Urdu ki Tashkil Main Pushtoonon Ka Kirdaar

Urdu ki Tashkil Main Pushtoonon Ka Kirdaar

Hanif Khalil

Published by National Language Authority, Islamabad
Pages: 351
Price: Rs 170

By Khadim Hussain

It is, in the present times, a matter of common knowledge that Urdu originated from the classical languages of South Asia, Central Asia and Middle East, which undoubtedly are Sanskrit, Persian (Avesta) and Arabic.
Numerous researches in this direction have indicated that, till some 4,000 years ago, Sanskrit was a powerful tool of communication and aesthetic expression for the Arians. Sanskrit originated in the ancient Ariana and the central part of old India, where the first university of this language was established thousands of years ago.
There is a close relationship between Pushto and Sanskrit, to the extent that some researchers have presumed that Sanskrit has originated from Pushto. Jen Enevoldson is of the opinion that the tribal code of the Pushtoons is the old Aryan code of honour, which one may find being practised in the early histories of all Indo-European people. He further says that old Scandinavian sagas closely resemble the epic tribal history of the Pushtoons.
Though Hanif Khalil categorically refutes the propositions of researchers that the Pushtoons have Aryan, Semitic, Scythian or Greek origins. He claims that the Pushtoons are a peculiar race having their own distinct features and historical legacy, who have socially, culturally and of course linguistically influenced all the races that have been living in South Asia or Central Asia for a long time.
In his well-researched book under review, he has brought under exhaustive discussion the origin of the Pushtoons, the antiquity of their language, the influences of the Pushtoons on the culture and civilization of India, the relationship of the sources of Urdu with the Pushto language, the contribution of the Pushtoons to the development of Urdu, and the works of the Pushtoon writers in the context of Urdu literature.
The Pushtoons (alternately known as the Afghans as well) entered India through its western borders and, in different eras, established their kingdoms in different parts of India. Indian civilization had the capacity to absorb foreign invaders culturally but, strangely enough, this did not happen in the case of the Afghans or the Pushtoons. The religion, culture and lifestyle of the Pushtoons, on the other hand, strongly influenced the socio-cultural lives of the people of India. The cultural and literary centers established by the Pushtoons in Rampore, Najibabad, Muradabad, Bijnore and Bareli bear testimony to this. The socio-cultural and literary contributions of the Pushtoon personalities like Nawab Faizullah Khan, Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan, Nawab Ahmad Ali Khan and Nawab Yousaf Ali Khan are well known in the scholastic circles of Rampore.
Going through a number of authentic sources, Hanif Khalil has proved that several languages of India, which might later on have become the origin of Urdu, came under the influence of Pushto during the interaction of the Pushtoons with the society, culture and civilization of India. Sanskrit, Persian and Turkish, which are the proven sources of the origin of Urdu, have been in interaction with Pushto for several hundred years before the advent of Urdu.
Khalil has extended the frontiers of the study to prove that other numerous probable sources of Urdu's origin like Balochi, Sindhi, Brahvi, and Punjabi have been enormously influenced by Pushto and the Pushtoons, which means that Pushto and the Pushtoons have contributed a great deal to the creation and development of Urdu.
The Afghans (or the Pushtoons) in India were rulers, soldiers, civil servants, businessmen and mystics during the eras of Lodhis, Rohilas, Tughluqs, Khiljis and even Mughals. It is, therefore, understandable that they influenced all the languages of India and especially Urdu to a great extent.
