Pashto alphabet

Excerpt from Khayr ul-Bayān, the oldest known document written in Pashto, written in Nastaliq in 1651

The Pashto alphabet (Pashto: پښتو الفبې‎ pax̌to alifbe) is a modified form of the Persian alphabet known as Perso-Arabic, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet, with letters added to accommodate phonemes used in Pashto that are not found in Arabic and Persian.

History

The Pashto alphabet

The seventeenth century saw the rise of a polemic debate that was also polarized along lines of script. The heterodox Roshani movement wrote their literature mostly in the Persianate style called Nastaʿlīq script. The followers of the Akhund Darweza, and the Akhund himself, who viewed themselves as defending the religion against the influence of syncretism, wrote Pashto in the Arabicized Naskh, which is the generally used script in the modern era of Pashto with some individualized exceptions because of its greater adaptability for typesetting. Even lithographically reproduced Pashto has been calligraphied in Naskh as a general rule, since it was adopted as standard.

The Pashto Alphabet

Two of the special Pashto letters: x̌in/ṣ̌in and γ̌ē/ẓ̌e

The Pashto alphabet has several letters which do not appear in any other Arabic script. For example, the letters representing the retroflex consonants /ʈ /, /ɖ /, / / and /ɳ / are written like the standard Arabic te, dāl, re and nun with a "panḍak", "ğaṛwanday" or also called "skəṇay" attached underneath, which looks like a small circle: ړ, ډ, ټ, and ڼ, respectively. The letters ښ and ږ (x̌īn/ṣ̌īn and ǵe/ẓ̌e) look like sīn (س) and re (ﺭ) respectively with a dot above and beneath. The letters representing t͡s and d͡z look like a ح with three dots above and an hamza (ء) above; څ and ځ, and are also specific to Pashto, although څ was also used in the related extinct language of Khwarezmian to represent both /t͡s/ and /d͡z/. Pashto has ی, ې, ۀ, and ۍ for additional vowels and diphthongs as well.

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

Letters

Pashto has 45 letters and 4 diacritic marks. The Southern (S), Central (C) and Northern (N) dialects of Pashto are included.

Notes

• ^1 In the beginning of a word, آ (alif with madda) represents the long vowel /ɑ/ in words borrowed from other languages (e.g. آغا - āğā, a title).^[1] In the beginning of a word, the alphabet ا (alif) represents the consonant /a/, e.g. اسپه - aspa, "mare".^[2] In the middle or end of a word, ا represents the long vowel /ɑ/ which is following a consonant (e.g. کال - kāl, "year"; and نيا - nyā, "grandmother").^[3][4] In the beginning of a word, the alphabet Alif can also be used with a diactric mark [often not written] e.g. اِ (alif with a zer) as in اِسلام - Islām, "Islam (the religion)".^[5]
• ^2 Ten letters, ق ف ع ظ ط ض ص ح ﺫ ث, appear only in loanwords which of Arabic origin through Persian borrowings. Eight of these, ع ظ ط ض ص ح ﺫ ث, represent no additional phonemes of Pashto, and their pronunciation is replaced with other phonemes.
• ^3 ح /h/ tends to be omitted in pronunciation when at the end of a word, e.g. اصلاح is always pronounced as [isˡlɑ].
• ^4 The letter ړ represents /ɺ̢/ if it is not at the final position of a syllable; if it is final, it represents /ɻ/.
• ^5 The phoneme /f/ ف occurs only in loanwords. It tends to be replaced with /p/ پ.
• ^6 The phoneme /q/ ق occurs only in loanwords. It tends to be replaced with /k/ ک.
• ^7 It is also common to write the letter ک as ك.
• ^8 It is also common to write the letter ګ as گ.
• ^9 In informal texts, ی as well as ې, ۍ and ئ are sometimes replaced by the letter ے, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In some official texts, edited till to the middle of the 20th century, the ے corresponds only to ې, while ۍ and ئ (if only the grammatical use of the latter is not lacked) are used as in official typing nowadays.
• ^10 ی represents /ai/ when it is following a consonant (e.g. لرګی - largay, "wood"), and represents /j/ when it is following a vowel (e.g. دوی - duy, "they").
• ^11 The letter ئ represents /j/ after a vowel, e.g. جدائي - judāyī, "separation".
• ^12 It is also common to write ﺉ with the hamza over the right side of the letter - ٸ.
• ^13 The letter ۀ is only represented at the end of a word, e.g. تېرۀ - terə, "sharp". The vowel /ə/ when present between consonants is unrepresented by the ۀ alphabet, e.g. ننوتل - nənawatəl, "to enter".

Historical letters now in disuse

The superscribed element of the letter ځ in earlier varieties was not hamza-shaped, but was very similar to little kāf of the letter ك.^[6] Such shape of the upper element of the letter is hard to find in modern fonts.

In the earliest known Pashto manuscript written in 1651 CE,^[7] ڊ (dāl with subscript dot) was used for /t͡s/ and /d͡z/, which was still used in the Diwan of Mirza written in 1690 CE, but this sign was soon replaced by څ, which was first attested in 1696-7 CE. څ is now used for only /t͡s/.

Another rare glyph for /d͡z/ is ج֗, a ج with the same dot above.

Diacritic marks

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

The four diacritic marks are:

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.
• In Arabic loanwords, the tanwin fatha (ً) can be used, e.g. مَثَلاً - masalan, "for example".

"Ye" letters

"Ye"-letters in Pashto alphabet

Indications

• ^1 If ى follows a consonant in a word, it indicates the word is masculine singular and in the direct case.
• ^2 ۍ always indicates 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. Note, that sometimes the grammatical ئ was lacked either in the typing as in the alphabet and replaced with the ۍ.

See also

• Pre-Islamic scripts in Afghanistan
• Perso-Arabic alphabet

References

Bibliography

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

External links

• Pashto phonetic keyboard