Pashto: Indo-European

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Pashto
Classification. Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Southeastern
Iranian.
Overview. Pashto is the national language of Afghanistan and the tongue

of the Pashtuns, the tribes that founded the Afghan state in 1747. They live
on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan which was
drawn in 1893 cutting Pashtun territory in two. Pashto is the second most
widely spoken Iranian language after Persian. Located in an area subject to
many invasions and transcultural currents, Pashto has been affected in its
sounds, syntax and lexicon by neighboring Indo-Aryan languages. It also
has been influenced by Persian and Tajik (a form of Persian).
Distribution. It is spoken mainly in southern Afghanistan and western

Pakistan. In Afghanistan it is found south of the Hindu Kush mountain
chain (with some pockets in the north). In Pakistan, in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province) and Baluchistan as
well as in the city of Karachi located in the southeast of the country (Sindh
Province).
Speakers. It is difficult to estimate accurately the number of Pashto

speakers, because of disagreement about the percentage of Pakistanis who
speak the language (between 10 to 20 % of the population). In Afghanistan
it is spoken by 40-60 % of the population. The total number in all countries
is between 33 and 50 million of which 20 to 35 million in Pakistan, 13 to 18
million in Afghanistan, 125,000 in the United Arab Emirates, and 120,000
in Iran.
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Status. Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan (the

other is Afghan Persian or Dari). In Pakistan it is recognized as a regional
language.
Varieties. The main criteria to distinguish Pashto dialects is phonological.

Western and Eastern dialects differ in the pronunciation of the retroflex
fricatives; Waziri is remarkable for the particular pronunciation of certain
vowels; Wanetsi is an archaic form spoken in Baluchistan (Pakistan).
Oldest Documents. The first written records are, probably, from the
13th century. There are disputed claims that a recently discovered
manuscript includes poetry from the 8th century.
Phonology
Vowels. Pashto has 7 simple vowels and 7 diphthongs:
a) Monophthongs
b) Diphthongs: ay, a:y, aw, a:w, əy, uy, oy.
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Consonants (29). In contrast to other Iranian languages, Pashto has

several retroflex consonants due to the probable influence of Indo-Aryan
languages. Another distinctive feature of Pashto phonology is the frequent
presence of consonant clusters at the beginning of a word.
The following phonemes occur only in the 'elegant pronunciation' of Arabic

and Persian loanwords: [f] (fricative labial), [q] (uvular stop), [ʔ] (glottal
stop).
Script and Orthography. Pashto uses the Perso-Arabic alphabet with

the addition of some letters to represent peculiar Pashto sounds. In the
first column the Pashto alphabet is shown, in the second its transliteration
into the Latin alphabet, and in the third one the equivalents in the
International Phonetic Alphabet.
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Morphology
1. Nominal. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are inflected for gender,

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number and case.
2.
3. •gender: masculine, feminine. Nouns ending in consonant, -ay or -u

are usually masculine. Nouns ending in -a, -əy, or -o are usually
feminine. Nouns ending in other vowels may be either gender.
1. •number: singular, plural. There is a great variety of plural markers,

many animate masculine nouns make their plurals with -ān while
inanimate masculine ones use -un.
1. •case: direct, oblique, vocative. There are just two cases, direct and
oblique, though in the singular there is also a vocative. The oblique
case is governed by adpositions (prepositions and postpositions).
Besides suffixes, they are marked also by alterations of stem vowels
and stress.
1. There are two types of case marking: in most masculine nouns the
singular direct and oblique cases are the same; in most feminine
nouns the oblique singular is identical to the direct plural. However,
some masculine and feminine nouns display the opposite pattern. All
oblique plurals end in -o. The declension of masculine šāgərd
(‘student’), and feminine xədza (‘woman’) is shown above.
1. •articles: there are no articles. A demonstrative or the word yaw

