Writing Pashto

[Jane Doe]

Salamoona grano dostano!

A member from another forum referred me here because I have some questions about Pashto. I'm trying to learn how to read and write properly, but it's confusing because there are some basic words that people write differently and I don't know which one is 'correct' or 'official'. For example:

Dai (verb- he/it is) - Should this be دی or دئ ?
Dai (pronoun- him) - Should this be دی or دئ ?
Ke (as in 'pa ... ke') - Should this be كښې or كې ?
Wo (verb- he was) - Should this be ٔو or وهٔ or وو ?

Can anyone help?

[Jane Doe]

Yeah I know the whole Pashto alphabet, reading isn't really a problem (if I read slowly ), I guess my difficulty is more with the spelling because there are words that have different spellings and I'm not sure which spelling is the correct one...

[Levanaye Zalmaye]

Salamoona grano dostano!

A member from another forum referred me here because I have some questions about Pashto. I'm trying to learn how to read and write properly, but it's confusing because there are some basic words that people write differently and I don't know which one is 'correct' or 'official'. For example:

Dai (verb- he/it is) - Should this be دی or دئ ?
Dai (pronoun- him) - Should this be دی or دئ ?
Ke (as in 'pa ... ke') - Should this be كښې or كې ?
Wo (verb- he was) - Should this be ٔو or وهٔ or وو ?

Can anyone help?

In the Kheen dialect, it's 'da' for females and 'de' for males.

For example, hagha sha halak de (he's a good boy) هغە ښە هلک دے
hagha sha jinkaye da (she's a good girl) هغە ښە جينکي دە

However, in some southern dialects, "da" is used for both males and females.

كښې (ke/che) is correct. (کښينا = kaina/chaina = sit)

وو is used for past (male) singular as well as plural.
وهٔ is used for past (female) singular.

If I'm wrong here, perhaps some of the other members could correct me.

[tor_khan]

Ke (as in 'pa ... ke') - Should this be كښې or كې ?
Wo (verb- he was) - Should this be ٔو or وهٔ or وو ?

In the texts that I have come across both كښې or كې appear to be acceptable - the same with و or وو

The BBC tends to use كې over كښې and I use both.

The differences appear to be regional and unless I am informed otherwise, these variations will continue to appear even in my written forms.
In another example, my 'teacher' of Pashto is a Khostwal and so this shapes my more common use of ى over ے (the latter is used more in Peshawar).

See for BBC print material, American spellings such as color are always re-written as colour. But because the standard of foreign language broadcast is generally high and follows an acceptable standardised form, I use them as a source (even for Pashto).

The standard of Pashto used in the Pakistan Pashto media - CD labels, movie titles etc. is the one to avoid really because - ahem - ahem - the Pashto is often written in Urdu ?!?!?

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

Salamoona grano dostano!

A member from another forum referred me here because I have some questions about Pashto. I'm trying to learn how to read and write properly, but it's confusing because there are some basic words that people write differently and I don't know which one is 'correct' or 'official'. For example:

Dai (verb- he/it is) - Should this be دی or دئ ?
Dai (pronoun- him) - Should this be دی or دئ ?
Ke (as in 'pa ... ke') - Should this be كښې or كې ?
Wo (verb- he was) - Should this be ٔو or وهٔ or وو ?

Can anyone help?

Khwago malgaro salamuna au naikey heeley!

I was just informed about the thread ...and Thanks God Lewanay Zalmay and tor khan have done their best to answer your queries...well add some more ...

