Important note for Pashto learners

[یاسمینه]

It's where I started learning Pashto and what I was told by my Pashto laguage profesor (Polish prof, Red Cross expert on languages and cultures of Afghanistan).

Pashto language does not have linguistic norm.That's why it's considered as a very difficult language where exceptions are the dominant rule.
Linguistic norm describes the components of the language as standard and correct on the ground of historical reasons, tradition and culture, language, aesthetics and practice. Linguistic norm is rather referred to written form of the language.

Random exapmles:
"I go by bus" You can write (and pronounce) it in as "ze pe bas ke dzem" or "ze pe bas ki dzem" or "ze pe bas dzem". Everything is correct. Nowhere is written that one version is more correct than the second one. I agree that one form may be more associated with x dialect, but still will be correct.
Another example: postposition "ki" sometimes is written with retroflex "h" in te middle (khi), pronounced as ki - old fashioned, but still correct.

In fact lots of examples could be given here...

It's confusing for beginners. Learning Pashto needs more flexibility. Otherwise you may stuck guessing what is correct and what is not.

[طالب]

Thanks Yasmeenaah, I have found that you're absolutely correct when you say that there are many exceptions in Pashto. The fact is that there are many dialects and many spelling variations. The differences in spelling might stem from the lack of a central authority on Pashto, and maybe a lack of written material?

[یاسمینه]

You're right. There is no official version of Pashto. I saw many teaching materials, books etc and noticed that even the same grammarical structures (in theory) vary depending on the book/the region from where the author comes.
I've heard that the recent anthem can be used as an attempt to establish some Pashto language standards. I should have a paper about that.
On the other hand there is a lot of rules and in most cases they work. So far the Russian manual is the best.

[طالب]

Please do send the paper along if you come across it. Also, do you have a digital copy of the Russian manual? I'd love to get my hands on it.

The different spellings are a great cause of confusion, but luckily the Dunwoody Press Pashto-English dictionary (hands down the best Pashto-English dictionary out there) contains most of them which has been a huge help to me.

If you have any other tips for beginners please share them. Your posts are a great help.

[یاسمینه]

Russian manual - its not really manual. It's appendix to dictionnary (Shafeev, D.A. 1963. „Kratkij gramaticheskij ocherk afganskowo jazyka).
I could scan my copy but it'swith my notes, so not too informative. II will ask my friend, maybe her copy is in better condition.
I also did some kind of summary of the noun category in English. I can upload it somewhere on the forum.
Paper about the anthem - I will check tomorrow - almost midnight here...

[یاسمینه]

Mountain Goat - I've just checked sth about Pashto dialects. Before the 1978 in Afgh was about 40 dialects of Pashto. I don't think if most recent data exists. The data I'm quoting comes from: Jadwiga Pstrusińska, Afghanistan 1989 in Sociolinguistic Perspective,Central Asian Survey, London 1990.

[طالب]

Very interesting. How does that compare with other languages? Is it a large amount of dialects compared with the Pashto speaking population?

[یاسمینه]

The same source says that there was 30 dialects of Dari language.
In general, there was 44 identified languages (not dialects!) in Afghanistan.