Pashto Language

Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Military Terminology: Commands and Warnings #1-Pashto Language Training Program-

ATS Pashto Language Training Program Introduction

Russian Girls student of the Pashto Language

Shrek in Pushto (for all who understand pushto language)

Pashto Language Student in Russia by Basir khan zadran

Maulana Ameer Bijligar (Pashto language) 1/2

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Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire (/ækəˈmɛnɪˌdi/; Old Persian: Parsā, name of ruling dynasty: Haxāmanišiya) (c. 550–330 BCE), sometimes known as First Persian Empire, was an Iranian empire in Southwest Asia, founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation. It expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world which at around 500 BCE stretched from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece making it the biggest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenid Empire would eventually control Egypt as well. It was ruled by a series of monarchs who unified its disparate tribes and nationalities by constructing a complex network of roads.
Calling themselves the Parsa after their original Aryan tribal name Parsua, Persians settled in a land which they named Parsua, bounded on the west by the Tigris River and on the south by the Persian Gulf. This became their heartland for the duration of the Achaemenid Empire. It was from this region that eventually Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II of Persia) would advance to defeat the Median, the Lydian, and the Babylonian Empires, opening the way for subsequent conquests into Egypt and Asia minor.

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Afghanistan
Afghanistan ⁱ/æfˈɡænɨstæn/ (Persian/Pashto: افغانستان, Afġānistān), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming part of South Asia, Central Asia, and Greater Middle East, it is also considered to be part of a broader West Asia. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of 647,500 km² (250,001 sq mi), making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.
Afghanistan has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration. Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation from as far back as 50,000 BC. Urban civilization may have begun in the area as early as 3,000 to 2,000 BC. Sitting at an important geostrategic location that connects the Middle East with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the land has been home to various peoples through the ages and witnessed many military campaigns, notably by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and in modern era Western forces. The land also served as a source from which the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Timurids, Mughals and many others have risen to form major empires.

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Attock District
Attock District (Urdu: ضلع اٹک) is a district in the north-west Punjab Province of Pakistan.
The district was created in April 1904 by the merger of Talagang Tehsil in the Jhelum District with the Pindigheb, Fatehjang and Attock tehsils from Rawalpindi District of the Punjab province of British India.
Attock District is a place of great historic significance. Alexander the Great of Macedonia passed through it as did the first Mughal, Babar, and the various Afghan Sultans before him.
Emperor Akbar the Great, the grandson of Babar, recognizing the strategic importance of this area in 1581 built his famous Attock Fort complex here. The fall of Mughal Empire in 18th century saw the rise of Hindu Maratha state and Sikhs in Punjab and Durrani Afghans to the west. Once again Attock became a battle ground between two contending powers. Maratha Peshwa's brother Raghunathrao won Attock and flagged Hindu dominance over this area in 1758. But in Third battle of Panipat Marathas lost to Ahmead Shah Abdali and lost the control of this region. British finally ended the feud by subjugating both Sikhs and Afghans in the 19th century.

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Australia
Australia ( /əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.

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Canada
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km² (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.

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FATA
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) (Urdu: قبائلی علاقہ جات; Pashto: مرکزي قبایلي سیمې) is a tribal region in the northwest of present-day Pakistan, lying between the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the north and east, Balochistan to the south, and the neighbouring country of Afghanistan to the west. The FATA comprises seven agencies (tribal districts) and six frontier regions. The territory is almost exclusively inhabited by Pashtun tribes which lives in East Afghanistan and who are predominantly Sunni Muslims by faith.
The region was annexed in the 19th century during the British colonial period, and though the British never succeeded in completely calming unrest in the region, it afforded them some protection from Afghanistan. The British Raj attempted to control the population of the annexed tribal regions with the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), which allowed considerable power to govern to local nobles so long as these nobles were willing to meet the needs of the British. Due to the unchecked discretionary power placed into the hands of the jirga put into place by these nobles and to the human rights violations that ensued, the FCR has come to be known as the "black law." The annexed areas continued under the same governance after the Partition of India, through the Dominion of Pakistan in 1946 and into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1956.

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Germany
Germany (ⁱ/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km² and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.

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Indus River
The Indus River (Sanskrit: सिन्धु Sindhu; Urdu: دریائے سندھ Daryā-e Sindh; Hindi: सिन्धु नदी Sindhu; Sindhi: سنڌو Sindhu; Punjabi: سندھ Sindh; Gujarati: સિંધુ નદી Sindhu; Pashto: اباسين Abāsin "Father of Rivers"; Persian: رود سند Rūd-e Sind‎; Arabic: السند Al-Sind‎; Tibetan: སེང་གེ།་གཙང་པོ Sênggê Zangbo "Lion River"; Greek: Ινδός Indós; Turki: Nilab) is a major river which flows through Pakistan. It has courses through western Tibet (in China) and Northern India.
Originating in the Tibetan plateau in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar, the river runs a course through the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit, Baltistan and flows through Pakistan in a southerly direction along the entire length of Pakistan to merge into the Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi in Sindh. The total length of the river is 3,180 km (1,980 mi). It is Pakistan's longest river.
The river has a total drainage area exceeding 1,165,000 km² (450,000 sq mi). Its estimated annual flow stands at around 207 km³ (50 cu mi), making it the twenty-first largest river in the world in terms of annual flow. Zanskar is its left bank tributary in Ladakh. In the plains, its left bank tributary is Chenab which itself has four major tributaries, namely, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas and Satluj. Its principal right bank tributaries are Shyok, Gilgit, Kabul, Gomal and Kurram. Beginning at the heights of the world in a spring and fed with glaciers and rivers in the Himalayas, the river supports ecosystems of temperate forests, plains and arid countryside.

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Iran
Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53
Iran (ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران‎ [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.
The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.

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Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir ⁱ/ˌdʒɑːmuː/ & /ˈkæʃmɪər/ is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the Pakistan-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit–Baltistan, to the west and northwest respectively.
Formerly a part of the erstwhile Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu, which governed the larger historic region of Kashmir, this territory is disputed among China, India and Pakistan. Pakistan, which claims the territory as disputed, refers to it alternatively as Indian-occupied Kashmir or Indian-held Kashmir, while some international agencies such as the United Nations, call it Indian-administered Kashmir. The regions under the control of Pakistan are referred to as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir or PoK within India.
Jammu and Kashmir consists of three regions: Jammu, the Kashmir valley and Ladakh. Srinagar is the summer capital, and Jammu is the winter capital. While the Kashmir valley is famous for its beautiful mountainous landscape, Jammu's numerous shrines attract tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims every year. Ladakh, also known as "Little Tibet", is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and Buddhist culture.

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Japan
Japan ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.

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Kabul University
Kabul University (KU) is located in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. It was founded in 1931 but officially opened for classes in 1932. Kabul University is attended by 7,000 students, of which 1,700 are women. Hamidullah Amin is the chancellor of the university. The university is still recovering from the long period of war and chaos in the country. The main building was renovated about 500 meters from the old one, which has almost the same design.
Kabul University consists of 14 faculties in Agriculture, Economics, Pharmacy, Islamic Studies, Law, Language and Literature, Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Journalism, Veterinary medicine, Social Science, Psychology, Geoscience and Fine Arts.
Officially, the university is known by the Pashto name Da Kābul Pohantūn (دکابل پوهنتون). It has been suggested to use three official names in Pashto, Persian (دانشگاه کابل) and English (University of Kabul); most of all, because Persian-speaking students feel discriminated by the governmental ban of the Persian word for university. This led to a clash between students and the police in November 2008, as mostly Persian-speaking students demanded to lift the ban on Persian words.

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Kandahar
Kandahar, occasionally Candahar, or Qandahar, (Pashto: کندهار Kandahār) is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m (3,297 feet) above sea level. The Arghandab River runs along the west of the city.
Kandahar is the original and most culturally significant city of the Pashtuns and has always been their traditional seat of power. It is a major trading center for sheep, wool, cotton, silk, felt, food grains, fresh and dried fruit, and tobacco. The region produces fine fruits, especially pomegranates and grapes, and the city has plants for canning, drying, and packing fruit. Kandahar has an international airport and extensive road links with Farah and Herat to the west, Kabul and Peshawar to the northeast, Tarinkot to the north, and Quetta in neighboring Balochistan (Pakistan) to the south.
The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements. Alexander the Great is said to have laid-out the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar in the 4th century BC and gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας (Alexandria of Arachosia). Many empires have long fought over the city due to its strategic location along the trade routes of southern, central and western Asia. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak made the region an independent kingdom and turned Kandahar into the first capital of the Hotaki dynasty. In 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the last Afghan empire, made it the capital of modern Afghanistan.

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Karachi
Karachi ( Karācī (help·info), Urdu: کراچی; Sindhi: ڪراچي) is the largest city, main seaport and financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 13 million. Results in April 2012 of Pakistan's latest census initial tabulations show that the district is home to over 21 million people, at a density of nearly 6,000 people per square kilometer (15,500 per square mile). Karachi is the most populous city in the country, one of the world's largest cities in terms of population and also the 10th largest urban agglomeration in the world. It is Pakistan's premier centre of banking, industry, economic activity and trade and is home to Pakistan's largest corporations, including those involved in textiles, shipping, automotive industry, entertainment, the arts, fashion, advertising, publishing, software development and medical research. The city is a major hub of higher education in South Asia and the wider Muslim world.

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Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pashto: خیبر پښتونخوا [xaiˈbər pəxtunˈxwɑ]; Urdu: خیبر پختونخوا [ˈxɛːbər pəxˈtuːnxwaː]), locally called Pukhtunkhwa, and formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country. It borders Afghanistan to the north-west, Gilgit–Baltistan to the north-east, Azad Kashmir to the east, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to the west and south, Balochistan to the south and Punjab and the Islamabad Capital Territory to the south-east. The main ethnic group in the province is the Pashtuns; other smaller ethnic groups include most notably the Hindkowanss, Gujjar's and Chitralis. The principal languages are Pashto (locally referred to as Pukhto) The provincial capital is Peshawar.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sits primarily on the Iranian plateau and comprises the junction where the slopes of the Hindu Kush mountains on the Eurasian plate give way to the Indus-watered hills approaching South Asia. This situation has led to seismic activity in the past. The famous Khyber Pass links the province to Afghanistan, while the Kohalla Bridge in Circle Bakote Abbottabad is a major crossing point over the Jhelum River in the east.

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Mianwali District
Mianwali (Punjabi, Urdu: ضلع میانوالی) is a district in the northwest of Punjab province, Pakistan. It borders eight district: Attock District in the north, Chakwal District in the northeast, Khushab District in the east, and Bhakkar District in the south, while Lakki Marwat lies to the west, Kohat and Karak districts to the northwest and Dera Ismail Khan District to the southwest.
In November 1901, the North-West Frontier Province was carved out of Punjab and the present-day towns of Mianwali, Isa Khel, Kalabagh, and Kundian were separated from Bannu District (NWFP); hence a new district was made with the headquarters in Mianwali city and placed in Punjab province.
According to the 1998 census of Pakistan, the district had a population of 1,056,620, out of which 20.39% (i.e., 85,000 inhabitants) lived in the district capital Mianwali. The Niazi (Pathan) tribe is the most dominant tribe of this district, with an estimated 70% of the total population. The Niazi tribe exists in all parts of the district but most notably live in Mianwali City, Shahbaz Khel,Kamar mashani, Musa Khel, Sohrabwala, GuddiKhelan Wala, Mochh, Sawans and Isakhel. Another tribe known as the Jats live mostly in Ding Khola, Uttra kalan, New Ding Sharif, Saeed Abad, Hashim Naggar/Lal Wala (Saifun Pull), KhanQah Sirrajia, Bakharra/Kacha Kalo, Kacha Paar, Khita-e-Atlas, Kacha Gujrat, Kacha Shahnawaz Wala, Phaati, Hurnoli, Alluwali, Duaba, Jaal Janub/Shumali, Piplan, Wan Bahhchran, Wichveen Bala, Kundian, Moosa Khel and Shadia.