In my opinion and according to the official dialect used in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa :
1. for (He, it etc) دے is used and it seems more perfect as compared to دي because by using دي one can't differentiate between singular and plural for example:
يو هلک په لاره روان دي
دوه هلکان په لاره روان دي
as u see ''ي'' show no difference between singular and plural it is the same for both boy and "boys"
but according to me the above sentences will be:
يو هلک په لاره روان دے
دوه هلکان په لاره روان دي
now the difference is obvious....so it is better to use ''ے" for singular.....
so is the case with (pronoun him) for a singular pronoun "دے" should be used and for plural it will be "دي" for example:
تورخان ولاړ دے(tor khan is standing)
and
تور خان او قندهارے ولاړ دي(tor khan and kandharay are standing)

i will agree with tor khan in the case of "کښې" and "کې" not a big difference earlier it was "کښے" in Pakhtunkhwa but now "کښې" is used instead.

again incase of "wo" (he was(past) "وۀ" is more perfect word for singular subject rathar than "وو" we use the later for plural....
examples are:
د باچا خان د پلار نوم بهرام خان وۀ
and
ولي خان او غني خان دواړه وروڼه وو
thus clearly u can notice that there are different words used for singular plural in Pakhtunkhwa while in Afghanistan that don't care for that....
that's all...

Manana

[Jane Doe]

It's nice to wake up to so many replies and explanations! Thank you everyone!

To be honest, I've never really seen the Urdu letter ے used in the Pashto material that I read or any of the Pashto textbooks or dictionaries that I have. Like Tor Khan I also try to practice reading articles from BBC Pashto.

Yousefzai Jan, I don't think I have seen anyone use a klaka ya (ي) when writing 'dai' yet, only narina ya and hamza ya, but you are 100% that if people write this word using klaka ya then there will be no difference between 'dai' and 'dee' and that will get confusing!

I hope that one day soon we will have a proper academy to standardise Pashto and then everyone will spell words the same way.

I have another question about writing so I'll put it here in the same topic.

I know depending on the dialect, when you say the plurals of feminine nouns ending in -a, that the ending can be either -e or -ee/i. However, since we generally use klaka ya (ي) which makes the 'ee' sound to write to write the masculine plurals, is it better to write the feminine plurals using only pasta ya (ې) all the time?

Once again dera mehrbani!

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

To be honest, I've never really seen the Urdu letter ے used in the Pashto material that I read or any of the Pashto textbooks or dictionaries that I have. Like Tor Khan I also try to practice reading articles from BBC Pashto.

Yousefzai Jan, I don't think I have seen anyone use a klaka ya (ي) when writing 'dai' yet, only narina ya and hamza ya, but you are 100% that if people write this word using klaka ya then there will be no difference between 'dai' and 'dee' and that will get confusing!

Well in my opinion the main difference between our dialects is the use of "yaws" i.e "ے، ي، ئ، ې، ى" . here in pukhtoonkhwa the "ى، ې، ي، ئ،ے" are used but in Afghanistan people mainly use only "ي، ئ" ....
a few year back the same situation was in Pakhtunkhwa and our old Textbooks are still lacking "ئ، ى" but then the famous Pashto scholars thought the solution and these "yaw's" were introduced and now the deficiency has been removed...much valuable stuff has been published by Pashto Academy Peshawar on the topic....there have been some other alphabets introduced like "ڼ" ...probably the books, dictionaries, and other material u are using are in "Afghanistani" script...in pakhtunkhwa these words are used no more....
So in our dialect there is no difference in "وو" and "وۀ", "دي"and "دے".....and i hope pakhtuns from Afghanistan will solve the same problem soon...
Sorry! staso pa pukhtana(question) poha na shom? Ka lag mo explain kro no keday shee che za ye jawab dar kray sham...
manana

[Jane Doe]

Aah, I see! Thanks for explaining the situation! Is it possible to find any articles by Pashto Academy Peshawar about this topic online? I would love to read more.

As for my other question, it's about which ya to use when writing plural of feminine words, so for example...

For the plural of ښځه should we write ښځې or ښځي ?
For the plural of كوټه should we write كوټې or كوتي ?
For the plural of مڼه should we write مڼې or مڼي ?

I am not sure because I have heard people that speak different dialects pronounce these both as 'kotte' and kotti', 'manne' and 'manni', 'khuze' and 'khuzi', so I am not sure which is the correct spelling...

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

hmmm... i will try to gather some stuff regarding this and will post here...

