Is knowing Pashto a requirement to be a Pashtun?

[Nick]

Fish do you follow Pashtunwali? Do you perform the attan?

LOL Attan lol is not that important but anyways since you asked and it seems important to you, and I agree for others as well, but I consider too much of it is Haram, nevertheless part of an Afghan idenity. Beside Its deep in Afghan tradition, seems like something normal, and those who are Afghan, fallow Afghan tredition, those who are Tajiks fallow Tajik Tredition, and those who are Uzbeks fallow Uzbeki tredition, those who are Hazaras fallow Hazaragi treditions.

As far as Attan goes in regards to Pashtun society its also similarity in Farsiwan society, well at least in terms of its importance I see it similar. Examples can be seen in many Farsiwan marriages where after Haesta bro, there is an Attan or in the middle somewhere, and that Ending there is always an Attan. Ending of this celebration is important for both Pashtu speaking society and Dari speaking society, therefore Attan at the End of celebration exists in both societies. Back in Old days I often used to go to Uzbeki and Tajiki marriages very different from Afghan tradition, something only shared amongst few Uzbeks and few Tajikistanis of Afghanistan.

[Nick]

You guys are making it complicated, one is a pashtun if he belongs to any pashtun tribe from his father side.

Sher Khan you are right in our understand, we all know what you are trying to say. You are relaying on code of tribalism, to make your point which makes sense, to us or to those who knows who are Pashtun, and how Pashtuns see themselves, but from acedamnic field and in relality, I can never be Pashtun if I don't fallow ways of other Pashtuns. Right?, and one important part of this "Ways" or Pashtuniwali is its called is speaking Pashtu. Isn't?

So What Does Pashtun means to you? Doesn't it mean "Afghan", If Pashtun means Afghan, then what does Afghan means to you. If I was wrong in assuming your answer rephrase that question vis-versa.

After Giving yourself some time to think, then u will know what I meant to say.

[Amir al Ghaznavi]

a proper authentic pashtun? absolutely.

and this is coming from someone who doesnt speak pashto well...but i dont speak other non english languages like farsi or urdu better than pashto

[Fish]

OK brothr come down please you are new and everyone else in here knows me I am not as racist as I sound. Again I admit I complated but my example of the name "Durani" was not position of attacking Durranis LOL Never was but rather I gave an example for some's last name which is so famous and your personal feeling being is one of it. I could of used Popalzai but the thing is there are no Urdu speaking Popalzai Well I am not sure that they are so huge in numbers. Besides you are taking this tooo far. So come Down Read my comments again, my response was also against another User who goes by the name of "PakArmy" I was speaking of urdu speaking Pakistani minister ho actually by culture is a Punjabi.

Yes you are right I do not have any right for speaking on behave of Pashtu speakers. Which is true but unfortunatly many due and to get ride of this huge confusion we have to speak based on our own experence, knowledge and info at hands. Otherwise there will be no discussion, right! and nor any disagreements.

Please forgive me if I have heard your feelings, however I said open and if you want you can read again think about it see what I mean and if it was anti-Pashtun, or anti-Afghan, let me please. I am myself Suliman Khel, but from our 3rd generation and as far as according to my grand-father we never spoke Pashtu, and therefore we are not considerd my Pashtun. I took my forefather's words because he was a very educated and influcial person, since he was professor in Kabul knowing and born in Kabul I cannot claim to be from where his grandfather came, however I can always have claim over my roots, and that is Ahmadzia, therefore leaving me with no choce other than proudly announce myself as a proud Afghan, but lingustically Farsiwan. Therefore I am a non-Pashtun like yourself.

However if you want to annonce your Pashtun being that's fine, then learn Pashtu, teach your children Pashtu as well, and always remember a Pashtun will always get abused if you claim to be Pashtun, but not speaking Pashtu. Would you ever accept an Indian speaking from Urtra Prdesh as an Afghan, simply because he says he's also Pashtun, and proudly introduced himself as "Pathan". I didn't accepted him as "Pashtun" however I did accepted him as Pathan, because Pathan is a racal term that actully could be applied to Afghan race. Theefore he was an Indian Afghan, but for me he was a non-Pashtun.

