Pashto alphabet
The Pashto alphabet is the right-to-left abjad-based alphabet developed from the Perso-Arabic script, used for the Pashto language in Afghanistan and Northwestern Parts of Pakistan.It originated in the 16th century through the works of Pir Roshan.
Form
Pashto is written in the Arabic Naskh. Pashto uses all 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet, and shares 3 letters with Persian in the additional letters.Differences from [Persian alphabet]
Pashto has several letters which do not appear in the Persian alphabet, which are shown in the table below:| Letter | IPA | Base Arabic letter |
| ټ | ت | |
| ډ | د | |
| ړ | ﺭ | |
| ڼ | ن | |
| ښ | س | |
| ږ | ﺭ | |
| څ | ح | |
| ځ | ح + ء |
All the additional characters are derived from existing Arabic letters by adding diacritics; for example, the consonants x̌īn/ṣ̌īn and ǵe/ẓ̌e look like Arabic's sīn and re respectively with a dot above and beneath. Similarly, the letters representing retroflex consonants are written with a small circle attached underneath the corresponding dental consonants.
The consonant is written as either ګ or گ.
In addition to Persian vowels, Pashto has ئ, ې, ۀ, and ۍ for additional vowels and diphthongs.
Stress
Pashto employs stress: this can change the aspect of the verb and the meaning of the word. The Arabic alphabet does not show stress placement, but in transliteration it is indicated by the use of acute accent diactric: over the vowel.| Diactric | Pashto | Transliteraltion | Stress in Bold |
| á | ډَلَه | ḍála | ḍá-la |
| ó | اوړى | óṛay | ó-ṛay |
| ā́ | شاباس | šā́bās | šā́-bās |
| ә́ | ګَڼٙل | gaṇә́l | ga-ṇә́l |
| í | ناخْوَښي | nāxwaṣ̌í | nā-xwa-ṣ̌í |
| ú | اُوږَه | úẓ̌a | ú-ẓ̌a |
| é | بې ښې | be ṣ̌é | be-ṣ̌é |
Letters
Pashto has 45 letters and 4 diacritic marks. The Southeastern and Southwestern, Northeastern and Northwestern dialects of Pashto are included.Historical letters
The superscribed element of the letter ځ in earlier varieties was not hamza-shaped, but was very similar to little kāf of the letter ك. Such shape of the upper element of the letter is hard to find in modern fonts.Since the time of Bayazid Pir Roshan, ڊ was used for, which was still used in the Diwan of Mirza written in 1690 CE, but this sign was later replaced by ځ.
Another rare glyph for is ج࣪, a ج with the same dot about harakat.
Diacritic marks
The four diacritic marks are used:| Diacritic | Unicode | Name | Transliterated name | Translit.6 | IPA | Latin |
| َ | U+064E | زْوار | zwār | a | a | |
| ٙ | U+0659 | زْوارَکَیْ زْوارَکے | zwārakay | ə | ə | |
| ِ | U+0650 | زیر | zer | i | i | |
| ُ | U+064F | پیش | peš | u | u |
Notes
- The diacritic marks are not considered separate letters. Their use is optional and are usually not written; they are only occasionally used to distinguish between two words which would otherwise appear similar, like the words ملا - back and مُلا - Mullah.
- In Arabic loanwords, the tanwin fatha can be used, e.g. مَثَلاً – masalan, "for example".
"Ye" letters
| Letter | Pashto name | Unicode name | Transliteration | IPA | Position in a word | Example | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ي | tsərgánda ye | ARABIC LETTER YEH | y, i | , | can appear anywhere | يٙم yəm دي di | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ې | úǵda ye | ARABIC LETTER E | e | middle or end | يې ye | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ی or ے || rowspan="2"|nāriná ye Notes
Orthographic differencesThere are broadly two standards for Pashto orthography, the Afghan orthography, which is regulated by the Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan, and the Peshawar orthography of the Pashto Academy in Peshawar. They used to be very similar in the past, until the orthography reforms were introduced in 1970s and 80s in Afghanistan. Both of them use additional letters:. The Afghan standard is currently dominant due to the lack and negative treatment of Pashto education in Pakistan. Most writers use mixed orthography combining elements of both standards. In Pakistan, Pashto speakers who are not literate in their mother tongue often use Urdu letters.The main differences between the two are as follows: Word-final -y sound is denoted by letter in Pakistan and dotless letter in Afghanistan. Word-final -i sound is denoted by letter in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pre-reform Afghan orthography used for both cases, and some writers still often confuse them.
