Pashto
پښتو Pax̌tó
The word Pax̌tó written in the Pashto alphabet
Pronunciation	[pəʂˈto], [pʊxˈto], [pəçˈto], [pəʃˈto]
Native to	Afghanistan, Pakistan
Ethnicity	Pashtuns
Speakers	L1: 44 million (2017–2021)[1] L2: 4.9 million (2022)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Eastern Pashto
Standard forms	Central Pashto Northern Pashto Southern Pashto
Dialects	Pashto dialects
Writing system	Pashto alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Afghanistan  Pakistan  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa[a]
Recognised minority language in	Pakistan[3]  Balochistan
Regulated by	Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan Pashto Academy of Pakistan Pashto Academy Quetta
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ps – Pashto, Pushto
ISO 639-2	pus – Pushto, Pashto
ISO 639-3	pus – inclusive code – Pashto, Pushto Individual codes: pst – Central Pashto pbu – Northern Pashto pbt – Southern Pashto wne – Wanetsi
Glottolog	pash1269  Pashto
Linguasphere	58-ABD-a
Areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan where Pashto is:   the predominant language   spoken alongside other languages
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This article contains Pashto text. Without proper rendering support, you may see unjoined letters or other symbols instead of Pashto script.

Pashto^[b] (/ˈpʌʃtoʊ/ PUH-shto,^[6][4][5]/ˈpæʃtoʊ/ PASH-toe;^[c] پښتو, Pəx̌tó, [pəʂˈto, pʊxˈto, pəʃˈto, pəçˈto]) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (افغانی, Afghāni).^[8]

Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan alongside Dari,^[9][10][11] and it is the second-largest provincial language of Pakistan, spoken mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of Balochistan.^[12] Likewise, it is the primary language of the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is at least 40 million,^[13] although some estimates place it as high as 60 million.^[14] Pashto is "one of the primary markers of ethnic identity" amongst Pashtuns.^[15]

A national language of Afghanistan,^[16] Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south, and southwest, but also in some northern and western parts of the country. The exact number of speakers is unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 45–60%^{[17][18][19][20]} of the total population of Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, Pashto is spoken by 15% of its population,^[21][22] mainly in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern districts of Balochistan province. It is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province, areas of Gilgit-Baltistan and in Islamabad. Pashto speakers are found in other major cities of Pakistan, most notably Karachi, Sindh,^{[23][24][25][26]} which may have the largest Pashtun population of any city in the world.^[27]

Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in India, Tajikistan,^[28] and northeastern Iran (primarily in South Khorasan Province to the east of Qaen, near the Afghan border).^[29] In India most ethnic Pashtun (Pathan) peoples speak the geographically native Hindi-Urdu language rather than Pashto, but there are small numbers of Pashto speakers, such as the Sheen Khalai in Rajasthan,^[30] and the Pathan community in the city of Kolkata, often nicknamed the Kabuliwala ("people of Kabul").^[31][32] Pashtun diaspora communities in other countries around the world speak Pashto, especially the sizable communities in the United Arab Emirates^[33] and Saudi Arabia.

Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari Persian.^[34] Since the early 18th century, the monarchs of Afghanistan have been ethnic Pashtuns (except for Habibullāh Kalakāni in 1929).^[35] Persian, the literary language of the royal court,^[36] was more widely used in government institutions, while the Pashtun tribes spoke Pashto as their native tongue. King Amanullah Khan began promoting Pashto during his reign (1926–1929) as a marker of ethnic identity and as a symbol of "official nationalism"^[35] leading Afghanistan to independence after the defeat of the British Empire in the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. 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^[37] and the inauguration of the Kabul University in 1932 as well as the formation of the Pashto Academy (Pashto Tolana) in 1937.^[38] Muhammad Na'im Khan, the minister of education between 1938 and 1946, inaugurated the formal policy of promoting Pashto as Afghanistan's national language, leading to the commission and publication of Pashto textbooks.^[39] The Pashto Tolana was later incorporated into the Academy of Sciences Afghanistan in line with Soviet model following the Saur Revolution in 1978.^[40]

Although officially supporting the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a "sophisticated language and a symbol of cultured upbringing".^[35] King Zahir Shah (reigning 1933–1973) thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933 that officials were to study and utilize both Persian and Pashto.^[41] In 1936 a royal decree of Zahir Shah formally granted Pashto the status of an official language,^[42] with full rights to use in all aspects of government and education – despite the fact that the ethnically Pashtun royal family and bureaucrats mostly spoke Persian.^[38] Thus Pashto became a national language, a symbol for Pashtun nationalism.

