Pashto known as
Afghani in
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and
Pathani in
PunjabiPunjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
(the two languages being located on either side of Pashto), is the
native languageA first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
of the
indigenousIndigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
Pashtun peoplePashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the
Amu DaryaThe Amu Darya , also called Oxus and Amu River, is a major river in Central Asia. It is formed by the junction of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers...
in
AfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and west of the
Indus RiverThe Indus River is a major river which flows through Pakistan. It also has courses through China and India.Originating in the Tibetan plateau of western China in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region, the river runs a course through the Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and...
in
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. It is a member of the
Eastern Iranian languagesThe Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times .The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with some 50 million speakers between the Hindu Kush mountains in...
group spoken in
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and
AfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
as well as by the
Pashtun diasporaPashtuns , also called Pathans have many communities around the world. Pukhtuns have long history to conquer and colonizing several regions especially the ancient regions of Sub-continent in duration of past few centuries...
around the world.
Pashto belongs to the Northeastern branch of the
Indo-IranianThe Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...
language familyA language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
, although
EthnologueEthnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
lists it as Southeastern. The number of Pashtuns or Pashto-speakers is estimated 50-60 million
people world widePashtuns , also called Pathans have many communities around the world. Pukhtuns have long history to conquer and colonizing several regions especially the ancient regions of Sub-continent in duration of past few centuries...
. The
Constitution of AfghanistanThe Constitution of Afghanistan is the supreme law of the state Afghanistan, which serves as the legal framework between the Afghan government and the Afghan citizens...
declares Pashto as one of the two
official languageAn official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
s of the country, the other being
Dari (Persian)Dari or Fārsī-ye Darī in historical terms refers to the Persian court language of the Sassanids. In contemporary usage, the term refers to the dialects of modern Persian language spoken in Afghanistan, and hence known as Afghan Persian in some Western sources. It is the term officially recognized...
.
Geographic distribution
Pashto is a language spoken in
SouthSouth Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
-
Central AsiaCentral Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, primarily in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan as well as by the Pashtuns throughout the world.
As the
national languageA national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country...
of Afghanistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south and southwest, but also in some northern and western parts of the country. The exact numbers of speakers are unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the
mother tongueA first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
of 35-60% of the total
population of AfghanistanThe population of Afghanistan is around 29,835,392 as of the year 2011, which is unclear if the refugees living outside the country are included or not. The nation is composed of a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society, reflecting its location astride historic trade and invasion routes between...
.
In Pakistan, Pashto is the
first languageA first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
of about 15.42% of
Pakistan's 170 million peopleThis article is about the demographic features of the population of Pakistan, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
. It is the main language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
Federally Administered Tribal AreasThe Federally Administered Tribal Areas are a semi-autonomous tribal region in the northwest of Pakistan, lying between the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and the neighboring country of Afghanistan. The FATA comprise seven Agencies and six FRs...
(FATA) and northwestern
BalochistanBalochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...
, but also spoken in parts of
MianwaliMianwali is a district in the northwest of Punjab province, Pakistan. It borders eight districts: Attock District in the north, Chakwal District in the northeast, Khushab District in the east, and Bhakkar District in the south, while Lakki Marwat lies to the west, Kohat and Karak districts to the...
and
AttockAttock District is a district in the north-west Punjab Province of Pakistan.The district was created in April 1904 by the merger of Talagang Tehsil in the Jhelum District with the Pindigheb, Fatehjang and Attock tehsils from Rawalpindi District of the Punjab province of British India.Attock...
districts of the
Punjab provincePunjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
as well as by Pashtuns who are found living in different cities throughout the country. Modern Pashto-speaking communities are also found in the cities of
KarachiKarachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
and Hyderabad in
SindhSindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
.
Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in northeastern
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, primarily in
South Khorasan ProvinceSouth Khorasan Province is a province located in eastern Iran. Birjand is the centre of the province. The other major cities are Ferdows and Qaen....
to the east of Qaen, near the Afghan border, and in
TajikistanTajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
. There are also communities of
Pashtun communitiesPashtuns , also called Pathans have many communities around the world. Pukhtuns have long history to conquer and colonizing several regions especially the ancient regions of Sub-continent in duration of past few centuries...
descent in the southwestern part of
Jammu and KashmirJammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the...
.
