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Dialectical Map of Pashto: An edited map of the Pashtun tribes, from Olaf Caroe’s “The Pathans”. The North Eastern dialects have been highlighted in dark blue, the North Western dialects in light blue, the North-Central (North Karlāṇi) is pink, the South-Central (South Karlāṇi) in red, the South Eastern in orange and the South Western in yellow.
In Pakistan, Pashto is the first language around of 15% of its population (per the 1998 census). [48] However, Urdu and English are the two official languages of Pakistan. Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and north Balochistan. [49]
English is a co-official language of Pakistan and is widely used in the executive, legislative and judicial branches as well as to some extent in the officer ranks of Pakistan's armed forces. Pakistan's Constitution and laws were written in English and are now being re-written in the local languages.
Central Pashto (Pashto: منځنۍ پښتو, romanized: Manźanəi Pax̌to) is a standard variety of the Pashto language, spoken in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are the middle dialects of Mangal, Zadran, Mahsudi and Waziri. [2] [3] These dialects are affected by what Ibrahim Khan terms as "the Great Karlāṇ Vowel Shift". [4
Additionally, Dari serves as the second language of Pashtuns in Afghanistan, [38] [39] while those in Pakistan speak Urdu and English. [ 40 ] [ 41 ] In India, the majority of those of Pashtun descent have lost the ability to speak Pashto and instead speak Hindi and other regional languages.
Southern Pashto (Pashto: جنوبي/سهيلي پښتو) is a standard variety of the Pashto language spoken in southeastern Afghanistan, and northern parts of the Pakistani province of Balochistan, comprising the Southwestern and Southeastern dialects of Pashto.
The Loralai speak a dialect which is a "soft" Pashto dialect, similar to the Kandahari dialect. The Safi, a few Jaduns, and other minor northern Gharghashti tribes speak the northern or "hard" Pashto variety. The Jaduns, living on the Mahabun mountain slopes around Swabi speak Pashto, while those living in Hazara speak Pashto and Hindko.
In any of the past tenses (simple past, past progressive, present perfect, past perfect), Pashto is an ergative language; i.e., transitive verbs in any of the past tenses agree with the object of the sentence. The dialects show some non-standard grammatical features, some of which are archaisms or descendants of old forms.