Pashto renaissance

[Roshina]

All this is a reality. I am not dreaming. I am not dreaming. Just as I say this sentence to myself a third time ….., I wake up. Alone in my room, my happiness suddenly turns to great sorrow. It was all a dream. All of beloved Pashto’s miseries still exist in Herat. Pashto is still not welcome in my city and most of it’s Pashtun residents still do not know how to speak their own language.There is no Pashto TV, no Pashto poetry gatherings, no Pashto language conferences, not even a regional one and schools in Pashto medium do not exist.

Shucks! That was heaaaaartbreaking, man!!! But, hey, at least the Pashto language magazine is a huge step That's good to know; there's hope.

[Roshina]

I wonder why there are so many troubles with Pashto? Everyone here speaks it a lot.

A lot of Pashtuns speak Pukhto, but not all of them do. Some Pashtuns in Pakistan speak Urdu, and some Pashtuns in Afghanistan speak Dari. And while PF has 1000+ members, Pashtuns come in over 50 million.

The thing is that humans want to be associated with people who have a good reputation universally, people whose culture is respected and looked up to, people whose land is not invaded and whose property is left alone and to them. Unfortunately, with what's been going on in Afghanistan, Pashto is not associated with the most respected of all nations! (The destruction of Afghanistan is part of the reason why many Pashtuns in Pakistan don't want to re-join with Afghanistan or don't want to call themselves "Afghan, even though "Afghan" is their original name.)

If Afghanistan was in good shape and if Pashtuns were not an endangered nation, our language would not be threatened; we woudln't have to work so hard to keep it alive, and we woudln't have to give lectures to other Pukhtuns about the importance of speaking Pukhto as well as the importance of marrying a Pukhtun who speaks Pukhto.

Umm... that's to say why there are troubles with Pukhto and why not all Pukhtuns speak Pukhto. We're working on it, though, and I've been noticing that a loooot of Pukhtuns online are trying really hard to pick back up their language and culture, so that gives us hope for a better future.

[DaNangarharZuwan]

This is at least some good news.