Pashto language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pashto | ||
|---|---|---|
| پښتو | ||
| Pronunciation | [paʂto], [paçto], [paxto] | |
| Spoken in | Afghanistan: east, south, southwest and some parts of north and northwest; Pakistan: northwestern provinces (NWFP, northern Balochistan, [1] and some parts of Northern Areas); some parts of northeastern Iran; and the rest of Pashtun diaspora | |
| Region | South-Central Asia | |
| Total speakers | approx. 45 million[citation needed] | |
| Ranking | 33[2] | |
| Language family | Indo-European | |
| Writing system | Naskh (Arabic alphabet)[3][4][5] | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language in |  Afghanistan (official) Pakistan (provincial) |
|
| Regulated by | Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan | |
| 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 (Naskh: پښتو - [paʂˈto]; also transliterated Pakhto, Pushto, Pukhto, Pashtu, or Pushtu), also known as Afghani,[6][7] is an Indo-European language spoken primarily in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan.[8] Pashto belongs to the Eastern Iranian[9] branch of the Indo-Iranian language family. There are nearly 45 million Pashtuns.[citation needed] As defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, Pashto is a national and official language.
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[edit] 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 according to "A survey of the Afghan people - Afghanistan in 2006",[10] Pashto is the first language of 40% of Afghans, while additional 28% also speak Pashto (combined 68%). The CIA World Factbook 2009 estimates that 35% of the population speak Pashto as their first language.[11] According to an 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.[12]
In Pakistan, Pashto is spoken by about 27 million people (15% of the total population)[13] in the North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Balochistan. Modern "transplant" communities are also found in Sindh (Karachi and Hyderabad).
Other communities of Pashto-speakers are found in northeastern Iran, primarily in South Khorasan Province to the east of Qaen, near the Afghan border,[14] and in Tajikistan.[15] There are also Pashtun communities in Uttar Pradesh as well as the southwestern part of Jammu & Kashmir in India.[16][17][18]
Sizable Pasho-speaking communities also exist in the Middle East, especially in the United Arab Emirates[19] and Saudi Arabia, as well as in the United States, particularly California, and in the United Kingdom,[20] Thailand, Canada and Australia.
[edit] 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..."[21] 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 in NWFP, FATA and Balochistan.
[edit] Grammar
Pashto is a S-O-V language with split ergativity. Adjectives come before nouns. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for two genders (masc./fem.),[22] 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
[edit] Phonology
[edit] Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | a | ɑ |
Pashto also has the diphthongs /ai/, /əi/, /ɑw/, /aw/.
[edit] Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ||||||
| Plosive | p b | t d | ʈ ɖ | k ɡ | q | ʔ | |||
| Fricative | f | s z | ʂ ʐ | ʃ ʒ | x ɣ | h | |||
| Affricate | ts dz | tʃ dʒ | |||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||||
| Rhotic | r | ɺ̢ |
The phonemes /q/, /f/ tend to be replaced by [k], [p].
The retroflex lateral flap /ɺ̢/ (//) is pronounced as retroflex approximant [ɻ]] when final.
The retroflex fricatives /ʂ/, /ʐ/ that are preserved in southern dialects are replaced by palatal fricatives [ç], [ʝ] in west-central dialects, velars [x], [ɡ] in northern dialects, and postalveolars [ʃ], [ʒ] in southeastern dialects.[23]
The velars /k/, /ɡ/, /x/, /ɣ/ followed by the close back rounded vowel /u/ assimilate into the labialized velars [kʷ], [ɡʷ], [xʷ], [ɣʷ].
