Our language and our friends

[AnGaaR]

^ u said it wrong..
10 % kai aqel neshta aw 90 % kai shta


and now u can count urself in 10% category..

[Fahd]

^ haha
no that'sa real what i say

[Admin Khan]

I have a little rule in my house that I have imposed on nearly everybody, "Only Pashto".

Angaar wrora, It works. My baby bro is only 6 and he speaks Pashto.

[ayub]

^ ur very authoritarian..what happened to individual choice and freedom. My bet is that kid is gonna grow up and revolt against your dictatorship and start only conversing in English.

[Saifullah]

how u gonna fix their accent though?

[Admin Khan]

^ ur very authoritarian..what happened to individual choice and freedom. My bet is that kid is gonna grow up and revolt against your dictatorship and start only conversing in English.

Your bet is wrong. How about you start offering your kids freedom from age 6. We will see how smart they are from differentiating between right and wrong at that young of an age.

[ayub]

I think saif said something about accent..anyways I'm thinking if for example your six year old bro will only speak Pakhto at home where and how is he gonna learn english? I mean when he starts school he will be lost. He will have such a heavy Pakhto accent..kids will make fun of him. (I'm talking about those raised in america/uk English speaking countries etc)

I think a balance is much more importAnt and taking ur immediate environment into consideration too.

[Admin Khan]

I think saif said something about accent..anyways I'm thinking if for example your six year old bro will only speak Pakhto at home where and how is he gonna learn english? I mean when he starts school he will be lost. He will have such a heavy Pakhto accent..kids will make fun of him. (I'm talking about those raised in america/uk English speaking countries etc)

I think a balance is much more importAnt and taking ur immediate environment into consideration too.

Graana Ayub Khana,

My entire family was born in the west. If my parents would have not forced us to speak Pashto at home. I would not have been able to speak Pashto or read Pashto. In the west speaking Pashto in your household is vital and important. It helps you in keeping up with your identity and culture. Obviously he will learn English just like how I did. By going to school, playing Basketball at the park etc.

But where will he learn Pashto? In High schoool? Isn't being Bi-lingual a good thing?

[AnGaaR]

I have a little rule in my house that I have imposed on nearly everybody, "Only Pashto".

Angaar wrora, It works. My baby bro is only 6 and he speaks Pashto.

Good work admin khana..
which reminds me of something... let me tell u this in msn lol

[AnGaaR]

how u gonna fix their accent though?

Accent pa bala wola.. chei zcheba haira nakei accent parwa na lari..
accent pakhpala samaigei

sta english accent kho ba awal na da angrizano pa shan nawa?
i remember calling(accent) plane as Plain..

[AnGaaR]

I've noticed the same thing in this area as well. The only Pukhtuns who speak Pukhto with each other are the elders or the younguns who have newly arrived from back home.

When I was in middle school, I had a classmate who would always, ALWAYS speak in her native language (Vietnamese) with people from her country (Vietnam). Since at that time, we were living among the kinda Pukhtuns who thought that "being educated = throwing away your culture and language," I was stunned to see others speaking in their native languages. So one day, I approached her and told her I really admire her for that and she said, "My parents have threatened to kill us if we speak English at home."

I've met some Pukhtuns who are living abroad and have said that their families have been very strict about ensuring that they speak only Pukhto at home to guarantee the survival of Pukhto in their homes. These are the kinds of parents we need to admire and look up to. It's a pity that some of us think otherwise.

Some weeks ago, I was interviewing someone for a study, and he turned out to be an Urdu speaker from Pakistan. When he figured that I must be from Pakistan, he was like, "You speak Urdu?" I said, "Sort of but not too well." And he said, "WHAT? You're from Pakistan and you don't know Urdu?!!" And I said, "I do know Urdu, but just not too well - and I'm fluent in Pukhto; that's my native language." And he made it seem like that wasn't important because Urdu, NOT Pukhto, is the national language of Pakistan.

See, that - I couldn't tolerate, either.

But, yeah, while we can't force others to believe like we do, what we CAN do as individuals is to speak Pukhto with other Pukhtuns even if they're not gonna speak in Pukhto with us. I've some friends who refuse to respond to me if I talk to them in English!

very well said qratuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu



But many will think that you are uneducated caz u dont speak english

Its very Dumb to be called Dumb by a Dumb.... / sahi wayem?

[Son of Mountains]

I must say, U all are lucky who speak pasto at home even when you are living in West/Europe etc.

I am not that lucky!

[Admin Khan]

I must say, U all are lucky who speak pasto at home even when you are living in West/Europe etc.

I am not that lucky!

Mosh kho ba darsara yu, pa Pashto key khabarey rasara kawa.

You have us.

[*Mahzala*]

In my house, as children, we were not allowed to speak a word of English, because a language is not just a few words, with it comes the attitudes, the custom and the foreign behaviours my parents would never have tolerated. Not death threats, but we were 'punished' in certain ways when we spoke English at home, and my father still, gets really furious when we speak English. My brother would, to remind us of its importance, and as usualy come down to our level as children, say we had to put 50c of our pocket money into a little container for every English word spoken, and every child knows the value of earning and spending pocket money, so we avoided it at every cost. Not because of materialistic desires, but because we knew the difference of the two languages, that once the word 'you' to an elder in the house kicks in, we knew it was disrespectful as opposed to 'taaso' and the like. We knew that Pakhto is not just four letters, but a lot more is in the one word that many other cultures and languages lack. Till today, as a family we sit, at a fixed time on the weekend (it happens every minute of the day without a book, but reading and writing are done together in my house), grab an Islamic English book and translate it into Pakhto in our discussions, or, for the children, we read from Pakhto books (Islamic related), so we can instil that love and understanding in our children that ones language is their identity in many ways.

[Son of Mountains]

Mosh kho ba darsara yu, pa Pashto key khabarey rasara kawa.

You have us.

Dera merabani peera. Taso ta pata de che zu khpala full koshish kom.