Sizable Pashto-speaking communities also exist in the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, especially in the
United Arab EmiratesThe United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
, and
Saudi ArabiaThe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, as well as in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
,
ThailandThailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
,
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
,
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
,
QatarQatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
,
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
,
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
etc.
History
The origin of Pashto language and the
Pashtun tribesThe Pashtun people are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the second largest in Pakistan. Pashtun, tribes are divided into four supertribal confederacies: the Arbanee , Betanee , Gharghasht, and Karlanee .Traditionally, according to folklore, all Pashtuns are said to have descended, at...
is unknown. The word "Pashto" derives by regular phonological processes from
Parsawā- "Persian". Nonetheless, the Pashtuns are sometimes compared with the Pakhta tribes mentioned in the
RigvedaThe Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...
(1700–1100 BC), apparently the same as a people called
PactyansFor the present-day Afghan provinces of , see Paktia Province, Paktika Province and Khost Province.Pakthas are an ancient people, that find reference in Sanskrit and Greek sources and as a people living in the areas now in Afghanistan, as well as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan...
, described by the
GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
historian
HerodotusHerodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
as living in the
AchaemenidThe Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
's
ArachosiaArachosia is the Latinized form of the Greek name of an Achaemenid and Seleucid governorate in the eastern part of their respective empires, around modern-day southern Afghanistan. The Greek term "Arachosia" corresponds to the Iranian land of Harauti which was between Kandahar in Afghanistan and...
SatrapSatrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....
y as early as the
1st millennium BCThe 1st millennium BC encompasses the Iron Age and sees the rise of many successive empires, and spanned from 1000 BC to 1 BC.The Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the Achaemenids. In Greece, Classical Antiquity begins with the colonization of Magna Graecia and peaks with the rise of Hellenism. The...
. However, this comparison appears to be due mainly to the apparent, etymologically unjustified, similarity between their names.
Herodotus also mentions the Pactyan
"ApridaiAfridi of rough hilly area in the eastern Safed Koh range, west of the Peshawar Valley and east of Torkham, and Maidan in Tirah, which can be accessed by the Kajurhi plains and the valleys of Bara and Churah in Pakistan...
" tribe but it is unknown what language they spoke.
StraboStrabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
, who lived between 64 BC and 24
CECommon Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
, explains that the tribes inhabiting the lands west of the
Indus RiverThe Indus River is a major river which flows through Pakistan. It also has courses through China and India.Originating in the Tibetan plateau of western China in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region, the river runs a course through the Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and...
were part of
ArianaAriana was a region of the eastern countries of ancient Iran, next to India.Ariana may also refer to:* Ariana In places:*Ariana Governorate, a governorate in Tunisia*Ariana, Tunisia*Lake Ariana, a lake in Sofia, Bulgaria...
and to their east was
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Since the 3rd century CE and onward, they are mostly referred to by the name
"Afghan" (
"Abgan") and their language as
"Afghani".
Scholars such as Abdul Hai Habibi and others believe that the earliest Pashto work dates back to
Amir Kror SuriAmir Kror Suri , also known as Jahan Pahlawan, is a legendary character in Pashtun national history and is claimed to have become the governor of Mandesh in Ghor.- Description in Pashtun folklore :...
in the eighth century, and they use the writings found in
Pata KhazanaPata Khazāna is the title of a disputed manuscript written in Pashto language...
. However, this is disputed by several European experts due to lack of strong evidence. Pata Khazana is a Pashto
manuscriptA manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
claimed to be first
compiledAn anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
during the Hotaki dynasty (1709–1738) in
KandaharKandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
, Afghanistan. During the 17th century Pashto poetry was becoming very popular among the Pashtuns. Some of those who wrote Poetry in Pashto are
Khushal Khan KhattakKhushal Khan Khattak was a prominent Pashtun malik, poet, warrior,A charismatic personality and tribal chief of the Khattak tribe. He wrote a huge collection of Pashto poems during the Mughal Empire in the 17th century, and admonished Pashtuns to forsake their divisive tendencies and unite...
,
Rahman BabaAbdul Rahman Baba is popularly known as Rahman Baba , was a Pashtun Muslim poet from Peshawar in modern-day Pakistan who remains the most popular poet among the Pashtuns...
, Nazo Tokhi and
Ahmad Shah DurraniAhmad Shah Durrani , also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī and born as Ahmad Khān, was the founder of the Durrani Empire in 1747 and is regarded by many to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan.Ahmad Khan enlisted as a young soldier in the military of the Afsharid kingdom and quickly rose...
