Pashto

Pashto (Template:Rtl-lang, Template:IPA2, also rendered as Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto Template:Rtl-lang, Pashtoe, Pashtu, Pushtu, Pathani or Pushtoo and also known as Afghan language<ref>"afghan." The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 03 Jan. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/afghani>.</ref><ref>"afghan." WordNet 3.0. Princeton University. 03 Jan. 2008. <Word Net http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=Afghani&sub=Search+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&h=00></ref>) is an Iranian language spoken by Pashtuns living in Afghanistan and Pakistan.<ref>University of Texas in Austin - Ethnolinguistic Groups in Afghanistan...Link</ref> Although spoken by nearly 25 million people in various countries, it has been classified as a tribal tongue due to limited vocabulary, unstructured grammar and inconsistencies in syntax.<ref>Pashto Literature - A Quest for Identity :: Khyber.ORG</ref> However, some of the Pashto literature has been observed to follow modern literary trends.

Geographic distribution

File:Moderniranianlanguagesmap.jpg

Geographic distribution of Pashto (purple) and other Iranian languages

Pashto is spoken by about 30 million people in the western provinces of North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Balochistan of Pakistan (15.4% of the total population)<ref>Government of Pakistan: Population by Mother Tongue</ref> and by over 15 million people in the south, east, west and a few northern provinces of Afghanistan (ca. 40% of the total population).<ref>CIA -The World Factbook -- Afghanistan</ref> In Pakistan, smaller, modern "transplant" communities are also found in Sindh (Karachi, Hyderabad). Other smaller communities of Pashto speakers also thrive in northeastern Iran and in India, particularly in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, where Pathan colonies were founded.<ref name="Dawat-Pathans of India">"Study of the Pathan Communities in four States of India". Dawat. Archived from the original. Template:Citation error. http://www.dawatnet.com/english/fullstory.php?id=333. Retrieved on 2007-01-05. </ref><ref name="Lucknow for Jesus-Pathans of Lucknow, U.P.">"Pathan". Lucknow for Jesus. Archived from the original. Template:Citation error. http://www.lucknow4jesus.org/people/people2.asp. Retrieved on 2007-01-05. </ref>

Official status

Pashto is the national and (along with Dari) one of the two official languages of Afghanistan and is widely spoken by pashtuns and other ethnic groups.<ref>Chapter One, Article Sixteen of the Constitution of Afghanistan</ref> It is not the official language in Pakistan, and is spoken by Pashtun communities in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan Province .

Dialects

The northern dialect is spoken by about 6,000,000 people, and the southern dialect by about 1,500,000. One of the main features of the dialects is the differences in the pronunciation of these five phonemes (all sounds in IPA):

Southwest:	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Southeast:	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Northwest:	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Northeast:	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

The dialect of Kandahar is the most conservative with regards to phonology, retaining both the dental affricates and the retroflex fricatives, which have not merged with other phonemes.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPA		Template:IPA
Mid	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Open		Template:IPA

Pashto also has the diphthongs Template:IPA

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Retroflex	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Plosive	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA			Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Fricative	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA		Template:IPA		Template:IPA
Affricate		Template:IPA		Template:IPA
Approximant		Template:IPA			Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Rhotic		Template:IPA	Template:IPA

The sounds Template:IPA are present only in loanwords. Less educated speakers tend to replace them with Template:IPA, Template:IPA and nothing, respectively.

The retroflex lateral flap Template:IPA is pronounced as retroflex approximant Template:IPA when final.

Historical sound changes

This section is a stub. You can help the wiki by expanding it.

