Pashto alphabet

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 His letter ڊ (dāl with dot below) to represent /d͡z/ has been replaced by ځ in modern Pashto.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.

In August 1958, Pashtun intellectuals held a congress in Kabul, Afghanistan, with the goal of standardizing the Pashto alphabet. During the congress, a number of standardizations were proposed in the use of the modern Pashto alphabet.[1]

Pashto employs stress:[2] this can change the aspect of the verb and the meaning of the word. The Arabic alphabet does not show stress placement, but in transliteration it is indicated by the use of acute accent diactric: ´ over the vowel.

Example

Pashto has 45 letters and 4 diacritic marks. The Southern (S), Northeastern (NE) and Northwestern (NW) dialects of Pashto are included.

• ^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).[3] In the beginning of a word, the alphabet ا (alif) represents the consonant /a/, e.g. اسپه – aspa, "mare".[4] 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").[5][6] 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)".[7]
• ^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 /ɽ/ [8]
• ^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 and گ.
• ^9 In informal texts, ی as well as ې are sometimes replaced by the letter ے, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
• ^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 – judāyi, "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".
• ^14 Some dialects to omit the letter غ in some words, e.g. consider the following words; دغه = دا، دغوی = دوی، دغه هومره = دومره، دغلته = دلته، هغلته = هلته، دغه سی = داسی

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.[9] Such shape of the upper element of the letter is hard to find in modern fonts.

Since the time of Bayazid Pir Roshan, ڊ (dāl with subscript dot) was used for /d͡z/, which was still used in the Diwan of Mirza written in 1690 CE,[1] but this sign was later replaced by ځ.

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

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

The four diacritic marks are used:

• 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".

• ^1 If ى 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 circumpostions.
• ^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.

Waziristani has the following vowels:

These can be romanised

In the Marwat dialect and in the Karlāṇi dialects presence of nasalised vowels has been noted.[10] As such the nasalised vowels be transcribed in the following ways: