Pashto language - Citizendia

Pashto پښتو paʂto
Spoken in:	Afghanistan: south, east, and some parts of north and west; Pakistan: western provinces; India: different parts. ^[1]
Region:	South-Central Asia
Total speakers:	approx. Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east and from southern Russia in the north to northern Pakistan in the south 40-45 million^[2]
Ranking:	82 (Northern), 92 (Southern)^[3]
Language family:	Indo-European Indo-Aryan Aryan Northeast Pashto
Writing system:	Naskh, Latin
Official status
Official language in:	Afghanistan, Pakistan (provincial)
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	`ps`
ISO 639-2:	`pas`
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. This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. Naskh (نسخ also known as Naskhi or by its Turkish name Nesih, from Arabic نسخ nasakha, naskh meaning "to copy" This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages Pashto ( Naskh: پښتو‎ pəʂ'to also rendered as Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto, Pashtu, Pushtu, also known as In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Pashto (پښتو‎, IPA: [pəʂ'to], also rendered as Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto, Pashtoe, Pashtu, Pushtu, Pathani or Pushtoo and also known as Afghani^[4]^[5]) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Pashtuns living in Afghanistan, Pakistan and some parts of India. Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/ officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ( Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت, Pakistan () officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia, Southwest Asia, Middle East and India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country

Native speakers of Pashto language account for 42. 6% of the Afghan population and 15. 42% of the Pakistani population. As defined in the Constitution, Pashto is the national and official language of Afghanistan and is used for the administration of the Afghan government throughout the country.

1 Dialects
2 Classification
3 Official status
4 Grammar
5 Phonology
- 5.1 Vowels
- 5.2 Consonants
6 Vocabulary
7 Writing system
8 Examples
9 See also
10 Bibliography
11 Footnotes
12 External links
- 12.1 Pashto Computer Fonts

Dialects

As a consequence of life in mountainous areas, weak socio-economic inter-relations, along with other historic and linguistic reasons, there are many dialects in Pashto language. However, as a whole, Pashto has two main dialects: soft or western dialect and hard or eastern dialect. The difference between these two dialects is in the use of some vowels and sounds.

Classification

Pashto belongs to the Aryan (Northeast) subgroup of the Indo-Aryan branch. Indo-Aryan, furthermore, belongs to the Indo-European language family.

Official status

Pashto is the national and official language of Afghanistan and is used for the administration of the government throughout the country. It is used in education, literature, office and court business, media, and in religious institutions, etc. It holds in itself a repository of the cultural and social heritage of the country.

Grammar

Pashto is a S-O-V language with split ergativity. In Linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and Verb of a sentence appear or usually Split ergativity is shown by languages that have a partly ergative behaviour but employ another Syntax or morphology — usually accusative Adjectives come before nouns. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the Nouns and adjectives are inflected for gender (Masculine/Feminine), number (Singular/Plural) and case (Direct/Oblique). Gender comprises a range of differences between men and women extending from the biological to the social A number is an Abstract object, tokens of which are Symbols used in Counting and measuring. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the Direct case is used for subjects and direct objects in the present tense. According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the An object in Grammar is a Sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. Present Tense is the first Sagittarius album released in 1968 by Columbia Records. Oblique case is used after most pre- and post-positions as well as in the past tense as the subject of transitive verbs. The past tense is a Verb tense expressing action activity state or being in the past of the current moment (in an Absolute tense system or prior There is definite article, and is quite similar in pronunciation to (The) in English. There is also extensive use of the demonstratives this/that. Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others The verb system is very intricate with the following: Simple Present, Subjunctive, Simple Past, Past Progressive, Present Perfect, and Past Perfect. For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In any of the past tenses (Simple Past, Past Progressive, Present Perfect and Past Perfect) Pashto is an ergative language, i. An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive e. transitive verbs in any of the past tenses agree with the object of the sentence.

Phonology

Vowels

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

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

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	ɺ̡

The sounds /f/, /q/, /h/ are present only in loanwords. 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 forward 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 back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as 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 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 An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Uvulars are Consonants articulated with the back of the Tongue against or near the uvula, that is further back in the mouth than Velar consonants Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Rhotic consonants, or "R"-like sounds are non-lateral Liquid consonants This class of sounds is difficult to characterise phonetically though most of them share Less educated speakers tend to replace them with [p], [k] and nothing, respectively.

The retroflex lateral flap /ɺ̡/ is pronounced as retroflex approximant [ɻ] when final. The retroflex lateral flap is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages It has no symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The retroflex approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that

Vocabulary

Pashto has an ancient legacy of borrowing vocabulary from neighboring languages including Vedic Sanskrit and Arabic. Invaders have left vestiges as well as Pashto has borrowed words from Ancient Greek, Arabic and Turkic, sometimes due to invasions. Modern borrowings come primarily from English.

Writing system

From the time of Islam's rise in South-Central Asia, Pashto has used a modified version of the Arabic script. For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. South is one of Cardinal directions and is opposite to the North. Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east and from southern Russia in the north to northern Pakistan in the south The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. 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. (also anglicized as Nastaleeq;) is one of the main genres of Islamic calligraphy. 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. Naskh (نسخ also known as Naskhi or by its Turkish name Nesih, from Arabic نسخ nasakha, naskh meaning "to copy" 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 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/. In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal 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. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language 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. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Pashto also has the extra letters that has been added to the Arabic alphabet such as pe (پ). The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. It has a number of additional vowel diacritics as well, though these often vary in their usage.

Pashto alphabet

The letters of the Pashto alphabet are:^[6]^[7]

^{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 و ى ئ ي ې ۍ}

Letters specific to Pashto

The letters below are specific to Pashto only. Some other languages, such as Urdu, also contain some of these letters. But, the shapes are

somewhat different.

^{ټ، ځ، څ، ډ، ړ، ږ، ښ، ګ، ڼ}

The five Yaas of Pashto

The following are the five Yaas used in Pashto writing:

^{ی، ي، ې، ۍ، ﺉ}

The last three Yaas (ې، ۍ، ﺉ) are specific to Pashto only, but the first two ones (ی، ي) are also used in writing other languages.

Examples

Note - The following transliterations represent the Kabuli dialect. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice

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. In Grammar, an intransitive Verb does not take an object. In more technical terms an intransitive verb has only one argument (its subject
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. Paneer ( Hindi: पनीर panīr, from Persian پنير panir) is the most common Persian and South Asian Cheese
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.