The constitutional assembly reaffirmed the status of Pashto as an official language in 1964 when Afghan Persian was officially renamed to Dari.^[43][44] The lyrics of the national anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto.

In British India, prior to the creation of Pakistan by the British government, the 1920s saw the blossoming of Pashto language in the then NWFP: Abdul Ghafar Khan in 1921 established the Anjuman-e- Islah al-Afaghina (Society for the Reformation of Afghans) to promote Pashto as an extension of Pashtun culture; around 80,000 people attended the Society's annual meeting in 1927.^[45] In 1955, Pashtun intellectuals including Abdul Qadir formed the Pashto Academy Peshawar on the model of Pashto Tolana formed in Afghanistan.^[46] In 1974, the Department of Pashto was established in the University of Balochistan for the promotion of Pashto.^[47]

In Pakistan, Pashto is the first language around of 15% of its population (per the 1998 census).^[48] However, Urdu and English are the two official languages of Pakistan. Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and north Balochistan.^[49] Yet, the primary medium of education in government schools in Pakistan is Urdu.^[50][51]

The lack of importance given to Pashto and its neglect has caused growing resentment amongst Pashtuns.^{[52][53][54][55]} It is noted that Pashto is taught poorly in schools in Pakistan.^[56] Moreover, in government schools material is not provided for in the Pashto dialect of that locality, Pashto being a dialectically rich language.^[57] Further, researchers have observed that Pashtun students are unable to fully comprehend educational material in Urdu.^[58]

Professor Tariq Rahman states:^[59]

"The government of Pakistan, faced with irredentist claims from Afghanistan on its territory, also discouraged the Pashto Movement and eventually allowed its use in peripheral domains only after the Pakhtun elite had been co-opted by the ruling elite...Thus, even though there is still an active desire among some Pakhtun activists to use Pashto in the domains of power, it is more of a symbol of Pakhtun identity than one of nationalism."

— Tariq Rahman, The Pashto language and identity-formation in Pakistan

Robert Nicols states:^[60]

"In the end, national language policy, especially in the field of education in the NWFP, had constructed a type of three tiered language hierarchy. Pashto lagged far behind Urdu and English in prestige or development in almost every domain of political or economic power..."

— Language Policy and Language Conflict in Afghanistan and Its Neighbors, Pashto Language Policy and Practice in the North West Frontier Province

Although Pashto used as a medium of instruction in schools for Pashtun students results in better understanding and comprehension for students when compared to using Urdu, still the government of Pakistan has only introduced Pashto at the primary levels in state-run schools.^[61] Taimur Khan remarks: "the dominant Urdu language squeezes and denies any space for Pashto language in the official and formal capacity. In this contact zone, Pashto language exists but in a subordinate and unofficial capacity".^[62]

Some linguists have argued that Pashto is descended from Avestan or a variety very similar to it, while others have attempted to place it closer to Bactrian.^[63][64][65] However, neither position is universally agreed upon. What scholars do agree on is the fact that Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language sharing characteristics with Eastern Middle Iranian languages such as Bactrian, Khwarezmian and Sogdian.^[66][67]

Compare with other Eastern Iranian Languages and Old Avestan:

Strabo, who lived between 64 BC and 24 CE, explains that the tribes inhabiting the lands west of the Indus River were part of Ariana. This was around the time when the area inhabited by the Pashtuns was governed by the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. From the 3rd century CE onward, they are mostly referred to by the name Afghan (Abgan).^{[74][75][76][8]}