To support this contention, Hanif Khalil has taken references from Dr Jamil Jalibi, Farigh Bukhari, Henry Walter, Imtiaz Ali Khan Arshi and numerous other authentic scholars of the sub-continent. Not only this, Hanif Khalil has brought under discussion the principles of linguistics, historical data, biographies and anthropological sources to prove that the contribution of Pushto in the creation and development of Urdu is undeniable.
Another important aspect of the issue is the contribution of the Pushtoon writers who wrote in Urdu and took part in the linguistic and literary development of the language. Hanif Khalil has discovered that the great grandfather of Fariduddin Ganj Shakar, named Farah Shah Ghauri, has written poetry in Urdu. Great classical Pushtoon writers like Bayazid Ansari, Mahmood, Misri Khan Gigyani, Maezulla Momand, Qasim Ali Khan and a number of other Pushtoons have written in Urdu at a time when Urdu literature was just an infant. The Pushtoon writers have tried their hand in Urdu in diverse genres like poetry, fiction, research, criticism, religious studies and history.
Urdu ki Tashkil Main Pushtoonon Ka Kirdaar deserves to be noticed on account of both its form and matter. Several other writers have written on the history of Pushto and the Pushtoons, but the book by Hanif Khalil can pride itself for pioneering findings on the relationship between the Pushtoons and Urdu, backed up by credible and authentic sources. The references have been taken from diverse sources like history, linguistics, political history and morphology, and arranged in a comprehensive manner.
The diction of the book is not only candid but also clear, precise and literary. A harmonious logical thread runs through the whole fabric of the book, which plays a vital role in convincing the readers of the propositions presented by the author.
A lecturer at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies of the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, and a prolific writer both in Urdu and Pushto, Hanif Khalil, more than any other Pushto writer, has had the advantage of observing the cultural interaction among different nationalities of Pakistan, and has also an understanding of the sensitive nature of language issues in Pakistan. Academic writing on the social and historical aspects of languages in Pakistan demands careful and critical handling, especially if it is on the relationship between Urdu and other languages.
Through this book, Hanif Khalil has also added to the scarce research publications in our country.
Two issues, however, remain unresolved in the minds of the readers after going through the work under review. Firstly, the antiquity of Pushto must imply that there should be a large reservoir of linguistic, literary and scholastic writings available to the student of Pushto language and linguistics, which we do not find in India or in Pakistan. Secondly, by now Pushto should have become a language of scholastic and intellectual expression and a medium of instruction and trade in the areas where it is widely spoken.
The first question can be answered by assuming that there had been an oral tradition in the Pushtoon society for hundreds of years, while the second issue brings us to the controversial subject of power and language. There seem to be ruptures in the historical legacy of the Pushtoons, and it is because of this that Pushto was unable to sustain its intellectual and scholastic momentum.
We need to reconstruct the history of the Pushtoons through their folklore, as we do not have authentic sources to prove their origin. Moreover, Pushto folklore may unfold many other aspects of the culture, society and civilization of the Pushtoons, as it existed in the pre-historic times.

