Pashto alphabet پښتوالفبې Pəx̌tó alfbâye
The 46 Pashto alphabet shown in boxes
Script type	Abjad
Time period	16th century–present
Direction	right-to-left
Official script	Pakistan  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa[lower-alpha 1]  Afghanistan
Languages	Pashto (incl. various dialects)
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Nabataean Arabic Pashto alphabet

The Pashto alphabet (Pashto: پښتو الفبې, romanized: Pəx̌tó alfbâye) is the right-to-left abjad-based alphabet developed from the Arabic script, used for the Pashto language in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It originated in the 16th century through the works of Pir Roshan.

Form

Two of the special Pashto letters: x̌in/ṣ̌in (left) and ǵē/ẓ̌e (right)

Pashto is written in the Arabic Naskh. Pashto uses all 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet, and shares 3 letters (چ, پ, and ژ) with Persian in the additional letters.

Diacritic marks

The Pashto diacritic marks: zwarakay, pēš, zēr, and zwar

The four diacritic marks are used:

Diacritic	Unicode	Name	Transliterated name	Translit.	IPA	Latin
َ	U+064E	زوار	zwar	a	[a]	a
ٙ	U+0659	زورکى	zwarakay	ə	[ə]	ə
ِ	U+0650	زیر	zer	i	[ɪ]	i
ُ	U+064F	پیش	peš	u	[ʊ]	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 (body part) and مُلا - Mullah.
• In Arabic loanwords, the tanwin fatha (ً) can be used, e.g. مَثَلاً – masalan, "for example".

"Ye" letters

"Ye"-letters in Pashto alphabet

Letter	Pashto name	Unicode name	Transliteration	IPA	Position in a word	Example
ي	tsərgánda ye5	ARABIC LETTER YEH	y, i	[j], [i]	can appear anywhere	يم yəm ('(I) am') دي di ('(they) are')
ې	úǵda ye4	ARABIC LETTER E	e	[e]	middle or end	يې ye ('you (sing.) are')
ی or ے	nāriná ye1	ARABIC LETTER FARSI YEH or ARABIC LETTER YEH BARREE	ay when following a consonant	[aj]	end	ستوری or ستورے stóray ('star')
			y when following a vowel	[j]	end	دوى or دوے duy ('they')
ۍ	x̌əźiná ye2	ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH TAIL	əi	[əi]	end	وړۍ waṛә́i ('wool')
ئ	fālí ye3	ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE	əi	[əi]	end	يئ yəi ('you (plur.) are')
			y	[j]	middle	جدائي judāyí ('separation')

Notes

• ^1 In standard orthography, this letter has ی shape, while in Peshawri (non-standard) orthography, its shape is ے. If the letter follows a consonant in a word, it indicates the word is masculine singular and in the direct case. At the end of verbs it is used to form verbal participle in the masculine.
• ^2 If ۍ ends a word it always indicates that the word it occurs in is feminine.
• ^3 If ئ occurs at the end of a verb, it indicates the verb is in second person plural form.
• ^4 If ې appears at end of nouns and adjectives it indicates that those are feminine. At the end of verbs it is used as verbal suffix and to form verbal participle in the feminine. It also ends certain circumpositions.
• ^5 If ي occurs at the end of a verb, it indicates the verb is in third person plural present form. At the end of nouns and adjectives it indicates that the word is masculine in the singular oblique case, plural direct case. It also used in the non-declining adjective class.

Orthography differences

There 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: ټ ډ ړ ږ ښ ڼ ې ۍ‎.^[11] 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 alphabets.

The main differences between the two are as follows:^[12][13]

Word-final -y sound is denoted by ے‎ letter in Pakistan and dotless ی‎ letter in Afghanistan. Word-final -i sound is denoted by ي‎ letter in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pre-reform Afghan orthography used ی‎ for both cases, and some writers still often confuse them.

• ^ Also pronounced dəy in some dialects, and thus written دۍ‎ or دئ‎, chiefly in Afghanistan.

Word-final -a sound is denoted by ه‎ in Peshawar orthography, while the -ə sound is denoted by ۀ‎. Afghan orthography uses ه‎ for both sounds.

The letters گـ‎ and ګـ‎ for g are considered variants of the same character. Both are widely used, but the Afghan official materials prefer the گ‎ form, while the Pakistani orthography sets a specific glyph for ګ‎ which looks like ك‎ with a circle below. Most Arabic script fonts, however, only implement a form of ګ that looks like ک‎ with a circle.

Both standards prescribe the usage of ك‎ for k. In practice, however, even the official sources often use the ک‎ form. Historically, the two are calligraphic variants of the same character, ك‎ is more common in modern Arabic, and ک‎ is more common in Persian and Urdu. In Unicode they are split into two separate glyphs.

The y- sound before a ی‎-letter is written as ئـ‎ in the Pakistani orthography and as يـ‎ in the Afghan orthography. Pre-reform Afghan orthography also used ئـ‎.

• ^ Also ياست‎ yāst in Southern Pashto.

