Is Farsi mutually intelligible?

Farsi and Dari are two dialects of the same language, mutually intelligible in written format, but very different when spoken. Formal Farsi and Dari are very similar, but differences in pronunciation and the use of certain words are more noticeable when they are spoken informally.

How similar is Arabic and Farsi?

Arabic and Persian are totally different languages, but both with a mostly common alphabet, overlapping vocabulary (nearly all going from Arabic to Persian), and with ties to Islam. The similarity is a bit like that between English and French.

What is Farsi (Persian)?

Farsi or Persian is an Indo-European language, which means that it has a common ancestor with English. Despite Farsi being related to European languages, the language is very different from almost all of them. Among Farsi’s closest present-day relatives are the Romani, Kurdish, and Pashtu languages.

Are Persian and Arabic mutually intelligible in any case?

Persian doesn’t have the three root system – Arabic has. Instead, words in Persian are kept together and only affixes are added. Also, you have three main varieties of Persian – that spoken in Iran, then Tajik in Tajikistan and Dari in Afghanistan. So no, Persian and Arabic aren’t mutually intelligible in any case.

Are the Pashto and Persian languages mutually intelligible?

No, as a Pashto-speaker and a Persian-speaker I can tell you that they are not mutually intelligible. Pashto is an Eastern Iranic language, and is descended from Bactrian, the ancient language of empires such as the Greco-Bactrian and Kushan empires. Bactrian itself is a descendant of the ancient Iranic langauge Avestan.

What is the difference between Arabic and Persian?

Arabic and Persian come from completely different language families – Arabic is Semitic and Persian is Indo-European. Persian is closer to English, French and other languages of the family than to Arabic. Yes, the two use relatively the same scripts.