be honest i like tajiki pronounciation more. No offence to the others, though.
I want to say one final thing - don't be divided by politics, you are part of a great nation, be proud, of course respect and praise what makes each of you different, but still be united.
Salom az Bolghariston! Keshavarhoi barodari mo zindabod!
prudent profile picture prudentNovember 2013

Tajik & Farsi are completely inteligible ,I mean Persian & Tajik speakers can understand eachother well,There is just few false friends or some words that is more common in one language & not in other language,like catch phrase of people of a region.

The same way ,American English /Australian/Canadian/British English that each one of these languages have their own features for somewords ,diffrent collocations,some times ,false friends too.

For example

big is Bozorg in Farsi /in Tajik they say Kalaan ,which also means big in Farsi but it's not common or in this collocation

Grandfather is Pedarbozorg (Farsi) ,Pedarkalaam (Tajik)

Grandmother is Maadarbozorg (Farsi),Maadarkalaan(Tajik)

"To grew up" is Bozorg shodan (Farsi) ,kalaan shodan (Tajik)

Sherif is Kalaantar (Farsi) , ??---??(Tajik)

 

FarangisAzim profile picture FarangisAzimSeptember 2012
I am a Tajik girl.I agree some to some extent that all these three languages are somehow similar but not same of course.Some of the words are totally different and also the dialects differs.It's easy for Tajik people to understand Dari and Farsi.But for people of Afghanistan and Iran, it's a bit hard to Understand Tajik Language(spoken in Tajikistan).It is mixed with Russian language and even the alphabets and letters are Russian for Tajik language where as Dari and Farsi have their own letters.:-). But if you know one of them, the other language would be very easy to learn.Even Urdu and Hindi are some how similar but again not same.Good Luck to all those who are learning a new language. :-)
Ngdawa profile picture NgdawaMarch 2012
From my experience the Tajiki, Farsi and Dari languages are very similar, just like Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. In written these languages looks pretty much the same and if you know one of the languages, you understand all of them - written. When it comes to the speech, especially Danish is more different than Norwegian and Swedish, but you still understand it. I reckon it's the same as for Tajiki, Farsi and Dari.

For example:
The phrase "Good morning" is 'Subh ba khayr' in Tajiki, right? In Dari you say 'Sobh bakhayr' and in Farsi you say 'Sobh bekheyr'. Not to be comfused though, "Good evening" in Dari is 'Shab bakhayr' and in Farsi 'Shab bekheyr', but 'Shab ba khayr' in Tajiki means "Good night", am I right? "Good nigh" in Dari and Farsi is though 'Shab-etaan khoosh' vs. 'Shab-e shomaa khosh'.

You can see that there are many similarities between these three languages. You can also compare the days of the week's names:
[Dari-Farsi-Tajiki, Mon-Sun]:
Dushamba-Doshambe-Dushanbe
Seshamba-Seshambe-Seshanbe
Chahaarshamba-Chaarshambe-Chorshanbe
Panjshamba-Panjshambe-Panjshanbe
Jom'a-Jom'e-Jum'a
Shamba-Shambe-Shanbe
Yakshamba-Yekshambe-Yakshanbe

If ou just are observant you will, with just learning Tajiki, also be able to understand Farsi and Dari. It's all up to your imagination to compare and try to figure out what it all can mean the Dari or Farsi speakers are saying.

Some day I hope to get to Tajikistan as well