Pashto accents?

[KhalsaWarrior]

Are there lots of different Pashto accents? Can one listen to a Pashto accent and tell which region the speaker is from? And how many type are there?

Just out of curiosity....

[BLS_1919v2.0]

Are there lots of different Pashto accents? Can one listen to a Pashto accent and tell which region the speaker is from? And how many type are there?

Just out of curiosity....

To an extent you can. There are three major dialects northern (kabul, jalalabad, kunarr, swat, dir, peshawar, etc), Southern (quetta, kandahar, helmand, etc) and Central (waziristan, khost, etc). Now from there, there are regional accents that people in the vicinity can pick up. Also in certain urban areas like Kabul and Peshawar they have borrowed from farsi and urdu respectively, so you know that so and so is from there from that.

[Dreamer]

I speak the southern sh sh type :D

[KhalsaWarrior]

^^^Interesting. So which dialect is believed to be the purest/oldest?

[BLS_1919v2.0]

^^^Interesting. So which dialect is believed to be the purest/oldest?

Most probably the southern one as Pashtun originated primarily from the southern areas and moved northward. Although the simplest dialect to learn is the Yousafzai northern dialect. Emal khan has the most knowledge about this.

[Da_Kunar_Ghro]

Basically there are 5 letters in Pashto who's pronounciations can help you tell a person's accent.

The accent of Laghman, Nangrahar, Kabul and Kunar are called eastern Afghan Pashto. it is different from the Pashto spoken in Pakhtunkhwa.

ښ is pronounced sh by people in Kandahar, Quetta, Zabul, Helmand, Marwat and Waziristan and kh by people in Kabul, Nangarhar, Kunar, Laghman, Ghazni, Paktia, Khost and in most of Pakhtunkhwa.

ږ is pronounced zh by the people who say sh and g by the people who say kh.

څ is pronounced ts by most people except Yusufzai who say s instead and some tribes say ch.

ځ is pronounced z by most people but some people also pronounce it like ts or as a j.

ژ is pronounced zh by most people but some say j instead.

there is not much difference between most accents but Waziristan, khost and Paktia Pashto are very different and vowels change.

Pashto spoken in central Afghanistan and kandahar sometimes replaces sh with s in words like shwal = swal and shta = sta and rasha= rasa.

Kandahar vs kunar, Khost and Ghazni Pashto:

Kandahar kunar Khost Ghazni

zma zma emo zma
sta sta eto sta
muzh mung mig mug
zmuzh zmung emig zmug
pashto pakhto paakhte pakhto
plaar plaar plor plaar
zhagh ghag gagh ghag
kor kor ker kor
wor wor/or yor wor/or
nasta nashta nastaa nasta
raasa raasha rosa raasa
shaar khaar khor khaar
yaw yaw ye yaw
tsalor tsalor tsaaler tsalor
shpazh shpag shpeg shpag
Pashtun Pakhtun Paakhtin Pakhtun

in Afghanistan the Kandahar one is considered standard and the Pashto alphabet is based on it.

[afghan]

many in afghanistan consider eastern dialect consider pure than southern dialect, because southern dialect is influenced by persian. in eastern dialect the letters are pronounced more properly.

[Dreamer]

southern has least influence from other languages... hence it is the purest...

[Aryob]

many in afghanistan consider eastern dialect consider pure than southern dialect, because southern dialect is influenced by persian. in eastern dialect the letters are pronounced more properly.

First of all that is not true or as they'd say in the west, its BS. Any dialect is considered purer if they can pronounce all the letters of Pashto that are primary in the language like the څ ځ ټ ږ ډ ړ ښ ڼ . People in the east can NOT pronounce most of these letters properly as required by the language but the central provinces in Afghanistan (Kabul, Logar & Wardak) can and that is why the language you hear or used to hear on TV/Radio was NOT eastern or Southern but was of Kabul, logar and somewhat wardaki.

There's 25 dialects of Pashto language registered in Pakistan (Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa & Balochistan) and there hasn't been any registration or official documentation by the government of Afghanistan either by Pashto Tolana or any other organization but experts say it has to be more than in KP & Balochistan. One advice that i can give to new learners is to read the history and grammar books for Pashto language written by the westerners but DO NOT trust it because they simply divide Pashto into either two or three dialects which, as a native, i do not believe in.

A very nice work is done by a 16 year old and he has already posted his report or document here in this forum.

http://www.pashtunforums.com/pashto-language-10/pashto-dialects-4702/

Pashto has many many dialects or accents, if you divide it into two groups of hard and soft or eastern and southern then what about Loya Paktia? where you'll find tons of different dialects which someone from charsada/pekhawar or jalalabad/laghman or halmand/kandahar will find very hard to even understand the language. We've zazi, mangal, waziri, khosti, tani, zadran, zurmat, kharoti, katawazi and then ahmadzi accents and probably a lot more. The soft accent changes as it gets closer from kandahar to Paktika and from Paktika onwards going east and north it goes further towards kurram agency or waziristan and if you go further towards dera ismail khan or tank and mansehra or go north towards swat it changes alot even though it stays in the category of hard Pashto.

[Aryob]

http://www.pashtunforums.com/pashto-...dialects-4702/