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Netherlands
The Netherlands (ⁱ/ˈnɛðərləndz/; Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdə(r)lɑnt] or [ˈneɪ̯də(r)lɑnt] ( listen); West Frisian: Nederlân; Papiamento: Hulanda) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with some islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is a parliamentary democracy organised as a unitary state. The country capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces (a case of pars pro toto; see terminology of "the Netherlands").

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Pakistan
Pakistan (ⁱ/ˈpækɨstæn/ or ⁱ/pɑːkiˈstɑːn/; Urdu: پاکستان) (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪˈst̪aːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریۂ پاکستان), is a sovereign country in South Asia. It sits at the crossroads of the strategically important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west and north, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, and it shares a marine border with Oman.
The territory of modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures, including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and has undergone invasions or settlements by Hindu, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, Afghan and Sikh cultures. Thus the area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Indian Mauryan Empire, the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, the Mongol Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Durrani Empire, the Sikh Empire and the British Empire. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and India's struggle for independence, Pakistan was created in 1947 as an independent nation for Muslims from the regions in the east and west of India where there was a Muslim majority. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a new constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic. A civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh.

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Qaen
Qaen (Persian: قائن‎, also Romanized as Ghayen, Qayen or Ghaen) is a city in and the capital of Qaen County, in South Khorasan Province, Iran. Qaen is also called the City of Saffron^{[citation needed]}. Saffron from Qaen is prized for its unique aroma and strong colour^{[citation needed]}. The population at the 2006 census, was 32,474 in 8,492 families.
Qaen is a place of great antiquity and complex history. The present city, which lies in a broad valley, was founded in the 15th century on the site of an ancient city. Later, the Uzbeks (a Turkic people) took possession of the city and held it until Shah Abbas I (1588-1629) expelled them. In the 18th century, Qaen fell under the control of Pashtuns which is why some of locals, though they speak Persian, still claim descent from Pashtuns (rather than Persians).
A mud wall surrounds the modern town. More affluent residential areas lie outside the wall. The city is a trading center, but it also has industries that produce felt and carpets. The surrounding area consists of hill ranges of 9,000 feet (2,750 m) running northwest-southeast and sinking to the Sistan depression in the south. The area is the main source of saffron in Iran^{[citation needed]}, but it also produces grain, vegetables, and wood.

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Qatar
Qatar (ⁱ/ˈkɑːtɑr/ or ⁱ/kəˈtɑr/;Arabic: قطر‎ [ˈqɑtˤɑr]; local vernacular pronunciation: [ɡɪtˤɑr]), also known as the country or State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island state of Bahrain.
Qatar has been ruled as an absolute monarchy by Al Thani family since the mid-19th century. Formerly a British protectorate noted mainly for pearling, it became independent in 1971, and has become one of the region's wealthiest states due to its enormous oil and natural gas revenues. In 1995, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani became Emir when he seized power from his father, Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, in a peaceful coup d'état. The most important positions in Qatar are held by the members of the Al Thani family, or close confidants of the al-Thani family. Beginning in 1992, Qatar has built intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.

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Russia
Russia ⁱ/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.

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Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia (ⁱ/ˌsaʊdi əˈreɪbi.ə/ or ⁱ/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbi.ə/; Arabic: السعودية‎ as-Su‘ūdīyah^{[citation needed]} or incorrectly as-Sa‘ūdīyah, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: المملكة العربية السعودية‎ al-Mamlakah al-‘Arabīyah as-Su‘ūdīyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab world, after Algeria. It is bordered by Jordan, and Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south. The Red Sea lies to its west, and the Persian Gulf lies to the east. Saudi Arabia has an area of approximately 2,250,000 km² (870,000 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 9 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 2 million are illegal immigrants. Saudi nationals comprise an estimated 16 million people.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as the Al Saud. The Saudi Arabian government, which has been an absolute monarchy since its inception, refers to its system of government as being Islamic, though this is contested by many due to its strong basis in Salafism, a minority school of thought in Islam. The kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.

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Sindh
Sindh (pronounced [sɪnd̪ʱ]; Sindhi: سنڌ; Urdu: سندھ Indica in Latin, Indus in Greek) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran" and has been given the title of Bab-ul-Islam (The gateway of Islam). The name of Sindh is derived from the Indus River that separates it from Balochistan and the greater Iranian Plateau. This river was known to the ancient Iranians in Avestan as Indus, in Sanskrit as Sindhu, to Assyrians (as early as the seventh century BC) as Sinda, to the Greeks as Indos, to the Romans as Indus, to the Persians as Ab-e-sind, to the Pashtuns as "Abasind", to the Arabs as Al-Sind, to the Chinese as Sintow, and to the Javanese as the Santri.
Sindh is bounded to the west by the Indus River and Balochistan, to the north by Punjab, the east by the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan and to the south by the Arabian Sea. The capital of the province is Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and financial hub. Most of the population in the province is Muslim, with sizeable Christian, Zoroastrian and Hindu minorities. The main language spoken is Sindhi by about 40 million people, while there exists a significant Urdu-speaking minority.

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Sweden
Sweden (ⁱ/ˈswiːdən/ SWEE-dən; Swedish: Sverige [ˈsværjɛ] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish: Konungariket Sverige (help·info)), is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland, and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Øresund.
At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the third largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of about 9.4 million. Sweden has a low population density of 21 inhabitants per square kilometre (54 /sq mi) with the population mostly concentrated to the southern half of the country. About 85% of the population live in urban areas. Sweden's capital city is Stockholm, which is also the largest city.
Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages. In the 17th century, the country expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire. The empire grew to be one of the great powers of Europe in the 17th and early 18th century. Most of the conquered territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries. The eastern half of Sweden, present-day Finland, was lost to Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Sweden by military means forced Norway into a personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, practicing "non-participation in military alliances during peacetime and neutrality during wartime". However, Sweden has been a member of the European Union since 1 January 1995 and is a member of the OECD.

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Tajikistan
Tajikistan (ⁱ/tɑːˈdʒiːkɨstɑːn/, /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/, or /tæˈdʒiːkiːstæn/; Тоҷикистон [ˈtɔjikɪsˈtɔn]), officially the Republic of Tajikistan (Tajik: Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Cumhuriyi Tocikiston; Persian: جمهوری تاجیکستان‎ Jomhuri-ye Tajikestan; Russian: Республика Таджикистан, Respublika Tadzhikistan), is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. It borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. Gilgit Baltistan as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan are separated from Tajikistan by the narrow Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan in the south.
Most of Tajikistan's population belongs to the Persian-speaking Tajik ethnic group, who share language, culture and history with Afghanistan and Iran. Once part of the Samanid Empire, Tajikistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in the 20th century, known as the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR). Mountains cover over 90% of this Central Asian republic.
After independence, Tajikistan suffered from a devastating civil war which lasted from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability and foreign aid have allowed the country's economy to grow. Trade in commodities such as cotton, aluminium and uranium has contributed greatly to this steady improvement.

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Thailand
Thailand ( /ˈtaɪlænd/ TY-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/;Thai: ประเทศไทย, RTGS: Prathet Thai), officially the Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย, RTGS: Ratcha Anachak Thai; IPA: [râːt.tɕʰā ʔāːnāːtɕàk tʰāj] ( listen)), formerly known as Siam (Thai: สยาม; RTGS: Sayam), is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The king of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths.

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United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates ⁱ/juːˌnaɪtɨd ˌærəb ˈɛmɪrɨts/ (Arabic: دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة‎, Al Imārāt al ‘Arabīyah al Muttaḥidah), sometimes simply called the Emirates or the UAE, is a country situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman to the east and Saudi Arabia to the south, as well as sharing sea borders with Qatar to the west and Iran to the north.
The UAE is a federation of seven emirates (equivalent to principalities), each governed by a hereditary emir, with a single national president. The constituent emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. The capital is Abu Dhabi, which is also the state's center of political, industrial, and cultural activities.
Prior to independence in 1971, the UAE was known as the Trucial States or Trucial Oman, in reference to a 19th-century truce between the local sheikhs, hereditary rulers of the territories, and the United Kingdom. The term Pirate Coast was also used by some to refer to the emirates from the 18th to the early 20th century, owing to the preponderance of pirates operating from Emirati ports.

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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.

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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.

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Abdul Shakoor Rashad
Professor Abdul Shakoor Rashad (Pashto: عبدالشکور رشاد) was born on November 14, 1921 in in Kandahar City, Afghanistan.
Abdul Shakoor Rashad graduated from school at the age of 12 in 1933. While he was only 13 years old, he was appointed as a teacher in school in 1934 from where he started his official career.
In 1948, Abdul Shakoor went to India for further education where he continued his research in Pashto language. While he was in India, he wrote the book "Lodi Pashtoons" consisting of (351) pages and learned Hindi Language.
In 1957, Abdul Shakoor became a member of the Pashto Tolana (Pashto Academy) and a professor of Pashto language at the Faculty of Language and Literature at the Kabul University. Later on he became the Assistant Director of pashto Tolana.
In 1961, he was appointed as a Pashto teacher in the Institute of Eastern Research in St. Petersburg (Previously known as Lenin Grad) where he served for two and a half years. He moved back to Kabul where he continued to serve as a professor at the University of Kabul in the Faculty of Language and Literature as Professor and as the Chief of the Pashto Department.

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Ahmad Shah Durrani
Ahmad Shah Durrani (c. 1722–1773) (Pashto/Persian: احمد شاه درانی‎), also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī (Pashto/Persian: احمد شاه ابدالي) and born as Ahmad Khān, was the founder of the Durrani Empire (Afghan Empire) in 1747 and is regarded by many to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan.
Ahmad Khan enlisted as a young soldier in the military of the Afsharid kingdom and quickly rose to become a commander of four thousand Abdali Pashtun soldiers. After the death of Nader Shah Afshar of Persia in June 1747, Abdali became the Emir of Khorasan. Rallying his Pashtun tribes and allies, he pushed east towards the Mughal and the Maratha Empire of India as well as west towards the disintegrating Afsharid Empire of Persia and north toward the Khanate of Bukhara. Within a few years he had conquered all of today's Afghanistan and Pakistan, including much of northeastern Iran and the Punjab region in the Indian subcontinent. He decisively defeated the Marathas at the 1761 Battle of Panipat which was fought north of Delhi in India.

