Split Discussion: Should Pashto Be Standardised with a Roman Script?

[Toramana]

I agree with retro that Arabic script is kind of archaic, primitive, and unweildy in technology sense not really efficient from the viewpoint of dessiminating a good amount of information ...If I were given the power I would replace it with Roman script...

[randolph85]

^ are u fluent in arabic?

[Tjanaparh]

Kharoshthi if I am not wrong is also related to Aramaic script.
Many are , even Mongolian script.

[khushal]

Arabic script is very poor and I do not agree with you that it is in anyway shape or form better than roman script. The roman alphabet is a variety of the Greek alphabet. The fundamental problem is that the existing English alphabet has, only 26 letters for the 34 sounds used in standard spoken English. Hence English could really do with a few more characters.

I am no linguist but the Arabic script spelling system is phonatic as far as concerning consonants, with matching of a sound to each letter almost exclusevely. no silent letters and no double letters except to make a break in pronunciation.
In contrast the English alphabet need a complete dictionary for the spelling system and its exceptions.

[khushal]

I agree with retro that Arabic script is kind of archaic, primitive, and unweildy in technology sense not really efficient from the viewpoint of dessiminating a good amount of information ...If I were given the power I would replace it with Roman script...

your opinion does not come from rationality but on the contrary from hatred. Replacing the current script to some other script has detrimental affects on the language. Pashto already lacks literature in its current form of script. If you replace it, It would have zero literature and resources that pashtuns lack would have to be spent to create literature and train scholars on the new system.

When ataturk replaced the arabic script with the roman script, he did a huge disservice to his turkish languge because the turkish language was rich with literature before the change happened. Today it is an inferior language because it lacks literature in its current roman script.

The Kurdish language is a good example to look at. In Turkey it is written in the roman script which was changed from Arabic script, in Iraq and Iran it is written in in Arabic script. If you look at where the kurdish languge is richest, you would find it is in Iraq and Iran even though with less population because they dont lack literature that turkish kurds lack. Where the kurdish language is most in danger of disappearing is in the former USSR which writes in Cyrillic alphabet.


Changing the current pashto script would be a disservice to the pashto language.

[ScimitarXEdge]

I dont have much knowledge in this area, I am sure Toramana does, but I am sure pre-Islamically, Pashtuns never wrote nor spoke in Arabic script or in Arabic.

and No Arabic, should not be an important language for Pashtuns, the Arab world has no benefit for us.

agreed ...they didn't, but we also don't have any evidence of the Pashto language existing in Pre-Islamic times, and the existence of other languages in the area, such as Soghdian and Khwarzemi would have indicated the existence of Pashto speakers, yet we find no reference to it in any ancient document.

[ScimitarXEdge]

Arabic evolved from Nabataean, a Semitic script that is closely related to Aramaic. However the problem with modern Arabic script is that it suffers from poor legibility.

The Quran was originally written in a unintelligible, abridged form without diacritical marks or vowels, which gave rise to the creation of Quranic variants.

Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek scripts are all descended from Phoenician. The Greeks adopted a modified Phoenician alphabet and script.

Phoenician

Actually it's funny you mention that

Right now I'm working with a Group Theorist, although his research specialization is different than mine, I asked him some help on being able to isolate fields and rings. His area of group theory deals with Data structural organization

he was saying that Roman script is cumbersome in grouping because it lacks homomorphism

But ironically arabic script is actually apt for grouping and rings in creating data structures because arabic has a systematic changes to letter groups which can create more efficient strings because most arabic letters can be grouped into certain shape categories, the only difference between certain letters is just a few dots or nodes. This helps for efficient data truncation and efficiency

With roman letters each shape is too different, the groupings would be too numerous. The Arabic letter system is like the Metric System to Numbers, he remarked.

[Badlun]

Ground reality is different. Look at computer and internet. All its programs and languages are based on roman script and most of the stuff is found in languages written with Latin alphabet , the most dominant ones are English, french, Spanish etc while as compared to these languages like Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Pashto are almost non existing.