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[edit] Vocabulary
In Pashto, most of the native elements of the lexicon are related to other Eastern Iranian languages languages; those words can be easily compared to those known from Avestan, Ossetic and Pamir languages. However, a remarkably large number of words is special to Pashto.[24] Post 7th century borrowings came primarily from Arabic. Modern borrowings come from Persian[25] and Hindi-Urdu,[25], with the modern educated speech borrowing words from English,[26] French[26] and German.[26] Many words of the educated and scientific vocabulary come from the Persian Arabic tradition.[26]
[edit] Writing system
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:
| ا /ɑ, ʔ/ |
ب /b/ |
پ /p/ |
ت /t/ |
ټ /ʈ/ |
ث /s/ |
ج /dʒ/ |
ځ /dz/ |
چ /tʃ/ |
څ /ts/ |
ح /h/ |
خ /x/ |
| د /d/ |
ډ /ɖ/ |
ﺫ /z/ |
ﺭ /r/ |
ړ /ɺ̢/ |
ﺯ /z/ |
ژ /ʒ/ |
ږ /ʐ, ʝ, ɡ/ |
س /s/ |
ش /ʃ/ |
ښ /ʂ, ç, x/ |
|
| ص /s/ |
ض /z/ |
ط /t/ |
ظ /z/ |
ع /ʔ/ |
غ /ɣ/ |
ف /f/ |
ق /q/ |
ک /k/ |
ګ /ɡ/ |
ل /l/ |
م /m/ |
| ن /n/ |
ڼ /ɳ/ |
و /w, u, o/ |
ؤ /o/ |
ه /h, a, ə/ |
ۀ /ə/ |
ی /y, ai/ |
ي /i/ |
ې /e/ |
ۍ /əi/ |
ئ /ai/ |
[edit] 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):
| Southern Abdali (in Kandahar, Zabul): | [ʂ] | [ʐ] | [ts] | [dz] | [ʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southeastern (in Quetta): | [ʃ] | [ʒ] | [ts] | [dz] | [ʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
| Central Wannetsi (Harnai, Sinjawi): | [ʂ] | [ʐ] | [tʃ]/[ts] | [dʒ]/[dz] | [z]/[ʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
| Central Marwati (in Laki): | [ʃ] | [ʒ] | [tʃ] | [dʒ] | [ʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
| Central Khattak (in Karak): | [ʃ] | [ʒ] | [ts] | [z]/[ts] | [ʒ] | [o] | [u] |
| Central Banuci (in Banu): | [ʃ] | [ʒ] | [s] | [z]/[s] | [ʒ] | [o] | [i] |
| Central Waziri (in Wanna): | [ɕ]/[ʃ] | [ʑ]/[ʒ] | [ts] | [dz]/[ts] | [ʑ]/[ʒ] | [o] | [i] |
| Central Khosti (in Khost): | [ç] | [ɡ] | [ts] | [dz]/[ts] | [ʒ] | [o] | [i] |
| Central Dzadrani (in Dzadran, Paktia): | [ç] | [ʝ] | [ts] | [dz]/[ts] | [ʒ] | [o] | [i] |
| Central Afridi (in Tirah, Jamrud): | [x] | [ɡ] | [ts] | [z]/[ts] | [dʒ] | [o] | [u] |
| Northwestern (Ghazni, Logar): | [ç] | [ɡ] | [ts] | [dz] | [ʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
| Northwestern Wardaki (Wardak): | [ç] | [ʝ] | [ts] | [dz] | [ʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
| Northwestern (Central Ghilzai): | [ç] | [ʝ] | [s] | [z] | [ʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
| Northern (in Nangarhar, Kabul): | [x] | [ɡ] | [ts] | [z] | [ʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
| Northeastern (Yusufzai, Peshawar): | [x] | [ɡ] | [s] | [z] | [dʒ] | [ɑ] | [u] |
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.
[edit] Notable phonological and lexicological differences
| Kandahar | Quetta | Harnai | Bannu | Wana | Khost | Tirah | Wardak | Kabul | Peshawar | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paṣ̌to | Pašto | Paṣ̌to | Pāšte | Pāšte | Pāx̌te | Pāxto | Pax̌to | Paxto | Puxto | Pashto |
| war | war | war | tāmbə | tāmbə, wār | dāṛā, wār | wār, tāmbə | war | war | war | door |
| pṣ̌a | pša | ṣ̌pa, γədəi | pšā | pšā | px̌ā | pxā | px̌a | pxa | xpa | foot |
| lmar | lmar | mer | myerə stərgā | γormə, myerə stərgā | myerə stərgā | myer, myerə stərga | nmar | nmar | nwar | sun |
| halək | halək | čora | weṛkā | weṛkai | weṛkai | woṛkai | halək | halək | halək | boy |
| nǰiləi | nǰiləi | čuwara | weṛkye | ǰəlkiye | ǰəlkiye | woṛkye, ǰəlkiye | ǰiləi | ǰilkəi | ǰine | girl |
| yaw | yaw | yo | ye | yo | ye | yo | yaw | yaw | yaw | one |
| calor | calor | čalor | sāler | cālwer | cāler | cālwor | calor | calor | salor | four |
| pinjə | pinjə | pinǰə/pinjə | pinzə | pinzə | pinjə | pinzə | pinjə | pinzə | pinzə | five |
| špaẓ̌ | špaž | špoẓ̌ | špež | špež | špeg | špeg | špaγ̌ | špag | špag | six |
| cok | cok | čok | sek | cek | cek | cok | cok | cok | sok | who |
| muẓ̌ | muž | muṣ̌ | miž | miž | mig | mu | muγ̌ | mung | mung | we |
| zmā | zmā | zmā | emo | emo | emo | emo | zmā | zəmā | zəmā | my |
| stā | stā | stā | eto | eto | eto | eto | stā | stā | stā | your |
| ḍer, zyāt | ḍer, zyāt | caṭ | pirā, zyot | pirā, zyot | ḍer, zyot | ḍer, zyot | ḍer, zyāt | ḍer, zyāt | ḍer, zyāt | very, many |
| ləẓ̌ | ləž | ləẓ̌ | ləški | ləški | ləg | ləg | ləγ̌ | ləg | ləg | little, less |
| čṣ̌əl | čšəl | γwətəl | čšəl, γṛāpāwəl | čšəl | cəx̌əl | cəxəl | cəx̌əl | ckəl/čixəl | skəl | to drink |
| ho | ho | ho | ey | ey | ey | ey | ho | ho | ao | yes |
| yəm | yəm | yəm | yə | yə | yə | yəm | yəm | yəm | yəm | I am |
| jəm | jəm | ǰəm, druməm | drimə, sə | drimə, cə | drimə, cə | cəm, druməm | jəm | zəm | zəm | I go |
| žəba | žəba | zbə | žəbā | žəbā | žəbā | ǰəba | žəba | žəba | ǰəba | tongue, language |
| kor | kor | kor | ker | ker | ker | kolə | kor | kor | kor | home |
| bega | bega | bega | vega | vega | vega | vega | bega | bega | bega | evening |
| sta | sta | sta | štā | štā | stā | štā | sta | šta | šta | it exists |
| plār | plār | pyār | plor | plor | plor | plor | plār | plār | plār | father |
Many words in isolated central dialects are borrowed from the surrounding languages - Dardic and Ormuri.