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Ajmal Khattak
Ajmal Khattak (Pashto: اجمل خټک)(Urdu: اجمل خٹک) (born 15 September 1925, died 7 February 2010) was a Pakistani politician, writer, Pashtun poet, Khudai Khidmatgar, former President of Awami National Party and close friend of the late Khan Wali Khan.
His early student life was marked by active protesting against the British Raj, this was followed by his joining of the Khudai khidmatgar movement and anti-colonial Pashto poetry. Following the partition of India in 1947 he joined the National Awami Party and became a close friend of Abdul Wali Khan.
He served as secretary general of the National Awami Party from 1969-1973. He was defeated by Maulana Abdul Haq in the 1970 general election, however following a crackdown against the Party by the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Ajmal Khattak fled into exile to Kabul. He returned in 1986 and was elected in 1990 to the National Assembly of Pakistan, he was then elected President of the Awami National Party following the retirement of Wali Khan. Following a power struggle in 2000, he briefly formed a breakaway party which was routed in the 2002 election. He rejoined the Awami National Party shortly afterwards and retired from active politics.

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Ameer Hamza Shinwari
Ameer Hamza Shinwari (Pashto: حمزه شينواری), born in Landi Kotal in the year 1907 and died in February 1994, was a famous Pashtun poet. He Belonged to the Shinwari tribe of the ethnic Pashtuns. Ameer Hamza's work is considered a fusion between classic and modern poetry. He followed the traditional old classical poetry and blended it with the modern spirit, as well as introducing new ideas in Pashto Ghazals and took this genre of poetry to perfection. He is known as the father of Pashto Ghazals.
At a young age, Ameer Hamza Shinwari dreamt of making a career in film, he wrote the story for the first ever Pashto language film, Laila Majnoon, in 1941. The film, which was released in Bombay before the independence of Pakistan, earned him a pittance. But it was during a visit to Ajmer Sharif that he first came into contact with the world of mysticism. He adopted the Chishtia order of mysticism, following in the footsteps of Rahman Baba, and blended it with the Pashtunwali, the famous Pashtun code of conduct. The government of Pakistan also honoured him with a posthumous 'Presidential Pride of Performance' award, and the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province built the Hamza Baba Cultural Complex in Landi Kotal in homage to his great services to Pashtun culture.

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Amir Kror Suri
Amir Kror Suri (Pashto: امير کروړ سوري), also known as Jahan Pahlawan, is a legendary character in Pashtun national history and is claimed to have become the governor of Mandesh in Ghor.
According to some Pashtun historians, Amir Kror Sori was the son of a man named Amir Polad Suri who was the governor of Ghor. Allegedly, he lived in the time of Abu Muslim Khorasani and became the first poet of Pashto language. None of this, however, is confirmed or supported by other historians.
According to legend, Amir Kror was a renowned fighter and challenged several people at a time. Because of his bravery and strength, he is given the Pashto title Kror, meaning "hard" and "strong". It is claimed that he had conquered the fortresses of Ghor, Balishtan, Kheisar, Tamran and Barkoshak and assisted the Caliphate of Islam, but there are no historical documents or proofs for this claim.
According to legend, Amir Kror Suri died in 154 H./771 A.D. in the Battle of Poshanj (which is a village in ancient city of Herat, Afghanistan) and was succeeded by his son, Amir Naser, who took control of the territories of Ghor, Sur, Bost and Zamindawar.

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Amānullāh Khān
Amanullah Khan (Pashto, Persian, Urdu, Arabic: أمان اللہ خان ) (June 1, 1892 – April 25, 1960) was the Sovereign of Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929, first as Emir and after 1926 as Malik (King). He led Afghanistan to independence over its foreign affairs from the United Kingdom, and his rule was marked by dramatic political and social change. He was the first Afghan ruler who attempted to modernize Afghanistan on western designs. However, he did not succeed in this because of a popular uprising by Habibullah Kalakani and his followers. On 14 January 1929, Amanullah abdicated and fled to then neighboring British India while Afghanistan fell into a civil war. From British India he went to Europe where he died in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1960.
Amānullāh Khān was born on June 1, 1892, in Paghman near Kabul, Afghanistan. He was the third son of the Amir Habibullah Khan. Amanullah was already installed as the governor of Kabul and was in control of the army and the treasury, and gained the allegiance of most of the tribal leaders.

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Ariana
Ariana, the Latinized form of (Greek: ἡ 'Αρειανή/Arianē), inhabitants: Ariani (Greek: Αρειανοί/Arianoi), was a general geographical term used by some Greek and Roman authors of the ancient period for a district of wide extent between Central Asia and the Indus River, comprehending the eastern provinces of the Achaemenid Empire that covered entire modern-day Afghanistan, east and southeast of Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and northwestern Pakistan.
At various times, the region was governed by the Persians (Achaemenids, 550-330 BC; Sasanians, 275-650 AD; Kushano-Sasanians, 345-450 AD), Macedonians (Seleucids, 330-250 BC; Greco-Bactrians, 250-110 BC; Indo-Greeks, 155-90 BC), Indo-Iranians (Parthians, 160 BC-225 AD; Indo-Scythians, 90 BC-20 AD; Indo-Parthians, 20-225 AD; Kushans, 110 BC-225 AD), white Huns (Kidarites, 360-465 AD; Hephthalites, 450-565 AD), Indians (Mauryans, 275-185 BC; Hindu-Shahis; 870-1000 AD Pala Empire; 750–1174 AD)
The Greek term Arianē (Latin: Ariana) is based upon Old Iranian Āryana- (Avestan: Airiiana-, esp. in Airiianəm vaēǰō, the name of the Aryans’ mother country, whose localization is disputed). The modern name Iran represents the ancient name Ariana, - a word itself of Avestan origin.; a view which is borne out by the traditions of the country preserved in the Muslim writers of the ninth and tenth centuries.

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Babur
Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur (February 14, 1483 – December 26, 1530; sometimes also spelt Baber or Babar) was a conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty in the Indian Subcontinent and became the first Mughal emperor. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother. Babur identified his lineage as Timurid and Chaghatay-Turkic. He was greatly influenced by Persian culture and this affected both his own actions and those of his successors, giving rise to a significant expansion of the Persianate ethos in the Indian subcontinent.
Ẓahīr ad-Dīn Muḥammad (Persian: ﻇﻬﻴﺮﺍﻟﺪﻳﻦ محمد‎, also known by his royal titles as al-ṣultānu 'l-ʿazam wa 'l-ḫāqān al-mukkarram bādshāh-e ġāzī), is more commonly known by his nickname, Bābur (بابر).
According to Stephen Frederic Dale, the name Babur is derived from the Persian word babr, meaning "tiger", a word that repeatedly appears in Firdawsī's Shāhnāma and had also been borrowed by the Turkic languages of Central Asia. This thesis is supported by the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, explaining that the Turko-Mongol name Timur underwent a similar evolution, from the Sanskrit word cimara ("iron") via a modified version *čimr to the final Turkicized version timür, with -ür replacing -r due to the Turkish vowel harmony (hence babr → babür).^{[citation needed]}

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Georg Morgenstierne
Georg Valentin von Munthe af Morgenstierne (1892 Oslo, Norway – 1978, Oslo, Norway) was a Norwegian professor of linguistics with the University of Oslo (UiO). He specialized in Indo-Iranian languages.
During the years 1923 to 1971 Morgenstierne carried out field works in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iran. In 1924, he undertook the first of his two major linguistic expeditions. He arrived in Kabul with a personal letter of introduction to the King of Afghanistan, from the King of Norway. Together with studying the languages, Morgenstierne collected remarkable scientific materials from the culture of the regional people, like images, movies from pre-Islamic ceremonial dances and sound recordings from nearly extinct languages. The materials are available in his database at the National Library of Norway.

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George Rawlinson
Canon George Rawlinson (23 November 1812 – 7 October 1902) was a 19th century English scholar, historian, and Christian theologian. He was born at Chadlington, Oxfordshire, and was the younger brother of Sir Henry Rawlinson.
Having taken his degree at the University of Oxford (from Trinity College) in 1838, he was elected to a fellowship at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1840, of which from 1842 to 1846 he was fellow and tutor. He was ordained in 1841, was Bampton lecturer in 1859, and was Camden Professor of Ancient History from 1861 to 1889.
In 1872 he was appointed canon of Canterbury, and after 1888 he was rector of All Hallows, Lombard Street. In 1873, he was appointed proctor in Convocation for the Chapter of Canterbury. He married Louisa, daughter of Sir RA Chermside, in 1846.
His chief publications are his translation of the History of Herodotus (in collaboration with Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir John Gardiner Wilkinson), 1858–60; The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, 1862–67; The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy (Parthian), 1873; The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy (Sassanian), 1875; Manual of Ancient History, 1869; Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament, 1871; The Origin of Nations, 1877; History of Ancient Egypt, 1881; Egypt and Babylon, 1885; History of Phoenicia, 1889; Parthia, 1893; Memoir of Major-General Sir HC Rawlinson, 1898. His lectures to an audience at Oxford University on the topic of the accuracy of the Bible in 1859 were published as the apologetic work The Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records Stated Anew in later years. He was also contributor to the Speaker's Commentary, the Pulpit Commentary, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, and various similar publications. He was the author of the article "Herodotus" in the 9th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

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Ghani Khan
Ghani Khan (Pashto: غني خان) (1996-1914) is widely considered as one of the best Pashto language poets of the 20th century, along with Ameer Hamza Shinwari. He stands on a par with Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba. He was also a respected writer and artist. He was son of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and older brother of Khan Abdul Wali Khan.
Khan Abdul Ghani Khan was born in Hashtnagar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then NWFP), British India, modern day Charsadda, Village Utmanzai, Pakistan, the son of the Red-Shirt Leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and older brother of Khan Abdul Wali Khan. His wife Roshan came from a Parsi family and was the daughter of Nawab Rustam Jang. He went to study at the art academy at Rabindranath Tagore’s university in Shantiniketan and developed a liking for painting and sculpture. He visited England and studied sugar technology in the United States, after which he returned to India and started working at the Takht Bhai Sugar Mills in 1933. Largely owing to his father’s influence, he was also involved in politics, supporting the cause of the Pashtuns of British India. He was arrested by the Government of Pakistan in 1948 – although he had given up politics by then – and remained in prison till 1954, in various jails all over the country. It was during these years that he wrote his poem collection Da Panjray Chaghaar, which he considered the best work of his life. His contribution to literature (often unpublished) was ignored by the Pakistan government for much of his life although near the end of his life his works did receive much praise and as well as an award from the Government of Pakistan. For his contributions to Pukhto literature and painting, the President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, conferred on him the prestigious award of Sitara-e-Imtiaz (23 March 1980).

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Gul Pacha Ulfat
Gul Pacha Ulfat (Pashto: ګل پاچا الفت) was born in 1909 in Qarghayi District of Laghman Province, Afghanistan. Ulfat was the prominent poet and author of the Pashto language.
Gul Pacha Ulfat, son of Meer Sayed Pacha, was born in 1909 in the village of Aziz Khan Kats, Qarghayi District of Laghman Province. After acquiring a good knowledge of Arabic and religion, he studied Sarf, Nahw, Mantiq, Hadith and Tafseer from the local islamic scholars.
After completing his religious education and private studies in 1935, he was appointed as a clerk in national Anis Newspaper. In 1949 and 1952, he was elected as member of the National Assembly by the people of Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar Province, and people of Qarghayi District of Laghman respectively. Meanwhile he founded the Wolas, a national weekly in 1951. He remained as the chief editor of Wolas Weekly until the end of 1953.
Ulfat attended the Grand Assembly sessions in 1955, representing the people of Jalalabad. In 1956, he was appointed as the president of the Pashto Academy, locally known as the "Pashto Tolana" and in 1963 he was promoted to a central cabinet post as the President of the Tribal Affairs. At the same time he served as a professor of Pashto language and literature in Kabul University, Faculty of Literature and Faculty of Law and Political Sciences. In 1964, he resigned from his ministerial post and was once again elected to the National Assembly by the people of Jalalabad. At the end of his term, he went into retirement.