Grammar

Pashto is a S-O-V language with split ergativity. Adjectives come before nouns. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for gender (Masculine/Feminine), number (Singular/Plural) and case (Direct/Oblique). Direct case is used for subjects and direct objects in the present tense. Oblique case is used after most pre- and post-positions as well as in the past tense as the subject of transitive verbs. There is no definite article, but instead there is extensive use of the demonstratives this/that. The verb system is very intricate with the following: Simple Present, Subjunctive, Simple Past, Past Progressive, Present Perfect, and Past Perfect. In any of the past tenses (Simple Past, Past Progressive, Present Perfect and Past Perfect) Pashto is an ergative language, i.e. transitive verbs in any of the past tenses agree with the object of the sentence.

Vocabulary

Pashto, being an Indo-European language, shares many cognates with other related languages. Following the advent of Islam in Afghanistan, the Pashto language has received a significant influx of loan-words from Greek, Arabic, Persian and various Turkic languages.

Writing system

From the time of Islam's rise in South-Central Asia, Pashto has used a modified version of the Arabic script. The seventeenth century saw the rise of a polemic debate which also was polarized along lines of script. The heterodox Roshani movement wrote their literature mostly in the Persianate style called the Nasta'liq script. The followers of the Akhund Darweza, and the Akhund himself, who viewed themselves as defending the religion against the influence of syncretism, wrote Pashto in the Arabicized Naskh. With some individualized exceptions Naskh has been the generally used script in the modern era of Pashto, roughly corresponding with the late 19th and 20th centuries, due to its greater adaptability for typesetting. Even lithographically reproduced Pashto (generally in Pakistan) has been calligraphied in Naskh as a general rule, since it was adopted as standard.

Pashto has several letters which do not appear in any other Arabic script which represent the retroflex versions of the consonants /t/, /d/, /r/, /n/. The letters are written like the standard Arabic ta', dal, ra', and nun with a "pandak", "gharwandah" or also called "skarraen" attached underneath which looks like a small circle; ړ ,ډ ,ټ, and ڼ, respectively. It also has the letters ge and xin (the initial sound of which is like the German ch found in the word "ich") which look like a ra' and sin respectively with a dot above and beneath. Pashto also has the extra letters that has been added to the Arabic alphabet. It has a number of additional vowel diacritics as well, though these often vary in their usage.

Alphabet

The letters of the Pashto alphabet are:<ref>Pashto Alphabet Table</ref><ref>Pashto Alphabet Table</ref>

^{ا ب پ ت ټ ث ج ځ چ څ ح خ د ډ ذ ر ړ ز ژ ږ س ش ښ ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک ګ ل م ن ڼ ه ۀ و ؤ ى ئ ي ې ۍ}

Examples

• Note - The following transliterations represent the Kabuli dialect.

Examples of intransitive sentence forms using the verb "to go" "tləl":

Command (you masculine-singular):

• khawanze/shawanze (ښوونځى) ta dza! or khawanze/shawanze ta lāṛ ša!
• School to go - Go to school!

Command (you masculine-plural):

• khawanze/shawanze ta lāṛ šəy!
• Go to school!

Simple Present:

• zə khawanze/shawanze ta dzəm.
• I school to go - I go to school.

• zə ğwāṛəm če khawanze/shawanze ta lāṛ šəm.
• I want that to school go (Masculine-I-verb form) - I want to go to school.

Present Perfect:

• zə khawanze/shawanze ta tləlay yəm.
• I school to gone (Masculine verb form) am - I have gone to school.

Simple Past:

• zə khawanze/shawanze ta wəlāṛəm.
• I school to went - I went to school.

Past Perfect:

• zə khawanze/shawanze ta tləlay wəm.
• I school to gone (Masculine verb form) was - I had gone to school.

Past Progressive:

• zə khawanze/shawanze ta makh kay talay um"
• I school to was going - I was going to school or I used to go to school

Examples of transative sentence forms using the verb "to eat" "xwaṛəl":

Command (You singular):

• Panir wəxora!
• cheese eat - Eat the cheese!

• Panir məxora!
• cheese no-eat - Don't eat the cheese!

Command (You plural):

• Panir wəxorəy!
• cheese eat - Eat the cheese!

