Kandahari Pashto

Part of a series on
Pashto language
Pashtuns Culture
Writing Systems
Pashto alphabet
Dialects
Wanetsi Wazirwola Central Pashto Kandahari Yusufzai (Peshawari) Other dialects
Language regulation
Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan Pashto Academy
Native to
Afghanistan Pakistan Pashtunistan Pashtun diaspora

Kandahari Pashto (Pashto: قندهاری، كندهاری‎ qandahārī/kandahārī), or Paṣ̌to, is a southern Pashto dialect, spoken in southern and western Afghanistan, including the city of Kandahar. Similar with Quetta (Kakar) and Khattak dialects (95-100% similarities in vocabulary, and 80% with Yusufzai dialect). It is one of most archaic and most prestige varieties of Pashto.

Kandahari Pashto is spoken in Kandahar, Helmand, most of Urozgan, Farah, and Nimruz, southeastern Ghor, the districts of Murghab, Ghormach, Muqur, and Jawand in Badghis, and parts of Zabul, Paktika, and Herat provinces of Afghanistan, as well as the Killa Abdullah district of the Balochistan province of Pakistan. Kandahari Pashto is almost same as the southeastern Pashto dialect, spoken in northern Balochistan including Quetta city, except for few phonetic differences.

There are in Kandahari dialect archaic retroflex ʂ and ʐ (in other dialects it is ş/x and ʒ/g). In the Quetta and Kakar dialect they change to ş and ʒ. Kandahari also has the affricates t͡s and d͡z.

Pronouns are also archaic. It is differences in 'he' and 'she' pronouns. In all 3rd personal pronouns is articulated 'h'.

References