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Habibullah Kalakani
Habībullāh Kalakānī (c. 1890 – 17 October 1929), (حبیب‌الله کلکانی), also known as Bache Saqaw, was Emir of Afghanistan from January to October 1929 after deposing Amānullāh Khān with the help of various Afghan tribes who opposed modernization of Afghanistan. After gaining power, he named himself Habībullāh Khādem-e Dīn-e Rasūlallāh ("The servant of the religion of the messenger of God"). He was himself overthrown and executed on 3 November 1929 by the army of Mohammed Nadir Khan with help of the Afghan National Army.
Kalakānī, an ethnic Tajik, was born in the 1890s in the village of Kalakān, north of Kabul. His father was a water carrier, and Kalakani was called "Bache Saqqaw" (Son of a watercarrier). His father sent him to a local madrasa to study the Qur'an.
During his adolescence, Habībullāh ventured out of his village and traveled to Kabul and later to Jalalabad and Peshawar, where he performed odd jobs to sustain himself. In the South, he ran into an old Sufi who told him that he would become Amir one day and then handed him an amulet to keep for good luck.

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Henry George Raverty
Henry George Raverty (31 May 1825 – 20 October 1906) was a British Indian Army officer and linguist.
He served from 1843 to 1864, rising to the rank of Major in the 3rd Bombay Native Infantry.
Raverty fought in the Punjab campaign of 1849–1850 and Swat campaign of 1850. He compiled a gazetteer of Peshawar. While serving in Peshawar he was taught Pashto by the scholar Abdur Rahman Khan Muhammadzai and he began to study Afghan poetry.
On retirement from the army, he returned to England and continued his oriental studies, culminating in his vast Notes on Afghanistan and part of Baluchistan and his unpublished History of Herat. He died in Cornwall, England in 1906.

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Herbert Penzl
Herbert Penzl, born September 2, 1910 in Neufelden, Austria, died September 1st, 1995 in Oakland, California, was an Austrian-born American philologist and historical linguist. He studied English Philology at the University of Vienna under Karl Luick. In 1934 he completed his Ph.D. dissertation The Development of Middle English a in New England Speech. He spent some time in the United States working on the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada at Brown University, having been recommended for the exchange by Sigmund Freud. While in the US, he published his first article, "New England Terms for Poached Eggs," which received media coverage by the Associated Press among others.
After a brief return to Austria, he decided in 1936 to move to the United States permanently. He was appointed at Rockford College, Illinois (1936-1938). In 1938, he received an appointment at the University of Illinois, where he worked until 1950. In 1944 he became a naturalized US citizen and from 1943 to 1945 he served in the United States Army, working on the development of military dictionaries.

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Herodotus
Herodotus ( /hɨˈrɒdətəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος Hēródotos) was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern day Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the fifth century BC (circa 484 – 425 BC). He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative.The Histories—his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced—is a record of his "inquiry" (or ἱστορία historía, a word that passed into Latin and acquired its modern meaning of "history"), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were fanciful, he claimed he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his personal history.
The Histories, otherwise known as The Researches or The Inquiries, were divided by later Alexandrian editors into nine books, named after the nine Muses: the "Muse of History", Clio, representing the first book, then Euterpe, Thaleia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania and Calliope for books 2 to 9, respectively. At its simplest and broadest level of meaning, The Histories is structured as a dynastic history of four Persian kings:

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Iranian languages
The Iranian languages (also called Iranic languages) form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn are a subgroup of the Indo-European language family. The speakers of Iranian languages are known as Iranian peoples.
The Iranian languages are considered in three stages of Old (until 400 BCE), Middle (400 BCE – 900 CE), and New (since 900 CE). From the Old Iranian languages the better understood and recorded ones are Old Persian (a language of Achaemenid Iran) and Avestan (the language of Zarathushtra). Middle Iranian languages included Middle Persian (a language of Sassanid Iran) and Parthian (a language of Arsacid Iran). There are many Iranian languages, the largest amongst them are Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, and Balochi.
Today, there are an estimated 150–200 million native speakers of Iranian languages. The Ethnologue lists 87 Iranian languages.Persian has about 65 million native speakers, Pashto about 50 million, Kurdish about 18 million, Balochi about 7 million, and Lurish about 2.3 million.

wn.com/Iranian_languages
Ismail Yoon
Ismail Yoon (Pashto: اﺳﻤﺎﻋﻴﻞ یون) is an Afghan writer and political analyst, currently teaching at Kabul University.
Ismail Yoon was born on March 18, 1968 in Alokhel village of Alingar District, Laghman, Afghanistan. He attended primary school in Alingar and graduated from Khushal Khan High School, Kabul. After graduating from high school, he was admitted in the Faculty of Language and Literature at Kabul University where he received both an undergraduate and master's degree in Pashto language.
In early 2009, Ismail Yoon printed a collection of 33 books in Pashto language. He has written several books and articles in Pashto, English and Persian.
Ismail Yoon is married to Aryan Yoon, a former university lecturer and an elected member of Wolesi Jirga (House of the People) representing the people of Nangarhar Province.

wn.com/Ismail_Yoon
Kabir Stori
Dr. Kabir Stori (Pashto: ډاکتر کبیر ستوری also spelled as Storai, Storay, Storae) is considered as one of the Pashto language prominent patriotic poet from Afghanistan. He was also a talented writer who wrote books on psychology in Pashto language.
The birth of Dr. Kabir Stori (6 April 1942) took place in Khas Kunar a village in Kunar Province of Afghanistan into the tribe of MirdadKhel a sub-tribe of the Yousafzai tribe. His primary education was from a government elementary school in Khas Kunar and later joined the Rahman Baba Lycee in Kabul to further his education. He was selected to study in Germany by the then government and studied psychology with political science, sociology and philosophy from the universities of Frankfurt, Cologne and Marburg. He got his doctorate in natural sciences known as Diplom Psychologist (Dr.rer.nat).
After serving his language and the cause of Pashtoons for several years Dr. Kabir Stori suffered a heart attack and died on 4 April 2006 in Wesseling, Germany. He left behind a grieving wife, five sons and two daughters. He was buried in his native graveyard in Khas Kunar, Afghanistan.

wn.com/Kabir_Stori
Khwarezmian language
Khwarezmian, also known as Khwarazmian or Chorasmian, is the name of an extinct East Iranian language closely related to Sogdian. The language was spoken in the area of Khwarezm (Chorasmia), centered in the lower Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea (the northern part of the modern Republic of Uzbekistan, and the adjacent areas of Turkmenistan).
Our knowledge of Khwarezmian is limited to its Middle Iranian stage and, as with Sogdian, little is known of its ancient form. Before the advance of Islam in Transoxiana (early 8th century), Khwarezmian was written in a script close to that of Sogdian and Pahlavi with its roots in the imperial Aramaic script. From the few surviving examples of this script on coins and artifacts it has been observed that written Khwarezmian included Aramaic logograms or ideograms, that is Aramaic words written to represent native spoken ones.
After the advance of Islam, Khwarezmian was written using an adapted version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet with a few extra signs to reflect specific Khwarezmian sounds, such as the letter څ, which represents /ts/ and /dz/, as in the traditional Pashto orthography.

wn.com/Khwarezmian_language
Malang Jan
Malang Jan (Pashto: ملنګ جان - b:1914, d:1957) was a prominent poet of Pashto language
Malang Jan was born as Mohammad Amin in Bihsud District of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. When he was only 3 years old, his father, Abdul Shakoor died. He was 15 years old when he along with his family moved to Kama District in search of work. Few years later he went to Jalalabad to serve his 2 years military service. After completing his term in the military, he moved back to his home village to earn a living. While he was in his early twenties, his first poem was published in Etihade Mashraqi magazine. From there on he found fame and became one of the renowned poet of his time.
In 1945, he was invited to Kabul by Mohammad Daud Khan and in 1950 Prime Minister Shah Mahmud Khan allocated him 600 Afghanis as yearly pension. In 1953 he was re-invited to Kabul and appointed him as the manager of Pashto Music at Kabul Radio. Since he was illiterate, Daud Khan appointed him a personal teacher for six days. Within those 6 days he learned enough so he could write and read his own poetry.

wn.com/Malang_Jan
Mohammed Zahir Shah
Mohammed Zahir Shah (15 October 1914 – 23 July 2007) was the last King (Padishah) of Afghanistan, reigning for four decades, from 1933 until he was ousted by a coup in 1973. Following his return from exile he was given the title 'Father of the Nation' in 2002 which he held until his death.
Zahir Shah was an ethnic Pashtun who was born on 15 October 1914, in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was the son of Mohammed Nadir Shah, a senior member of the Barakzai royal family and commander in chief of the Afghan army under former king Amanullah Khan. Nadir Shah assumed the throne after the execution of Habibullah Ghazi on 10 October 1929. Mohammed Zahir's father, son of Sardar Mohammad Yusuf Khan, was born in Dehradun, British India, his family having been exiled following the second Anglo-Afghan war. Nadir Shah was a descendant of Sardar Sultan Mohammed Khan Telai, half-brother of Amir Dost Mohammad Khan. His grandfather Mohammad Yahya Khan (father in law of Amir Yaqub Khan) was in charge of the negotiations with the British leading to the Treaty of Gandamak. After the British invasion following the killing of Sir Louis Cavagnari in 1879, Yaqub Khan, Yahya Khan and his sons, Princes Mohammad Yusuf Khan and Mohammad Asef Khan, were seized by the British and transferred under custody to the British Raj, where they forcibly remained until the two princes were invited back to Afghanistan by Emir Abdur Rahman Khan in the last year of his reign (1901). During the reign of Amir Habibullah they received the title of Companions of the King (Musahiban).

wn.com/Mohammed_Zahir_Shah
Mujawar Ahmad Ziar
Dr. Mujawar Ahmad Ziar (Pashto: مجاور احمد زيار) is a renowned linguist, writer and historian of Afghanistan.
Zyar was born in 1937 Mazeena Rod of Laghman, Afghanistan. He completed his primary school in a local school and graduated from a high school in Kabul. After graduating from high school, Mujawer Ahmad was admitted to the Faculty of Language and Literature of Kabul University in 1959. He graduated 3 years later and started working in the same faculty. In 1966, he went to Bern, Switzerland where he completed his Masters Degree from University of Bern.
From 1984 to 1986, Professor Zyar taught as a guest professor at Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. From 1994 to 1996, he taught as a visiting professor at the University of Peshawar, Peshawar in Pashto Department.
Mujawer Ahmad Zyar is the author of over 36 books (including dictionaries).