, founder of the modern state of Afghanistan or the
Afghan EmpireThe Durrani Empire was a Pashtun dynasty centered in Afghanistan and included northeastern Iran, the Kashmir region, the modern state of Pakistan, and northwestern India. It was established at Kandahar in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, an Afghan military commander under Nader Shah of Persia and chief...
.
Official language of Afghanistan
Before the present day ethno-linguistic situation in South Asia, the Afghan Empire comprised regions on both sides of the
Durand LineThe Durand Line refers to the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has divided the ethnic Pashtuns . This poorly marked line is approximately long...
by which the British colonial power annexed about one third of Afghanistan. The border created a buffer zone and was drawn through the
Pashtun areasPakhtunistan or Pashtunistan, meaning the "land of Pakhtuns" or "land of Pashtuns", is a modern term used for the historical region inhabited by the native Afghans or Pashtun since at least the 1st millennium BC...
of settlement leaving the larger part of them in what was to become Pakistan.
Pashto (since 1936) and
Dari (Persian)Dari or Fārsī-ye Darī in historical terms refers to the Persian court language of the Sassanids. In contemporary usage, the term refers to the dialects of modern Persian language spoken in Afghanistan, and hence known as Afghan Persian in some Western sources. It is the term officially recognized...
are the two
official languageAn official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
s of Afghanistan. Persian, however, was the only official language until the 1930s, and it still serves as the
lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of the country.
Since the early 18th century, all the kings of Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns except for Habibullah Kalakani, and most of them bilingual although
Amānullāh KhānAmanullah Khan was the King of the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929, first as Amir and after 1926 as Shah. He led Afghanistan to independence over its foreign affairs from the United Kingdom, and his rule was marked by dramatic political and social change...
spoke Pashto as his second language. Persian as the literary language of the royal court was more widely used in government institutions while Pashto was spoken by the
Pashtun tribesThe Pashtun people are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the second largest in Pakistan. Pashtun, tribes are divided into four supertribal confederacies: the Arbanee , Betanee , Gharghasht, and Karlanee .Traditionally, according to folklore, all Pashtuns are said to have descended, at...
as their native tongue. Amanullah Khan began promoting Pashto during his reign as a marker of ethnic identity and a symbol of "official nationalism" leading Afghanistan to independence after the defeat of the British colonial power in the
Third Anglo-Afghan WarThe Third Anglo-Afghan War began on 6 May 1919 and ended with an armistice on 8 August 1919. It was a minor tactical victory for the British. For the British, the Durand Line was reaffirmed as the political boundary between the Emirate of Afghanistan and British India and the Afghans agreed not to...
. In the 1930s, a movement began to take hold to promote Pashto as a language of government, administration and art with the establishment of a Pashto Society
Pashto Anjuman in 1931 and the inauguration of the
Kabul UniversityKabul University is located in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. It was founded in 1931 but officially opened for classes in 1932. Kabul University is currently attended by approximately 7,000 students, of which 1,700 are women. As of 2008, Hamidullah Amin is the chancellor of the university...
in 1932 as well as the formation of the Pashto Academy
Pashto Tolana in 1937. Although officially strengthening the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a "sophisticated language and a symbol of cultured upbringing". King
Zahir ShahMohammed Zahir Shah was the last King of Afghanistan, reigning for four decades, from 1933 until he was ousted by a coup in 1973...
thus followed suit after his father
Nadir KhanMohammed Nadir Shah was King of Afghanistan from 15 October 1929 until his assassination in 1933. Previously, he served as Minister of War, Afghan Ambassador to France, and as a general in the military of Afghanistan...
had decreed in 1933, that both Persian and Pashto were to be studied and utilized by officials. In 1936, Pashto was
formallyA formality is an established procedure or set of specific behaviors and utterances, conceptually similar to a ritual although typically secular and less involved...
granted the status of an official language with full rights to usage in all aspects of government and education by a royal decree under Zahir Shah despite the fact that the ethnically Pashtun royal family and bureaucrates mostly spoke Persian. Thus Pashto became a
national languageA national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country...
, a symbol for Afghan nationalism.
