Pashto

About Pashto

Pashto (پښتو, also transliterated Pukhto or Pushtu) is an East Iranic Indo-European language spoken natively by about 50 million people. It is one of the official languages of Afghanistan and a regional language in West and Northwest Pakistan. In the days of the British Raj, Pashto speakers were referred to in English as Pathans.

Most of the phrases are written as they would be pronounced by people living in the area around Paktia, Logar, Kabul and Nangarhar. But if you travel south or east (towards Kandahar or Pakhtunkhwa), the regional dialects change certain speech sounds.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.