The use of zeem in Pakhto

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

west = لويديځ

east = ختيځ

mashriq and maghrib are arabic words, although could be more commonly used than their pure pashto counterparts

Palwan: Isn't the the above two words are written with "Zey" rather than "Zeem" at the end?

ختيز او لوېديز

[Palwan]

No, brother, I think they are both properly written with dzeem.

[Feroza_Banu]

^dzeem hmmm.

there are two za sound in pashto.

one is normal zay = like if i had to write zma (my)
the other one is Dzay... with a slight daal pronounciation before the zzz sound. its said as "dzay" like if i had to use it in a sentence i would say

ta cheri dzay...

the way palwan wrote it is correct. its with dzay at the end.

u can verify it with an online dictionary.

this is how we are taught alphabets in pashto

[Feroza_Banu]

back to observe.

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

^dzeem hmmm.

there are two za sound in pashto.

one is normal zay = like if i had to write zma (my)
the other one is Dzay... with a slight daal pronounciation before the zzz sound. its said as "dzay" like if i had to use it in a sentence i would say

ta cheri dzay...

the way palwan wrote it is correct. its with dzay at the end.

u can verify it with an online dictionary.

this is how we are taught alphabets in pashto

Lol you confused me........I think there is only one Zey i.e "ز" and the other one having the same sound like zey is "Zeem" i.e "ځ" (that is what we call it).......Zeem(ځ) da Jeem pa wazan dey and it is like ح with a little Hamza on it........It is mainly used in those words which are pronounced by different Pakhtun tribes differently .....either they will pronounce it as Jeem or Zey.....

ځ : دا تورے داسې ليکلے شي چې د (ح) دپاسه همزه اچولے شي او د (جيم) په وزن (زيم) وئيلے شي. دا تورے په داسې لفظونو کښې استعمالېږي چې د پښتنو ځنې قبيلې ئې تلفظ په (ج) کوي او ځنې ئې د (ز) په شان وائي او يا په نورو ګاونډي ژبو کښې په (ج) وئيلے شي. لکه
ځائې: ځنې خلق ورته (جائې) وائي او ځنې ورته (زائې) وائي
ځوان: څۀ قبيلې ئې (جوان) او څۀ ئې (زوان) وائي
ځان : ځنې پښتانۀ ئې (جان) وائي او ځنې ورته (زان) وائي
ځواب : ځنې پښتانۀ ورته (جواب) او ځنې ورته (زواب) وائي

I don't think that Lwedeez and Khateez are pronounced differently by pakhtuns......moreover Khateez is from Khatalao(rising) .....like Goteez for "Gott" and Arakheez for Arakh.....
Example

اړخ نه اړخيز
ګوټ نه ګوټيز
دا شکل څلور ګوټيز دے

as the words like the above, are written with Zey so i believe that this Lwedeez and Khataeez will also be written with Zey not with zeem....and i have seen this word written with Zey in afghans written books......

Manana

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

one is normal zay = like if i had to write zma (my)
the other one is Dzay... with a slight daal pronounciation before the zzz sound. its said as "dzay" like if i had to use it in a sentence i would say

No, there is no difference between Zey and Zeem in terms of pronounciation.........The only difference is that Zeem is used in those words which has double pronounciation......like i will take your sentence:
Za' ba jannat ta da pukhto sara zam......(زۀ به جنت ته د پښتو سره ځم) now this Zam (ځم) is pronounced as "Zam" and "Jam" as well ....Marwat tribes use the latter i.e Jam.....

[Feroza_Banu]

Lol you confused me........I think there is only one Zey i.e "ز" and the other one having the same sound like zey is "Zeem" i.e "ځ" (that is what we call it).......Zeem(ځ) da Jeem pa wazan dey and it is like ح with a little Hamza on it........It is mainly used in those words which are pronounced by different Pakhtun tribes differently .....either they will pronounce it as Jeem or Zey.....