Pakistani orthography uses کښې‎ for the postposition kx̌e "in". Afghan standard prefers کي‎. In most dialects, this postposition is pronounced ke or ki, but the historical pronunciation, also found as a variant in some Southern Pashto dialects, is kṣ̌e. The verbal prefix کښېـ‎ (as in کښېناستل‎ kenastəl or kṣ̌enastəl "to sit down") is still pronounced kṣ̌e- in Southern Pashto and ke- in Northern Pashto, but some Afghan authors may also spell it like کيـ‎. On the other hand, words with خښ‎ combination, like نخښه‎ nәxṣ̌a "mark, sign", بخښل‎ bәxṣ̌әl "forgive, pardon", are written identically according to both standards, but some authors speaking Northern Pashto may write them according to their pronunciation: نښه‎ nәxa, بښل‎ bәxәl.

In some auxiliary words like pronouns and particles, as well as in plural and oblique singular forms of feminine nouns, the Pakistani orthography uses ې‎, while the Afghan orthography often uses ي‎. 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 تاسو‎ tāso in Pakistan, reflecting the local dialects. In Afghanistan, this pronoun is written تاسې‎ tāsi or تاسو‎ tāso. In verbal prefixes like پرېـ‎ pre-, کښېـ‎ kṣ̌e-/ke-, both standards use ې‎.

The auxiliary verb شول‎ in passive constructions is often written without a space with the copula in the Afghan orthography. E.g., لیکلې شوې ده‎ likәle šәwe da "is (fem.) written" may be spelled ليکلې شوېده‎ by some authors.

The potential/optative participles are written with ـای‎ -āy in Afghanistan (e.g. لیکلای‎ likəlāy "able to write"), and with ـے‎ -ay in Pakistan (لیکلے‎ likəlay). These participles are pronounced with -āy in Southern Pashto of Kandahar, but even the Kabuli writers who pronounce them with -ay use ـای‎ -āy to distinguish them from the past participles (لیکلی‎\لیکلے‎ likəlay "written").

In both modern orthographies, matres lectionis (و‎ for o and u, ي‎ for i) should always be written in native Pashto words. Words like تروږمۍ‎ tәruǵmәy "darkness, dark night", وروسته‎ wrusta "after, behind" etc used to be and still sometimes are written as ترږمۍ‎ and ورسته‎. The borrowed words should be written the way they were in the original languages: بلبل‎ bulbul "nightingale", ګل‎ or گل‎ gul "flower".

The phrase pә xayr "welcome", lit. "well, successfully" is written in two words in Afghanistan (په خیر‎), but often as a single word in Pakistan (پخیر‎).

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.

• ^ In different dialects, "we" and its derivatives are pronounced مونږ‎ mung or موږ‎ mug/muẓ̌. Both types are found in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the Afghan tradition prefers موږ‎ after the Kandahari pronunciation.

Peshawar and Afghan standards also differ in the way they spell Western loanwords. Afghan spellings are influenced by Persian/Dari orthography, and through it often borrows French and German forms of the words, while Pakistani orthography is influenced by Urdu spellings of English words.

History

Excerpt from Khayr al-Bayān, written in Pashto in Nastaʿlīq script in 1651. The book was originally written by Bayazid Pir Roshan in the 16th century

In the 16th century, Bayazid Pir Roshan from Waziristan 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. ګ ,ښ ,ړ ,ډ ,څ ,ټ 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 (rē with dot below and dot above) to represent /ʒ/, like the ⟨s⟩ in pleasure, for which modern Pashto uses ژ instead. Modern Pashto uses the letter ږ to represent the sound /ʐ/ (northern dialect: /g/), but for that sound, Pir Roshan used a letter looking like ·د (dāl with central dot). His letter ڊ (dāl with dot below) to represent /d͡z/ has been replaced by ځ in modern Pashto. He also used ڛ (sīn with three dots below), an obsolete letter from the medieval Nastaʿlīq script, to denote the letter س (representing /s/) only in the isolated form. The Arabic ligature ﻻ (lām-alif) was also used. Two of his letters, پ and چ, were borrowed from the Persian alphabet.

Romanisation

The following table (read from left to right) gives the letters' isolated forms, along with possible Latin equivalents and typical IPA values:

Pashto Keyboards

• Pashto Roman Keyboard for macOS [Guide: download; Installation Guide
• Pashto phonetic keyboard online

See also

• Pre-Islamic scripts in Afghanistan

Notes

1.^ As 2nd Person Singular - example: ته کور ته ځې [you are going home]. And as Past Feminine 3rd Person Plural - example: هغوی ګډېدې [They (women) were dancing)

2.^ Example: پرې, پې, تر...پورې etc

3. ^ Example: سړی تللی و [the man had gone]

4. ^ Example: خځه تللې وه [the woman had gone]

References

Bibliography

• Awde & Sarwan (2002). "Pashto dictionary & phrasebook", page 24.

External links

• khyber.org^[usurped]
• pcgn.org.uk (PDF)
• loc.gov (PDF)
• abnea.com (PDF)
• eki.ee (PDF)
• Pashto English-English Pashto Dictionary Phrasebook Romanized (Nicholas Awde)