Here is another example, When was in Tajikistan, I came to find that my teenage uncle was beaten by Taliban in 1999, simply because his taskera name was "Ahmadzia". Ask how? well during questioning he was asked in Pashtu and my uncle responded that he doesn't understand, so the Talib kick him and asked him again, again my uncle replied same answer "I don't understand your tongue" so the talib got mad, because he was found at late night and a good excuse to beat him up, beside he was a non-Pashtu Pashtun LOL that's what got him mad, he goes on "Don't play with me, you are Pashtun and you mock me that you don't understand my tongue" then again my uncle swear he never spoke Pashtu at home, despite what he said, Taliban didn't believed him, but again he was beaten further more and he was called many names. So here according to my uncle the Taliban was ubset because some-how he spoke with other Boys in Dari, and let go of them but didn't wanted to speak Dari with him, but ended up swearing in Dari. According to uncle this Talib was racist. So here this is how racism/hate is created, simply because someone with Pashtun identity but cannot speak Pashtu really piss off some people. Otherwise like other boys he would of been freed.

Now Just because I took this incident as my example does not mean I hate all Taliban, or that all Taliban are Racist against Dari. I am not generalzing. Despite initailly I hated them, so much, because they were religous and had no education to run a country in professional mannar (ie lack of Politic, Economics and handling the society as a whole), beside I deeply admired Najeeb, so they killing Najeeb as another reason that I will hated them, but now despite all I do want a free Afghanistan, free from foreign rule.

BTW I never spoke a word of Pashtu, but I have deep respect for it.


Brother by origin you are an Afghan, since you claim to be, God forbits we cannot argue regarding your origin, because you either know your tribe, or you have been told by your forefathers that you are Afghan. So End to that, but by tongue to my eyes to eys of Pashtun soceity you are a Farsiwan if you speak Dari as a mother tongue. You want to claim yourself Pathan, Pakhtun or Pashtun, go ahead but becareful on the way, if you don't understand their tongue you are abusing them, same as if you call yourself English or urduzuban but cannot speak "Urdu" or "English".
Another example there wer few English left in India and some of them speak Talgue will British ever accept them a English... actually they were rejected when they asked to be taken back to UK.

Think about what I said above and my prevous posts. True that I am nationalist but lingumastic and I don't believe Language represents Race.

Dear brother,

You didn't hurt my feelings nor was I being emotional, but only speaking about what I read. Now that you have clarified your comment I apologize for calling you racist, but I still don't agree with your comments.

Farsiwan is someone who speaks Farsi. Farsiwan is not an ethnicity as Pashtun and Tajik and etc are.

To make it short to be a Pashtun you have to be born in a Pashtun family and by blood your father has to be Pashtun.

It's weird what some people post in this forum. I can't be Pashtun because I can't speak Pashtu, but my father is Pashtun because he speaks Pashtu and tomorrow my kids will be Pashtun because they speak the language. But their father can't be Pashtun because he does not speak Pashtu....LOOOOL

Do you get the point how pathetic some comments can be?

[Fish]

Fish,
Pashto is really important to Pashtun identity. Its like saying you are an American without the citizenship records.

Dear PashtunQueen,

No doubt language is important, but we are speaking about ethnicity. Ethnicity and Language are two different meanings.

[Fish]

Fish do you follow Pashtunwali? Do you perform the attan?

Dear Jasmine,

Hazaras in Dai Kundi province perform Attan. Are they Pashtun in your view? Tajiks in USA in some parties perform Attan are they Pashtun?

[Fish]

Do you really want to get into the dynamics of it? How can you be Pashtun when you don't even understand the culture of it? You can say you want to learn and we will gladly embrace you as a Pashtun. But to say Pashto is not important in our identity its quite frankly a joke.

My dear, Pashtun is an ethnicity and an ethno-linguistic group.

A very quick question and hopefully you can answer it without any personal attack.

An American learns to speak Pashtu would you consider him Pashtun?
A Tajik, Hazara,Baluch and Uzbek in the southern areas of Afghanistan speaks Pashtu and performs attan as Jasmine mentioned. Do you consider him Pashtun?

My Father spoke Pashtu and followed Pashtun culture, but I can't, but my kids will follow the Pashtun Culture and speak the language.

So my dad was Pashtun, but me as his son will not be, but tomorrow my kids will be?LOOOOOL

No wonder the Pashtuns in Afghanistan are lower than 50%. People like yourself and others in this forum have taken their pride away and have pushed them towards other groups.

Do you think when Pashtunistan is created, Kabul, Farah,Herat, and other areas will follow Pashtunistan? Do you think with people like yourself those Pashtuns will give up their freedom and become second class among their own people and insulted and treated like dirt?

I'm sorry if majority of the people are like yourself than I'd rather join them and stop the Pashtun bandwagon.