The status of official language was reaffirmed in 1964 by the constitutional assembly when Afghan Persian was officially renamed to Dari. The lyrics of the
national anthem of AfghanistanThe Afghan National Anthem was adopted and officially announced in May 2006. According to article 20 of the Constitution of Afghanistan, "The national anthem of Afghanistan shall be in Pashto with the mention of "God is Greatest" as well as the names of the ethnicities of Afghanistan." The lyrics...
are in Pashto.
Regional language in Pakistan
In Pakistan, Pashto is the regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the
Federally Administered Tribal AreasThe Federally Administered Tribal Areas are a semi-autonomous tribal region in the northwest of Pakistan, lying between the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and the neighboring country of Afghanistan. The FATA comprise seven Agencies and six FRs...
. In 1984, Pashto was permitted to be used as the medium of instruction in primary schools.
Grammar
Pashto is an SOV (subject–object–verb) language with
split ergativitySplit ergativity is shown by languages that have a partly ergative behaviour, but employ another syntax or morphology — usually accusative — in some contexts...
.
AdjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s come before
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s. Nouns and adjectives are
inflectedIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
for two
genderGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s (masc./fem.), two
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
s (sing./plur.), and four
casesIn grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
(direct, oblique I, oblique II and vocative). The
verbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
system is very intricate with the following tenses: present, simple past, past progressive, present perfect and past perfect. There is also an inflection for the
subjunctive moodIn grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....
. In any of the past tenses (simple past, past progressive, present perfect and past perfect), Pashto is an
ergative languageAn ergative–absolutive language is a language that treats the argument of an intransitive verb like the object of a transitive verb, but differently from the agent of a transitive verb.-Ergative vs...
; i.e., transitive verbs in any of the past tenses agree with the object of the sentence.
Vowels
|
Front A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...
|
Central A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...
|
Back A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
|
| Close A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...
|
i |
|
u |
| Mid A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...
|
e |
ə |
o |
| Open An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...
|
|
a |
ɑ |
Pashto also has the diphthongs /ai/, /əi/, /ɑw/, /aw/.
Consonants
|
Labial Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
|
Dental |
AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
|
Retroflex A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
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Post-
alveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
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PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
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VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
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UvularUvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
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GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
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| Nasal A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
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m |
n |
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ɳ |
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| Plosive |
p b |
t̪ d̪ |
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ʈ ɖ |
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k ɡ |
q |
ʔ |
| Affricate Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
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t͡s d͡z |
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t͡ʃ d͡ʒ |
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| Fricative Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
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f |
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s z |
(ʂ ʐ) |
ʃ ʒ |
(ç ʝ) |
x ɣ |
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h |
| Approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...
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l |
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j |
w |
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| Rhotic In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet...
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r |
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The phonemes /q/, /f/ tend to be replaced by [k], [p].
The
retroflex lateral flapThe retroflex lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It has no symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but an ad hoc symbol may be easily created .-Features:Features of the retroflex flap:...
// (/ɺ̢/) is pronounced as
retroflex approximant [ɻ] when final.
The retroflex fricatives /ʂ/, /ʐ/ and
palatal fricativeA palatal fricative is a type of fricative consonant that is also a palatal consonant, i.e. pronounced with the body of the tongue in contact with the hard palate...
s /ç/, /ʝ/ represent dialectally different pronunciations of the same sound, not separate phonemes. In particular, the retroflex fricatives, which represent the original pronunciation of these sounds, are preserved in the southern/southwestern dialects (especially the prestige dialect of
KandaharKandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
), while they are pronounced as palatal fricatives in the west-central dialects. Other dialects merge the original retroflexes with other existing sounds: The southeastern dialects merge them with the
postalveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
fricatives /ʃ/, /ʒ/, while the northern/northeastern dialects merge them with the
velarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
phonemes in an asymmetric pattern, pronouncing them as /x/, /ɡ/ (
not /ɣ/). Furthermore, according to Henderson (1983), the west-central
voiced palatal fricative /ʝ/ actually occurs only in the
Wardak ProvinceMaidan Wardak Province is one of thirty four provinces of Afghanistan located in the central east region of Afghanistan. It has a population of approximately 540,100. The capital of the province is Maidan Shar...
, and is merged into /ɡ/ elsewhere in the region.
The velars /k/, /ɡ/, /x/, /ɣ/ followed by the
close back rounded vowelThe close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
/u/ assimilate into the
labializedLabialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.The most common...
velars [kʷ], [ɡʷ], [xʷ], [ɣʷ].