According to our dialect:
we use "ې" when we write plural of feminine words:
like:
For ښځه the plural will be ښځې
For کوټه it will be کوټې
For مڼه it will be مڼې
as is سندرې used in my signature for سندره

but i think in Afghanistani dialect they mostly use the same ya' i.e "ي" everywhere which is not good....

Manana,

[tor_khan]

I'm learning so much here and I love it! I really love Pakhto, but the lack of standard confuses sometimes.

I have a question stemming from Yusufzai's example:

تورخان ولاړ دے (tor khan is standing)
and
تور خان او قندهارے ولاړ دي (tor khan and kandharay are standing)

In this example I understand the difference between دے and دي

but we can also have:

تورخان ولاړ دی

right? (I would usually use ی as the narina ye)
Isn't this because one is ی (ay same sound as ے) and the other is ي same sound as ee)

[Jane Doe]

Thanks again Yousefzai, I think that the way you write the plurals is better. This way we can use klaka ya just for the masculine plurals and pasta ya just for the feminine plurals.

Tor Khan, about writing 'dai' as a verb (he/it is): the way I was thinking was that since 'dai' is actually a masculine-only verb, then perhaps we should write it with the narina (masculine only) ya instead of hamza ya, which can be used for both masculine and feminine. To me it makes more grammatical sense, but still, I might be missing something... Let me know what you think.

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

hey it is interesting you people have your own style of pashto writing....i like that too...by the way what is hamza ya?
is it "ئ" ?

[Badlun]

There are 4 or 5 or 6 YEs in Pashto.

ی* *ی* *ی يای مَعروف yā-yi ma‘rūf
ي ي* *ي* *ي يای مَعروف yā-yi ma‘rūf
ې ې* *ې* *ې يای مَجهول yā-yi majhūl
ئ
ئ* *ئ* *ئ

يای فِعلي
yā-yi fi‘lī
ۍ *ۍ يای تانيث yā-yi tānīs
ے *ے يای مَجهول yā-yi majhūl
ۓ *ۓ يای مَهموز yā-yi mahmūz

I said there are 4 or 5 or 6 YEs in Pashto. Let me explain it first. In Afghasnistan and some parts of Pakistan like the Pashtun areas in balochistan or now even in Peshawar etc only the following first 4 YEs are used and the last 2 (No5 and 6) are not used in writing Pashto.

The last two and specially the No 5 are used in Pakistan only. But its use now with the development of Pashto script in internet etc is discouraged and as specially Pashto writing is more common in Afghanistan than Pakistan , the last two are now used rarely although one can find its use still common in some parts of Pakistan and specially by old people who are not using internet Pashto.

In Afghanistan for the No 5 they use no 2 and for no 6 they use No 3. The use of No 5 is common in Pakistan but of the No 6 is very rare and in most cases in both Pakistan and Afghanistan No 3 is used for No 6.

ي ي* *ي* *ي يای مَعروف.1. yā-yi ma‘rūf
ی* *ی* *ی يای مَعروف yā-yi ma‘rūf


ې ې* *ې* *ې يای مَجهول.2 yā-yi majhūl

3.
يای فِعلyā-yi fi‘lī ي
ئ
ئ* *ئ* *ئ

ۍ *ۍ يای تانيث4 yā-yi tānīs
ے *ے يای مَجهول5 yā-yi majhūl
ۓ *ۓ يای مَهموز6 yā-yi mahmūz

Now let me explain how to use these YEs
1. yā-yi ma‘rūf
ی* *ی* *ی يای مَعروف yā-yi ma‘rūf

This one is used for all the sounds which end in ee..or i .like KIGI.kigee(final Ior ee).is done, da kar keegi, this work is done. dodai pakheegi , bread is cooked, hagha razi , he comes etc
ې ې* *ې* *ې يای مَجهول .2 yā-yi majhūl

This is the most used one specially in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan too after the introduction of the new Pashto script. This is a little complicated to understand its use in writing specially in Pakistan but I ll try to simplify it. This is used when the sound is neither ee or i like in case of No 1 nor its not like the sound in SARHAY(man) , SPAY (dog) etc as the case in No 5 but in between like SARHEY(cold) khabarey(talks) etc.

