| Pashto | |
|---|---|
| پشتو Pax̌tō | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈpəʂt̪oː], [ˈpʊxt̪oː] |
| Native to | Afghanistan and Pakistan |
| Region | South Asia, Central Asia |
| Ethnicity | historically Pashtuns, now all Afghans |
Native speakers
| 50–60 million (2007–2009) |
Language family
| Indo-European
|
Standard forms
|
Central Pashto
Northern Pashto
Southern Pashto
|
| Dialects | ~20 dialects |
Writing system
|
|
| Official status | |
Official language in
|  Afghanistan |
Recognised minority
language in |  Pakistan
|
| Regulated by | Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan Pashto Academy, Pakistan |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ps – Pashto, Pushto |
| ISO 639-2 | pus – Pushto, Pashto |
| ISO 639-3 | pus – inclusive code – Pashto, PushtoIndividual codes: pst – Central Pashtopbu – Northern Pashtopbt – Southern Pashtowne – Wanetsi |
| Glottolog | pash1269 Pashto |
| Linguasphere | 58-ABD-a |
Areas where Pashto is a mother tongue
| |
Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch, but Ethnologue lists it as Southeastern Iranian. Pashto has two main dialect groups, "soft" and "hard", the latter locally known as Pakhto or Paxto.
Geographic distribution
Further information: Languages of Afghanistan and Languages of Pakistan
As 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 speaker is unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 45–60% of the total population of Afghanistan.
In Pakistan Pashto is spoken as a first language by about 15.42% of Pakistan's 170 million people. It is the main language of the Pasht0n-majority regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and northern Balochistan. It is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province and in Islamabad, as well as by Pashtuns who are found living in different cities throughout the country. Modern Pashto-speaking communities are found in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad in Sindh
Official status
Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari. Since the early 18th century, all the kings of Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns except for Habibullah Kalakani.Persian as the literary language of the royal court was more widely used in government institutions while Pashto was spoken by the Pashtun tribes as their native tongue. Amanullah Khan began promoting Pashto during his reign as a marker of ethnic identity and a symbol of "official nationalism" leading Afghanistan to independence after the defeat of the British colonial power in the Third Anglo-Afghan War. 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 1931and the inauguration of the Kabul University in 1932 as well as the formation of the Pashto Academy Pashto Tolana in 1937. Although officially strengthening the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a “sophisticated language and a symbol of cultured upbringing”. King Zahir Shah thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933, that both Persian and Pashto were to be studied and utilized by officials.In 1936, Pashto was formally granted the status of an official language with full rights to usage in all aspects of government and education by a royal decree under Zahir Shah despite the fact that the ethnically Pashtun royal family and bureaucrats mostly spoke Persian.Thus Pashto became a national language, a symbol for Afghan nationalism.
The status of official language was reaffirmed in 1964 by the constitutional assembly when Afghan Persian was officially renamed to Dari.The lyrics of the national anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto.
In Pakistan, Urdu and English are the two official languages. Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the regional language of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and northern Balochistan. The primary medium of education in government schools in Pakistan is Urdu but the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have placed more emphasis on English as the medium of instruction as of April 2014.English medium private schools in Pashto-speaking areas, however, generally do not use Pashto. The imposition of Urdu as the primary medium of education in public schools has caused a systematic degradation and decline of many of Pakistan's native languages including Pashto. This has caused growing resentment amongst Pashtuns and they also complain that Pashto is often neglected officially...
History
According to 19th-century linguist James Darmesteter and modern linguist Michael M. T. Henderson, Pashto is “descended from Avestan”, but Georg Morgenstierne says they are merely closely related. The Rabatak inscription of Emperor Kanishka written in Bactrian and Greek contains Pashto words, Abdul Hai Habibi says that the people borrowed these Pashto words due to proximity with Pashto speakers.
Strabo, who lived between 64 BC and 24 CE, explains that the tribes inhabiting the lands west of the Indus River were part of Ariana and to their east was India. Since the 3rd century CE and onward, they are mostly referred to by the name Afghan (Abgan) and their language as "Afghani".
Scholars such as Abdul Hai Habibi and others believe that the earliest modern Pashto work dates back to Amir Kror Suri of Ghor in the eighth century, and they use the writings found in Pata Khazana. However, this is disputed by several modern experts due to lack of strong evidence. Pata Khazana is a Pashto manuscript claimed to be first compiled during the Hotaki dynasty (1709–1738) in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
From the 16th century, Pashto poetry become very popular among the Pashtuns. Some of those who wrote poetry in Pashto are Pir Roshan, Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Nazo Tokhi, and Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the modern state of Afghanistan or the Durrani Empire.
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