Pashto (
Naskh پښتو -
IPA&_160;
[pəʂ'to]; alternative spelling
Pakhto,
Pushto,
Pukhto,
Pashtu, or
Pushtu), also known as
Afghani[3][4] is an
Indo-European language spoken by
Pashtuns in
Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
[5] Pashto belongs to the
Eastern Iranian branch of the
Indo-Iranian language family.
[6]Native speakers of Pashto account for roughly 50% of the population of Afghanistan[7] and 15.42% of Pakistan.[8] As defined in the Constitution of Afghanistan, Pashto is a national and official language of Afghanistan.
As a consequence of life in mountainous areas, weak socio-economic inter-relations, along with other historic and linguistic reasons, there are many dialects in Pashto language. However, as a whole, Pashto has two main dialects soft or western dialect and hard or eastern dialect. The difference between these two dialects is in the use of some vowels and sounds. One of the primary features of the dialects is the differences in the pronunciation of these five phonemes (all sounds in IPA)
The dialect of Kandahar is the most conservative with regards to phonology, retaining both the dental affricates and the retroflex fricatives, which have not merged with other phonemes.
