Pashto (, ; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. In historical Persian literature, it was also referred to as Afghani ().
Spoken as a native language mainly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan alongside Dari,Constitution of Afghanistan – Chapter 1 The State, Article 16 (Languages) and Article 20 (Anthem) and the second-largest language in Pakistan, spoken mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of Balochistan. Likewise, it is the primary language of the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto speakers is estimated at around 35 million to 55 million. (40 million) Pashto is "one of the primary markers of ethnic identity" amongst Pashtuns.
Geographic distribution
A national language of Afghanistan, 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 35–45% (48% L1 + L2) (50%) of the total population of Afghanistan.
In Pakistan, Pashto is spoken by 18.1% of its population, mainly in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern districts of Balochistan province. Pashto speakers are also found in the Punjab province, Islamabad and in the other major cities of Pakistan, most notably Karachi, Sindh, , thefridaytimes which may have the largest Pashtun population in the world.
Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in India, Tajikistan, and northeastern Iran (primarily in South Khorasan Province to the east of Qaen, near the Afghan border). 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, and the Pathan community in the city of Kolkata, often nicknamed the Kabuliwala ("people of Kabul"). Pashtun diaspora communities in other countries around the world speak Pashto, especially the sizable communities in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Afghanistan Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari Persian.Modarresi, Yahya: "Iran, Afghanistan and Tadjikistan, 1911–1916." In: Sociolinguistics, Vol. 3, Part. 3. Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, Peter Trudgill (eds.). Berlin, De Gryuter: 2006. p. 1915. Since the early 18th century, the monarchs of Afghanistan have been ethnic Pashtuns (except for Habibullāh Kalakāni in 1929). Persian, the literary language of the royal court,Lorenz, Manfred. "Die Herausbildung moderner iranischer Literatursprachen." In: Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung, Vol. 36. Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Akademie Verlag, Berlin: 1983. P. 184ff. 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" after the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, which restored Afghan control over their foreign policy. 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 1931Other sources note 1933, i.e. Johannes Christian Meyer-Ingwersen. Untersuchungen zum Satzbau des Paschto. 1966. Ph.D. Thesis, Hamburg 1966. and the inauguration of the Kabul University in 1932 as well as the formation of the Pashto Academy (Pashto Tolana) in 1937. 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. The Pashto Tolana was later incorporated into the Academy of Sciences Afghanistan in line with Soviet model following the Saur Revolution in 1978.
Although officially supporting the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a "sophisticated language and a symbol of cultured upbringing".Tariq Rahman. "Pashto Language & Identity Formation in Pakistan." Contemporary South Asia, July 1995, Vol 4, Issue 2, p151-20. 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.István Fodor, Claude Hagège. Reform of Languages. Buske, 1983. P. 105ff. In a 1936 royal decree, Zahir Shah formally granted Pashto the status of an official language,Campbell, George L.: Concise Compendium of the world's languages. London: Routledge 1999. with full rights to use in all aspects of government and education, even though the ethnically Pashtun royal family and bureaucrats mostly spoke Persian.Hussain, Rizwan. Pakistan and the emergence of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan. Burlington, Ashgate: 2005. p. 63. Thus Pashto became a national language and 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.Dupree, Louis: "Language and Politics in Afghanistan." In: Contributions to Asian Studies. Vol. 11/1978. p. 131–141. E. J. Brill, Leiden 1978. p. 131.Spooner, Bryan: "Are we teaching Persian?" In: Persian Studies in North America: Studies in Honor of Mohammad Ali Jazayery. Mehdi Marashi (ed.). Bethesda, Iranbooks: 1994. p. 1983. Since the return of the Taliban regime in 2021, although they have reaffirmed both Dari and Pashto as the official languages, critics accuse the Taliban of marginalizing Persian in favor of Pashto. The lyrics of the national anthem of Afghanistan under the Taliban are also in Pashto.
Pakistan In British India, the 1920s saw the blossoming of Pashto language in the then NWFP: Bacha 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. In 1955, Pashtun intellectuals including Abdul Qadir formed the Pashto Academy Peshawar on the model of Pashto Tolana formed in Afghanistan. In 1974, the Department of Pashto was established in the University of Balochistan for the promotion of Pashto.
In Pakistan, Pashto is the first language of around % of its population (per the 2023 census). However, Urdu and English are the two official languages of Pakistan. Pashto has no official status at the federal level. Pashto is the regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and north Balochistan.Septfonds, D. 2006. Pashto. In: Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world. 845 – 848. Keith Brown / Sarah Ogilvie (eds.). Elsevier, Oxford: 2009. Yet, the primary medium of education in government schools in Pakistan is Urdu. The lack of importance given to Pashto and its neglect has caused growing resentment amongst Pashtuns. It is noted that Pashto is taught poorly in schools in Pakistan. Moreover, in government schools material is not provided for in the Pashto dialect of that locality, Pashto being a dialectically rich language. Further, researchers have observed that Pashtun students are unable to fully comprehend educational material in Urdu.
Professor Tariq Rahman states:Robert Nicols states:
Although Pashto is used as a medium of instruction in schools for Pashtun students, which results in better understanding and comprehension for students when compared to using Urdu, the government of Pakistan has introduced Pashto only at the primary levels in state-run schools. 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".
History 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.Henning (1960), p. 47. "Bactrian thus 'occupies an intermediary position between Pashto and Yidgha-Munji on the one hand, Sogdian, Choresmian, and Parthian on the other: it is thus in its natural and rightful place in Bactria'." 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.
Comparison with other Eastern Iranian Languages and Old Avestan: "I am seeing you"PashtoZə tā winə́mOld AvestanOssetian/ɐz dɐ wənən/Ormuri Az bū tū dzunimYidghaMunjiShughniWakhi Strabo, who lived between 64 BCE 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).
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 used the writings found in Pə́ṭa Xazāná. Pə́ṭa Xazāná () is a Pashto manuscript 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.David Neil MacKenzie: David N. Mackenzie: The Development of the Pashto Script. In: Shirin Akiner (Editor): Languages and Scripts of Central Asia. School of Oriental and African Studies, Univ. of London, London 1997, .p. 142Lucia Serena Loi: Il tesoro nascosto degli Afghani. Il Cavaliere azzurro, Bologna 1987, p. 33 Nile Green comments in this regard:
From the 16th century, Pashto poetry became popular among the Pashtuns. Some notable poets and authors who wrote in Pashto include Pir Roshan (inventor of the Pashto alphabet), Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Nazo Tokhi, and Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani Empire, precursor of the modern state of Afghanistan. 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.
For instance Khushal Khattak laments in :
Grammar
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. 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),Emeneau, M. B. (1962) "Bilingualism and Structural Borrowing" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 106(5): pp. 430–442, p. 441 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.
Phonology
Vowels Front Central Back Close Mid Open
Consonants