wn.com/Mujawar_Ahmad_Ziar
Nazo Tokhi
Nazo Tokhi, known mostly as Nazo Ana or Nazoo Anaa, (1651 – 1717) (Pashto: نازو انا) was a prominent Pashtun female poet and a literary figure of the Pashto language. Mother of the famous early-18th century Afghan King Mir Wais, she grew up in an purple bugars in the Kandahar region. Nazo Tokhi is remembered as a brave woman warrior in the history of Afghanistan, who eventually became the legendary "Mother of Afghan Nation".
Nazo Tokhi was born in or about 1651 in Spogmayiz Gul near Thazi, Kandahar Province of Afghanistan, into a powerful and wealthy Pashtun family. Her father, Sultan Malakhai Tokhi, was a prominent head of the Tokhi Pashtun tribe and governor of the Ghazni region. She was married to Salim Khan Hotak, son of Karam Khan. The famous Afghan ruler of the Hotaki dynasty, Mir Wais Hotak, was her son, and Mahmud Hotaki and Hussein Hotaki were her grandsons.
Nazo Anaa became a learned poet and courteous person, people knew her by her loving and caring. Nazo's father paid close attention to her education and upbringing. He induced training and full education from the learned personalities of the time in Kandahar. She eventually became the legendary "Mother of Afghan Nation", and gained authority through her poetry and upholding of the Pashtunwali code. She called for Pashtunwali to be the law of the confederacy of the Pashtun tribes, and she arbitrated conflicts between Ghilzai and Sadozai Pashtun tribes so as to encourage their alliance against the Persian Safavid rulers. Her contribution as a poet is uniquely considered invaluable even today.

wn.com/Nazo_Tokhi
Pakthas
For the present-day Afghan provinces of (Loya Paktia), see Paktia Province, Paktika Province and Khost Province.
Pakthas (also Pakta or Pactyans) are an ancient people, that find reference in Sanskrit and Greek sources and as a people living in the areas now in Afghanistan, as well as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan.
The Pakthas, Bhalanases, Vishanins, Alinas, and Sivas were the five frontier tribes. The Pakthas lived in the hills from which the Krumu originates. Zimmer locates them in eastern Afghanistan, identifying them with the modern Pakthun.
In the Rigveda, the Kurrum is mentioned as Krumu..
They are sometimes speculated to be related to the modern-day Pashtun people.
The Pakthas were one of the tribes that fought against Sudas in the Dasarajna the Battle of the Ten Kings (dāśarājñá), a battle alluded to in Mandala 7 of the Rigveda (RV 7.18.7).
Heinrich Zimmer connects them with a tribe already mentioned by Herodotus (Pactyans), and with Pashtuns in Afghanistan.
The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a people called Pactyan living on the eastern frontier of the Persian Arachosia Satrapy as early as the 1st millennium BCE.

wn.com/Pakthas
Pashtun diaspora
Pashtuns (Pashto: پښتانه Pax̌tānə, also spelled as Pushtuns, Pakhtuns or Pukhtuns), also known as ethnic Afghans (Pashto: افغان) or Pathans (Urdu: پٹھان, Hindi: पठान Paṭhān), are an ethnic group with populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are also significant numbers in India, the Middle East, the Europian Union, North America, Australia, and other parts of the world.
The ethnic group was known historically as "Afghan", believed to be the indigenous people of the vast Pashtunistan (Pakhtunistan) tribal region, between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan. According to Ethnologue, they currently number around 50 million but some sources give slightly lower or higher figures.
Since the 3rd century AD and onward, the Pashtuns have been referred to by the ethnonym Afghan, a term now used to describe a citizen of Afghanistan. Pashtuns make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, comprising 42-60% of the total Afghan population. Approximately 1.7 million Afghan refugees continue to live in neighboring Pakistan, majority of which are Pashtuns and born inside that country. An unknown number of them are also found among the 1 million Afghans in Iran.

wn.com/Pashtun_diaspora
Pashtun people
Pashtuns (Pashto: پښتانه Pax̌tānə; also spelled Pushtuns, Pakhtuns or Pukhtuns), also known as ethnic Afghans (Persian: افغان‎) or Pathans (Urdu: پٹھان, Hindi: पठान Paṭhān), are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group with populations primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pashtuns are typically characterised by their usage of the Pashto language and practice of Pashtunwali, which is a traditional set of ethics guiding individual and communal conduct. Their origins are unclear but historians have come across references to various ancient peoples called Paktha (Pactyans) between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BC, who inhabited the region between the Hindu Kush and Indus River and may be the early ancestors of Pashtuns. Since the 3rd century AD and onward, they have been referred to by the ethnonym "Afghan".
Often characterised as a warrior and martial race, their history is spread amongst various countries of South, Central and Western Asia, centred around their traditional seat of power in medieval Afghanistan. During the Delhi Sultanate era, the Pashtun Lodi dynasty replaced the Turkic kingdoms as the ruling dynasty in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. Other Pashtuns fought the Persian Empire and the Mughal Empire before obtaining an independent state in the early-18th century, which began with a successful revolution by the Mirwais Hotak followed by conquests by Ahmad Shah Durrani. Pashtuns played a vital role during the Great Game from the 19th century to the 20th century as they were caught between the imperialist designs of the British and Russian empires.

wn.com/Pashtun_people
Pir Mohammad Karwan
Pir Mohammad Karwan (Pashto: پیر محمد کاروان) is a prominent and contemporary poet writing in the Pashto language.
Karwan has published three collections of poetry and two collections of short stories.
Poetry books:
Short stories:
Currently Karwan works with BBC's Afghan education drama project as a drama writer.

wn.com/Pir_Mohammad_Karwan
Rahman Baba
Abdul Rahman Baba (1650–1715) (Pashto: عبدالرحمان بابا) is popularly known as Rahman Baba (Pashto: رحمان بابا), was a Pashtun/Afghan Muslim poet. He remains the most popular poet among the Afghans/Pashtuns. His poetry expresses a peaceful mystical side of local culture which is becoming increasingly threatened by less tolerant interpretations of Islam.
Rahman was a member of the Khalil Muhmand (Bahader Kalay) sub-tribe of Pukhtuns, a group which originally migrated from Kandahar to the Peshawar valley, from the 13th to the 16th century. He grew up in a small pocket of Mohmand settlers on the outskirts of Peshawar. Rahman apparently lived peacefully in the area, and never mentions his involvement in the fierce inter-tribal conflicts of his day.
Opinion is divided about Rahman's family background. Several commentators are convinced that his family were village Maliks (chieftains). However, Rahman Baba was more likely to have been a simple, though learned man. As he himself claimed: "Though the wealthy drink water from a golden cup, I prefer this clay bowl of mine."

wn.com/Rahman_Baba
Rahmat Shah Sail
Rahmat Shah Sail (Pashto: رحمت شاه سائل - born 1943 in Wartier) is a prominent and contemporary poet of Pashto language.* *
Rahmat Shah, son of Amin Gul was born in 1943 in Dargai village (Wartier) of Malakand Agency Wartier. At the age of 5, Sail was admitted to a local primary school (Wartier). However, he was compelled to leave school after the third grade* * to assist his parents in earning a livelihood. After a hard day of labour he used to compose poetry to lessen his fatigue. As a kid he was very interested in reading magazines and newspapers.
Even though Sail is uneducated, he is the author of several poetry books in Pashto language;
Published books:
Ahmad Shah is a member of Pashto Adabi Jirga, Malakand Agency.
Rahmat Shah Sail spent most of his life working as a tailor in Dargari Bazar to earn his livelihood. At present, he is the chief editor of Pashtun Magazine published by Bacha Khan Centre.
His political views could be summarized in three points 1. Anti-imperialist 2. Liberal and leftist 3. Democrat His first published book "Da vir pa cham ki war da naghmo dai" In a village of sorrow now it's time to cheer. As a young, energetic poet, in this very first book, he preaches equality through a system that is more inclined towards a socialist society.

wn.com/Rahmat_Shah_Sail
Strabo
Strabo,,^{[pronunciation?]}, also written Strabon (Greek: Στράβων; 64/63 BC – ca. AD 24), was a Greek geographer, philosopher and historian.
Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus (modern Amasya, Turkey), a city that he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea. His mother was Georgian. Pontus had recently fallen to the Roman Republic, and although politically he was a proponent of Roman imperialism, Strabo belonged on his mother's side to a prominent family whose members had held important positions under the resisting regime of King Mithridates VI of Pontus.
Strabo's life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and time spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, until at least 31 BC. In 29 BC, on his way to Corinth (where Augustus was at the time), he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae, after which point there is little record of his proceedings until 17 AD.

wn.com/Strabo
Sulaiman Layeq
Sulaiman Layeq (Pashto: سليمان لايق - born 12 October 1930) was an Afghan politician, ideologue and a poet.
Initially a student of the College of Theology, graduated from the College of Literature in 1957. Laeq was an excellente poet and writer in Pashtu and Dari. During 1957-68, Laeq held different posts in the national controlled media.
One of his sisters was married to Mir Akbar Khyber (a leading leftist idealogue whose murder in 1978 started the Saur Revolution); another sister was married to Sibghatullah Mojaddedi (who would later become President of Afghanistan). Laeq was a founder of the newspaper Parcham in 1968. Toguether with Babrak Karmal, reprensented the moderate faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). At the same time, he became a permanent member of the Central Committee of the Parcham parliamentary group. After the Saur Revolution, Laeq became Minister for Radio and Television in 1978 and for a time was admitted to membership in the Politburo after the government had expelled the Parchamis.

wn.com/Sulaiman_Layeq
Talysh language
The Talyshi language is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken in the northern regions of the Iranian provinces of Gilan and Ardabil and the southern regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Historically, the language and its people can be traced through the middle Iranian period back to the ancient Medes. It includes many dialects usually divided into three main clusters: Northern (in Azerbaijan and Iran), Central (Iran) and Southern (Iran). There are a wide variety of estimates for the number of Talyshi speakers with reliable estimates running anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million. Talyshi is partially, but not fully, intelligible with respect to Persian. Talysh is classified as "vulnerable" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
The origin of the name Tolish is not clear but is likely to be quite old. The name of the people appears in early Arabic sources as Al-Taylasân and in Persian as Tâlišân and Tavâliš, which are plural forms of Tâliš. Northern Talysh (in the Republic of Azerbaijan) was historically known as Tâlish-i Guštâsbi. Talysh has always been mentioned with Gilan or Muqan. Hamdallah Mostowfi writing in the 1340s calls the language of Gushtaspi covering the Caspian border region between Gilan to Shirvan is called a Pahlavi language connected to the language of Gilan. Although there are no confirmed records, the language called in Iranian linguistics as Azari can be the antecedent of both Talyshi and Tati. Miller’s (1953) hypothesis that the Âzari of Ardabil, as appears in the quatrains of Shaikh Safi, was a form of Talyshi. That was also confirmed by Henning (1954). In western literature the people and the language are sometimes referred to as Talishi, Taleshi or Tolashi. Generally speaking, the written books and texts concerning Taleshi are rare. However, In the recent decades a scientific and research movement has come about in this old region in poetry, history, literature, etc.

wn.com/Talysh_language

Tim Speaks Pashto/ټیم په پښتو خبری کوی

Practicing Pashto -- spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- after three weeks. Any feedback...

published: 21 Dec 2011

author: PolyglotPal

Military Terminology: Commands and Warnings #1-Pashto Language Training Program-

This program focuses on keywords and phrases that are used during translations between Pas...

published: 23 Feb 2011

author: ATSlanguageServices

ATS Pashto Language Training Program Introduction

Acclaim Technical Services Pashto Language Training Program focuses on keywords & phrases ...

published: 22 Feb 2011

author: ATSlanguageServices

Russian Girls student of the Pashto Language

Russian Girls student of the Pashto Language...

published: 08 Nov 2009

author: basirzadran

Pashto 101: Lesson 29

www.SimplePashto.com...

published: 26 Nov 2010

author: LearnPashto

Pashto Alphabet version 2

www.SimplePashto.com...

published: 27 Jan 2010

author: LearnPashto

Pashto 101: Lesson 21

www.simplePashto.com...

