Pashto (also called Pashtu, Pushtu, Pushto, Pakhto, Afghan, and other variations) is the native language of the Pashtun people who live in parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. It is a member of the Eastern Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. The earliest records of Pashto writings date from the sixteenth century. In 1936, Pashto became the national language of Afghanistan. Today, it continues to be one of Afghanistan's official languages, along with Dari. The Pashto language is also used as the working language in local parliaments in some provinces of Pakistan.
The Pashto language uses a version of the Arabic alphabet. This alphabet is written in a flowing script that runs from right to left, the opposite of English. Most Pashto letters connect to the letters preceding and following them, just as in English cursive writing. Therefore, letters often change shape depending on their placement within a word. Pashto is usually written using only consonants and long vowels, although there are small marks which can be used above or below letters to indicate short vowels. The Pashto alphabet is one of the largest alphabets based on the Arabic script.
Although Pashto uses the Arabic alphabet and has absorbed many Arabic words, it has some sounds that do not correspond directly to Arabic. As a result, some sounds can be denoted by a several letters. There are seven basic vowel sounds in Pashto. Other notable sounds include the retroflex consonants, which are pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled back. In contrast to many other Iranian languages, the Pashto language allows clusters of two or three consonant sounds to appear at the beginning of a syllable. Word stress in Pashto is dynamic.
Pashto vocabulary has many words in common with related Iranian languages. In addition to words of native Pashto origin, the language also has a significant number of loan words. Many of these borrowed words come from Urdu and Dari, which are widely spoken alongside of the Pashto language. The influence of Islam is also evident in the number of borrowings from Arabic.
Pashto grammar differs from that of English in many ways. For example, Pashto nouns change their form to express gender (masculine or feminine), case (direct, indirect, or vocative), and number (singular or plural). Pashto adjectives come before the nouns they modify and must agree with those nouns in gender, case, and number. Pashto verbs must also agree with their subjects in person, number, and gender in addition to showing tense and aspect. Unlike many languages, Pashto uses both prepositions and postpositions. The word order in Pashto sentences is Subject-Object-Verb.
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