Some Afghani given names are composed of one word, such as “Khalil” or “Farid.” Others have two parts ( Miran, 1975) with the actual given name prefixed with a subordinating common name such as -Ullah, Jan, Ali, Gholam, Abdul, Mohammad, Din, Khan, and Shah.įor example, in the names “Mohammad Nasim” and “Abdul Ghafoor,” “Mohammad” and “Abdul” are less useful for identification than “Nasim” and “Ghafoor.” Unlike Arabic names, the subordinating name and proper name are not related to the individual’s parents or grandparents. Since the official religion in Afghanistan is Islam, the majority of Afghani names are Arabic (the language of the Quran and Islam), but pronounced in the local dialect. Subsequently, Pashto adopted the Persio-Arabic script, adding 8 more letters to the Persian letters (4 retroflex consonants ډ ړ ڼ ټ, velar fricatives “ghe” ږ and ښ “xin”, and dental affricates /dz/ ځ and /ts/ څ). The appearances of the Arabic Kaf ك and Arabic Yeh ي were also modified. When the Persian language adopted the Arabic script, 4 letters were added to the Arabic script to fit its phonology (Peh پ, Tcheh چ, Jeh ژ, Gaf گ). Both Pashto and Dari are Indo-European languages which adopted the Arabic script in the 7th century.ĭari is a dialect of Persian spoken in Afghanistan. They are the most widely used of the 30 some languages that are used in the country. Understanding the names begins with understanding Dari and Pashto, the official languages of Afghanistan ( CIA Factbook).
I will discuss the cultural aspects, linguistic properties, and composition of Afghani names and how they challenge these software tools. Consequently, automatic correlation of data points-using search engines and natural language processing systems-is difficult. However many expect intelligence activities to continue continue well past 2014.Īfghani names are a challenge to intelligence agencies as name spellings frequently vary when written in English. Read on to learn how these languages pose headaches to any entity extractor.Ī month after Osama bin Ladin’s death, President Barack Obama declared that the United States had achieved its goals in Afghanistan, and that troops would withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014. Shakespeare asked “What’s in a name?” It turns out there’s a lot in the name of a typical Afghani including common nouns and personal titles-not used as titles! One of our linguistic experts, Bushra Zawaydeh, wrote today’s post about the challenges to natural language processing software of automatically extracting names of people from text written in the two most widely used languages of Afghanistan: Dari (a Persian dialect) and Pashto.