‘one’ may be used instead.
1. •pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative, indefinite.
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1. Personal pronouns may be independent or clitics used as subject or

object as well as in possessive constructions.
2. There are no specific 3rd person pronouns, they are provided by the
proximate demonstrative.
3. The oblique pronouns preceded by j or s function as possessive

pronouns.
1.
2. Demonstrative pronouns distinguish three degrees: proximate,

intermediate and remote (shown in the table to the right).
3. The proximate demonstrative pronouns serve also as third person
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pronouns.
1. The interrogative pronouns are ‘who’ (direct cok, oblique ča,

possessive da čā), and ‘what’ (direct and oblique cə).
1. The place of a relative pronoun is taken by the conjunctive particle če

(‘that’).
1. Verbal. There are two stems, present and past, based on which
present and past tenses are formed with the addition of personal
endings in simple tenses or by a combination with an auxiliary verb in
periphrastic tenses. Verbs are inflected for number, person and
gender.
1. •person and number: 1s, 2s, 3sm, 3sf; 1p, 2p, 3pm, 3pf. In the
present there is a common form for the 3rd person, irrespective of
number. However, in the past tense gender and number are
distinguished in the third person.
1. •aspect: perfective, imperfective. The aspectual distinction between

perfective and imperfective pervades the entire verbal system.
1. •tense: present (imperfective and perfective), past (imperfective and

perfective), future (imperfective and perfective), present perfect, past
perfect, future perfect, conditional, perfect conditional, potential
present, potential past.
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1. To indicate tense there are two different stems, present and past.
From the present stem two presents (imperfective and perfective) and
two imperatives (imperfective and perfective) are formed. From the
past stem two pasts (imperfective and perfective) are formed. Besides
these simple tenses, there are periphrastic ones, including the whole
perfect system, the potential (which expresses capacity), and the
passive.
1. The imperfective present and imperfective past are formed with the
present and past stems + personal endings. In the present, there is
only one form for the 3rd singular and the 3rd plural; in the past,
gender is distinguished in both cases. For example, the conjugation of
lwedə́l (‘to fall’) is:
1. Personal endings for the first and second persons are common to both
tenses.
1. We show below the 3rd person singular conjugation of lwedə́l in

different tenses and moods:
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1. a) Simple conjugations. Perfective stems are formed by adding the

prefix wə- to the imperfective stem.
1. Present. The imperfective present parallels the English simple

present or present continuous. The perfective present functions
mainly as a subjunctive; it expresses admonition or doubt in
independent clauses, and potential action in dependent clauses.
1. ‣ Imperfective: lwéǧi (falls, is falling).
2. ‣ Perfective: wə́lweǧi (if it falls).
1. Past
2. ‣ Imperfective: lwedə́ (was falling).
3. ‣ Perfective: wə́lwed (fell).
1. The addition of the particle ba gives a customary sense:
2. ‣ Customary Imperfective: lwedə́ ba (used to fall).
3. ‣ Customary (repetitive) Perfective: wə́balwed (used to fall

repeatedly).
1. Future. It is formed with the addition of the particle ba to the

present:
2. ‣ Imperfective: lwéǧi ba (will be falling).
3. ‣ Perfective: wə́balweǧi (will fall).
1. Imperative. The imperative has distinctive personal endings:

singular a, plural -əy which are added to the present stem. There is a
negative imperative marked by the prohibitive particle mə.
2. ‣ Imperfective: lwéǧa (keep on falling).
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3. ‣ Perfective: wə́lweǧa (fall).
1. Conditional: it has three forms which express present or future

conditions. -āy is used for all persons.
2. 1) lwedā́y (if it were falling).
3. 2) wə́lwedāy (if it were to fall).
4. 3) lwedā́y ba (then it would fall). It expresses possible consequences.
1. b) Periphrastic conjugations: include the perfect system, the potential

and the passive. They are formed by combining the past participle
with a conjugated auxiliary verb.
1. For example, the present