Vocabulary
In Pashto, most of the native elements of the lexicon are related to other
Eastern Iranian languagesThe Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times .The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with some 50 million speakers between the Hindu Kush mountains in...
; those words can be easily compared to those known from Avestan, Ossetic and
Pamir languagesThe Pamir languages are a group of the Eastern Iranian languages, spoken by numerous people in the Pamir Mountains, primarily along the Panj River and its tributaries. This includes the Badakhshan Province of northeastern Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province of eastern Tajikistan...
. However, a remarkably large number of words are special to Pashto. Post-7th century borrowings came primarily from the Arabic, Persian and
Hindustani languageHindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
s (in Pakistan), with the modern educated speech borrowing words from English,
FrenchFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, and
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
Writing system
Pashto employs the
Pashto alphabetThe Pashto alphabet is a modified form of the Arabic alphabet with letters added to accommodate phonemes used in Pashto that are not found in Arabic.-History:...
, a modified form of the Persian alphabet which on its part is derived from the
Arabic alphabetThe Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
. The reason for this is because, it is not a Semitic language, and thus it is modified. It has extra letters for Pashto-specific sounds. Since the 17th century Pashto has been primarily written in the
Naskh scriptNaskh is a specific calligraphic style for writing in the Arabic alphabet, thought to be invented by the Iranian calligrapher Ibn Muqlah Shirazi . The root of this Arabic term means "to copy". It either refers to the fact that it replaced its predecessor, Kufic script, or that this style allows...
, rather than the
Nasta'liq script' is one of the main script styles used in writing the Perso-Arabic script, and traditionally the predominant style in Persian calligraphy. It was developed in Iran in the 8th and 9th centuries...
used for neighboring Persian and Urdu languages. The Pashto alphabet consists of 45 letters, and 4 diacritic marks. The following table gives the letters' isolated forms, along with IPA values for the letters' typical sounds:
/ɑ/, /ʔ/ |
/b/ |
/p/ |
/t̪/ |
/ʈ/ |
/s/ |
/d͡ʒ/ |
/d͡z/ |
/t͡ʃ/ |
/t͡s/ |
/h/ |
/x/ |
/d̪/ |
/ɖ/ |
/z/ |
/r/ |
/~ɻ/ |
/z/ |
/ʒ/ |
/ʐ/, /ʝ/, /ɡ/ |
/s/ |
/ʃ/ |
/ʂ/, /ç/, /x/ |
/s/ |
/z/ |
/t̪/ |
/z/ |
/ʔ/ |
/ɣ/ |
/f/ |
/q/ |
/
/k/ |
/ɡ/ |
/l/ |
/m/ |
/n/ |
/ɳ/ |
/w/, /u/, /o/ |
/h/, /a/, /ə/ |
/ə/ |
/j/, /i/ |
/e/ |
/ai/, /j/ |
/əi/ |
/əi/ |
Pashto is written from right to left.
Dialects
Pashto has two main dialects: a softer dialect spoken in the south, and a harsher dialect in the north. The former is further divided into southwestern and southeastern dialects, and the latter into northwestern (also called central or Ghiljai dialect) and northeastern. It is dominated by the geographical spread of the shift in the pronunciation of these five consonants:
| Southwest |
[ʂ] |
[ʐ] |
[ts] |
[dz] |
[ʒ] |
| Southeast |
[ʃ] |
[ʒ] |
[ts] |
[dz] |
[ʒ] |
| Central |
[ç] |
[g]/[ʝ] |
[ts] |
[z] |
[ʒ] |
| Northeast |
[x] |
[ɡ] |
[s] |
[z] |
[dʒ] |
The morphological differences between the most extreme north-eastern and south-western dialects are comparatively few and unimportant, and the criteria of dialect differentiation in Pashto are primarily phonological.
See also
- Pashto alphabet
The Pashto alphabet is a modified form of the Arabic alphabet with letters added to accommodate phonemes used in Pashto that are not found in Arabic.-History:...
- List of Pashto language poets
- List of Pashto language singers
- Pre-Islamic scripts in Afghanistan
Afghanistan possesses a rich linguistic legacy of pre-Islamic scripts, which existed before being displaced by the Arabic alphabet, after the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.Among these scripts are Sanskrit, Sharda, Gandhari, Kharosthi, Bactrian and Brāhmī ....
External links