Pashto dialects

Pashto dialects can be divided into two large varieties: Northern Pashto and Southern Pashto. Each of the two varieties of Pashto is further divided into a number of dialects. Northern Pashto is spoken in eastern Afghanistan, and central, northern and eastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Southern Pashto is spoken to the south of it, in southern and western Afghanistan, southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Balochistan. 'Ethnologue' divides Pashto into Northern, Southern and Central Pashto, and Wanetsi.

Overview

According to David Neil MacKenzie, a consonant shift took place in the northern parts of Pashtunistan in several phases in the medieval era. During the shift, the retroflex fricative ṣ̌ changed to x̌ or to x, while ẓ̌ changed to ǵ or to g. That is supported by the linguist Georg Morgenstierne's assertion that the Pashto script developed in the Northeast which had the phonology of a Southwestern Pashto in the 16th century. The shift was likely complete before the Pashto book Khayr al-Bayān was written by Bayazid Pir Roshan from Waziristan in 1651. According to in Balochistan : the spilt ṣ̌ into š and ẓ̌ into ž may never have occurred in that they were always pronounced as š and ž there or that a split did occur.
Among the other Eastern Iranian languages outside Pashto, the Shughni and Yazgulyami branch of the Pamir languages also seem to have been affected from the ṣ̌ to x consonant shift. E.g. "meat": ɡuṣ̌t in Wakhi and ğwáṣ̌a in Southwestern Pashto, but changes to guxt in Shughni and ğwáxa in Northeastern Pashto.

Classification

1. Southern variety
2. Northern variety
3'''. Waṇetsi Dialect'''

Standards

Regional standards

There are several regional standard forms of Pashto which have high prestige, and serve as a means of communication between the various tribal communities in those regions.

Central Pashto

Central Pashto dialects are also referred to as middle.
Central Pashto Speak Mostly The Tribes of Bangash, Wazir, Banusi, Zadran, Mahsud & Dawar.

Southern regional standard

Southern Pashto compromises of the South Western and South Eastern dialects.
Southern Western Pashto, also called Kandahari Pashto, is the prestige variety of Pashto in southern and western Afghanistan.
A similar variety known as South Eastern is spoken in the Balochistan province of Pakistan.

Northern regional

Northern Pashto compromises of the North Western and North Eastern dialects.
North Eastern Pashto, also called Eastern Pashto, is the prestige variety of Pashto, known as Yusufzai Dialect, it is spoken in central, northern, and eastern parts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan and in northeastern Afghanistan.
North Western Pashto is spoken, in eastern and northeastern Afghanistan, in the central Ghilji or Ghilzai region.

Tareeno

Although this dialect is spoken only by the Spin Tareens and not the Tor Tareens, it is known locally as Tareeno and by Western academics as Wanetsi. It is the most distinct amongst the dialects of Pashto.

Features

Variations have been noted in dialects of Pashto. The differences between the standard varieties of Pashto are primarily phonological, and there are simple conversion rules. The morphological differences between the standard varieties are very few and unimportant. Two of the key phonemes whose pronunciation vary between the different Pashto dialects are ښ and ږ. The southern dialect of Kandahar is considered to be the most conservative with regards to phonology. It retains the original pronunciation of these two phonemes as voiceless and voiced retroflex sibilants, respectively, and does not merge them into other phonemes unlike the northern dialects.
The dialects spoken by the tribes from the Karlani confederacy of Pashtuns are lexicologically different and very varied. Moreover, the Karlani dialects have a tendency towards a change in the pronunciation of vowels. Depending on the particular dialect, the standard Pashto,,, may change into,,,, respectively. In the Karlani dialects of Waziristan, Bannu, and Tani (southern Khost), which follow the vowel shift to the greatest extent, these four vowels normally change into,,,, respectively.
The nine phonemes represented in the column headings below show key phonetic differences between the dialects. Five of them are consonants written in the Pashto alphabet, and four are vowels written in the Latin script; sounds are transcribed in the IPA:

Dialects belonging to the, the, the, and the, respectively, are color-coded.
'' is color-coded as pink''

Grammar

The grammatical rules are may vary slightly in dialects; with the most divergence in Tarīno. Example:

Dialect	Dialect Sentence	Literary Pashto	Meaning	Divergence Noted
Kandahar	پلوشه راغلل Palwašá rā́ğləl	پلوشه راغله Palwašá rā́ğla	Palwasha came	3rd Person Plural Verbal suffix ل employed instead of 3rd Person Feminine Verbal Suffix ه
Nangarhar	ما او تا ښار ته ځو mā aw tā xār tə zú	زه او ته ښار ته ځو zə aw tə x̌ār tə dzú	Me and you are going to the city	Oblique pronouns ما and تا used instead of direct pronouns زه and ته
Dzādzə́i	پلوشه زما خور دی Palwašá zmā xor de	پلوشه زما خور ده Palwašá zmā xor da	Palwasha is my sister	No differentiation in masculine and feminine "to be" - uses دی
Ghani Paktya	هلکان راغلو haləkā́n rā́ğlu	هلکان راغل haləkā́n rā́ğləl	The boys came	The third person plural verbal suffix "u" used instead of "əl"

Lexemes

Special words

Dialects can also have special vocabulary:

	Dialect	Meaning	Pashto general	Borrowings
ديګول ḍigwә́l	Banisi	nest	جاله / ځاله dzā́la / jā́la	Not used
دوګول ḍugwә́l	Marwat	nest	جاله / ځاله dzā́la / jā́la	Not used
رېبون rebū́n	Waṇetsi	shirt	خت xat	کميس kamís
کليس kə́līs	Waṇetsi	intellect		ذهن/عقل zehn/akə́l
پينۍ pinə́i	Kakāṛi	universe	ټوپن ṭopán	جهان jahā́n

Example:
ما دې دا خبرې ته کليس نه رسېژ
Compare:
'زما دغه خبرې ته ذهن/عقل نه رسېږي'''

Derivative words

These can be classed as deriving from "standard" Pashto

Lexical comparison

In general, the Karlani dialects, both in southern and northern varieties, show more vocabulary differences than the non-Karlani southern and northern dialects.