perfect (‘has fallen’) is formed
with the present imperfective
of the auxiliary ‘be’ (which is
irregular) + past participle
(shown in the table).
1. The future perfect, lwedə́lay ba wi (‘if it will have fallen’), is similar to

the present perfect but accompanied by the future marker ba. In the
3rd person singular and plural the special form wi of the verb 'to be' is
used.
1. The past perfect, lwedə́lay wə (‘had fallen’), is formed with the past
participle + the past tense of 'to be'.
1. Conditional perfect I: lwedə́lay wāy (‘if it had fallen’).
2. Conditional perfect II: lwedə́lay ba wā́y (‘then it would have fallen’).
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1. Forms expressing the potential mood, combine simple conditional

forms and the auxiliary verb šwəl:
2. Potential present: (wə́)lwedā́y ši. Potential past: (wə́)lwedā́y šu.
1. •voice: active, passive. The periphrastic forms tend to have a passive

sense as they use a (passive) past participle. However, a true passive
voice only occurs when the agent is unknown or not expressed. It is
formed by the infinitive combined with the auxiliary verb kedəl/šwəl
('become'). A full passive, with the agent expressed by a prepositional
phrase is rare.
1. •derivation: the number of simple verbs is not great, but many more
verbs can be formed by compounding. Compounds often resort to the
verb kawl ('to make'). For example, 'to play' may be expressed as lobe
kawl (‘game-make’).
1. •non-finite forms: infinitive, past participle. The infinitive is

derived from the past stem by adding -əl = lwédəl. The past participle
is formed with the past stem plus the suffix -ay: lwedə́lay = fallen.
Syntax
Word order is a quite rigid Subject-Object-Verb:
1. sar
̂ áy ̌x́əja wíni
Pashto 13/03/2018, 10)34 PM
2. man woman sees
3. The man sees the woman.
All modifiers precede the head of a noun phrase. Adjectives must agree
with the head-noun in gender, number and case and are placed directly
before the noun. If the modifier is another noun or pronoun implying a
genitive relation it is preceded by a preposition and takes the oblique case:
1. də hághə sar
̂ i lās
2. PREP OBL OBL NOM
3. of that man hand
4. The hand of that man.
1. də māzigar zyerr lmar
2. PREP OBL NOM NOM
3. of afternoon yellow sun
4. The yellow sun of the afternoon.
Postpositions appear at the end of the entire phrase, but a preposition

must be placed immediately before the head and its attributes.
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Pashto has ‘split ergativity’ which is determined by transitivity and tense.

In intransitive verbs the subject is in the direct case and the verb agrees
with it. Transitive verbs derived from the present stem behave in the same
way. But in those derived from the past stem the subject adopts the oblique
case and the object the direct case; moreover the verb agrees with the
object (and not with the subject).
Lexicon
The oldest loanwords are from Greek, introduced in Afghanistan in the 3rd
century BCE with the invasion of Alexander and the subsequent
foundation of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. With the arrival of Islam many
Arabic and Persian words were adopted. The neighboring Indo-Aryan
languages have made also their contribution to Pashto vocabulary.
Basic Vocabulary
one: yaw
two: dwa
three: dre
four: tsalor
five: pindzə
six: špaẓ
seven: uwə
eight: atə
nine: nəh
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ten: las
hundred: səl
father: plār
mother: mor
brother: wror
sister: xor
son: zuy
daughter: lur
head: sar
eye: čašm, stərga
foot: pā
heart: zr̂ə
tongue: ẓéba
Key Literary Works (forthcoming).
1. © 2013 Alejandro Gutman and Beatriz Avanzati
Further Reading
1. -'Pashto'. D. N. MacKenzie. In The World's Major Languages, 460-

475. B. Comrie (ed). Routledge (2009).
Pashto 13/03/2018, 10)34 PM
2. -'Pashto'. B. Robson & H. Tegey. In The Iranian Languages, 721-772.

