An Eastern Iranian language and one of two official languages of Afghanistan — also spoken across the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier by tens of millions of Pashtuns.
Where it’s spoken
Pashto is one of two official languages of Afghanistan (alongside Dari) and is the regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and parts of Balochistan in Pakistan. The two countries together host nearly all of the world’s 60+ million Pashtun speakers. Major dialect groups are Northeastern (Pakistan, around Peshawar) and Southwestern (Afghanistan, around Kandahar).
What it sounds like
Pashto has retroflex consonants (ṭ, ḍ, ṛ, ṇ) — an Indic areal feature unusual among Iranian languages. It also features unique sounds like the back rounded vowel ǘ and the voiceless retroflex sibilant ṣ̌. Stress is generally on the penultimate syllable. There are two grammatical genders.
How it’s written
Pashto uses a modified Arabic script with 44 letters — Arabic’s 28 plus additional letters for retroflex and other sounds (ټ, ډ, ړ, ږ, څ, ځ, ښ, etc.). The script has both Naskh (Pakistan) and Nastaliq (Afghanistan) calligraphic traditions.
History
Pashto literature dates to the 16th century with the warrior-poet Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba. The Pashto Academy in Kabul standardized literary Pashto in the 20th century.
Find more languages by letter
Pashto starts with P and ends with O. Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Pashto":