Even many languages have shifted their script from Arabic to Roman like Turkish and Malaysian. That day is not too far when Pashto will be written in Roman characters and that will be the happiest day of my life as now the most difficulty that I face to write Pashto here in forums etc is the cumbersome procedure to write in Pashto letters.

[ScimitarXEdge]

THat's more to do with politics than practicality and efficiency. Social Trends are not always consistent with the views of the Educated. Mathematicians and Computer Scientists have a better insight into what is better for specific goals regarding information management and structuring. The Integer Rings and Fields can be better allotted with fewer groups.

There are numerous operating systems better than Windows / Microsoft but because of market politics windows holds a Monopoly.

Not every logical idea makes it to the mainstream. Most mathematicians and computer scientists would agree, Anything which has more effective and symmetric Groupings would be able to transfer and organize information better

In Roman Letters you have like 26 letters but 15 homologous shapes. In Arabic you have 28 letters but 5 Homologies which means 5 Groups can carry more information than a cumbersome and bulky 15


some people might be happy for roman script but Educated, More Enlightened people will always prefer what is Superior over what is popular.

[khushal]

Ground reality is different. Look at computer and internet. All its programs and languages are based on roman script and most of the stuff is found in languages written with Latin alphabet , the most dominant ones are English, french, Spanish etc while as compared to these languages like Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Pashto are almost non existing.

Even many languages have shifted their script from Arabic to Roman like Turkish and Malaysian. That day is not too far when Pashto will be written in Roman characters and that will be the happiest day of my life as now the most difficulty that I face to write Pashto here in forums etc is the cumbersome procedure to write in Pashto letters.

utter non sense.

computers are programmed with two electronic signals, on and off. computer languages make it less cumbersome to manually set the electronic signals as on and off. you could convert on and off electronic symbols to any language in the world. It has nothing to do with script. the reason that almost all computer languages are written in English is because most of the computer innovations are done in America and English is the most widely spoken language in the world. It would be naive to write a computer language in russian or chinese or any other language when most of the innovators are English speakers.

not to mention that computer languages are 95% mathematics and mathematics are in Arabic numerals

[khushal]

you nationalists are the true enemies of Pashtun culture and Pashtun language. All your ideas are based on hatred of other ethnicities and cultures that has blinded you from rationality.

[khushal]

Not every logical idea makes it to the mainstream. Most mathematicians and computer scientists would agree, Anything which has more effective and symmetric Groupings would be able to transfer and organize information better

In Roman Letters you have like 26 letters but 15 homologous shapes. In Arabic you have 28 letters but 5 Homologies which means 5 Groups can carry more information than a cumbersome and bulky 15


some people might be happy for roman script but Educated, More Enlightened people will always prefer what is Superior over what is popular.

very true, its the reason the europeans ditched the roman numerals for the arabic numerals otherwise they could not progress mathematically. Using too many symbols for writing numbers, it was too difficult and too complicated. it was a perfect example of logic prevailing over politics.

[graveyardofempires]

The use of Chinese characters would definitely help retain a literary standard for the Pashto language, after all nearly every "dialect" of Chinese is written with it and most are mutually uninteligible. The differences between standard Cantonese and Mandarin are as great as those between the English and French languages, yet they use a common orthography. This is because Chinese characters (Hanzi) are logographs, they represent words and not merely letters or sounds.

i was being sarcastic.

[graveyardofempires]

Exactly my point. The current script is perfect.
The only problem is that it is still quite non-standard, as there are spelling variations between the Lar and Bar Pashtuns.

do you know this website?

Pashto keyboard (Afghan) Online LEXILOGOS >>

i dont think there is much difference in spelling except for the Y

[Old School Killiwal]

Pashto cannot be standardized with a Roman script because there aren't any Roman letters that can be used as a substitute for both "k", "g", "x", "s" and "z", which are needed. Unless we borrow some characters from Cyrillic. A very close friend of mine can explain this beautifully.He has also developed a transliteration system using various digraphs in place of special letters.