زمونږ په ټولنه کې د هنر بې قدري

لیک عندلیب دیر

د نړۍ نظام خداي پاک داسې جوړ کړی چې مونږ د یوه بله بغیر نیمګړي یو-خپل چاپیریال ته نظر وکړئ چې که نایان نه وی نو زمونږ ويښتان به چا سمول؟که مستریان نه وی نو کورونه به مو چا جوړول؟که دیقانان نه وی نو زمکې او باغونه به چا سنبالول؟که موچیان نه وی نو پیزار به راته چا جوړول؟که ډاکټران او نرسان نه وی نو علاجونه به مو چا کول؟که ترکاڼان نه وی نو کټونه ورونه او کړکۍ به راته چا حوړولې؟که اینګران نه وی نو لرونه او تبرګي به راته چا تیره کول؟که ډرایوران نه وی نو بازارونو ته به خوراکي توکي چا رارسول؟که مزدوران نه وی نو دغه توکي به چا خپژول کوزول؟که ملایان نه وی نو ختمونه جنازې او روغې به چا کولې؟که شپونکیان نه وی نو غرونو کې به مو څاروي او مالونه چا ساتل؟که ګوجر نه وی نو شیوده به راته چا راوړل؟که خیاطان(ټیلران)نه وی نو جامې به راته چا ګنډلې؟او که کولالان نه وی نو لوخي به راته چا جوړول؟----او---
خو بیا وګورئ چې زمونږ په پښتنه ټولنه کې د پورته یادو شوو څو هنرونو نه غلاوه ټولو ته په ټولنیزه توګه ډیر سپک نظر کولی شي-تاسو به اوریدلي وي چې مونږ وایو پریږده مړه دا فلانی څه د ناي ځوی دی-د کولال ځوی دی-
او که دروغ نه وایو نو ځانته چې څوک ډیر سوچه پښتانه وايي نو ددوي سره رشتې هم نه کوي-
زمونږ پوهه هنرلرونکي لکه شاعر او ادیب هم دغه حال لري-مونږ ورته هیڅ د عزت ځاي نه دی ورکړی -د نورو ژبو لیکوالان هغوي په سرونو ګرځوي-د یوې یوې لیکلې افسانې ورته لکونه روپۍ ورکوي-او ماړه يې ساتي-او زمونږ پښتون لیکوال خپلې لیکنې ویړیا ویب پاڼو او ورځپاڼو ته لیږي -او بیا يې د چاپ انتظار هم کوي -او د لوستونکو د کږو وږو خبرو سره هم مخ کیږي-
زمونږ فنکار کوم چې زمونږ د موسیقۍ فن ژوندی ساتي د ډم په نوم یادوو-په سازونو ميئن یو خو سازیان مو بدي شي-او په مرګ کې يې جنت لټوو
مونږ خپل ملا په سړو ډوډو ساتو او شاګردان يې د ژمي په یخو یخو سحرونو کې د چايو د پیالې د پاره زمونږ په کوڅو کې ګرځي-
که د ټولو خبرې کوم نو دا لیک به رانه اوږد شي خو مونږ د احساس برترۍ ښکار شوی قام یو-پښتانه خو ښه په فخر ځانونو ته وایو خو د پښتنو ځانګړي صفات یوه هم نه لرو-او نور قامونه خلک ځانونو ته نزدې کوي خو مونږ ته پرې ځانونه سپک ښکاري او پښتو مو کچه کیږي-
نو که ښه ژور فکر پرې وکړو نو دا هغه محرومې طبقې دي چې نن ترې مونږ په خپلو کورونو کې په ارام ژوند نه شو کولی-چې جرم وکړي نو مجرم يې ګڼو خو د جرم په اسبابو مو کله هم ژور فکر نه دی کړی-چې ددوئ په احساس محرومۍ کې زمونږ پوره پوره برخه شته-خو مونږ يې اقرار نه کوو
*******

پښتو اسان کي بورډ Pashto Easiest Keyboard

All alphabet keys in a keyboard are arranged in a particular pattern. This particular pattern is called a keyboard layout. This particular pattern is called a keyboard layout (software). The "keyboard layout" decides that which alphabet is written when you press a key on the keyboard. For most languages, keyboard layout is already available in Windows and other operating systems. A standard keyboard layout has been set in the world to type English, that is why our keyboards are already illustrated with English alphabets and our operating systems already contain the keyboard layout for typing English.

Normally our Windows operating system contains an Pashto keyboard layout, but it has a problem, Now this is very Easy by using the phonetic keyboard layout which means "A" key is for "ALIF" and "B" key is for "BAY" etc. but Windows has a different default layout, for example here "A" key is for "MEEM" and "B" key is for "SHEEN" etc. To resolve this problem a new phonetic Pashto keyboard has been developed. This "Pashto Phonetic Keyboard" works on all 32-Bit and 64-Bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Keep in mind that "keyboard" is a hardware but a "keyboard layout" is a software. Even Pashto alphabets are not printed on a keyboard (hardware) Pashto can still be typed after installing "Pashto Phonetic Keyboard".This will give you the best and shortest way to install Pashto Keyboard Layout.

