Pashto language

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Template:Infobox Language

Pashto (Naskh: پښتو - Template:IPA-all; also transliterated Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto, Pashtu, or Pushtu), also known as Afghani,^[1][1] is an Indo-European language spoken primarily in Afghanistan and western Pakistan.^[1] Pashto belongs to the Eastern Iranian^[1] branch of the Indo-Iranian language family. The number of Pashto-speakers is estimated to be 30-40 million, and as defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, Pashto is an official and national language of the country.

Geographic distribution

In Afghanistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south and southwest, but also in some northern and northwestern parts as a result of recent relocation. No exact numbers are available, but the CIA World Factbook 2009 estimates that 35% of the population speak Pashto as their first language.^[1] According to an older, but scholarly, estimate by the Encyclopaedia Iranica, Pashto is the native language of 50 to 55 percent of the population, and spoken by less than 10 percent as a second language.^[1] According to "A survey of the Afghan people - Afghanistan in 2006",^[1] Pashto is the first language of 40% of the population, while additional 28% also speak the language (combined 68%).

In Pakistan, Pashto is spoken by about 27 million people (15% of the total population)^[1] in the North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Balochistan. Modern Pushtun speaking communities are also found in Sindh (Karachi and Hyderabad). With an estimated 4 million ethnic Pashtuns, Karachi hosts one of the largest Pashtun populations in the world.

Other communities of Pashto-speakers are found in northeastern Iran, primarily in South Khorasan Province to the east of Qaen, near the Afghan border,^[1] and in Tajikistan.^[1] There are also Pashtun communities in Uttar Pradesh as well as the southwestern part of Jammu & Kashmir in India.^[1][1][1]

Sizable Pashto-speaking communities also exist in the Middle East, especially in the United Arab Emirates^[1] and Saudi Arabia, as well as in the United States, particularly California, and in the United Kingdom,^[1] Thailand, Canada and Australia.

Official status

In Afghanistan, Pashto is promoted as the first state language, and article 20 of the Constitution of Afghanistan states that the Afghan National Anthem "shall be in Pashto..."^[1] Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan that are used for the administration of the government throughout the country. Pashto is also used in education, literature, office and court business, media, and in religious institutions, etc. It is a repository of the cultural and social heritage of the country. In Pakistan, Pashto is not an official language, but it is one of the provincial languages spoken by the Pashtuns living in Pakistan, in the NWFP, FATA and Balochistan.

Grammar

Template:Main

Pashto is an S-O-V language with split ergativity. Adjectives come before nouns. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for two genders (masc./fem.),^[1] two numbers (sing./plur.), and four cases (direct, oblique I, oblique II and vocative). The verb system is very intricate with the following tenses: 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

Phonology

Vowels

Pashto also has the diphthongs Template:IPA.

Consonants

The phonemes Template:IPA tend to be replaced by Template:IPA.

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

The retroflex fricatives Template:IPA that are preserved in southern dialects are replaced by palatal fricatives Template:IPA in west-central dialects, velars Template:IPA in northern dialects, and postalveolars Template:IPA in southeastern dialects.^[1]

The velars Template:IPA followed by the close back rounded vowel Template:IPA assimilate into the labialized velars Template:IPA. Template:Pashtuns

Vocabulary

In Pashto, most of the native elements of the lexicon are related to other Eastern Iranian languages; those words can be easily compared to those known from Farsi, Avestan, Ossetic and Pamir languages. However, a remarkably large number of words is special to Pashto.^[1] Post 7th century borrowings came primarily from Arabic. Modern borrowings come from Persian^[1] and Hindi-Urdu (In Pakistan) with the modern educated speech borrowing words from English,^[1] French,^[1] and German.^[1]

Writing system

Template:Main Pashto employs the Pashto alphabet, a modified form of the Arabic alphabet with extra letters added for Pashto-specific sounds. As of the 17th century Pashto has been primarily written in the Naskh Arabic script, rather than the Nasta'liq script used for neighboring Persian and Urdu languages. The Pashto alphabet consists of 46 letters, and 4 diacritic marks. The following table gives the letters' isolated forms, along with IPA values for the letters' typical sounds:

Dialects

As a consequence of life in areas of rugged terrain, there are many dialects of Pashto language. The two main dialects are soft or southern dialect and hard or northern dialect. Paktika is roughly the dividing line. One of the primary features of the dialects is the differences in the pronunciation of these seven phonemes (all sounds in IPA):

The differences between the southern dialects and the northern dialects are primarily phonological and there are simple conversion rules. The morphological differences between them are very few and unimportant. However, the east-central dialects are lexicologically different and very varied. The southern dialect of Kandahar is the most conservative with regards to phonology, retaining the retroflex fricatives and the alveolar affricates, which have not merged with other phonemes. The Pashto alphabet reflects the southern dialect. Certain dialects show many archaic features, some of which are discarded by the literary language.

Notable phonological and lexicological differences

See also

• Iranian Languages vocabulary comparison table
• List of Pashto language poets
• List of Pashto language singers

Notes and references

Template:Reflist

Bibliography

• Template:Cite book
• Morgenstierne, Georg (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo. ISBN 0-923891-09-9
• Gusain, Lakhan (2008??) " A Grammar of Pashto". Ann Arbor, MI: Northside Publishers. ISBN ??

External links

Template:InterWiki

• 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.
• The Pashto software localization and development
• پښتو ليکلاﺭ ښود, by Prof Zyar (Pashto)
• D. N. MacKenzie, "A Standard Pashto", Khyber.org
• Orthography and Phonemes in Pashto (Afghan)
• Freeware Online Pashto Dictionaries
• A Pashto Word List

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