Abdul Hai Habibi believed that the earliest modern Pashto work dates back to Amir Kror Suri of the early Ghurid period in the 8th century, and they use the writings found in Pata Khazana. Pə́ṭa Xazāná (پټه خزانه) is a Pashto manuscript^[77] claimed to be written by Mohammad Hotak under the patronage of the Pashtun emperor Hussain Hotak in Kandahar; containing an anthology of Pashto poets. However, its authenticity is disputed by scholars such as David Neil MacKenzie and Lucia Serena Loi.^[78][79] Nile Green comments in this regard:^[80]

"In 1944, Habibi claimed to have discovered an eighteenth-century manuscript anthology containing much older biographies and verses of Pashto poets that stretched back as far as the eighth century. It was an extraordinary claim, implying as it did that the history of Pashto literature reached back further in time than Persian, thus supplanting the hold of Persian over the medieval Afghan past. Although it was later convincingly discredited through formal linguistic analysis, Habibi's publication of the text under the title Pata Khazana ('Hidden Treasure') would (in Afghanistan at least) establish his reputation as a promoter of the wealth and antiquity of Afghanistan's Pashto culture."

— Afghan History Through Afghan Eyes

From the 16th century, Pashto poetry become very popular among the Pashtuns. Some of those who wrote in Pashto are Bayazid Pir Roshan (a major inventor of the Pashto alphabet), Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Nazo Tokhi, and Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the modern state of Afghanistan or the Durrani Empire. The Pashtun literary tradition grew in the backdrop to weakening Pashtun power following Mughal rule: Khushal Khan Khattak used Pashto poetry to rally for Pashtun unity and Pir Bayazid as an expedient means to spread his message to the Pashtun masses.^[81]

For instance Khushal Khattak laments in :^[82]

"The Afghans (Pashtuns) are far superior to the Mughals at the sword,

Were but the Afghans, in intellect, a little discreet. If the different tribes would but support each other,

Kings would have to bow down in prostration before them"

— Khushal Khan Khattak, Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans

Pashto is a subject–object–verb (SOV) language with split ergativity. In Pashto, this means that the verb agrees with the subject in transitive and intransitive sentences in non-past, non-completed clauses, but when a completed action is reported in any of the past tenses, the verb agrees with the subject if it is intransitive, but with the object if it is transitive.^[16] Verbs are inflected for present, simple past, past progressive, present perfect, and past perfect tenses. There is also an inflection for the subjunctive mood.

Nouns and adjectives are inflected for two genders (masculine and feminine),^[83] two numbers (singular and plural), and four cases (direct, oblique, ablative, and vocative). The possessor precedes the possessed in the genitive construction, and adjectives come before the nouns they modify.

Unlike most other Indo-Iranian languages, Pashto uses all three types of adpositions—prepositions, postpositions, and circumpositions.

*The retroflex rhotic or lateral, tends to be a lateral flap [𝼈] at the beginning of a syllable or other prosodic unit, and a regular flap [ɽ] or approximant [ɻ] elsewhere.^[85][86]

In Pashto, most of the native elements of the lexicon are related to other Eastern Iranian languages.^[67] As noted by Josef Elfenbein, "Loanwords have been traced in Pashto as far back as the third century B.C., and include words from Greek and probably Old Persian".^[87] For instance, Georg Morgenstierne notes the Pashto word مېچن [mečә́n] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 4) (help) i.e. a hand-mill as being derived from the Ancient Greek word μηχανή (mēkhanḗ, i.e. a device).^[88] Post-7th century borrowings came primarily from Persian and Hindi-Urdu, with Arabic words being borrowed through Persian,^[89] but sometimes directly.^[90][91] Modern speech borrows words from English, French, and German.^[92]

However, a remarkably large number of words are unique to Pashto.^[93][94]

Here is an exemplary list of Pure Pashto and borrowings:^[95][96]

Due to the incursion of Persian and Persianized-Arabic in modern speech, linguistic purism of Pashto is advocated to prevent its own vocabulary from dying out.^{[94][self-published source][97][98]}

There is a lot of old vocabulary that has been replaced by borrowings e.g. پلاز plâz^[99] 'throne' with تخت takht, from Persian.^[100][101] Or the word يګانګي yagānagí^[102] meaning 'uniqueness' used by Pir Roshan Bayazid.^[103] Such classical vocabulary is being reintroduced to modern Pashto.^[104] Some words also survive in dialects like ناوې پلاز 'the bride-room'.^[105]

Example from Khayr al-Bayān:^[103]

... بې يګانګئ بې قرارئ وي او په بدخوئ کښې وي په ګناهان

Transliteration: ... be-yagānagə́i, be-kararə́i wi aw pə badxwə́i kx̌e wi pə gunāhā́n

Translation: "... without singularity/uniqueness, without calmness and by bad-attitude are on sin ."

