Pashto

Pashto, historically also known as Afghan (Persian افغانی, proper name پښتو Paschto [paʂto], also Pashto or in Hindustani Paṭhānī), is a language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It belongs to the East Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family and is considered a direct descendant of Avestic (which is disputed). Because of a peculiarity of Pashto, namely its relatively close proximity to Old Iranian languages, which has been preserved over the centuries, it is sometimes called a "museum of Old Indo-Iranian vocabulary". Pashto is the official language of Afghanistan, along with Dari (the official name of New Persian in Afghanistan). Pashto is believed to comprise about 50-60 million native speakers, significantly Pashtuns.

The Eastern Iranian languages, of which Pashto is the most prominent representative today, differ from other Iranian languages in certain sound laws that explain their different development. Indian elements in Pashto, such as retroflex consonants, indicate linguistic exchange. This distinguishes Pashto as a southeastern Iranian language from northeastern Iranian languages, such as Jaghnobi among the last two living languages of the Eastern Iranian language group. Since Pashto is spoken only by Pashtuns and has had no significant influence on neighboring languages, direct conclusions can be drawn about linguistic contact between the Pashtun people and the peoples of the Indian languages. According to this, the area of contact should have been in the southeastern part of the Iranian highlands, i.e. south of the Hindu Kush.

Persian and Arabic loanwords are quite common, which is not least a consequence of the dominant role of Persian after the transfer of the Afghan capital from Kandahar to Kabul in the 18th century.

Official language status

Pashto and Dari are the two official languages of Afghanistan. Until the 1930s, Persian alone was used as the official language. At that time, a movement to promote Pashto as the language of administration and the arts began with the establishment of a Pashto Society (1931) and the founding of Kabul University (1932) and the Pashto Tolana Pashto Academy (1937). In 1936 Pashto was declared an official language under the regent Sardar Hashim Khan, although even the Pashtun regents and officialdom often used Persian in private and business. Its status as an official language was confirmed in the 1964 Constitutional Assembly. At that time, Persian was officially renamed Dari.

Phonology (اواز پوهه or غږپوهنه).

Pashto differs from Persian (Dari), which is also the lingua franca of Afghanistan, in that it has a larger number of consonants. The relatively high number of retroflex sounds is rarely found in other languages of the Irano-Aryan language family. An adoption of these phonemes through language contact with the neighbouring Indo-Aryan languages is likely. Analogous explanations can be found for the ejective consonants in Eastern Iranian Ossetian.

Consonants (اصلي اوازونه).

The consonants are listed in phonetic transcription according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and in scientific transcription according to the German Oriental Society for the Persian Alphabet, which is based on Manfred Lorenz because of the additional retroflexes.

• ʂ ʐ and ç ʝ are allophones.
• f is often replaced by p.
• q is often replaced by k.
• ʔ is often omitted in the transcription.

Vowels (کومکي اوازونه or غږلرونکي).

Pashto also has the diphthongs (دوه غږي) /ai/, /əi/, /ɑw/, /aw/.