Dari language analysis (LADO) for Afghan origin claims

Dari is the name used in Afghanistan for its standard variety of Farsi, and it has been one of the country's two main languages of administration alongside Pashto. Most Afghans use it as a common language whatever their mother tongue, and many simply call it Farsi. That makes Dari the language in which most Afghan claimants are interviewed, and the language most often examined when their stated origin is questioned.

Typical triggers are familiar to anyone who handles Afghan casework: no tazkira, or one whose details are doubted; an account of home that a decision maker considers vague; or a suggestion that the person is an Iranian or Pakistani national. A Dari LADO report addresses those doubts with linguistic evidence that can be read, tested and answered in an asylum appeal.

Dari is spoken throughout Afghanistan, and its regional accents are distinct enough for a trained analyst to work with. Kabul speech, the Dari of Herat in the west and the varieties of the north each carry their own patterns of pronunciation, intonation and everyday vocabulary. Hazaragi, spoken in the central highlands, is considered by some speakers a separate variety; where a claimant is Hazara, a dedicated Dari and Hazaragi analysis is the better fit, and this page concentrates on Dari itself.

Our analysts listen for vowel quality, consonants, stress and melody, and they examine word choice, idioms and grammar. They also note how a speaker handles numbers in speech, kinship terms and names for common household items, all of which differ between Afghan Dari and Iranian Farsi. The result is a profile of the speaker's Dari that can be compared with the region the claim describes.

Dari and Farsi are two standard varieties of one language, close enough for conversation but different in ways a specialist hears at once. Dari keeps certain vowel sounds that Farsi has changed, and the two use different words for many government, legal and administrative ideas. Afghan speakers usually understand Farsi through television and the internet, while Iranian listeners can miss regional Afghan expressions.

Large Afghan communities have lived in Iran and Pakistan for long periods, so a speaker's Dari may carry Farsi or Urdu borrowings without that meaning the claim is false. The analyst's task is to separate the layer formed in childhood from the layer added later, and to explain which history best accounts for both.

Second languages can help too. Many Dari speakers also know Pashto, and the way someone uses it, or does not, is set alongside the account they have given.

• Afghan vowel patterns and administrative terms that Iranian speakers do not use.
• Iranian Farsi vocabulary or pronunciation absorbed in Mashhad, Tehran or other cities.
• Urdu words and code-switching linked to time in Pakistan.
• Pashto knowledge or contact features that fit, or do not fit, the stated region.

Analysis starts from a recording, ideally an interview in which a native-speaker interviewer invites the person to talk freely about home, family, schooling and daily life. The analyst transcribes the recording with dialect features marked, then applies methods from forensic phonetics, dialectology and sociolinguistics, using acoustic measurement software where it clarifies a vowel or an intonation pattern.

The stated origin is weighed against every plausible alternative, typically Iran or Pakistan, and against the person's own history of travel and residence. Each step is recorded in a written expert report that sets out the method, discusses alternative explanations and states the level of confidence plainly. Our analysts are native speakers with linguistic training who follow recognised codes of practice for forensic speech analysis, and none of our LADO reports has ever been successfully challenged.

LADO looks at region, town or community. A nationality assessment asks a wider question: whether a person shows the national standard features, institutional vocabulary and cultural knowledge expected of someone raised in Afghanistan, such as familiarity with the education system, administrative terms and Afghan dates and calendars. For a claimant who left Afghanistan very young, regional features may be faint while national knowledge remains telling, so the two methods are often more useful together than apart. The linguist advises; the deciding authority decides.

A LADO case usually needs other language work, and one SILA Linguists® team can coordinate it. We provide Dari interpreters for legal conferences, asylum interviews, medical appointments and tribunal hearings, face to face, by telephone 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or by video through the SILA Linguists® app, with a female or male interpreter on request. For Afghan clients we book a Dari interpreter rather than a Farsi one unless told otherwise.

Certified Dari translation covers the tazkira, civil certificates, school records and court papers, with Solar Hijri and lunar Hijri dates converted carefully and the original kept beside the Gregorian date. Dari transcription with time stamps and English translation gives representatives an exact record of an interview to set beside the analyst's findings.

Our Dari reports are written for use in asylum and immigration proceedings in the UK, North America, Australia, New Zealand and beyond, by solicitors, barristers, immigration attorneys, refugee charities and individuals who need an independent view. Where an earlier analysis placed a client in Iran or Pakistan, we can prepare a second-opinion report and provide an expert witness to explain it.

SILA Linguists® draws on over 6,500 trained, vetted and qualified interpreters and translators, works under confidentiality agreements and handles personal data under UK GDPR. One project team, carefully matched specialists and a written method you can follow: that is what a Dari case needs.