Southern Pashto

Kandahari Pashto (Pashto: قندهاری، كندهاری qandahārī/kandahārī), Southern Pashto or Southwestern Pashto, is a Pashto dialect, spoken in southern and western Afghanistan, including the city of Kandahar. It is similar with Quetta (Kakar) and Khattak dialects (95–100% similarities in vocabulary, and 80% with Yusufzai dialect). It is one of the most archaic and most prestigious varieties of Pashto.

Kandahari Pashto is spoken in Kandahar, Helmand, most of Urozgan, Farah, and Nimruz, southeastern Ghor, the districts of Murghab, Ghormach, Muqur, and Jawand in Badghis, and parts of Zabul, Paktika, and Herat provinces of Afghanistan, as well as the Killa Abdullah district of the Balochistan province of Pakistan. Kandahari Pashto is almost same as the southeastern Pashto dialect, spoken in northern Balochistan including Quetta city, except for few phonetic differences.

The Kandahari dialect retains archaic retroflex sibilants, /ʂ/ and /ʐ/ (in other dialects, they have shifted to ş/x and ʒ/g). In the Quetta and Kakar dialects they change to ş and ʒ. Kandahari also has the affricates /t͡s/ and /d͡z/.

Dialect	ښ	ږ	څ	ځ	ژ	ā
Kandahar	[ʂ]	[ʐ]	[t͡s]	[d͡z]	[ʒ]	[ɑ]
Khattak	[ʃ]	[ʒ]	[t͡s]	[z]	[ʒ]	[ɔ]
Quetta	[ʃ]	[ʒ]	[t͡s]	[d͡z]	[ʒ, z]	[ɑ]
Peshawar	[x]	[ɡ]	[s]	[z]	[d͡ʒ]	[ɑ]

Pronouns are also archaic. It is differences in 'he' and 'she' pronouns. In all 3rd-person pronouns 'h' is articulated.

Personal pronoun	Kandahar	Quetta	Peshawar	Meaning
زه	zə	zə	zə	I
ته	tə, реже təi	tə, реже təi	tə	you (singular)
هغه	hağə	ağə	əğə	he
هغه	hağe	ağə	əğə	she
موږ/مونږ	mʊž̥	mʊž/məž	muŋ/muŋg	we
تاسو/تاسې	tāse/tāsī	tāse/tāsī	tāso	you (plural)
هغوی	hağwi/hağūi	ağwi/ağūi	ağʷi/ağʷəi	they