[Admin Khan]

Hi Fish,

Firstly Id like to welcome you to our community. Its a pleasure and honor to have you amongst us. I wish you a great stay and I also look forward to learn from you.

If you don't mind and if you permit, I have three questions to ask you.

1)Do you consider yourself a Pashtun?
2)Do you wish to learn the Pashto language?
3)Are you born to Pashtun parents.

I apologize in advance if you have already answered these 3 questions without me noticing.


Derah Manana[Bisyaar Tashakor, Mehrabani, Danke, Thanks]

[Fish]

Hi Fish,
Firstly Id like to welcome you to our community. I wish you a great stay and also hope to learn from you as time progresses.

If you don't mind and if you permit, I have two questions to ask you.

1)Do you consider yourself a Pashtun?
2)Do you wish to learn the Pashto language?

Hi Admin Khan,

First of all thanks for the welcome and hopefully I will make more friends than enemies to consider my stay here.

Secondly, I do consider myself Pashtun and I have been in many forums to defend Pashtuns, but before Pashtun I see myself as an Afghan. I am first proud Afghan and then proud Pashtun.

As for your second question, I have tried many times to learn Pashtu and my wife is a Pashtun as well. What many members of this forum and outside of this forum can't understand is that Pashtu is a very difficult language to learn if one has not learned it at a young age.

Pashtu is more difficult than French, Spanish, Arab and etc.

[Nick]

Dear brother,

You didn't hurt my feelings nor was I being emotional, but only speaking about what I read. Now that you have clarified your comment I apologize for calling you racist, but I still don't agree with your comments.

Farsiwan is someone who speaks Farsi. Farsiwan is not an ethnicity as Pashtun and Tajik and etc are.

To make it short to be a Pashtun you have to be born in a Pashtun family and by blood your father has to be Pashtun.

It's weird what some people post in this forum. I can't be Pashtun because I can't speak Pashtu, but my father is Pashtun because he speaks Pashtu and tomorrow my kids will be Pashtun because they speak the language. But their father can't be Pashtun because he does not speak Pashtu....LOOOOL

Do you get the point how pathetic some comments can be?

You didn't hurt my feelings nor was I being emotional, but only speaking about what I read. Now that you have clarified your comment I apologize for calling you racist, but I still don't agree with your comments.

LOL good now that we have a clear picture here, you are more than welcome to disagree, but take nothing personal.

Farsiwan is someone who speaks Farsi. Farsiwan is not an ethnicity as Pashtun and Tajik and etc are.

Persian is someone who speak Parsi. Yet Persian is an Ethnicity. So what's your point, that back home we call ourselves by the Russian Definition "Tajik"? no we don't call ourselves Tajik. Because as far my research goes, and original documents from Russian era all concludes anyone who speak Farsi is Tajik LOL Including Iran LOL you might be surprise call it an error or whatever but this is a reality. How Russians came into supporting Turkic word "Tadjik" that actually applies only to Turkic Persian of Turkistan, into Iranians as well as Farsiwans. Perhaps your knowledge is no differ from any other young Afghan generations who search the Wikipedia and read few Western anti-afghan propaganda books unknowingly assumes that everything in these western books are the truth. In reality there was no Tajiks until Mongolian invasion. Anyways I have discussed these some many times and I will copy and paste it when I find it but to close this Myth, do a little research see if any Iranians have mentioned this before 1955 because it was in 1955 that a final conclusive data was printed by Soviets regarding Afghan's demographic.

Farsiwan is an Ethnicity, and Tajiks are Turkic Persian speakers of central Asia and they have nothing in common other than Language.

Despite saying all this, I and you are also considered Tajiks lol of Afghanistan. Despite we know millions of Tajiks came from Tajikistan we are still helpless to fight our way out, cause hey if we were same Tajiks, like the Pashtuns of both sides of Durand Line, than how come we are apart?

Perhaps you have never been to Tajikistan, or Uzbekistan, 4 years of my live has been spend in Tajikistan and some time Uzbekistan (Tashkand) I am very well aware of what I am saying. So don't tell me that Farsiwan is not an ethnicity just because it was propagandized by the dirty word "Tadjik".

To make it short to be a Pashtun you have to be born in a Pashtun family and by blood your father has to be Pashtun.

My Blood does not talk but rather my tongue and Pashtun=afghan and Afghan=Pashtun therefore Language does not represent my Blood, Race and origin. So keep that in mind that I do take it very serious. If you read this then also read your comments and tell me what you said was wrong or right. "It's weird what some people post in this forum. I can't be Pashtun because I can't speak Pashtu, but my father is Pashtun because he speaks Pashtu and tomorrow my kids will be Pashtun because they speak the language. But their father can't be Pashtun because he does not speak Pashtu....LOOOOL" so tell me does language represents your Race/Nejat.