ځ : دا تورے داسې ليکلے شي چې د (ح) دپاسه همزه اچولے شي او د (جيم) په وزن (زيم) وئيلے شي. دا تورے په داسې لفظونو کښې استعمالېږي چې د پښتنو ځنې قبيلې ئې تلفظ په (ج) کوي او ځنې ئې د (ز) په شان وائي او يا په نورو ګاونډي ژبو کښې په (ج) وئيلے شي. لکه
ځائې: ځنې خلق ورته (جائې) وائي او ځنې ورته (زائې) وائي
ځوان: څۀ قبيلې ئې (جوان) او څۀ ئې (زوان) وائي
ځان : ځنې پښتانۀ ئې (جان) وائي او ځنې ورته (زان) وائي
ځواب : ځنې پښتانۀ ورته (جواب) او ځنې ورته (زواب) وائي

I don't think that Lwedeez and Khateez are pronounced differently by pakhtuns......moreover Khateez is from Khatalao(rising) .....like Goteez for "Gott" and Arakheez for Arakh.....
Example

اړخ نه اړخيز
ګوټ نه ګوټيز
دا شکل څلور ګوټيز دے

as the words like the above, are written with Zey so i believe that this Lwedeez and Khataeez will also be written with Zey not with zeem....and i have seen this word written with Zey in afghans written books......

Manana

No, there is no difference between Zey and Zeem in terms of pronounciation.........The only difference is that Zeem is used in those words which has double pronounciation......like i will take your sentence:
Za' ba jannat ta da pukhto sara zam......(زۀ به جنت ته د پښتو سره ځم) now this Zam (ځم) is pronounced as "Zam" and "Jam" as well ....Marwat tribes use the latter i.e Jam.....

here is the link to online dictionary. http://www.qamosona.com/
write "eastern" and then see what comes out and how its written.

i am not writing anything from my own side. this dictionary is only one proof but i have read it in several books. even in school books in Afghanistan.

on the pronouciation part: pashto has several dielect but we all can agree that it has an original dielect as well. Now i am not saying other dielects are wrong and only original dielect is right, but according to original dielect the alphabet "dzeem" is pronounced as "dza"...

the other alphabet that is pronounced differently is "tse" ...

KP pashtoons majority say "saaaa kawe?" but the original pronounciation is "tsa" with a slight tay in the beginning.

while its ok to say "sanga ye"... the original pronouciation is "tsanga ye"...

imagine if there is NO difference in pronounciation, can you tell me what is the purpose of having a "tsay" and "dzeem"... why can't we just used simple "say" and "zay"?

and just because it isn't heard of doesnt mean it doesn't exist .

i request you to kindly do some more research in regards to this.

we have to preserve the originality of our language. i am afraid slowly slowly we will loose these original pashto alphabets completely. and we won't even know the difference in pronounciation.




no one has information about this? its such a surprise to me.

[Palwan]

^ wonderful post, 100% agreed

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

here is the link to online dictionary. http://www.qamosona.com/
write "eastern" and then see what comes out and how its written.

i am not writing anything from my own side. this dictionary is only one proof but i have read it in several books. even in school books in Afghanistan.

on the pronouciation part: pashto has several dielect but we all can agree that it has an original dielect as well. Now i am not saying other dielects are wrong and only original dielect is right, but according to original dielect the alphabet "dzeem" is pronounced as "dza"...

the other alphabet that is pronounced differently is "tse" ...

KP pashtoons majority say "saaaa kawe?" but the original pronounciation is "tsa" with a slight tay in the beginning.

while its ok to say "sanga ye"... the original pronouciation is "tsanga ye"...

imagine if there is NO difference in pronounciation, can you tell me what is the purpose of having a "tsay" and "dzeem"... why can't we just used simple "say" and "zay"?

and just because it isn't heard of doesnt mean it doesn't exist .

i request you to kindly do some more research in regards to this.

we have to preserve the originality of our language. i am afraid slowly slowly we will loose these original pashto alphabets completely. and we won't even know the difference in pronounciation.




no one has information about this? its such a surprise to me.

