Words R Us
- Dari (prs)

Dari, also known as Dari Persian, is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan and the native language of approximately 40–45% of the population. Dari serves as the lingua franca of the country and is understood by up to 78% of the population.

Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language; it is known as Afghan Persian or Eastern Persian in many Western sources. The decision behind renaming the local variety of Persian was more political than linguistic to support an Afghan state narrative. Apart from a few basics of vocabulary, there is little difference between formal written Persian of Afghanistan and Iran; the languages are mutually intelligible. Afghanistan's Persian-speaking population still prefer to call their language "Farsi", asserting that the term "Dari" has been imposed upon them by the dominant Pashtun ethnic group as an effort to detach Afghanistan from its deep-rooted cultural, linguistic, and historical connections with the wider Persian-speaking world, encompassing Iran, Tajikistan, and parts of Uzbekistan. Dari is the official language for 35 million Afghans in Afghanistan and it serves as the lingua franca for interethnic communications in Afghanistan.

There are speakers of Dari spread across Europe and 200,000 in the U.S. and Canada. The Joshua Project lists the Dari speakers as entirely Islamic with virtually no known Christians. Only about one-tenth of the Dari speakers are literate.

Sources:
Wikipedia
Omniglot
The Joshua Project