[Admin Khan]

Hi Admin Khan,

First of all thanks for the welcome and hopefully I will make more friends than enemies to consider my stay here.

Secondly, I do consider myself Pashtun and I have been in many forums to defend Pashtuns, but before Pashtun I see myself as an Afghan. I am first proud Afghan and then proud Pashtun.

As for your second question, I have tried many times to learn Pashtu and my wife is a Pashtun as well. What many members of this forum and outside of this forum can't understand is that Pashtu is a very difficult language to learn if one has not learned it at a young age.

Pashtu is more difficult than French, Spanish, Arab and etc.

If you care for Pashto, you seek to learn Pashto and you are Pashtun by blood than I consider you nothing less than a proud Pashtun/Afghan.

We in PF will help you learn Pashto, we have many great teachers who will slowly but surely teach you Pashto.

Welcome aboard.

[ijaz yousafzai]

Hi Admin Khan,

-------, but before Pashtun I see myself as an Afghan. I am first proud Afghan and then proud Pashtun.

.

If by "Afghan" you mean the citizen of Afghanistan, then you have reversed the sequence of your preference. Coz you remain Pashtun wherever you are, but your citizenship may change. Bengalis now living in Bangladesh, were Pakistanis 39 years ago, but today they are Bangladeshi, however they were Bengalis yesterday and they are so today.

[khyaal]

If by "Afghan" you mean the citizen of Afghanistan, then you have reversed the sequence of your preference. Coz you remain Pashtun wherever you are, but your citizenship may change. Bengalis now living in Bangladesh, were Pakistanis 39 years ago, but today they are Bangladeshi, however they were Bengalis yesterday and they are so today.

Afghan and Pashtun have been the two different names of the same person even before the state of Afghanistan existed, so there shouldn't be any controversy about the two names or about our prefrences. Had Ahmad Shah Baba named the state he created as Pakhtunkhwa or Pashtunistan, today some of us Lar Afghans, being the ex-colony of the British, would be engaged in contesting that name also, becuase the British had a permanent resolve to divide Pakhtun/Afghans and it is obvious if look at their agenda of naming a misnomer for British Afghanistan as British Balochistan. Actually they are the creators of such issues and some of us are blindly pushing that agenda.

This controversy (though much insignificant) has less to do with some real issue, rather it has more to do with the polarizing attitude we acquired under the British and now under Punjab/Pakistan's domination. We have got a habit to make and project disputes with our own Pashtun/afghan people.

[Shayesta]

I completely understand Fish's comments and I agree to some extend as well. If you visit a Tajik forum then you will see how happy those Tajiks are about 'Tajikized Pukhtoons' in the North and if an celebrity even speaks a word of Dari, they straight-away will accept him as one of their own. But with Pukhtoons, if you don't speak Pukhto despite of being a Pukhtoon then at least you will be cursed a few times before you will finally be accepted. And a non-Pukhtoon who loves to remain within a Pukhtoon culture will be remained that this is not his place. We Pukhtoons should attract 'attention' with love, not with hatred and dismissal towards those who want to be one of us.

[Amir al Ghaznavi]

im sorry i cant get in on this group hug logic

listen bruh, if youre family is pashtun (dads side all the way) then yes by the barest and thinnest of definitions you are a pashtun ethnically

if you need that verification from us so that you can comfortably brag about your pashtun background, or lay claim to it for self importance or distinguish yourself from your tajik co linguists, then go ahead

but understand that when youre in the presence of pashto speakers, then hell naw homie youre not 100% one of us, cuz you cant understand us

dont cry about your 2nd class status, dont make threats about if youre treated like this, then you will abandon pashtuns, half azz pashtuns are not welcome in my eyes

half my family is dari speakers, and they lay claim to their pashtun identity and boast about it, they make fun of kabulis, and i tell em, what the hell distinguishes you from a Kabuli, a Tajik,, A Farsiwan? Nothing. Just cuz your dad speaks Pashto?

And they have the nerve to make fun of Pathans in Pakistan for speaking Urdu, like what is the difference between them and you

These Half Asss Pashtuns are a 5th column amongst us who are our worst enemies. these are the ones who didnt even care to pass our language on to their kids. and now those same kids wanna come here and cry because the language is too hard. but they see how Pakhtuns get down and they want a piece of the pie

I aint giving u shiit.