Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. It is estimated that about half of the population speak Pashto as their first language. The lyrics of the national anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto. It was made a national language of Afghanistan in 1936 by royal decree.
Pashto uses an alphabet that is a variety of the Arabic right-to-left alphabet and is written with Arabic Naskh script instead of the Persian Nastaleeq script (which is used by Dari – the second official language of Afghanistan).
The Iranian language group, including Pashto, is a member of the Indo-European language group along with other branches such as Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic and Indo-Aryan.
The first grammar book of Pashto verbs was written in India in the early 19th century, and given the brilliant title of “Riāz al-Muhabat” (Training in Affection); such a misleading title perhaps speaks to some deeper truths about humanity across time periods and cultures – namely, that we all hate grammar so much that the most successful way to write a book about grammar is to make people think it’s something else.
