Everything you always wanted to know about Pashto but were afraid to ask

Pashto (pronounced “peshto”) is the Iranian language of the Pathans. It can also be transliterated to be Pushto, Pakhto, Pukhto, Pashtu, Paxto or Pushtu.

Also known as “Afghani” and “Pathan” and a member of the southeastern Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages, Pasto is spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. There are three dialects of Pashto: Northern Pashto, spoken mainly in Pakistan; Southern Pashto, spoken mainly in Afghanistan; and Central Pashto, spoken mainly in Pakistan. There are also Pashto communities in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

There are approximately 35-45 millions speakers of Pashto in the world. In 1936, it was made, by royal decree, the official language of Afghanistan. Since that time, the spelling has been revised quite a bit and today, both Dari and Pashto are the official languages of Afghanistan.

Like Urdu and Farsi, Pashto derives its alphabet from the Arabic alphabet (and the Arabic alphabet derives itself from the Persian alphabet) but it is almost completely modified as Pashto, unlike Arabic, is not a Semitic language.

Among the US military, Pashto is a popular language to learn because it’s easier to learn than Arabic. U.S. soldiers have also used various handheld devices to speak Pashto and Dari in Afghanistan. 

Pashto is a subject-object-verb language where adjectives come before nouns. There is also gender specificity for nouns and adjectives and an intricate verb system with several tenses.

I think Pashto looks a bit like Thai. Here is a sample of some common software UI terms in Pashto:

·         Online (په کرښه)

·         Website (ګورتځاى)

·         Email (برېښليک)

·         Browser (لټونګر)

·         Message (پېغام)

·         Font (ليکبڼه)

·         Software (پوستکالى)

·         Login (ننوتل)

·         Logout (وتل)

·         Username (کارن نوم)

·         Password (شفر)