This installs Pashto Keyboard Layout automatically, in addition it activates Pashto language support  font. With this you'll be able to type Pashto anywhere easily.  Thus you can type Pashto in In MS-Word, Power Point, Search, E-Mail and Chat etc. and also give Pashto name to a folder or file.

Download it from: here:

http://www.4shared.com/zip/IbSGbNvy/Pashto.html 

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Normal Keys

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A Standard Pashto By D. N. MacKenzie

A Standard Pashto

D. N. MacKenzie

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 22, No. 1/3 (1959), 231-235

1. Among modern Iranian languages, other than Persian, Pashto shares pride of place with Kurdish as regards both area of territory and number of speakers. Both languages, moreover, are prolific in dialects, but there any similarity ends.

The features differentiating one Kurdish dialect from the next are mainly morphological. The differences are also progressive, in the sense that when dialect II differs from dialect I in only one feature, the next further dialect III will differ from I in both this and some other feature, or features. It can be said, in other words, that the extent of the morphological differences between any number of Kurdish dialects is roughly proportional to the distances between them. One obvious effect of this phenomenon is that to this day no standard Kurdish has emerged as a literary vehicle with any wide scope or vogue.

The case with Pashto is quite the reverse. The morphological differences between the most extreme north-eastern and south-western dialects are comparatively few and unimportant. The criteria of dialect differentiation in Pashto are primarily phonological. With the use of an alphabet which disguises these phonological differences the language has, therefore, been a literary vehicle, widely understood, for at least four centuries. This literary language has long been referred to in the West as 'common' or 'standard' Pashto without, seemingly, any real attempt to define it.

The increase in literacy among Pashto speakers has given rein to a natural tendency to use phonetic rather than standard spellings. It is perhaps surprising to find support for this somewhat parochial behaviour among Pashtuns at a time when literate Kurds everywhere are thinking of a utopian 'unity' of their language. Yet this has been the effect of almost every innovation of recent years [1] and may be expected to continue if, and when, the Afghan Academy () proceeds to introduce a Latin alphabet. [2] If only on this account it seems opportune to attempt to define standard Pashto in more concrete phonemic terms than any adaptation of the Arabo-Persian script permits.

Standard Pashto Alphabets & Transliteration:

2. Of the 36 consonant signs of the standard alphabet seven,       , appear almost exclusively in loan-words of Arabic origin and represent no additional phonemes of Pashto. They are mere 'allographs', marked in the transliteration by a subscript line. Three signs,   , to some extent represent 'elegant phonemes'. [3] Of the remaining 26 only those numbered 1-5 require any further description as they alone are realized appreciably differently in different dialects. The details, already well known, may be summarized in the following table:

Dialects
SW (Kandahar)	SE (Quetta)	NW (Central Ghilzai)	NE (Yusufzai)
1. c [ts]	c	(s)	(s)
2. j [dz]	j	(z)	(z)
3. ž [3]	ž	ž	[4]
4.	[5]	[6] [j]	(g)
5.	[5]	[7]	(x)

It will be seen that, moving away from the south-western dialect, there is a steady depletion in the inventory of consonant phonemes, owing to coincidence with existing phonemes (in parentheses).

3. Penzl, [8] observing that 'the Kandahar dialect... is the only dialect which has a phonemic system corresponding to the prevailing orthography', makes the following inference. 'The correlation between the Kandahar phonemic pattern and the graphic pattern of the special Pashto symbols of the Arabic alphabet is so close that we must assume that these symbols were created in the area of the Kandahar dialect. Kandahar appears to be the cradle of the Pashto alphabet.' In short, the derivation of the signs 4, 5 from  could only have occurred in the south-west, where they represent  respectively.

This is in direct opposition to Morgenstierne's earlier hypothesis [9] that 'when the orthography of Pashto was fixed in the 16th century, the distinction between  and x, g seems still to have been preserved even among the north-eastern tribes, who were probably the creators of Pashto literature'.

