DARÈname given to the New Persian literary language at a very early date and widely attested in Arabic (e.g., EsátÂakòr^, p. 314; Moqaddas^ [Maqdes^], p. 335; Ebn H®awqal, p. 490) and Persian texts since the 10th century. The Persian translator of T®abar^'s Tafs^r (between 350/961-62 and 365/975-76; I, p. 5), Abu@ ¿Al^ Moháammad Bal¿am^ in his continuation of T®abar^'s Ta@r^kò (352/963-64; Gryaznevich and Boldyrev, p. 53), Keyka@vu@s Ra@z^ in his Zara@toæt-na@ma (before 368/978, according to Rempis), and H®ak^m Meysar^ in his Da@neæ-na@ma (367-70/978-81; apud Lazard, Premiers poeàtes I, p. 182) all claimed to be writing in dar^. Ferdows^ (ˆa@h-na@ma, ed. Moscow, VIII, p. 254), in his account of the origins of Kal^la wa Demna, reported that the Arabic version had been translated by Bal¿am^ into dar^ on the order of the Samanid Nasár II (301-31/914-43). The term dar^ also referred to a spoken language as early as the time of Ja@háezá (mid-9th century; p. 13); Arabic historians and geographers of the following century also used it in that sense (e.g., Mas¿u@d^, p. 78; Moqaddas^, p. 335).

Dar^ was contrasted to Pahlavi, sometimes when the latter term designated literary Middle Persian, as in the Zara@toæt-na@ma (p. 2) and the ˆa@h-na@ma (Moscow, VIII, p. 254), and sometimes when it referred to Medo-Parthian dialects, as in Mas¿u@d^ (p. 78) and probably also in the ˆa@h-na@ma (I, p. 44, in connection with the word b^var "ten thousand"). It was sometimes also distinguished from pa@rs^. Moqaddes^ (p. 259) mentioned dar^ as one of the Iranian dialects "that together are known as pars^." A century later Keyka@vu@s b. Eskandar (in ca. 475/1082-83; p. 208) advised letter writers to avoid the use of "pure pa@rs^" (pa@rs^-e motÂlaq), that is, free of Arabic words, "for it is displeasing, especially pa@rs^-e dar^, which is not usual," implying the existence of other kinds of pa@rs^. Dar^ thus seems to have been a variety of pa@rs^, as is confirmed by the expression pa@rs^-e dar^ (Ar. al-fa@rs^ya al-da@r^ya) frequently found in early text. The variant pa@rs^ o dar^, which also occurs in Persian manuscripts (e.g., ˆa@h-na@ma VIII, p. 254), is a distortion, as Parv^z K¨a@nlar^ correctly noted (p. 273).

The original meaning of the word dar^ is given in a notice attributed to Ebn al-Moqaffa¿ (Ebn al-Nad^m, ed. Tajaddod, p. 15; K¨úa@razm^, Mafa@t^há al-¿olu@m, pp. 116-17; H®amza Esáfaha@n^, pp. 67-68; Ya@qu@t, Bolda@n IV, p. 846). This notice, which probably reflected the linguistic situation in Persia at the end of the Sasanian period, includes mention of pahlav^, literally, "the Parthian language" (or the dialects that grew out of it), pa@rs^, and dar^. According to Ebn al-Moqaffa¿, pa@rs^ was "the language spoken by the mowbeds (priests), scholars, and the like; it is the language of the people of Fa@rs." It is obvious that this language was none other than Middle Persian, traditionally known as Pahlavi. As for dar^, "It is the language of the cities of Mada@÷en; it is spoken by those who are at the king's court. [Its name] is connected with presence at court. Among the languages of the people of Khorasan and the east, the language of the people of Balkò is predominant." This notice has given rise to considerable discussion. The etymology given for the name is clear: It is derived from the word for dar (court, lit., "gate"). Dar^ was thus the language of the court and of the capital, Ctesiphon (q.v.). On the other hand, it is equally clear from this passage that dar^ was also in use in the eastern part of the empire, in Khorasan, where it is known that in the course of the Sasanian period Persian gradually supplanted Parthian and where no dialect that was not Persian survived. The passage thus suggests that dar^ was actually a form of Persian, the common language of Persia. If that conclusion is correct, what was the relationship between pa@rs^ and dar^, and how did the latter term come to be applied specifically to literary New Persian at the time of its emergence?

