"ow" in Engl. "cow"), which are pronounced (as in English "day") and (as in Engl. "low") in Iranian Persian. Dari, on the other hand, is more conservative, e.g. نخیر 'no' is realized as in Iranian but in Afghan Persian, and نوروز 'Persian New Year' is in Iranian but in Afghan Persian. Moreover, is simplified to in normal Iranian speech, thereby merging with the lowered Classical short vowel (see above). This does not occur in Afghan Persian. The pronunciation of the labial consonant و, which is realized as a voiced labiodental fricative in standard Iranian, is still pronounced with the (classical) bilabial pronunciation in Afghanistan; is found in Afghan Persian as an allophone of before voiced consonants and as variation of in some cases, along with . The convergence of the voiced uvular stop (ق) and the voiced velar fricative (غ) in Iranian Persian (presumably under the influence of Turkic languages like Azeri and Turkmen) is absent in Dari, where the two are still kept separate. and in word-final positions are distinguished in Dari, whereas is a word-final allophone of in Iranian Persian. Dialect continuum The dialects of Dari spoken in Northern, Central, and Eastern Afghanistan, for example in Kabul, Mazar, and Badakhshan, have distinct features compared to Iranian Persian. However, the dialect of Dari spoken in Western Afghanistan stands in between the Afghan and Iranian Persian. For instance, the Herati dialect shares vocabulary and phonology with both Dari and Iranian Persian. Likewise, the dialect of Persian in Eastern Iran, for instance in Mashhad, is quite similar to the Herati dialect of Afghanistan. The Kabuli dialect has become the standard model of Dari in Afghanistan, as has the Tehrani dialect in relation to the Persian in Iran. Since the 1940s, Radio Afghanistan has broadcast its Dari programs in Kabuli Dari, which ensured the homogenization between the Kabuli version of the language and other dialects of Dari spoken throughout Afghanistan. Since 2003, the media, especially the private radio and television broadcasters, have carried out their Dari programs using the Kabuli variety. Phonology Consonants Stops // are phonetically dental []. A glottal stop /ʔ/ only appears in words of Arabic origin. A flap sound // may be realized as a trill sound [], in some environments, mostly word-final position; otherwise, they contrast between vowels wherein a trill occurs as a result of gemination (doubling) of [], especially in loanwords of Arabic origin. Only