Pashto

Pashto, also spelled Pashtu or Pushto, is an Iranian language in the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. It is mainly spoken by the Pashtun people in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with smaller communities in Iran, India, and among the diaspora.

Estimates place the number of native Pashto speakers at about 50 to 60 million, with more people using it as a second or foreign language. Total language use is therefore higher.

Pashto comprises several dialects, grouped broadly into Northern and Southern Pashto, with regional varieties such as Kandahari and the Pashto of Peshawar. It is typically written in a variant of the Arabic script, with additional letters to represent sounds not found in Arabic.

A typical sentence structure is subject–object–verb. The language has gendered nouns, and verbs inflect for tense, aspect, mood, and agreement with subject and object. It also features a rich system of verbal auxiliaries and clitic particles.

Pashto has a long classical poetic and prose tradition and a thriving modern literature, press, and broadcasting sector. It is one of the official languages of Afghanistan and is widely used in education and administration in Pashtun-majority areas; in Pakistan it is a major regional language with schooling and media options in several provinces.