Abstract

Arabic words have undergone a fundamental change in Dari Persian, which includes both semantic and structural changes. The present study makes effort to investigate the structural change in the Arabic words used in Dari Persian. Through collecting samples of Arabic words borrowed in Dari Persian, this study tries to determine the structural and phonetic effect of Dari Persian on these Arabic words. This article aimed at examining the change and transformation of Arabic loan words in Dari Persian at the phonetic level which includes alteration of one phone to another, addition of a phone, reduction of a phone, change of vowels, change of vowels into consonants, change of consonants into vowels. For example, the change of “یاء” to “الف” in the words “تمنّی and تماشی to تمنا and تماشا” and change of the respective ”ة” to the ”ت” marked with the vowel point which is peculiar to the Arabic language as in “رحمة” to “رحمت”, are cases to the point. The significance of this study lies where it focuses on the explanation of how Arabic loan words are pronounced and written in Dari Persian.
It is obviously evidenced that the pronunciation of most of the contemporary Arabic words used in Dari Persian varies with that of their native one; for instance, the loan words: قَوام, نِشاط, جِناب, فَقَرَه, زُهره in Dari Persian are originally pronounced as قِوام, نَشاط, جَناب, فِقره in Arabic language.
The existence of such phenomenon and its widespread application in many domains solicited the researcher to examine the change taken place in the form and application of the Arabic loan words in Dari Persian.