The letters and for g are considered variants of the same character. Both are widely used, but the Afghan official materials prefer the form, while the Pakistani orthography sets a specific glyph for which looks like with a circle below. Most Arabic script fonts, however, only implement a form of ګ that looks like with a circle. Both standards prescribe the usage of for k. In practice, however, even the official sources often use the form. Historically, the two are calligraphic variants of the same character, is more common in modern Arabic, and is more common in Persian and Urdu. In Unicode they are split into two separate glyphs. The y- sound before a -letter is written as in the Pakistani orthography and as in the Afghan orthography. Pre-reform Afghan orthography also used.
In some auxiliary words like pronouns and particles, as well as in plural and oblique singular forms of feminine nouns, the Pakistani orthography uses, while the Afghan orthography often uses. It reflects the pronunciation of unstressed word-final -e in some Afghan dialects, particularly the Kandahari accent. Note also that the pronoun "you" is usually written tāso in Pakistan, reflecting the local dialects. In Afghanistan, this pronoun is written tāsi or tāso. In verbal prefixes like pre-, kṣ̌e-/''ke-, both standards use. The auxiliary verb in passive constructions is often written without a space with the copula in the Afghan orthography. E.g., likәle šәwe da "is written" may be spelled by some authors. The potential/optative participles are written with -āy in Afghanistan, and with -ay in Pakistan. These participles are pronounced with -āy in Southern Pashto of Kandahar, but even the Kabuli writers who pronounce them with -ay use -āy to distinguish them from the past participles. In both modern orthographies, matres lectionis should always be written in native Pashto words. Words like tәruǵmәy "darkness, dark night", wrusta "after, behind" etc used to be and still sometimes are written as and. The borrowed words should be written the way they were in the original languages: bulbul "nightingale", or gul "flower". The phrase pә xayr "welcome", lit. "well, successfully" is written in two words in Afghanistan, but often as a single word in Pakistan. The Afghan orthography does not use a space in compound and suffixed words, while in Peshawar standard the letters should be disconnected without a space. The zero-width non-joiner is used in such cases.
The archaic orthography may also be used in certain texts, before standardisation.
HistoryIn the 16th century, Bayazid Pir Roshan from Waziristan Pakhtunkhwa invented the Roshani script to write Pashto. It had 41 letters:28 of his letters came from the Arabic alphabet. He introduced 13 new letters into the Pashto alphabet. Most of the new letters he introduced i.e. italic=no and ڼ are still written in the same form and are pronounced almost in the same way in modern Pashto. The sound system of the southern dialect of modern Pashto preserves the distinction between all the consonant phonemes of his orthography. Pir Roshan also introduced the letter ږ to represent, like the ⟨s⟩ in pleasure, for which modern Pashto uses ژ instead. Modern Pashto uses the letter ږ to represent the sound, but for that sound, Pir Roshan used a letter looking like ·د. His letter ڊ to represent has been replaced by ځ in modern Pashto. He also used ڛ, an obsolete letter from the medieval Nastaʿlīq script, to denote the letter س only in the isolated form. The Arabic ligature ﻻ was also used. Two of his letters, پ and چ, were borrowed from the Persian alphabet. RomanisationThe following table gives the letters' isolated forms, along with possible Latin equivalents and typical IPA values:Dialect vowelsWaziristani has the following vowels:These can potentially be romanised as:
In the Marwat dialect and in the Karlāṇi dialects presence of nasalised vowels has been noted. As such the nasalised vowels be transcribed in the following ways:
It can also be transcribed as:
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