First of all the dictionary you are talking about is considered not authentic by scholars, zaka che leekwal pakey da khpaley khwakhey der navee takki wartumbalee dee, so that can't be trusted.....
Secondly Sanga che taso daa khabara da zaana na' kaway humm dagha shaan za' hummm darta da zaan na na' yam lagya.....i have read it in many books that are published in Kabul because as i said earlier we don't use this word that much.....Even i have a bag brought from Kabul che leekalee shawee dee prey "د منځني ختيز د شاعرانو او جورنسلټانو خپلواکه ټولنه" .....bal taso mata da online dictionary reference raako noo za' taso ta waym che sirf google ke "ختيز" olekai au enter krai bya ogorai che somra zala Afghanistan sara Khateez pa "zey" sara raaghaley dey?????? Da dey sa' matlab....Aya Afghanistan ke pukhto dwa ranga leekaley shee....? Bala daa che maa taso ta koma hawala darkra hagha da pukhto grammar da kitab na da, zama khpal khyalat pakey nishta......au humm dagha dalta da rules haisiyat laree.....Baaqi taso da sey au zey qisa karey da noo pa haghey za' na' pohegam che sa' matlab ye dey......mung warta zeem waayu "Sey" au "Zey" juda juda toree dee......
Graaney bayad che taso khpala research okai.....Maa taso ta misaaloona hummm darkral che sa' ranga Zeem au Zey use kege......
After reading your post i conclude that pashtuns in Afghanistan right "Khateez" in two ways one with Zeem(that you call dzey) and the other with "Zey"......I am sorry for taking your time.....
and for the last paragraph i would say che bilkul mung la pakaar dee che khpal old pashto words preserve kroo kho warsara daa humm khyaal osaatoo che da khpaley khwakhey new pashto words na' create kawoo zaka che daa da confusion waja joredey shee........
Manana
Manana

[Feroza_Banu]

First of all the dictionary you are talking about is considered not authentic by scholars, zaka che leekwal pakey da khpaley khwakhey der navee takki wartumbalee dee, so that can't be trusted.....
Secondly Sanga che taso daa khabara da zaana na' kaway humm dagha shaan za' hummm darta da zaan na na' yam lagya.....i have read it in many books that are published in Kabul because as i said earlier we don't use this word that much.....Even i have a bag brought from Kabul che leekalee shawee dee prey "د منځني ختيز د شاعرانو او جورنسلټانو خپلواکه ټولنه" .....bal taso mata da online dictionary reference raako noo za' taso ta waym che sirf google ke "ختيز" olekai au enter krai bya ogorai che somra zala Afghanistan sara Khateez pa "zey" sara raaghaley dey?????? Da dey sa' matlab....Aya Afghanistan ke pukhto dwa ranga leekaley shee....? Bala daa che maa taso ta koma hawala darkra hagha da pukhto grammar da kitab na da, zama khpal khyalat pakey nishta......au humm dagha dalta da rules haisiyat laree.....Baaqi taso da sey au zey qisa karey da noo pa haghey za' na' pohegam che sa' matlab ye dey......mung warta zeem waayu "Sey" au "Zey" juda juda toree dee......
Graaney bayad che taso khpala research okai.....Maa taso ta misaaloona hummm darkral che sa' ranga Zeem au Zey use kege......
After reading your post i conclude that pashtuns in Afghanistan right "Khateez" in two ways one with Zeem(that you call dzey) and the other with "Zey"......I am sorry for taking your time.....
and for the last paragraph i would say che bilkul mung la pakaar dee che khpal old pashto words preserve kroo kho warsara daa humm khyaal osaatoo che da khpaley khwakhey new pashto words na' create kawoo zaka che daa da confusion waja joredey shee........
Manana
Manana

Brother, i don't think i need to do research in regards to alphabet pronounciation, i have been taught by my mother, who has taught Pashto for 22 years in Afghanistan (and that to grades 8 - 12).