On the basis of Moqaddas^'s report (p. 335) that dar^ was the chancery language in Bukhara, it has been thought that it was from the beginning a kind of formal Persian. K¨a@nlar^ (pp. 280-81) put forth the hypothesis that dar^ had been an official and administrative language of the Sasanian court, had become established in the east by officials of the Sasanian kingdom, and had thus became the chancery language of Khorasan. There is no doubt, however, that the official and administrative language of the Sasanians was not dar^ but Middle Persian (so-called Pahlavi). Ebn al-Moqaffa¿'s account clearly indicates that dar^ was a spoken language, and it is obviously as a spoken language that it spread to the east. The founders of Persian literature, who were poets, rather than prose writers, naturally resorted to the language that they spoke. Moqaddas^'s statement was made at a time when dar^ had already been in literary use for nearly a century.

New information on the dialectology of Persia at the beginning of the Islamic period now permits a clearer understanding. It is known that ancient Judeo-Persian texts, probably originating in southern Persia (cf. Lazard, 1968), represent local dialects clearly different from those of Khorasan and Transoxania, from which literary Persian originally developed. The recent discovery in Maæhad of a manuscript of the Qor÷a@n-e Qods, a translation of the Koran into a Persian dialect related to early Judeo-Persian, confirms the dialectological significance of details already known from the latter. The work apparently originated in S^sta@n in the 11th century. One of the most interesting features common to this Qor÷a@n and early Judeo-Persian is the abundance of words that were well known in literary Middle Persian and unknown in literary New Persian, evidence that there were important differences between the common language spoken in the south and that in use in the north. The former, as represented by literary Middle Persian, retained most its ancient form; the latter evolved from the same Persian language, which had spread throughout the north, but evinced the influence of the dialects that it had supplanted there, particularly Parthian. It thus diverged noticeably from the original form. Both were called pa@rs^ (Persian), but it is very likely that the language of the north, that is, the Persian used on former Parthian territory and also in the Sasanian capital, was distinguished from its congener by a new name, dar^ ([language] of the court). It was only natural that several centuries later literary Persian, based on the speech of the northeast, bore the same name.

Bibliography: Dehkòoda@, s.v. Dar^. P. A. Gryaznevich and A. N. Boldyrev, "O dvukh redaktskiyakh 'Ta÷rikh-i Tabar^' Bal¿am^" (On two translations of Bal¿am^'s Ta@r^kò-e T®abar^), Sovetskoe Vostokovedenie, 1957/3, pp. 46-59. Ja@háezá, Keta@b al-baya@n wa'l-taby^n, ed. M. Ha@ru@n, III, Cairo, 1368-69/1949. P. N. K¨a@nlar^, Ta@r^kò-e zaba@n-e fa@rs^, new ed., I, Tehran, 1365 ˆ./1986. Keyka@vu@s b. Eskandar, Qa@bu@s-na@ma, ed. GÚ.-H®. Yu@sof^, Tehran, 1346 ˆ./1967. Keyka@vu@s Ra@z^, Zara@toæt-na@ma, ed. F. Rosenberg, St. Petersburg, 1904; repr. Tehran, 1338 ˆ./1959. Abu@ ¿Abd-Alla@h Moháammad K¨úa@razm^, Mafa@t^há al-¿olu@m, ed. G. van Vloten, Leiden, 1895. G. Lazard, "La dialectologie du jude‚o-persan," in Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 8, 1968, pp. 77-98. Idem, "Pahlavi, parsi, dari. Les langues de l'Iran d'apreàs Ibn al-Muqaffa¿," in C. E. Bosworth, ed., Iran and Islam. In Memory of the Late V. Minorsky, Edinburgh, 1971, pp. 361-91. Idem, "Lumieàres nouvelles sur la formation de la langue persane. Une traduction du Coran en persan dialectal et ses affinite‚s avec le jude‚o-persan," in S. Shaked and A. Netzer, eds., Irano-Judaica II, Jerusalem, 1990a, pp. 184-98. Idem, "Parsi et dari. Nouvelles remarques," in Aspects of Iranian Culture. In Honor of R. N. Frye, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, N.S. 4, 1990b, pp. 239-42. Idem, "R^æaha@-ye zaba@n^-e fa@rs^-e adab^," Èra@n-na@ma 11/4, 1371 ˆ./1993, pp. 569-84. Qor÷a@n-e Qods, ed. A. Rawaq^, Tehran, 1364-65 ˆ./1985-86. C. Rempis, "Qui est l'auteur du Zartuæt-Nâmeh?" in Me‚langes d'orientalisme offerts aà Henri Masse‚ . . ., Tehran, 1963, pp. 337-442. Abu@ Ja¿far Moháammad T®abar^, Tafs^r, tr. as Tarjama-ye tafs^r-e T®abar^, ed. H® Ya@g@ma@÷^, 7 vols., Tehran, 1339-44 ˆ./1960-65.

(GILBERT LAZARD)