[edit] See also
- Iranian Languages vocabulary comparison table
- List of Pashto language poets
- List of Pashto language singers
[edit] Notes and References
- ^ University of Texas in Austin - Ethnolinguistic Groups in Afghanistan... , Link
- ^ "Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People". Microsoft Encarta 2006. http://encarta.msn.com/media_701500404/Languages_Spoken_by_More_Than_10_Million_People.html.
- ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=jPR2OlbTbdkC&pg=PA52&dq=Naskh+pashto&ei=SNk9SumXCoHCkASk8Yy6BQ
- ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=UQUtQzPtC6wC&pg=PA208&dq=Naskh+pashto&lr=&ei=ddk9SvrsKqHSkAS00I26BQ
- ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=QlkUAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA1&dq=pushto&lr=&as_brr=1&ei=IeA9Sr6FMJWolATMwKC6BQ
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 03 Jan. 2008. Dictionary.com Link.
- ^ "afghan." WordNet 3.0. Princeton University. 03 Jan. 2008. Word Net Link
- ^ UCLA Language Materials Project: Language Profile
- ^ Nicholas Sims-Williams, "'Eastern Iranian Languages'", Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, available at www.iranica.com, Link
- ^ "A survey of the Afghan people - Afghanistan in 2006", The Asia Foundation, technical assistance by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS; India) and Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR), Kabul, 2006, PDF
- ^ CIA Factbook 2009; "Afghanistan - People"
- ^ Ch. M. Kieffer, "'AFGHANISTAN v. Languages'", Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, available at www.iranica.com, Link
- ^ Government of Pakistan: Population by Mother Tongue
- ^ Languages of Iran, ethnologue report
- ^ "Pashto, Southern: a language of Afghanistan", Ethnologue, accessed 6 June 2009
- ^ Walter R Lawrence, Imperial Gazetteer of India. Provincial Series, pg 36-37, Link
- ^ "Study of the Pathan Communities in four States of India". Khyber. http://www.khyber.org/articles/2007/StudyofthePathanCommunitiesinF.shtml. Retrieved on 2009-06-07.
- ^ "Phonemic Inventory of Pashto" (PDF). CRULP. http://crulp.org/Publication%5CCrulp_report%5CCR03_15E.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-06-07.
- ^ ethnologue report for Languages of United Arab Emirates
- ^ ethnologue report for Languages of United Kingdom
- ^ Constitution of Afghanistan (2004)
- ^ Emeneau, M. B. (1962) "Bilingualism and Structural Borrowing" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 106(5): pp. 430-442, p. 441
- ^ Michael M.T. Henderson, Four Varieties of Pashto
- ^ G. Morgenstierne, "'AFGHANISTAN vi. Paṧtō'", Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, available at www.iranica.com, Link
- ^ a b Vladimir Kushev. "Areal Lexical Contacts of the Afghan (Pashto) Language (Based on the Texts of the XVI-XVIII Centuries)". Iran and the Caucasus (Brill) 1: 159-166. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4030748. Retrieved on 2009-06-07.
- ^ a b c d Herbert Penzl (January -March 1961). "Western Loanwords in Modern Pashto". Journal of the American Oriental Society 81 (1): 43-52. http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0279(196101%2F03)81%3A1%3C43%3AWLIMP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9.
[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
- Gusain, Lakhan (2008??) " A Grammar of Pashto". Ann Arbor, MI: Northside Publishers. ISBN ??
[edit] External links
- 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
[edit] Pashto Computer Fonts
- Free fonts:
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