It would be rash to decide this question on orthographic evidence alone, but there is this to be said in support of the 'north-eastern' hypothesis. An earlier orthographic tradition than that now prevailing once existed. In the earliest known Pashto manuscript, written in A.H. 1061/A.D. (1651) [10]  (with subscript dot) is written for j,  (i.e. sign 4) for  and  (with central dot) for . These signs were still used in a MS Diwan of Mirza, [11] dated A.H. 1101/ A.D. (1690), but were abandoned shortly after.

In a MS Diwan of the (?) Yusufzay poet Najib, [12] written in A.H. 1108/ A.D. (1696-7), the copyist, Gul Muhammad Peshawari, was presumably responsible for the change from the old signs used in his model to the new. In one case only, when he noticed the difficulty too late to change the alphabetical order of the Diwan, was he obliged to preserve the sign  at the end of the rhyme word. Elsewhere he changed this to , now used for both c and j. This suggests (a) that the older tradition was not exclusively Roshani, and (b) that the new signs still represented distinct phonemes in the north-east at this date. At the time of consciously disguising one distinction (viz. that between c and j, which still exists) the scribes would be unlikely to perpetuate other distinctions (between  and other phonemes) if they were meaningless. Only later copyists are more prone to give up these distinctions.

4. While the north-eastern dialects show the most changes in the pattern of consonant phonemes they are more conservative with regard to vowels and semivowels. The distinction between all the vowel phonemes, either expressed or implicit in the standard orthography, is preserved, with the possible exception of i : ī, u : ū. Moreover they all appear, alone or in diphthongs, as morphological relevant final syllables [13]:

There are variations in the realization, e.g. -y > -e and -w > -o in final position following a long vowel, -ay > , but neither phonemic nor morphological system is thereby disturbed.

In the south-western dialects, on the other hand, at least one important change has taken place. While stressed e, o are preserved, in unstressed final position o commonly coincides with u and e with i, except when morphological confusion would result. For example, fem. sg. oblique  becomes , but direct  is preserved (fem. sg. dir.  would coincide formally with indeclinable adjectives in-i); similarly fem. sg. obl.  becomes , but dir.  is preserved (a fem. sg. direct form in unstressed -i would create a new category of nouns). In the verbal system, however, 2nd sg. present  is preserved, to avoid confusion with 3rd sg. . Thus there is modification in detail of certain nominal paradigms only.

5. One question of the phonemic structure of the western, if not of all, dialects remains vexed, namely the delimitation of the phonemes a and.

It seems certain that in unstressed, as opposed to medium- or loud-stressed, position there is no phonemic difference between a and . No two utterances are distinguished by these sounds alone. In the latest invaluable dictionary published by the Afghan Academy [14] an 'archiphoneme' unstressed A [a ~ ] is sometimes marked as having variously a or  in different dialects. More often it is described phonetically with the equivalent of , Pashto . For example:

Inevitably both the unstressed endings fern. sg. dir. , masc. sg. dir.  and the stressed endings masc. sg. dir. , fern.  (old spelling ) are given as ,  respectively. No ambiguity arises in the dictionary, as the gender is there marked, but it has led to some confusion elsewhere.

For morphological reasons it is more convenient to consider unstressed A, whatever the realization, as an allophone of a. This is the analysis tacitly adopted, though not altogether consistently, in  short grammatical sketch of western Pashto.[15] He is thereby enabled to define a number of morphological categories in simple phonemic terms. One small error in interpretation is the adoption of the spelling  '(he) is', with the sign designed for the stressed fem. nominal ending , in place of , i.e. unstressed day.