published: 27 Jan 2010

author: LearnPashto

The history of PASHTO language ;

...

published: 27 Sep 2009

author: abdaliAFGempire

Pashto Language (dagha pagha)

Afghan, Afghani, Afghanistani, Kabul, Herat, Kandahar, Qandahar, Mazar-e-Shareef, Mazar-i-...

published: 20 Aug 2010

author: PissOfAhmadShahBaba

Shrek in Pushto (for all who understand pushto language)

Khrash Prash - Shrek in Puhto (for all who understand pushto, its very funny) must watch :...

published: 03 Jan 2010

author: Faisal Jamal

Pashto Language Student in Russia by Basir khan zadran

Pashto Language Student in Russia...

published: 25 Apr 2010

author: basirzadran

Maulana Ameer Bijligar (Pashto language) 1/2

a very nice and funny bayan from maulana ameer bijligar afridi (hafizahullah)...

published: 31 Jul 2010

author: INTJameaAlBalkh

Pashto Grammar: Verbs فعلونه

Pashto Grammar: Verbs www.SimplePashto.com...

published: 14 Feb 2010

author: LearnPashto

pashto new Album 2012,2011

SHAD TV.AVT KHYBER,AWARD SHOW.NEW SHOW.MUSFAR SHOW NEW SONG.2009.2010.2011.2012 PASHTO.PUS...

published: 13 Jan 2012

author: Amirsono

Reiki Show (Pashto Language) - Reiki Master Sarfaraz Hussain - Khyber News

published: 21 Jul 2011

author: mujtaba hussain

Kabul Afghanistan TV Spot in Dari & Pashto Languages

This is a simple TV spot Bowers Media Group produced in Kabul for Afghan TV on behalf of t...

published: 27 Dec 2010

author: brucebowers

Join us as an instructor!

DLIFLC regularly hires native and near-native speakers of Arabic, Chinese, Dari, French, G...

published: 02 Aug 2010

author: DLIFLC

Pashto Instructor Recruiting

DLIFLC regularly hires native and near-native speakers of Arabic, Chinese, Dari, French, G...

published: 02 Aug 2010

author: DLIFLC

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photo: AP / Reed Saxon

FILE - In this March 8, 2012 file photo, Mexican-American singer and reality TV star Jenni Rivera poses during an interview in Los Angeles.

Singer feared dead in Mexico plane crash

Al Jazeera

10 Dec 2012

The wreckage of a small plane believed to be carrying Mexican-American singing superstar Jenni Rivera has been found in northern Mexico and there are no apparent survivors, authorities said. Transportation and Communications Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said on Sunday that "everything points toward" it being the US-registered Learjet 25 carrying Rivera and six other people from Monterrey en route to Toluca, Mexico ... 192 Source . ... Share ... ....(size: 17.5Kb)

photo: USAF / Staff Sgt. Jonathan Lovelady

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. James Bates, a security force squad leader with the Farah Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), provides security at a landing zone as his team prepares to disembark a CH-47 Chinook helicopter Sept. 26, 2012, in Pur Chaman district, Farah province, Afghanistan. The Farah PRT was composed of Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen whose mission was to provide security, support local governments and monitor reconstruction efforts throughout the province.

Are U.S. Wars and Politics Primitive?

WorldNews.com

10 Dec 2012

Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. In the desert of central Australia still resides a primitive tribe known as the Arunta. This non-technological and stateless group, which mainly depends on hunting and gathering, had suffered several inexplicable deaths ... Therefore, they organized an atinga, or revenge group ... When the guiltless tribe learned of their approach, they sent out a delegation of young women as a token of peace....(size: 5.8Kb)

photo: AP / Todd Williamson

Jenni Rivera attends a press conference on Friday, Aug. 24, 2012, in Woodland Hills, California.

Lamentan muerte de Jenni Rivera

Yahoo Daily News

10 Dec 2012

MÉXICO, D.F., diciembre 9 (EL UNIVERSAL).- La Voz México, programa de talentos de Televisa, confirmó la muerte de la cantante Jenni Rivera, a través de su Twitter. "Que toquen fuerte las bandas, suelten por mí mariposas, apláudanme con sus palmas... http.//twitpic.com/bkmhl0 .Descanse en paz Jenni Rivera" ... Además, anunció un homenaje luctuoso dedicado a la cantante ... Descanse en Paz" ... ....(size: 2.1Kb)

photo: AP / Narciso Contreras

In this Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012 photo, Syrians stand in rubble of a building destroyed due to heavy fighting between Syrian Army fighters and government forces in Aleppo, Syria.

Syria to U.N.: 'Serious fear' it will be framed for the use of chemical weapons

CNN

10 Dec 2012

December 10, 2012 -- Updated 1327 GMT (2127 HKT). (CNN) -- Syria is raising concern in two letters to the United Nations that the United States may be attempting to frame it for the use of chemical weapons, Syrian state-run media reported Monday. The letters, addressed to U.N ... The move by President Bashar al-Assad's government follows recent reports that Syrian forces appear to have begun preparing chemical weapons for use ... "The U.S ... 1. 2....(size: 11.5Kb)

photo: AP / A.M. Ahad

Police officials wield bamboo sticks to stop main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party activist during a protest in Kachpur, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012.

Bangladesh opposition in violent protests over attacks

BBC News

11 Dec 2012

Violence has flared in many parts of Bangladesh as schools and most businesses were shut after opposition groups enforced a dawn-to-dusk strike. They called the strike to protest against attacks on their supporters during a road blockade on Sunday. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies have been demanding a caretaker government be put in place to oversee the next parliamentary polls ... "The situation is under control now ... ....(size: 2.2Kb)

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US diplomat hopes song can win over Pakistanis

Khaleej Times

07 Dec 2012

ISLAMABAD - A US official is taking a novel approach to diplomacy in Pakistan ' singing in a local language to build bridges in one of the world’s most dangerous areas, where anti-Americanism runs rampant ... “This is a good attempt and I appreciate that a US diplomat has learnt Pashto language and then sung a song, but the accent is Afghani which is less attractive for Pakistani Pashto music lovers,” he said....(size: 4.2Kb)

US Diplomat Hopes Song Can Win Over Pakistan

Jakarta Globe

07 Dec 2012

A US official is taking a novel approach to diplomacy in Pakistan — singing in a local language to build bridges in one of the world’s most dangerous countries, where anti-Americanism runs rampant ... “This is a good attempt and I appreciate that a US diplomat has learnt Pashto language and then sung a song, but the accent is Afghani, which is less attractive for Pakistani Pashto music lovers,” he told AFP....(size: 4.5Kb)

Taliban threaten to avenge Kasab death in a month

The Times of India

28 Nov 2012

ISLAMABAD. A Pakistani Taliban faction has claimed that its fighters were holed up in Amritsar and Hyderabad to carry out attacks to avenge 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab's execution last week ... "His death will not go waste ... With the death of one Kasab, scores of his other comrades are ready for martyrdom.''. Marwat spoke in what seemed like Pashto language's tribal accent spoken in Pakistan's tribal northwest bordering Afghanistan ... ....(size: 2.4Kb)

War veteran's robotic arm hums to life with pioneering surgery

Sacramento Bee

27 Nov 2012

SAN ANTONIO After the explosion, Cpl. Sebastian Gallegos awoke to see the October sun glinting through the water, an image so lovely he thought he was dreaming. Then something caught his eye, yanking him back to grim awareness ... Close hand, raise elbow, he says to himself ... Same result ... Before deploying in 2010, he was made leader of a three-man fire team and sent to learn basic Pashto, the language of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group....(size: 9.1Kb)

Karzai orders 'full Afghanization' of US-run prison at Bagram base

Newstrack India

20 Nov 2012

Tweet. Washington, Nov 20 (ANI) ... In a Pashto-language statement tweeted from the presidential palace on Sunday, Karzai complained that some prisoners ordered released by Afghan courts are still being held by U.S. forces ... president," the statement said ... military's role in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. (ANI) ... ) .. ).. Comments. ... . . . . . .. . . .. ....(size: 2.4Kb)

Karzai orders ‘full Afghanization’ of U.S.-run Bagram prison

The Washington Post

19 Nov 2012

In a statement tweeted in the Pashto language from the presidential palace late Sunday after a meeting of security officials, Karzai complained that some prisoners ordered released by Afghan courts are still being held by U.S. forces. Loading... Comments Weigh In Corrections?. Recommend. Personal Post. "These acts are completely against the agreement that has been signed between Afghanistan and the U.S. president," the statement said ... ....(size: 2.8Kb)

Police test Afghanistan's fragile ethnic balance

North Jersey

14 Nov 2012

MARJAH, Afghanistan  — Patrolling in all-terrain vehicles that whip up clouds of dust, members of Afghanistan's elite Civil Order Police might be viewed as outsiders here in southern Helmand province, an ethnic Pashtun heartland where residents talk wistfully of the Taliban's rule, call NATO troops invaders and refer to Afghan government officials as thieves. ... Many don't even speak Pashto, the language of most southerners ... ....(size: 11.9Kb)

Northern police win over southern Afghans in Taliban heartland despite different ethnicity

The Washington Post

14 Nov 2012

Col. Khalil Rahman and the 441 police under his command in the 3rd Battalion are almost all from northern Afghanistan and belong to minority ethnic groups. Many don’t even speak Pashto, the language of most southerners. That could be a recipe for conflict in this majority Pashtun country that descended into a bloody civil war over ethnic lines in the 1990s. Loading... Comments Weigh In Corrections?. Recommend. Personal Post ... ....(size: 5.3Kb)

>Police test Afghanistan's fragile ethnic balance

Seattle Post

14 Nov 2012

MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) — Patrolling in all-terrain vehicles that whip up clouds of dust, members of Afghanistan's elite Civil Order Police might be viewed as outsiders here in southern Helmand province, an ethnic Pashtun heartland where residents talk wistfully of the Taliban's rule, call NATO troops invaders and refer to Afghan government officials as thieves. Col ... Many don't even speak Pashto, the language of most southerners ... ....(size: 6.9Kb)

Polio eradication efforts not reaching most vulnerable (WHO - World Health Organization)

noodls

01 Nov 2012

1 November 2012 ... The study surveyed 1017 parents of children aged under five years in Karachi between September and October last year ... Other recent efforts to engage this community include new strategies to reach Pashtun travellers as they move in and out of Karachi and a nation-wide media campaign that includes messages in the Pashto language ... Abstracts are now available in the six official languages of the United Nations ... Fiona Fleck....(size: 7.6Kb)

Cousins’ call

The Hindu

31 Oct 2012

‘Chup’ (quiet) is their first song. Ironically since its release they have been constantly singing and talking about their music ... And then like they say there has been no stopping them ... Zeb ... Haniya ... Zeb ... Zeb ... No ... Most of your compositions are in Urdu, Turkish and Pashto. Has language ever been a barrier? ... And language certainly hasn’t been one for us ... This song is in Dari, a language which is not understood by most Pakistanis....(size: 4.6Kb)

UK women soldiers aim to win 'hearts and minds'

BBC News

26 Oct 2012

Her assignment there was organised by the Royal British Legion ... She adds ... Another was a teacher in the Army ... "They spend 18 months learning the Pashto language at a training centre in Beaconsfield before they're deployed to Afghanistan ... She volunteered to leave that behind for a while and serve as an FEO." An ability to speak Pashto plays a part in attempts by soldiers to earn the trust of Afghan locals ... ....(size: 4.9Kb)

