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First of all, to idiots who believe in some mythical "Central" Pashto variety used in Afghan media, there is no such thing. It is called Eastern Afghan Pashto and it is not the standard (the only standard we have is the literary [written NOT spoken]). It is used in media because most TV channels and radios operate from Kabul (and its surroundings) and this is the de-facto dialect spoken in Kabul. If you were to watch the local channels in Kandahar and Zabul, for example, you wouldn't hear this dialect as it would be replaced by the variant that is spoken locally.
Whoever wrote this Wikipedia article is stupid and biased because he/she probably speaks this dialect or is from Kabul/Eastern Afghanistan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Pashto_language
On another note, Khangul and co., stop trying to use the Wakhi alphabet for Pashto, it does not work. Wakhi has more phonemes than any one variety of Pashto because in Pashto, pronounciation changes depending on the dialect/accent of the speaker. Interestingly enough, if we take a look at all the different varieties of Pashto, you will find that with the exception of two sounds (th and dh) found in Wakhi, all other sounds are also present different Pashto dialects.
And finally, to all those who have this pipe-dream of a Latin based Pashto alphabet, forget it. You are not smarter than me (I am only 18 but I have K.O.S. aka Overstanding) and I have spent 2-3 years in vain trying to develope one. The earliest efforts were based on European languages such as Albanian. These were found to be very confusing for the average English-literate Pashtun. Czech, Polish and other Slavic languages (and even Vietnamese) that use special characters and diagraph-heavy orthographies are a better bet, but still can't represent all Pashto phonemes without leaning too much towards any one dialect.
For my own purposes, I use a special Italian-based alphabet which I invented, but as I said before, it relies too much on letter combinations such as "zgi" and "sci" for ژ and ش. which is confusing to others.
There is no point in using non-standard Latin letters that are not commonly found on English-based keyboards, and hence they cannot be easily typed. Pashtuns have enough problems as it is.
In conclusion, our current script is perfect and there is no need to change anything. You "linguists" should work on something more productive, like getting Google Translator to interpret Pashto.
By the way, there are only two varieties of Pashto in Afghanistan,
Eastern Afghan Pashto and Western Afghan Pashto.
With the exception of the Karlani dialects of Wardak and Khost/Paktia which exhibit vowel change and obscure vocabulary, all other "dialects" fall under these two categories. Note that the "mixed" dialect of Paktika is also excluded.
P.E.A.C.E.
Killzai.
Whoever wrote this Wikipedia article is stupid and biased because he/she probably speaks this dialect or is from Kabul/Eastern Afghanistan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Pashto_language
On another note, Khangul and co., stop trying to use the Wakhi alphabet for Pashto, it does not work. Wakhi has more phonemes than any one variety of Pashto because in Pashto, pronounciation changes depending on the dialect/accent of the speaker. Interestingly enough, if we take a look at all the different varieties of Pashto, you will find that with the exception of two sounds (th and dh) found in Wakhi, all other sounds are also present different Pashto dialects.
And finally, to all those who have this pipe-dream of a Latin based Pashto alphabet, forget it. You are not smarter than me (I am only 18 but I have K.O.S. aka Overstanding) and I have spent 2-3 years in vain trying to develope one. The earliest efforts were based on European languages such as Albanian. These were found to be very confusing for the average English-literate Pashtun. Czech, Polish and other Slavic languages (and even Vietnamese) that use special characters and diagraph-heavy orthographies are a better bet, but still can't represent all Pashto phonemes without leaning too much towards any one dialect.
For my own purposes, I use a special Italian-based alphabet which I invented, but as I said before, it relies too much on letter combinations such as "zgi" and "sci" for ژ and ش. which is confusing to others.
There is no point in using non-standard Latin letters that are not commonly found on English-based keyboards, and hence they cannot be easily typed. Pashtuns have enough problems as it is.
In conclusion, our current script is perfect and there is no need to change anything. You "linguists" should work on something more productive, like getting Google Translator to interpret Pashto.
By the way, there are only two varieties of Pashto in Afghanistan,
Eastern Afghan Pashto and Western Afghan Pashto.
With the exception of the Karlani dialects of Wardak and Khost/Paktia which exhibit vowel change and obscure vocabulary, all other "dialects" fall under these two categories. Note that the "mixed" dialect of Paktika is also excluded.
P.E.A.C.E.
Killzai.
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