Penzl follows the phonetic verdict implicit in the . Having established two phonemes e (i.e. ) and a, he limits their allophonic range severely. Thus, GPK, ch. ii, § 4.3, 'sometimes e appears in weak-stressed, and a in loud-stressed position, e.g. las "ten", "eleven"'; ibid., ch. ii, § 4.4, 'weak-stressed e varies among speakers of the Kandahar dialect in certain inflectional and derivational morphemes with a centralized allophone of a, e.g...  or  "tongue"'.

This hyper-distinction leads to others. In no other dialect recorded do more than two diphthongs of the type ,  occur. Final denotes both fern. sg., pl. etc., always stressed, and 2nd pl., stressed or not. It has various realizations, including the types  and, but never both distinctively in one dialect. In view of the tendency in Kandahar to give up vocalic distinctions, except when they are morphologically relevant, Penzl's added contrast, GPK, ch. ii, § 10.3, of ei  with ey  is surely unreal. By introducing further the concept of A as unstressed a his range of diphthongs is reducible to two, as follows:

6. We have seen that the Kandahar dialect has preserved all the consonant phonemes expressed in the standard alphabet, but that while also preserving the full range of vowel phonemes it has put them to use in novel ways. The other dialects, particularly of the north-east, have abandoned a number of consonant phonemes but have generally confirmed the vowels in their morphological positions. It is an obvious inference that an older stage of Pashto, still current in the seventeenth century if the orthographic evidence is trustworthy, combined a 'south-western' consonant system with a 'north-eastern' vowel phoneme system.

It is this conceptual phonemic system, therefore, which is reflected in the verse of the classical period of Khushal Khan and Rahman Baba. Apart from the evident value of this 'Standard Pashto', in its discreet native dress, as a universal literary medium among Pashtuns, it appears to have another important application. It permits the description of Pashto morphology in more accurate and universal terms than does any single dialect. Moreover, once established, by a comparison of the main north-eastern and south-western dialects, it may well serve as the basis for a simple description of the regular phonetic divergences of other dialects.

---

A meeting of Pashtun scholars and writers from both Afghanistan and Pakistan, held in Kabul during August 1958, proposed a number of standardizations in the use of the present alphabet. These proposals, reported in full in the periodical Kabul, No. 465 of 23 September 1958, represent in the main a welcome return to the classical standard described above.

---

1. See G. Morgenstierne, Report on a linguistic mission to Afghanistan, Oslo, 1926, 10;
   W. Lentz, 'Die Paschto-Bewegung', ZDMG, xcv, 1, 1941, 118;
   Begam Jamal, 'Yaw xat', Abaseen (Karachi), June 1957.
2. See W. Lentz, Lateinalphabet für das Paschto, Berlin, 1937.
3. See H. Penzl, A grammar of Pashto: a descriptive study of the dialect of Kandahar [GPK], Washington, D.C., 1955, § 37.
4. See Morgenstierne, Etymological vocabulary of Pashto [EVP], Oslo, 1927, 105;
   Report... Afghanistan, 11.
5. See GPK, § 34.3; EVP, 106, s.v. 
6. See GPK, § 35.2; EVP, 49, s.v. 
7. See GPK, § 34.3; EVP, 77, s.v. 
8. GPK, ch. i, § 4.4.
9. Report on a linguistic mission to north-western India, Oslo, 1932, 17.
10. See Morgenstierne, 'Notes on an old Pashto manuscript, containing the Khair-ul-Bayan of Bayazid Ansari', New Indian Antiquary, II, 1939-40, 567. 'Dorn's mser. of Akhund Darweza', there conceded to be older, is now B.M. Add. 27312 and is in fact an indifferent mid-eighteenth century MS.
11. B.M. Or. 4228.
12. B.M. Or. 4498.
13. See Morgenstierne, 'Archaisms and innovations in Pashto morphology', NTS, xii, 1942, 91.
14. , ed. Sadiqullah Rishtin et at., Kabul, 1330-3/1951-4.
15. D. A. Safeev, '', supplement to P. B. Zudin, Russko-Afganskij slovar, Moscow, 1955.