Pashto employs the Pashto alphabet, a modified form of the Perso-Arabic alphabet or Arabic script.^[106] In the 16th century, Bayazid Pir Roshan introduced 13 new letters to the Pashto alphabet. The alphabet was further modified over the years.

The Pashto alphabet consists of 45 to 46 letters^[107] and 4 diacritic marks. Latin Pashto is also used.^{[108][109][110]} In Latin transliteration, stress is represented by the following markers over vowels: ә́, á, ā́, ú, ó, í and é. The following table (read from left to right) gives the letters' isolated forms, along with possible Latin equivalents and typical IPA values:

Pashto dialects are divided into two categories, the "soft" southern grouping of Paṣ̌tō, and the "hard" northern grouping of Pax̌tō (Pakhtu).^[111] Each group is further divided into a number of dialects. The Southern dialect of Tareeno is the most distinctive Pashto dialect.

اوږد 'long' - in different dialects

South Western (Kandahar)

IPA: /uʐd/

---

North Western (Jalalabad)

IPA: /uɡd/

---

Northern (Khost)

IPA: /wuɡd/

---

Southern (Kunduz)

IPA: /wuʐd/

---

North Eastern (Yusapzai)

IPA: /u.ɡəˈd/

---

Problems playing these files? See media help.

1. Southern variety

• Abdaili or Kandahar dialect (or South Western dialect)
• Kakar dialect (or South Eastern dialect)
• Shirani dialect
• Mandokhel dialect
• Marwat-Bettani dialect
• Southern Karlani group

• Khattak dialect
• Wazirwola dialect

• Dawarwola dialect
• Masidwola dialect

• Banisi (Banu) dialect

2. Northern variety

• Central Ghilji dialect (or North Western dialect)
• Yusapzai and Momand dialect (or North Eastern dialect)
• Northern Karlani group

• Wardak dialect
• Taniwola dialect
• Mangal tribe dialect
• Khosti dialect
• Zadran dialect
• Bangash-Orakzai-Turi-Zazi dialect
• Afridi dialect
• Khogyani dialect

3. Tareeno Dialect

Literary Pashto is the artificial variety of Pashto that is used at times as literary register of Pashto. It is said to be based on the North Western dialect, spoken in the central Ghilji region. Literary Pashto's vocabulary, also derives from other dialects.^[112]

There is no actual Pashto that can be identified as "Standard" Pashto, as Colye remarks:^[112]

"Standard Pashto is actually fairly complex with multiple varieties or forms. Native speakers or researchers often refer to Standard Pashto without specifying which variety of Standard Pashto they mean...people sometimes refer to Standard Pashto when they mean the most respected or favorite Pashto variety among a majority of Pashtun speakers."

— Placing Wardak among Pashto Varieties, page 4

As David MacKenzie notes there is no real need to develop a "Standard" Pashto:^[113]

"The morphological differences between the most extreme north-eastern and south-western dialects are comparatively few and unimportant. The criteria of dialect differentiation in Pashto are primarily phonological. With the use of an alphabet which disguises these phonological differences the language has, therefore, been a literary vehicle, widely understood, for at least four centuries. This literary language has long been referred to in the West as 'common' or 'standard' Pashto without, seemingly, any real attempt to define it."