UM language program teaches troops, diplomats

Austin American Statesman

21 Oct 2012

troops and diplomats in critical languages and cultures where American interests are at stake ... "The bottom line is, we've grown to become the best language and cultural course in the U.S.," said Donald Loranger, director of the program ... The program currently offers language and cultural training in Pashto and Dari, both dialects of Afghanistan ... Bushnell and other Montana soldiers receive a crash course in the Pashto language....(size: 4.7Kb)

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Pashto

پښتو

Pronunciation [paʂˈto], [paçˈto], [puxˈto]

Spoken in Afghanistan
Pakistan
Iran (minor)
and the Pashtun diaspora around the world

Region South-Central Asia

Native speakers 50 million (2009)^[1]
to 60 million^[2]^[3]^[4]

Language family

Indo-European

Indo-Iranian
- Iranian
  - Eastern Iranian
    - Northeastern^[5]
      - Pashto

Dialects

Waneci

Wazirwola

Southwestern (Kandahari)

Other Pashto dialects

Writing system

Pashto alphabet

Official status

Official language in Afghanistan

Regulated by

Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan

Language codes

ISO 639-1 ps

ISO 639-2 pus

ISO 639-3 pus – inclusive code
Individual codes:
pst – Central Pashto
pbu – Northern Pashto
pbt – Southern Pashto
wne – Waneci

Linguasphere 58-ABD-a

This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Pashto (پښتو, Pax̌to, IPA: [paʂˈto, paçˈto, puxˈto]; also spelled Pukhto or Pushto), also known as Afghani (Persian: افغانی‎) and Pathani (Urdu: پٹھانی, Hindi: पठानी Paṭhānī),^[6] is the native language of the Pashtun people of South Central Asia. Pashto is a member of the Eastern Iranian languages group, spoken in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as by the Pashtun diaspora around the world.^[7]

Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranic branch of the Indo-Iranian language family,^[5]^[8] although Ethnologue lists it as Southeastern Iranic.^[9] The number of Pashtuns or Pashto-speakers is estimated 50-60 million people world wide.^[2]^[3]^[3]^[4]^[1] Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan (the other being Dari Persian),^[7]^[10]^[11]^[12] and a regional language in western and northwestern Pakistan.

1 Geographic distribution
- 1.1 Official status
2 History
3 Grammar
4 Phonology
- 4.1 Vowels
- 4.2 Consonants
5 Vocabulary
6 Writing system
7 Dialects
8 Development of Pashto
9 See also
10 Bibliography
11 References
12 External links

Geographic distribution [link]

Further information: Languages of Afghanistan and Languages of Pakistan

As the national language of Afghanistan,^[13] Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south and southwest, but also in some northern and western parts of the country. The exact numbers of speakers are unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 35-60%^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17] of the total population of Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, Pashto is a provincial language, spoken as a first language by about 15.42%^[18] of Pakistan's 170 million people. It is the main language of the Pashtun-majority regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and northern Balochistan, but is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province as well as by Pashtuns who are found living in different cities throughout the country. Modern Pashto-speaking communities are also found in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad in Sindh.^[19]^[20] By some estimates, there are close to 7 million of Pashtuns in Karachi.

Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in northeastern Iran, primarily in South Khorasan Province to the east of Qaen, near the Afghan border,^[21] and in Tajikistan.^[22] There are also communities of Pashtun communities descent in the southwestern part of Jammu and Kashmir.^[23]^[24]^[25]

Sizable Pashto-speaking communities also exist in the Middle East, especially in the United Arab Emirates,^[26] and Saudi Arabia, as well as in the United States, United Kingdom,^[26] Thailand, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Qatar, Australia, Japan and Russia etc.

Official status [link]

The Afghan Empire comprised regions on both sides of the Durand Line before the present day ethno-linguistic situation in South-Central Asia, by which the British colonial power annexed about one third of Afghanistan. The border created a buffer zone and was drawn through the Pashtun areas of settlement leaving the larger part of them in what was to become Pakistan.

Pashto (since 1936) is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari (Persian).^[27] Since the early 18th century, all the kings of Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns except for Habibullah Kalakani, and most of them bilingual although Amānullāh Khān spoke Pashto as his second language.^[28] Persian as the literary language of the royal court^[29] was more widely used in government institutions while Pashto was spoken by the Pashtun tribes as their native tongue. Amanullah Khan began promoting Pashto during his reign as a marker of ethnic identity and a symbol of "official nationalism"^[28] leading Afghanistan to independence after the defeat of the British colonial power in the Third Anglo-Afghan War. In the 1930s, a movement began to take hold to promote Pashto as a language of government, administration and art with the establishment of a Pashto Society Pashto Anjuman in 1931^[30] and the inauguration of the Kabul University in 1932 as well as the formation of the Pashto Academy Pashto Tolana in 1937.^[31] Although officially strengthening the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a "sophisticated language and a symbol of cultured upbringing".^[28] King Zahir Shah thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933, that both Persian and Pashto were to be studied and utilized by officials.^[32] In 1936, Pashto was formally granted the status of an official language^[33] with full rights to usage in all aspects of government and education by a royal decree under Zahir Shah despite the fact that the ethnically Pashtun royal family and bureaucrates mostly spoke Persian.^[31] Thus Pashto became a national language, a symbol for Afghan nationalism.^[34]

The status of official language was reaffirmed in 1964 by the constitutional assembly when Afghan Persian was officially renamed to Dari.^[35]^[36] The lyrics of the national anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto.

In Pakistan, Urdu and English are the two official languages, but Pashto has no official status. Pashto is the regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and northern Balochistan.^[37] In 1984, Pashto was permitted to be used as the medium of instruction in primary schools. In government-controlled primary schools in Pashto-speaking areas, Pashto is now the medium of instruction in class 1 and 2, and taught as a compulsory subject up to class 5, but the English medium private schools don't include Pashto at all in their curricula.^[28]

History [link]

The Arachosia Satrapy and the Pactyan people during the Achaemenid Empire in 500 B.C.

The origin of Pashto language and the Pashtun tribes is unknown. The word "Pashto" derives by regular phonological processes from Parsawā- "Persian".^[38] Nonetheless, the Pashtuns are sometimes compared with the Pakhta tribes mentioned in the Rigveda (1700–1100 BC), apparently the same as a people called Pactyans, described by the Greek historian Herodotus as living in the Achaemenid's Arachosia Satrapy as early as the 1st millennium BC.^[39] However, this comparison appears to be due mainly to the apparent, etymologically unjustified, similarity between their names.^[40]

Herodotus also mentions the Pactyan "Apridai" tribe but it is unknown what language they spoke.^[41] Strabo, who lived between 64 BC and 24 CE, explains that the tribes inhabiting the lands west of the Indus River were part of Ariana and to their east was India. Since the 3rd century CE and onward, they are mostly referred to by the name "Afghan" ("Abgan")^[42]^[43]^[44] and their language as "Afghani".^[45]

Scholars such as Abdul Hai Habibi and others believe that the earliest Pashto work dates back to Amir Kror Suri in the eighth century, and they use the writings found in Pata Khazana. However, this is disputed by several European experts due to lack of strong evidence. Pata Khazana is a Pashto manuscript^[46] claimed to be first compiled during the Hotaki dynasty (1709–1738) in Kandahar, Afghanistan. During the 17th century Pashto poetry was becoming very popular among the Pashtuns. Some of those who wrote poetry in Pashto are Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Nazo Tokhi and Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the modern state of Afghanistan or the Afghan Empire.

Grammar [link]

Main article: Pashto grammar

Pashto is a subject–object–verb (SOV) language with split ergativity. Adjectives come before nouns. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for two genders (masc./fem.),^[47] two numbers (sing./plur.), and four cases (direct, oblique I, oblique II and vocative). The verb system is very intricate with the following tenses: present, simple past, past progressive, present perfect and past perfect. There is also an inflection for the subjunctive mood. The sentence construction of Pashto is akin to Indo-Aryan languages like Prakrits and Hindi-Urdu, unlike Persian. The Pashto noun comes after the adjective and the possessor precedes the possessed in the genitive construction. The verb generally agrees with the subject in both transitive and intransitive sentences. An exception occurs when a completed action is reported in any of the past tenses (simple past, past progressive, present perfect or past perfect). In such cases, the verb agrees with the subject if it is intransitive, but if it is transitive, it agrees with the object,^[48] therefore Pashto shows a partly ergative behavior. Pashto uses both preposition and postposition, but also circumpositions.

Phonology [link]

Vowels [link]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a	ɑ

Pashto also has the diphthongs /ai/, /əi/, /ɑw/, /aw/.

Consonants [link]

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ɳ
Plosive	p b	t̪ d̪		ʈ ɖ			k ɡ	q	ʔ
Affricate		t͡s d͡z			t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Fricative	f		s z	(ʂ ʐ)	ʃ ʒ	(ç ʝ)	x ɣ		h
Approximant		l				j	w
Rhotic		r		

The phonemes /q/, /f/ tend to be replaced by [k], [p].

The retroflex lateral flap // (/ɺ̢/) is pronounced as retroflex approximant [ɻ] when final.

The retroflex fricatives /ʂ/, /ʐ/ and palatal fricatives /ç/, /ʝ/ represent dialectally different pronunciations of the same sound, not separate phonemes. In particular, the retroflex fricatives, which represent the original pronunciation of these sounds, are preserved in the southern/southwestern dialects (especially the prestige dialect of Kandahar), while they are pronounced as palatal fricatives in the west-central dialects. Other dialects merge the original retroflexes with other existing sounds: The southeastern dialects merge them with the postalveolar fricatives /ʃ/, /ʒ/, while the northern/northeastern dialects merge them with the velar phonemes in an asymmetric pattern, pronouncing them as /x/, /ɡ/ (not /ɣ/). Furthermore, according to Henderson (1983),^[49] the west-central voiced palatal fricative /ʝ/ actually occurs only in the Wardak Province, and is merged into /ɡ/ elsewhere in the region.

The velars /k/, /ɡ/, /x/, /ɣ/ followed by the close back rounded vowel /u/ assimilate into the labialized velars [kʷ], [ɡʷ], [xʷ], [ɣʷ].