G. Windfuhr (ed). Routledge (2009).
3. -A Grammar of Pashto. H. Penzl. American Council of Learned

Societies (1955).
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Pashto 13/03/2018, 10)34 PM

Overview. Pashto is the national language of Afghanistan and the tongue

Distribution. It is spoken mainly in southern Afghanistan and western

Speakers. It is difficult to estimate accurately the number of Pashto

Status. Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan (the

Varieties. The main criteria to distinguish Pashto dialects is phonological.

Vowels. Pashto has 7 simple vowels and 7 diphthongs:

b) Diphthongs: ay, a:y, aw, a:w, əy, uy, oy.

Consonants (29). In contrast to other Iranian languages, Pashto has

The following phonemes occur only in the 'elegant pronunciation' of Arabic

Script and Orthography. Pashto uses the Perso-Arabic alphabet with

1. Nominal. Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are inflected for gender,

number and case.

3. •gender: masculine, feminine. Nouns ending in consonant, -ay or -u

1. •number: singular, plural. There is a great variety of plural markers,

1. •articles: there are no articles. A demonstrative or the word yaw

1. •pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative, indefinite.

1. Personal pronouns may be independent or clitics used as subject or

3. The oblique pronouns preceded by j or s function as possessive

2. Demonstrative pronouns distinguish three degrees: proximate,

3. The proximate demonstrative pronouns serve also as third person

1. The interrogative pronouns are ‘who’ (direct cok, oblique ča,

1. The place of a relative pronoun is taken by the conjunctive particle če

1. •aspect: perfective, imperfective. The aspectual distinction between

1. •tense: present (imperfective and perfective), past (imperfective and

1. We show below the 3rd person singular conjugation of lwedə́l in

1. a) Simple conjugations. Perfective stems are formed by adding the

1. Present. The imperfective present parallels the English simple

1. ‣ Imperfective: lwéǧi (falls, is falling).

2. ‣ Perfective: wə́lweǧi (if it falls).

2. ‣ Imperfective: lwedə́ (was falling).

3. ‣ Perfective: wə́lwed (fell).

1. The addition of the particle ba gives a customary sense:

2. ‣ Customary Imperfective: lwedə́ ba (used to fall).

3. ‣ Customary (repetitive) Perfective: wə́balwed (used to fall

1. Future. It is formed with the addition of the particle ba to the

2. ‣ Imperfective: lwéǧi ba (will be falling).

3. ‣ Perfective: wə́balweǧi (will fall).

1. Imperative. The imperative has distinctive personal endings:

2. ‣ Imperfective: lwéǧa (keep on falling).

3. ‣ Perfective: wə́lweǧa (fall).

1. Conditional: it has three forms which express present or future

2. 1) lwedā́y (if it were falling).

3. 2) wə́lwedāy (if it were to fall).

4. 3) lwedā́y ba (then it would fall). It expresses possible consequences.

1. b) Periphrastic conjugations: include the perfect system, the potential

1. For example, the present

1. The future perfect, lwedə́lay ba wi (‘if it will have fallen’), is similar to

1. Conditional perfect I: lwedə́lay wāy (‘if it had fallen’).

2. Conditional perfect II: lwedə́lay ba wā́y (‘then it would have fallen’).

1. Forms expressing the potential mood, combine simple conditional

2. Potential present: (wə́)lwedā́y ši. Potential past: (wə́)lwedā́y šu.

1. •voice: active, passive. The periphrastic forms tend to have a passive

1. •non-finite forms: infinitive, past participle. The infinitive is

Word order is a quite rigid Subject-Object-Verb:

2. man woman sees

3. The man sees the woman.

2. PREP OBL OBL NOM

3. of that man hand

4. The hand of that man.

1. də māzigar zyerr lmar

2. PREP OBL NOM NOM

3. of afternoon yellow sun