and anyways, the pashto alphabet pronounciation is such a small matter that even kids that have gone to school in afghanistan know this. so there is no argument here... u either find out about it and accept it or you just dont... its completely your own choice. your refusal of my explanation doesn't change the fact that i have stated, it rather shows how much we all have yet to learn about our beautiful language.

one more thing: i can find many references for you from libraries and books written by british and Afghan scholars up to 50 years ago that shed light on the topic of pronounciation of original pashto in regards to special pashto alphabets... but i won't do your homework for you lol
here is a video from youtube. pay attention to "dze" and "tsay"...

oh and i have NO affiliation with the maker of this video... so don't think the video person is under my influence.



oh and i don't like beating and dragging one topic for pages... i tried my best explaining... so i won't reply in this regard anymore....




back to the topic: what is the word for "observe" in pashto.

[IamDZJ]

I never knew zey and zeem were this important.
There are lots of words that are spelled differently in pakhtunkhuwa pashto than the one we are used to feroza. Of course our version is the correct one yousefzai.

[Feroza_Banu]

I never knew zey and zeem were this important.
There are lots of words that are spelled differently in pakhtunkhuwa pashto than the one we are used to feroza. Of course our version is the correct one yousefzai.

there is a huge difference in formal language and coversational language in many languages all around the world. whilst a language could have more than 100 dielects the formal and written form of the same language only has one correct form. We both are fluent in Dari also, I am sure you see the difference between formal Dari and conversational Dari (amyaana) to be earth and sky.

I realize that pashto has many many different dielects and i am perfectly fine with that, but the formal written pashto is widely accepted as one form. this form is accepted from east to north to south to west in Afghanistan.

Many Pashto dielects do not pay attention to "musculine" and "feminine" form of a word while spoken in daily life... why go far i will bring the example of my own husband. when he speaks he says things like:

"filanki kha sarray da"

this 'da' part is completely wrong in formal pashto, because 'da' is used for feminine form of a word, but thats the dielect he speaks. but if tomorrow he is about to write a formal journal or letter to someone, or to teach to a classroom, he will correct himself. he will make sure he writes it as

Filanki kha sarray dai. (at least he accepts the fact that formal Pashto is different than the one he speaks).

what makes pashto so difficult for others to learn is this complex grammer that it has. every word in pashto has a musculin and feminine form, and every form changes when spoken in singular or plural sense. its not an easy language.

anyways, this topic is dragged more than necessary.

i sincerely hope no one misunderstands me, my purpose is not to put down anyone, i correct my own family so its a genuine effort here on this PF and at my own home

[tor_khan]

.....I am sorry for taking your time.....
and for the last paragraph i would say che bilkul mung la pakaar dee che khpal old pashto words preserve kroo kho warsara daa humm khyaal osaatoo che da khpaley khwakhey new pashto words na' create kawoo zaka che daa da confusion waja joredey shee........
Manana
Manana

Dera Manana to Yusufzai and Feroza Jan for their efforts here.

I'm not the Pashto language scholar here; for imla reasons, I tend to check back, but authorities/conventions don't always agree. I think a lot of this is because if we only rely on historic sources, we miss modern developments in and around the language which are important, particularly in the light of technology, and what the common mass does.

One way to order to understand the differences in Pashto spelling, is to look at English variances. I come from an EAL teaching background amongst other things and at its basic core, whilst there is a lot of phonemic incoherence, 80% of English words follow regular patterns of spellings, but at least a fifth of the language that is now a world dominant language remains open to change and debate.

It's worth noting that English itself is largely an amalgam of German and French and that for three centuries after the Norman invasion of 1066, most the writing on the British Isles was in French. Considering three hundred years of not writing English (at a time when the only people who wrote were monks and priests schooled in Latin, not English or French) meant that by the end of the 14th century, English was a written in whatever form people followed. There's even evidence of continual variations in spellings in the Shakespeare too. A simple spelling of a word like "had", would be written as "hadd", "hadde" or "hade". Ever curious about words in English where the letters have very little in common with the pronunciation of the words e.g. knight or neighbour? Well it's worth knowing that neighbour is actually correct, because the word goes back to Anglo-Saxon which was a Germanic language. "Neighbour" was once pronounced naig burr (emphasis on "g" and "r" final letters) - the word incidentally means nearby dwelling. The spelling stayed, whilst the pronunciation didn't.

