Foreword

Upon arriving in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1951 to teach English in Habibia High School, I became
aware of the necessity of learning Dari which is the most widely spoken language in Kabul, the
capital city of that country. Since nothing had been published in this distinct dialect of Persian,
while I was studying this language, I also put together a grammar in order to help others learn it.
This was called An Introduction to Colloquial Kabul Persian and was published by the Army
Language School in Monterey, California in 1955.

The way it come to be published was interesting. An American military attaché was assigned to
Kabul with the U.S. Embassy. Preparatory to his arrival, he had studied Persian for two years in
order to be able to speak the language. However, the dialect he was taught was the one spoke in
Tehran. It was as different from the Kabul Dari dialect as Chaucer’s English in the fourteenth
century is from that spoken in North American today. For this reason, he could not understand
people who were speaking in Kabul, nor could they understand him. He was so upset at having
this mistake, which cost him two years of fruitless study, that he got the Army Language School
in Monterey, California to publish my book to help others learn the Dari dialect of Persian, as it
really was spoken in Afghanistan.

Along with this grammar, there was the need for an English-Dari Dictionary. As I studied Dari, I
also made lists of words and their meanings, since there was no dictionary or lexicon giving the
English equivalents that had ever been written. The only ones which existed were those
published for Iranian Persian. This resulted in the birth of this English-Dari Dictionary. The
odyssey of its history has been one which has been filled with tragedy and difficulty.

Along with my responsibilities of teaching English and pastoring the Kabul Community
Christian house Church, I started working on the English-Dari Dictionary in 1954. The first
person who helped me was one of my students by the name of Mr. Nabi Tokhi. Since we wanted
to include all helpful words, the job turned out to far greater than we had anticipated. Therefore,
a series of others kindly assisted with the project. Another student of mine at Habibia High
School, Dr. Aziz Ahmad Darmani, worked for hundreds of hours on the dictionary. At this time,
the Asia Foundation helped with the expenses of those who were assisting. This funding was first
given by Dr. Harold Amos who headed up the Asia Foundation in Afghanistan during the late
1950’s and was continued by Mr. Glen Bowersox.

In the early 1960’s, Mrs. Isabelle Annis with the help of Mr. Zikria, published an abridged
English-Dari dictionary in Kabul based on the words from a short English-Korean edition.
Following this, Mr. Zikria also helped with this longer project.

At this time, the late Professor Mohammad Ali of the History Department of Kabul University
and a prolific write and publisher of books also went over the manuscript and made invaluable
suggestions. After this he was tragically murdered in his home in Kabul by thieves.

His Excellency, Dr. Rawan Farhadi who was the Afghan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and
Secretary of the Cabinet also looked over the manuscript and gave expert advice. He earned his
Ph.D. in linguistics at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, in the Dari language, and thus is probably
the most outstanding linguistic expert in Dari. He later, after the Communist takeover in
Afghanistan, himself became a Professor at the Sorbonne in Paris.

With the assistance of the Kabul Community Christian Church Trustees, I was able to buy an
IBM electric typewriter in Hong Kong with linguistic symbols on it, and carry it back to
Afghanistan by hand. An Afghan friend, Mr. Ghaussiddin Widi was able to type the whole
manuscript on this machine.

Following our leaving Afghanistan in 1973, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Magney took charge of the
project. They were in Afghanistan with literacy work. The whole dictionary was then revised and
retyped by Mr. Erik Barendsen from Holland. He had been trained both as a lawyer and a
pharmacist. He met and married Eeva, a Finnish nurse who was also working in Kabul with the
NOOR Eye Hospital of the International Afghan Mission (IAM). This revision was completed
shortly after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan at the end of December, 1979. It was taken out
of the country early in 1980. All luggage was thoroughly searched by the Communist customs
officials at the Kabul airport, but they did not open the small handbag which contained the typed
manuscript of the English-Dari Dictionary.

From 1980 on, His Excellency Marshall Ghulam Ali Ayeen at the University of Nebraska, under
the direction of Professor Thomas Gouttiere, then the director of the Center for Afghanistan
Studies, and others have helped prepare the project for publication.

Tragically, Erik and Eeva Barendsen were murdered in their home in Kabul on New Year’s Eve,
December 31, 1980. It was only the next day around noon when they had not shown up for work
that people went to their home and found them lying in their own blood. Their two little children,
Osko who was a five-year-old boy and Ulla who was a three-year-old girl were found alone in
the house crying, but they had not been injured. Eeva’s brother who was a pastor in Finland
came to Kabul for the funeral and he and his wife have adopted the two children.

Because Erik and Eeva Barendsen did so much work on this English-Dari Dictionary and shortly
after that gave their lives in Afghanistan, it is being dedicated to them.

When my wife and I visited Kabul for 23 days in 1991, I visited the Barendsen’s grave in the
Christian Cemetery there. On their graves were two slabs of natural gray Afghan marble which
each had the shape of a dove on it.  It was originally planned that these slabs would be placed at
the entrance of the new Kabul Community Christian Church building.  That building was
destroyed by an unfriendly régime from the 13th of June to the 17th of July, 1973.  So, now these
beautiful, natural slabs with doves of peace lie in front of the Barendsens' grave.

J. Christy Wilson, Jr.
South Hamilton, Massachusetts
USA
August, 1984

In the summer of 2019, I was entrusted with revising and updating Dr. Wilson’s English-Dari
dictionary. For several reasons, the dictionary was not printed before Dr. Wilson’s death in 1999.
I received a Word document typed by Mrs. Betty Wilson and her daughter-in-law, Farideh
Wilson in 2008. There were 398 double-column pages. Soon after, I also received the type-
written dictionary manuscript that was smuggled out of Afghanistan in early 1980. It was very
carefully and accurately typed on 1296 sheets of Russian legal-size paper.

With the help of online resources and some excellent Dari-English dictionaries published long
after Dr. Wilson began his dictionary (see bibliography), I was able to check each entry, make
them more uniform, add clarifying comments, and add over 5,000 words that are high-frequency,
and other words that have come into common use since 1980.

With the generous help and support of the DLS (Dictionary and Lexicography Services) team of
SIL International, and the use of their dictionary software, the English-Dari dictionary was
published on the www.Webonary.org website in October, 2021. A mobile phone app has also
been developed, and will hopefully be available soon on the Webonary website.

The process of correction and additions will continue. Any feedback is welcome, and may be
sent to [email protected]

Joel DeHart
Woodstock, Ontario
Canada
October, 2021