• Panir məxorəy!
• cheese no-eat - Don't eat the cheese!

Simple Present:

• zə panir xorəm.
• I cheese eat - I eat cheese.

Subjunctive:

• zə ğwāṛəm če panir wəxorəm.
• I want that cheese eat (I-verb form) - I want to eat cheese.

Present Perfect: ما پنېر خوړلی دی

• mā panir xoṛəlay day.
• me (I-oblique) cheese eaten (masculine-singular verb form) is - I have eaten cheese.

Simple Past:

• mā panir wəxoṛə.
• me (I-oblique) cheese ate - I ate cheese

Past Perfect:

• mā panir xoṛəlay wo.
• me (I-oblique) cheese eaten (masculine-singular verb form) was - I had eaten cheese.

Past Progressive:

• mā panir xoṛə.
• me (I oblique) cheese was eating (masculine-singular verb form) - I was eating cheese or I used to eat cheese.

Questions Stā num tsə day your name what is - what is your name

See also

• List of Pashto language poets
• List of Pashto Language Singers
• Iranian Languages vocabulary comparison table

Bibliography

• Schmidt, Rüdiger (ed.) (1989). Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: Reichert. ISBN 3-88226-413-6. 

• Morgenstierne, Georg (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo. ISBN 0-923891-09-9

Footnotes

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External links

• Islamic Republic Of Afghanistan Official name of Afghanistan / Afghan issues, articles and news on the Pashtu language
• Pashto dictionaries in German, French, English and Spanish[1]
• Pashto to English Dictionary [2]
• H. G. Raverty. A Dictionary of the Puk'hto, Pus'hto, or Language of the Afghans. Second edition, with considerable additions. London: Williams and Norgate, 1867.
• Freeware Online Pashto Dictionaries
• Dr. Kabir Stori (ډاکتر کبیر ستوری)
• Pashto (پښتو ېده کړه)
• afghanan(افغانان)
• Khyber.Org - Khyber Gateway
• AEAS
• ( Talafghan.com تل افغان خپلواکه ناپېيلې فرهنګي ټولنيزه وېب پاڼه )
• Pashtoonkhwa(د پښتنو ټولنيز ولسوليز ګوند پښتونخوا/ افغانستان)
• TolAfghan (ټول افغان)
• Benawa.com: Kandahar Afghanistan (بېنوا ويب پاڼه - افغانستان)
• Hewad Afghanistan - هېواد افغانستان
• Pashto.org - Da Pashto Network
• Yaw Afghan (Free Pashto software, fonts etc.)
• Afghan Adabi Baheer (د افغان ادبي بهير)
• Gorbat.org (ګوربت كلتوري ټولنه)
• LawangOnline Pashto magazine (لونګ مجله)
• First Unicode Pashto Discussion Board from Pukhtoonkhwa دستار پښتو حجره
• Google in Pashto

• VOA News - Pashto (د امریکا غږ - پښتو)
• Azadi Radio (د آزادۍ راديو)
• BBC News - Pashto
• CRI Radio پښتو (Pashto)
• Deutsche Welle Pashto - د المان غږ
• Deutsche Welle Pashto Radio - د المان غږ راديو
• AVT Khyber - Pashto TV

• UCLA article
• Ethnologue report for Pashto
• GRN report for Pashto
• Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List
• Download free english-pashto dictionary
• د پښتو ژبی ډیر ارزښتناکه کورتپانه
• An cultural pashto web site
• The only and the best Pashto television in Afghanistan
• The Pashto software localization and development

Pashto Computer Fonts

• Free fonts:
  • Download Free Pashto Font for ASCI condes and other softwares
  • Download Free Pashto Font (zip format)
  • Download Free popular Pashto fonts
  • Download Free Pashto Font (win32 executable) site1
  • Download Free Pashto Font (win32 executable) site2
  • Wazu Japan - Free and Non-free Pashto Fonts

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