— A Standard Pashto, page 231

Pashto-speakers have long had a tradition of oral literature, including proverbs, stories, and poems. Written Pashto literature saw a rise in development in the 17th century mostly due to poets like Khushal Khan Khattak (1613–1689), who, along with Rahman Baba (1650–1715), is widely regarded as among the greatest Pashto poets. From the time of Ahmad Shah Durrani (1722–1772), Pashto has been the language of the court. The first Pashto teaching text was written during the period of Ahmad Shah Durrani by Pir Mohammad Kakar with the title of Maʿrifat al-Afghānī ("The Knowledge of Afghani [Pashto]"). After that, the first grammar book of Pashto verbs was written in 1805 under the title of Riyāż al-Maḥabbah ("Training in Affection") through the patronage of Nawab Mahabat Khan, son of Hafiz Rahmat Khan, chief of the Barech. Nawabullah Yar Khan, another son of Hafiz Rahmat Khan, in 1808 wrote a book of Pashto words entitled ʿAjāyib al-Lughāt ("Wonders of Languages").

An excerpt from the Kalām of Rahman Baba:

زۀ رحمٰن پۀ خپله ګرم يم چې مين يم
چې دا نور ټوپن مې بولي ګرم په څۀ

Pronunciation: [zə raˈmɑn pə ˈxpəl.a ɡram jəm t͡ʃe maˈjan jəm
t͡ʃe dɑ nor ʈoˈpən me boˈli ɡram pə t͡sə]

Transliteration: Zə Rahmā́n pə xpə́la gram yəm če mayán yəm
Če dā nor ṭopə́n me bolí gram pə tsə

Translation: "I Rahman, myself am guilty that I am a lover,
On what does this other universe call me guilty."

See: Pashto literature and poetry § Proverbs

Pashto also has a rich heritage of proverbs (Pashto matalúna, sg. matál).^[114][115] An example of a proverb:

اوبه په ډانګ نه بېلېږي

Transliteration: Obә́ pə ḍāng nə beléẓ̌i

Translation: "One cannot divide water by [hitting it with] a pole."

List of colors:

List of colors borrowed from neighbouring languages:

• نارنجي nārәnjí - orange [from Persian]
• ګلابي gulābí - pink [from Hindustani, originally Persian]
• نيلي nilí - indigo [from Persian, ultimately Sanskrit]]

Pashtuns use the Vikrami calendar:^[116]

• Hallberg, Daniel G. (1992). Pashto, Waneci, Ormuri. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan. Vol. 4. National Institute of Pakistani Studies. ISBN 969-8023-14-3. OCLC 1034637486.
• Morgenstierne, Georg (2007) [1926, pub. by Aschehoug, Oslo]. Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning Serie C I-2. New York: Ishi Press International. ISBN 978-0-923891-09-1.
• Penzl, Herbert (2009) [1955, pub. by American Council of Learned Societies, Washington, DC]. A Grammar of Pashto: A Descriptive Study of the Dialect of Kandahar, Afghanistan. New York: Ishi Press. ISBN 978-0-923891-72-5.
• Penzl, Herbert (2009) [1962, pub. by University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI]. A Reader of Pashto. New York: Ishi Press. ISBN 978-0-923891-71-8.
• Schmidt, Rüdiger, ed. (1989). Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: L. Reichert. ISBN 3-88226-413-6.

• Morgenstierne, Georg (1978). "The Place of Pashto among the Iranic Languages and the Problem of the Constitution of Pashtun Linguistic and Ethnic Unity". Paṣto Quarterly. 1 (4): 43–55.
• Boyle David, Anne; Brugman, Claudia, eds. (2014). Descriptive Grammar of Pashto and its Dialects. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. doi:10.1515/9781614512318. ISBN 978-1-61451-303-2.

• Pashto Dictionary with Phonetic Keyboard & Auto-Suggestion
• Pashto Phonetic Keyboard
• Pashto Language & Identity Formation in Pakistan^[usurped]
• Henry George Raverty. A Dictionary of the Puk'hto, Pus'hto, or Language of the Afghans. Second edition, with considerable additions. London: Williams and Norgate, 1867.
• D. N. MacKenzie, "A Standard Pashto"^[usurped], Khyber.org
• Freeware Online Pashto Dictionaries
• A Pashto Word List
• Origins of Pashto
• Resources for the Study of the Pashto Language