Pushto Language

Pashto : Pashto: پښتو‎ Pax̌tō , sometimes spelled Pukhto, is the language of the Pashtuns. It is known in Persian literature as Afghāni (افغانی) and in Hindustani literature as Paṭhānī.Speakers of the language are called Pashtuns/Pakhtuns/Pathans and sometimes Afghans. It is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European family.Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan,^[and it is the second-largest regional language of Pakistan, mainly spoken in the west and northwest of the country. In Pakistan, it is the majority language of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of Balochistan. Along with Dari Persian, Pashto is the main language among the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is estimated to be 45–60 million people worldwide.

Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch, but Ethnologue lists it as Southeastern Iranian.Pashto has two main dialect groups, "soft" and "hard", the latter locally known as Pakhto or Paxto.

                                                     

History

According to 19th-century linguist James Darmesteter and modern linguist Michael M. T. Henderson, Pashto is "descended from Avestan".The Rabatak inscription of Emperor Kanishka written in Bactrian and Greek contains words borrowed from Pashto due to their proximity to the modern Pashto language.

Strabo, who lived between 64 BC and 24 CE, explains that the tribes inhabiting the lands west of the Indus River were part of Ariana and to their east was India. Since the 3rd century CE and onward, they are mostly referred to by the name Afghan (Abgan) and their language as "Afghani".

Scholars such as Abdul Hai Habibi and others believe that the earliest modern Pashto work dates back to Amir Kror Suri of the early Ghurid period in the eighth century, and they use the writings found in Pata Khazana. However, this is disputed by several modern experts such as David Neil MacKenzie and Lucia Serena Loi. Pata Khazana is a Pashto manuscript claimed to be written by Mohammad Hotak under the patronage of the Pashtun emperor Hussain Hotak in Kandahar. Pata Khazana claims to contain an anthology of Pashto poets from the early Ghurid period up to the Hotak period in the eighteenth century.

From the 16th century, Pashto poetry become very popular among the Pashtuns. Some of those who wrote in Pashto are Bayazid Pir Roshan (a major inventor of the Pashto alphabet), Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Nazo Tokhi, and Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the modern state of Afghanistan or the Durrani Empire.

In modern times, noticing the incursion of Persian and Arabic vocabulary, there is a strong desire to "purify" Pashto by restoring its old vocabulary.