In Afghanistan its used for both these intermediate sounds like SARHEY, KHABAREY and also for Ssingular masculine words like SARHAY, SPAY ( used for No 6 also) which are pronounced in Afghanistan and some areas of Pakistan as SARHEY, SPEY.Thus in these areas cold and man both are written as SARHEY, while in Pakistan No 5 is used for SARHAY and all masculine singular words with sound AY like the Æ (Lower case: æ) in IPA(International Phonetic Alphabet)

3.
يای فِعلyā-yi fi‘lī ي
ئ
ئ* *ئ* *ئ

This one is simple. Its used for the words denoting verbs like UkRHAI , do it, RAZAI, COME(imperative) ZAI(GO) SAH KAWAI(WHAT ARE YOU DOING?) etc

ۍ *ۍ يای تانيث4 yā-yi tānīs

This one is again simple. Its used for all feminine words like JINAI(GIRL) KARACHAI(KARACHI) etc.
ے *ے يای مَجهول5 yā-yi majhūl
As explained in some parts of Pakistan and by some users , its used for Masculine singular words like SPAY, SARHAY etc
ۓ *ۓ يای مَهموز6 yā-yi mahmūz

This one is used very rarely for verbs instead of No 3

We may not use the last 2 to get a uniformity in Pashto script every where. Just use the first 4 which ll make it very simple to write in Pashto.

Please note it

Hagha pakhai or hagha pakhayee is written with NO 3, ﺉ

TA PAKHAY , with No 2 because of its intermediate sound ي
TASO PAKHAWAI with No 2

Please note that JINAI and Pakhai are similar in sound but JINAI being feminine word is written with No 4 and Pakhai being verb with No 4.

[Badlun]

1. for (He, it etc) دے is used and it seems more perfect as compared to دي because by using دي one can't differentiate between singular and plural for example:
يو هلک په لاره روان دي
دوه هلکان په لاره روان دي
as u see ''ي'' show no difference between singular and plural it is the same for both boy and "boys"
but according to me the above sentences will be:
يو هلک په لاره روان دے
دوه هلکان په لاره روان دي
now the difference is obvious....so it is better to use ''ے" for singular.....
so is the case with (pronoun him) for a singular pronoun "دے" should be used and for plural it will be "دي" for example:
تورخان ولاړ دےيو هلک په لاره روان دي(tor khan is standing)
and
تور خان او قندهارے ولاړ دي(tor khan and kandharay are standing)

يو هلک په لاره روان دي
For this sentence YE NO 2 (yaye majhool ې ې* *ې* *ې يای مَجهولas in my above post is used not the one(NO 5) as in your sentence.

and thus for plural you can use NO5 and for singular you use NO 2 and hence no confusion of singular and plural. We can avoid using this ye ے

[Yousafzai Pakhtun]

hmmm....nice explaination osho! you have rightly said that there are 6 ya's in Pashto....
well as far as far as Ya' No:5 i.e ے is concerned it has been in use in pakistan from very long time...as i said in one of my posts that before the new pashto script کښې was written as کښے (with ya' No: 5) as u can find the word in old pashto books....so it has been in use here since long..

Hagha pakhai or hagha pakhayee is written with NO 3, ﺉ

TA PAKHAY , with No 2 because of its intermediate sound ي
TASO PAKHAWAI with No 2

Please note that JINAI and Pakhai are similar in sound but JINAI being feminine word is written with No 4 and Pakhai being verb with No 4.

Well sir that may be your opinion....i think "Hagha pakhavee" is not written with "ئ" at least in Pakistan...it is written as:
هغه روټۍ پخوي
because the ya' No;3 i.e "ئ" in your post is called "Ya'e amar" and can only be used in sentences in which some sort of order is given for example:
روټۍ زر پخوئ
دروغ مۀ وايئ
etc...