Pashto language

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Pushto
پښتو paʂto
Spoken in: Pakistan: western provinces; Afghanistan: south and east.[1] 
Region: South-Central Asia
Total speakers: approx. 40-60 million[2] 
Ranking: 82 (Northern),
92 (Southern)[3]
Language family: Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Iranian
   Northeastern
    Pushto 
Official status
Official language in: Afghanistan (national)
Pakistan (Provincial)
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: ps
ISO 639-2: pus
ISO 639-3: variously:
pus — Pashto (generic)
pst — Central Pashto
pbu — Northern Pashto
pbt — Southern Pashto
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Pashto (پښتو‎, IPA: [pəʂ'to] also rendered as Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto پختو‎, Pashtoe, Pashtu, Pushtu, Pathani or Pushtoo, and also known as Afghani[4][5]) is a language spoken by Pashtuns living in Afghanistan and western Pakistan.[6]

Contents

[edit] Classification

Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranian branch, itself defined within the Iranian family of languages. This group is part of the larger Indo-Iranian and Indo-European language family. Other languages in the Eastern Iranian branch of languages include Sarikoli, Wakhi, Munji, and Shughni. Other notable related Iranian languages include Persian, Kurdish, Balochi, Gilaki, spoken in the Middle East, and Ossetic.

Pashto myāsht nəvay mōr khōr shpa pōza dre tōr sur zhaṛ shin lewa
Other Indo-European languages
Persian māh no mādar khāhar shab damāgh/puze se siyāh/tār sorkh zard sabz gorg
English month new mother sister night nose three black red yellow green wolf
French mois neuf mère soeur nuit nez trois noir rouge jaune vert loup
Greek μήνας νέος μητέρα αδελφή νύχτα μύτη τρία μαύρος/μελανός ερυθρός κίτρινο πράσινο λύκος
Latin mēnsis novus māter soror nox nasus trēs āter, niger ruber flāvus, gilvus viridis lupus
German Monat neu Mutter Schwester Nacht Nase drei schwarz rot gelb grün Wolf
Welsh mis newydd mam chwaer nos trwyn tri du (/di/) coch, rhudd melyn gwyrdd, glas blaidd
Italian mese nuovo madre sorella notte naso tre nero rosso giallo verde lupo
Portuguese mês novo mãe irmã noite nariz três negro vermelho amarelo verde lobo
Spanish mes nuevo madre hermana noche nariz tres negro rojo amarillo verde lobo
Romanian luna nou/noi mamă soră noapte nas trei negru roşu galben verde lup
Latvian mēnesis jauns māte māsa nakts deguns trīs melns sarkans dzeltens zaļš vilks
Lithuanian mėnuo naujas motina sesuo naktis nosis trys juodas raudonas geltonas žalias vilkas
Albanian muaj i ri e ëmë motër natë hundë tre i zi i kuq i verdhë i gjelbër ujk
Polish miesiąc nowy matka siostra noc nos trzy czarny czerwony żółty zielony wilk
Bulgarian месец
mesets 		нов
nov 		майка
maika 		сестра
sestra 		нощ
nosht 		нос
nos 		три
tri 		черен
cheren 		червен
cherven 		жълт
zhălt 		зелен
zelen 		вълк
vălk
Russian месяц
mesyats 		новый
novyi 		мать
mat' 		сестра
sestra 		ночь
noch' 		нос
nos 		три
tri 		чёрный
chyornyi 		красный
krasnyi 		жёлтый
zhyoltyi 		зелёный
zelyonyi 		волк
volk

[edit] Geographic distribution

Image:Moderniranianlanguagesmap.jpg
Geographic distribution of Pashto (purple) and other Iranian languages

Pashto is spoken by about 26 million people in the western provinces of North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Balochistan of Pakistan and by over 15 million people in the south, east, west and a few northern provinces of Afghanistan.[7][8] 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.[9][10]

[edit] Official status

Pashto is the one of the two official languages of Afghanistan and is widely spoken by pashtuns and other ethnic groups.[11] It is not the official language in Pakistan, and is spoken by Pashtun communities in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

[edit] 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 (Kandahar,Helmand,Zabul,Ghazni Afghanistan): [ts] [dz] [ʂ] [ʐ] [ʒ]
Southeast (Quetta,peshawer,Pakistan): [ts] [dz] [ʃ] [ʒ] [ʒ]
Northwest (Central Ghilzai, Afghanistan): [s] [z] [ç] [j] [ʒ]
Northeast (Jallalabad,Khost,paktiya,paktika,kunar, Afghanistan): [s] [z] [x] [g] [d͡ʒ]

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.

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e ə o
Open ɑ

Pashto also has the diphthongs /aj/ /əj/ /aw/

[edit] Consonants

Labial Dental Retroflex Post-
alveolar 		Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal m n ɳ
Plosive p b t d ʈ ɖ k g q ʔ
Fricative f v s z ʂ ʐ ʃ ʒ x ɣ h
Affricate ts dz tʃ dʒ
Approximant l j w
Rhotic r ɺ̢

The sounds /f/, /q/, /h/ are present only in loanwords. Less educated speakers tend to replace them with [p], [k] and nothing, respectively.

The retroflex lateral flap /ɺ̢/ is pronounced as retroflex approximant [ɻ] when final.

[edit] Historical sound changes

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 Arabic, Persian and various Turkic languages.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Alphabet

The letters of the Pashto alphabet are:[12][13]

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

[edit] Examples

This article contains only non-IPA pronunciation information which should be expanded with the International Phonetic Alphabet.
For assistance, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation).

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

[edit] See also

[edit] 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

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ University of Texas in Austin - Ethnolinguistic Groups in Afghanistan...Link
  2. ^ Ethnologue Report for Pashto
  3. ^ David P. Brown: Top 100 Languages by Population
  4. ^ "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>.
  5. ^ "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>
  6. ^ University of Texas in Austin - Ethnolinguistic Groups in Afghanistan...Link
  7. ^ Government of Pakistan: Population by Mother Tongue
  8. ^ CIA -The World Factbook -- Afghanistan
  9. ^ Study of the Pathan Communities in four States of India. Dawat. Retrieved on 2007-01-05.
  10. ^ Pathan. Lucknow for Jesus. Retrieved on 2007-01-05.
  11. ^ Chapter One, Article Sixteen of the Constitution of Afghanistan
  12. ^ Pashto Alphabet Table
  13. ^ Pashto Alphabet Table

[edit] External links

Pashto language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Pashto Computer Fonts


v • d • e
Iranian languages
Old
Western Median · Old Persian
Eastern Avestan† · Old Scythian†
Middle
Western Parthian† · Middle Persian
Eastern Bactrian† · Khwarezmian† · Ossetic · Saka (Sacian) · Scythian · Sogdian
Modern
Western Old Azari† · Baluchi · Bashkardi · Central Iran · Dari (Zoroastrian) · Gilaki · Gorani · Kurmanji · Laki · Luri · Bakhtiari Lori · Mazandarani · Ormuri · Sangsari · Parachi · Persian · Sorani · Taleshi · Tat · Tati · Zazaki
Eastern Bartangi · Hindukush Group · Ishkashmi · Karakoram Group · Khufi · Munji · Oroshori · Ossetic · Parachi · Pashto · Roshani (Roshni) · Sanglechi · Sarikoli · Shughni · Wakhi · Vanji† · Waziri · Yaghnobi · Yidgha · Yazgulami · Zebaki
Legend: † Extinct language (no surviving native speakers and no spoken descendant)
am:ፐሽቶ

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