Hazaragi refers to a group of dialects of Dari Persian. Afghan Persian, also known as Dari, is an eastern variety of the Persian language and has many dialects throughout Afghanistan.
Classification
Hazaragi dialects fall under Dari, an eastern variety of Persian. Dari, known as Afghan Persian, is one of the two official Languages of Afghanistan. Persian is a prominent member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The Hazaragi dialects of Dari and the standard Kabuli dialect of Dari are mutually intelligible, with the primary differences being accents. In Daykundi, the local dialect of Dari contains some Turkic loanwords via Karluk.
Najib Mayel Heravi about the Hazaragi dialects:
"The Hazaragi dialects of Persian possess some of the most ancient and authentic features of the Persian language, to the extent that features typical of the Persian dialects of the 4th and 5th centuries (such as compound verbs instead of simple verbs, old particles, adverbs, old prefixes, verb repetitions, old pronouns, and noticeable alternations) are all prevalent in this variety. The study of these dialects of Persian in Afghanistan, before it becomes obsolete and foreign, is essential for historical linguistic studies of Persian and for solving problems in the interpretation of ancient Persian texts."
Geographic distribution and diaspora
Hazaragi dialects are mainly spoken by the Hazara people, who are native to and mainly live in Afghanistan.
As part of the larger Afghan diaspora, the Hazara diaspora has led to many Hazara Afghans living, or being born, in Pakistan and Iran. As a result, many Afghan-Pakistanis (particularly in Quetta), and Afghan-Iranians (particularly in Mashhad), speak Hazaragi dialects of Dari. Along with the diaspora in eastern Uzbekistan, northern Tajikistan, the Americas, Europe, and Australia.
The influx of Afghan refugees in Iran has caused there to be an estimated total of 399,000 Dari speakers of Hazaragi dialects in the country, as of 2021.
Turkic and Mongolic influences
Some dialects of Dari spoken by Hazaras contain Turkic loanwords. According to Temirkhanov, the Mongolian elements make up 10% of the Hazara vocabulary. An Iranica article on Dari dialects of the Hazaras states that they consist of three linguistic layers: pre-Mongol Persian, with its own substratum; the Mongolian language; and the modern Tajik language, another eastern Persian variety. kunda ('plow'), qōš ('eyebrow'), while words of Mongolic origin include bêri ('bride'), alaḡa ('palm of the hand'), qulaḡay ('thief'),
Grammatical structure
The grammatical structure of the Hazaragi dialects of Dari are identical to that of the Kabuli dialect.
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can also approach the sound or . The convergence of the voiced uvular stop (ق) and the voiced velar fricative (غ) in Western Persian (probably under the influence of Turkic languages) is treated as separate phonemes in Hazaragi dialects.
Diphthongs include , , and (cf. Iranian Persian , , ). The vocalic system is eastern Persian, characterized by the loss of length distinction, the retention of mid-vowels, and the rounding of ā and å/o, alternating with its merger with a or û (cf. Iranian Persian ). and Tajik, and are thus not variable. Stress generally falls on the last syllable of a nominal word form, including derivative suffixes and several morphological markers. Typical is the insertion of epenthetic vowels in consonant clusters (e.g., pašm > póšum; 'wool') and final devoicing (e.g., ḵût; 'self, own'). However, the systematic arrangement of all forms according to their morphological, as well as semantic, function shows that those forms fit well within the overall pattern. The system may tentatively be shown as follows, leaving out complex compound forms such as zada ḵot mu-buda baš-um.