Given that I have received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Dari in Afghanistan, I would investigate the following question:
What do different dialects of Farsi spoken in Afghanistan tell about the political and social power dynamics of the country?
I would get started by using my background knowledge of different dialects of Farsi spoken in these two countries and research all other existing dialects spoken that I am unaware of. Once I gather these spoken dialects, I will correlate those dialects with the geographical places (provinces) that they are spoken along with which groups (ethnic groups) speak them. Second, I will compare the spoken dialect to the national language of Afghanistan (Dari) and see how similar or different the structural components of the dialects are to each other. Third, I would look at the political offices or leadership roles that people from different dialects may have. Such a study can reflect which people from what background have a major say in the government and kind of rule the country, making the major decisions for the people.
For example, I know that the Hazara people of Afghanistan speak Dari but their dialect is Hazaragi which is very different from how the major Dari speakers speak and write. But regardless, everyone in Afghanistan has to learn the “proper” way of speaking Dari which is the national language. This in itself shows a type of power dynamic that exists within the country. “Proper” Dari is spoken by the majority and minority groups are required to learn this dialect in a kind of unspoken rule. The minority dialects are frowned upon and seen as a dialect that is spoken by the people of the village, the uneducated, country people and sometimes the poor. The reality is that the dialects spoken by the minority groups follow the same sentence structure as the national language but because the difference in dialect is seen as improper or informal.
I think this would be very interesting research because it will cover some of the main topics we have covered in the class but also emphasize the transactionality of language with politics and power dynamics. If the language and the sentence structure is the same, then what is the big deal about what dialect is spoken in? In such research, one of the other factors that one can explore is the danger of dialects disappearing. While some languages disappear because they are not written, it’s the same case with dialects that discontinue being spoken by the people of that community or ethnic group. Currently, the pressure is high on minority groups of many countries to adopt the national language of the country and forgo their languages and dialects. This is at least the case for some minorities in Afghanistan such as the Hazaras. Growing up, my Hazara dialect was made fun of so much that I deliberately and intentionally started speaking in the dialect of the majority of people in the country. There was a sense of being inferior or being ashamed if you spoke in Hazaragi dialect. People made fun of you and you were considered uneducated. This experience influenced me so much that I started losing the taste for my native dialect and let go of listening to music from that dialect. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I started appreciating my roots who spoke this dialect and started to listen to the music from my ethnic group. In conclusion, there is so much to learn about languages and its intersectionality with other factors such as race, religion and status.
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