Another illustration of attempted spelling reform in English were the reforms that followed the US break from England. Neighbour became neighbor as colour became color. You could call it anti-Frenchism to an extent because coloure, lettre, were not pronounced in their French forms after several years of being passed into English. The Americans took something that the English started (re/er reversal for words like lettre to letter) and applied this further - liter (American), litre (English), fiber (American), fibre (English) and so on.

Spellings continue to change - grand-mother is now grandmother (without the hypen showing the split or compound word), grand-son is now grandson etc. Notice how there are exceptions - the hyphen sticks around for grand-daughter - granddaughter is not common and since compound words are actually two words put together notice how grandad should actually be granddad. In the US, it probably is, but the birthday cards industry in Britain has just about done away with the extra "d" in that one.

Is it "spelled" or "spelt"? The Americans prefer the former, the Brits prefer the latter. The Americans have tried to regularise the spelling there, but notice how it's pronounced? If we can say kept, we can say spelt. We also, in fact say walkt not walked. Perhaps one day the pronunciation will catch up and the agreed spelling will changed.

Spelling in English didn't begin to solidify into agreed forms until a major technological change - the invention of the printing press. When all books were handwritten, spellings varied from book to book. In England the major controversies arose from the variations in spellings in the bible and that fact alone was instrumental in propelling the massive growth in the printing press - and this paved the way for the standarisation of spellings with the pressings of dictionaries etc. Later a "formal" Received Pronunciation variation of English as put out by the BBC, helped standardise the language - in a country which is a tiny speck of a place in an ocean compared to the USA, the English have a wider variety of dialects and accents still. Even today there are still some English accents that are off my radar. One year a couple of years back, I was teaching eight years olds in England - the next year I was still teaching in the US. I had to suddenly go from spelling words like behaviour to behavior and Mum to Mom, ladybird became ladybug and realise became realize.

I see the parallels in Pashto - we can't yet claim a complete monopoly of what is correct/incorrect because of the variations in pronunciation, common lexis and some letter usage. For now, at least, I think words will continue to change. Just like the printing press and the mass media began to shape a common language for English, e-media and print can begin to do the same for Pashto.

Just an example of how some raging debate happening in English right now is the emergence of SMS spellings. i c u l8er would be considered "agreed" SMS "spelling". If people do this often enough and these spellings begin to appear in print in popular culture, then the spelling conventions begin to change.

"W" in English is said as Double U. In French it is Double Vay (Vee). Who is right? The truth is historically in English/Low German W has always been closer to U - "quiet", could easily be written "qwiet" and until typecript became common, "w" looked like two us - hence double u (imagine an "m" flipped over). In Finnish, W and V follow the French tradition and the letters are interchangeable, so a Finnish word with a V one day may appear with a W the next.

[Feroza_Banu]

^Thank you for your explanation. but Pashto can not be compared to English. Pashto is an original language with some words borrowed from other languages. Dari can be compared to Pashto for its originality, Dari a language that has been witnessing alot of development but has not left its original form.

I wasn't aware that pashtoons are actually looking to follow the foot step of Englishmen as far as their language is concerned.

we need to look up to those who have preserved their language for CENTURIES.... like the Farsizubaans/Darizubaans and the Hindus (sanskrit). there is nothing original about Englishmen to begin with... so they are the last people we should look up to.

I am not against languistic development, but it can't be at a price of the bases of Pashto. their are set rules in Pashto that can't be replaced, whether one likes it or not.

I refuse to accept "bagh e wahsh" or "chirrya ghar" as a replacement of our pure pashto word "zhobann" (zoo) in name of Development!

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

their are set rules in Pashto that can't be replaced, whether one likes it or not. [/COLOR]

This is what i wanted to say from the beginning....We have an excellent grammer and a set of rules that should be followed......