Pashto (پښتو; also known as Afghan, Pushto, Pashto, Pashtoe, Pashtu, and Pukhto) is the language spoken by the ethnic Afghan otherwise known as the Pashtun people who inhabit Afghanistan and the Western provinces of Pakistan.
History
The language is believed to have originated in the Kandahar/Helmand areas of Afghanistan. Dari often dominates over Afghan/Pashto in Afghanistan in everyday government use since the capital was moved to Kabul from Kandahar in the 18th century.Pashto is spoken by over 65% of Afghanistan's population.
Classification
Pashto is presently classified in the Southeastern Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages.
From the time of Islam's rise in Central Asia, Pashto has used a modified version of the Perso-Arabic script. In recent years, however, because of the Internet, it has become increasingly easier to write Pashto in the Latin script.
It is alongside Persian, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan,
Geographic distribution
Pashto is spoken by about 17 million people in the south, east and a few northern provinces of Afghanistan, as well as the western provinces of Pakistan. It is spoken by circa 62.73% of Afghanistan population who are of the Pashtun tribe, as well as by ethnic Pashtuns who live on the other side of the disputed Durand Line in present day Pakistan.
Official status
Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. The other is the Persian language, known as Dari in Afghanistan.
Dialects
The northern dialect is spoken by about 9,685,000 people, and the southern dialect by about 8,206,000 people.
Vocabulary
It has some Arabic and Persian words incorporated in it.
External links
- UCLA article http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/profiles/profp03.htm
- Ethnologue report http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=PST