Vocabulary [link]

In Pashto, most of the native elements of the lexicon are related to other Eastern Iranian languages; those words can be easily compared to those known from Avestan, Ossetic and Pamir languages. However, a remarkably large number of words are special to Pashto.^[5] Post-7th century borrowings came primarily from the Arabic, Persian and Hindustani languages (in Pakistan),^[50]^[51] with the modern educated speech borrowing words from English,^[2] French,^[2] and German.^[2]

Writing system [link]

Main article: Pashto alphabet

Pashto employs the Pashto alphabet, a modified form of the Persian alphabet which on its part is derived from the Arabic alphabet. The reason for this is because, it is not a Semitic language, and thus it is modified. It has extra letters for Pashto-specific sounds. Since the 17th century Pashto has been primarily written in the Naskh script, rather than the Nasta'liq script used for neighboring Persian and Urdu languages. The Pashto alphabet consists of 45 letters, and 4 diacritic marks. The following table gives the letters' isolated forms, along with the Latin equivalents and the IPA values for the letters' typical sounds:

ا ā, nothing /ɑ, ʔ/	ب b /b/	پ p /p/	ت t /t̪/	ټ ṯ /ʈ/	ث s /s/	ج ǰ /d͡ʒ/	ځ j /d͡z/	چ č /t͡ʃ/	څ c /t͡s/	ح h /h/	خ x /x/
د d /d̪/	ډ ḏ /ɖ/	ﺫ z /z/	ﺭ r /r/	ړ ṟ /ɺ̢~ɻ/	ﺯ z /z/	ژ ž /ʒ/	ږ ǵ (or ẓ̌) /ʐ, ʝ, ɡ/	س s /s/	ش š /ʃ/	ښ x̌ (or ṣ̌) /ʂ, ç, x/
ص s /s/	ض z /z/	ط t /t̪/	ظ z /z/	ع nothing /ʔ/	غ ɣ /ɣ/	ف f /f/	ق q /q/	ک‎ k /k/	ګ g /ɡ/	ل l /l/
م m /m/	ن n /n/	ڼ ṉ /ɳ/	و w, u, o /w, u, o/	ه h, a, ə /h, a, ə/	ۀ ə /ə/	ي y, i /j, i/	ې e /e/	ی ai, y /ai, j/	ۍ əi /əi/	ئ əi, y /əi, j/

Pashto is written from right to left.^[52]

Dialects [link]

Main article: Pashto dialects

Pashto has two main dialects: a softer dialect spoken in the south, and a harsher dialect in the north. The former is further divided into southwestern and southeastern dialects, and the latter into northwestern (also called central or Ghiljai dialect) and northeastern. It is dominated by the geographical spread of the shift in the pronunciation of these five consonants:

Southwest	[ʂ]	[ʐ]	[ts]	[dz]	[ʒ]
Southeast	[ʃ]	[ʒ]	[ts]	[dz]	[ʒ]
Central	[ç]	[g]/[ʝ]	[ts]	[z]	[ʒ]
Northeast	[x]	[ɡ]	[s]	[z]	[dʒ]

The morphological differences between the most extreme north-eastern and south-western dialects are comparatively few and unimportant, and the criteria of dialect differentiation in Pashto are primarily phonological.^[53]

Development of Pashto [link]

Khushal Khan Khattak (1613–1689) wrote in Pashto. His poetry consists of more than 45,000 poems. According to some historians^[who?], the number of books written by Khattak are more than 200. His more famous books are Bāz Nāma, Fazal Nāma, Distār Nāma and Farrah Nāma. From the time of Ahmad Shah Baba (1723-1773) Pashto has been the language of the court. Its first teaching text was written during the period of Ahmad Shah by Pir Mohammad Kakerr with the title of Ma'refa al-Afghāni ("Introduction of Afghani"). After that, the first grammar book of Pashto verbs was written in 1805 A.D. in India under the title of Riāz al-Muhabat ("Training in Affection") through the patronage of Nawab Mohabat Khan son of Hafez Rahmatullah Khan, the famous chief of the Barreitsh. Nawabullah Yar Khan, another son of Hafez Rahmat Khan in 1808 A.D. wrote a book of Pashto words entitled Ajāyeb-al-Lughat ("Strangeness of Words").

Bibliography [link]

Schmidt, Rüdiger (ed.) (1989). Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: Reichert. ISBN 3-88226-413-6.
Gusain, Lakhan (2008??) " A Grammar of Pashto". Ann Arbor, MI: Northside Publishers. ISBN ??
Georg Morgenstierne (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo. ISBN 0-923891-09-9
Daniel G. Hallberg (1992) Pashto, Waneci, Ormuri (Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, 4). National Institute of Pakistani Studies, 176 pp. ISBN 969-8023-14-3.
Herbert Penzl A Grammar of Pashto A Descriptive Study of the Dialect of Kandahar, Afghanistan ISBN 0-923891-72-2
Herbert Penzl A Reader of Pashto ISBN 0-923891-71-4

References [link]

^ ^a ^b Paul M. Lewis, ed. (2009). "Pashto, Northern". SIL International. Dallas, Texas: Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=pbu. Retrieved 2010-09-18. "Ethnic population: 49,529,000 possibly total Pashto in all countries."
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Penzl, Herbert; Ismail Sloan (2009). A Grammar of Pashto a Descriptive Study of the Dialect of Kandahar, Afghanistan. Ishi Press International. pp. 210. ISBN 0-923891-72-2. http://books.google.com/?id=zvRePgAACAAJ. Retrieved 2010-10-25. "Estimates of the number of Pashto speakers range from 40 million to 60 million..."
^ ^a ^b ^c "Pashto". Omniglot.com. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/pashto.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-25. "The exact number of Pashto speakers is not known for sure, but most estimates range from 45 million to 55 million."
^ ^a ^b Thomson, Gale (2007). Countries of the World & Their Leaders Yearbook 08. 2. European Union: Indo-European Association. p. 84. ISBN 0-7876-8108-3. http://books.google.com/?id=A6vQ-x7V-bYC. Retrieved 2010-10-25.
^ ^a ^b ^c "AFGHANISTAN vi. Paṧto". G. Morgenstierne. Encyclopaedia Iranica Online Version. http://www.iranica.com/articles/afghanistan-vi-pasto. Retrieved 2010-10-10. "Paṧtō undoubtedly belongs to the Northeastern Iranic branch."
^ Dictionary.com, "Afghani," in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Source location: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Afghani. Accessed: 14 July 2010.
^ ^a ^b Barbara Robson, Juliene Lipson, Farid Younos, Mariam Mehdi. "The Afghans - Language and Literacy". United States: Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL). 30 June 2002. http://www.cal.org/co/afghan/alang.html. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
^ Nicholas Sims-Williams, Eastern Iranian languages, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 2010. "The Modern Eastern Iranian languages are even more numerous and varied. Most of them are classified as North-Eastern: Ossetic; Yaghnobi (which derives from a dialect closely related to Sogdian); the Shughni group (Shughni, Roshani, Khufi, Bartangi, Roshorvi, Sarikoli), with which Yaz-1ghulami (Sokolova 1967) and the now extinct Wanji (J. Payne in Schmitt, p. 420) are closely linked; Ishkashmi, Sanglichi, and Zebaki; Wakhi; Munji and Yidgha; and Pashto."
^ Paul M. Lewis, ed. (2009). "Pashto Family Tree". SIL International. Dallas, Texas: Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=2236-16. Retrieved 2011-04-02.
^ Constitution of Afghanistan - Chapter 1 The State, Article 16 (Languages) and Article 20 (Anthem)
^ Banting, Erinn (2003). Afghanistan: The land. Crabtree Publishing Company. p. 4. ISBN 0-7787-9335-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=KRt0HfYFZGsC&lpg=PP1&vq=place%20of%20Afghans&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2010-08-22.
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^ Brown, Keith; Sarah Ogilvie (2009). Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world. Elsevie. p. 845. ISBN 0-08-087774-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=F2SRqDzB50wC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA845#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2012-04-07. "Pashto, which is mainly spoken south of the mountain range of the Hindu Kush, is reportedly the mother tongue of 60% of the Afghan population."
^ "Pashto". UCLA International Institute: Center for World Languages. University of California, Los Angeles. http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=64&menu=004. Retrieved 2010-12-10.
^ "AFGHANISTAN v. Languages". Ch. M. Kieffer. Encyclopædia Iranica Online Version. http://www.iranica.com/articles/afghanistan-v-languages. Retrieved 2010-10-10. "A. Official languages. Paṧtō (1) is the native tongue of 50 to 55 percent of Afghans..."
^ Government of Pakistan: Population by Mother Tongue
^ Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (2009-07-17). "Karachi's Invisible Enemy". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2009/07/karachis_invisi.html. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
^ "In a city of ethnic friction, more tinder". The National. 2009-08-24. http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090825/FOREIGN/708249931. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
^ "Languages of Iran". SIL International. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=iran. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
^ "Pashto, Southern". SIL International. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 14th edition. 2000. http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_language.asp?code=PBT. Retrieved 2010-09-18.
^ Walter R Lawrence, Imperial Gazetteer of India. Provincial Series, pg 36-37, Link
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^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Tariq Rahman. Pashto Language & Identity Formation in Pakistan. Contemporary South Asia, July 1995, Vol 4, Issue 2, p151-20.
^ Lorenz, Manfred. Die Herausbildung moderner iranischer Literatursprachen. In: Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung, Vol. 36. Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Akademie Verlag, Berlin: 1983. P. 184ff.
^ Other sources note 1933, i.e. Johannes Christian Meyer-Ingwersen. Untersuchungen zum Satzbau des Paschto. 1966. Ph.D. Thesis, Hamburg 1966.
^ ^a ^b Hussain, Rizwan. Pakistan and the emergence of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan. Burlington, Ashgate: 2005. p. 63.
^ István Fodor, Claude Hagège. Reform of Languages. Buske, 1983. P. 105ff.
^ Campbell, George L.: Concise compendium of the world's languages. London: Routledge 1999.
^ "The Afghans - Language Use". Barbara Robson and Juliene Lipson, with assistance from Farid Younos and Mariam Mehdi. United States: Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL). 30 June 2002. http://www.cal.org/co/afghan/alang.html#2. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
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^ Comrie, Bernard (1990). The World's Major Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 549.
^ "The History of Herodotus Chapter 7". Translated by George Rawlinson. The History Files. 440 BC. http://www.piney.com/Heredotus7.html. Retrieved 2007-01-10.
^ Nath, Samir (2002). Dictionary of Vedanta. Sarup & Sons. p. 273. ISBN 81-7890-056-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=yGBaXO54-HwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA273#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2010-09-10.
^ Houtsma, Martijn Theodoor (1987). E.J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936. 2. BRILL. p. 150. ISBN 90-04-08265-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=GEl6N2tQeawC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA150#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2010-09-24.
^ "Afghan and Afghanistan". Abdul Hai Habibi. alamahabibi.com. 1969. http://www.alamahabibi.com/English%20Articles/Afghan_and_Afghanistan.htm. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
^ "History of Afghanistan". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7798/Afghanistan/129450/History?anchor=ref261360. Retrieved 2010-11-22.
^ Noelle-Karimi, Christine; Conrad J. Schetter, Reinhard Schlagintweit (2002). Afghanistan - a country without a state?. University of Michigan, United States: IKO. p. 18. ISBN 3-88939-628-3. http://books.google.com/?id=eo3tAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2010-09-24. "The earliest mention of the name 'Afghan' (Abgan) is to be found in a Sasanid inscription from the third century AD, and it appears in India in the form of 'Avagana'..."
^ Zahir ud-Din Mohammad Babur (1525). "Events Of The Year 910". Memoirs of Babur. Packard Humanities Institute. http://persian.packhum.org/persian//pf?file=03501051&ct=92. Retrieved 2010-08-22.
^ "Pata Khazana" (pdf). http://patakhazana.home.comcast.net/~patakhazana/Khazana.pdf. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
^ Emeneau, M. B. (1962) "Bilingualism and Structural Borrowing" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 106(5): pp. 430-442, p. 441
^ [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/445534/Pashto-language Encyclopædia Britannica
^ Michael M.T. Henderson, Four Varieties of Pashto
^ Vladimir Kushev (1997). "Areal Lexical Contacts of the Afghan (Pashto) Language (Based on the Texts of the XVI-XVIII Centuries)". Iran and the Caucasus (Brill) 1: 159–166. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4030748. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
^ Census of India, 1931, Volume 17, Part 2. Times of India. 1937. http://books.google.com/?id=8qUJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA75&dq=pashto+vocabulary+hindustani#v=onepage&q=pashto%20vocabulary%20hindustani&f=false. Retrieved 7 June 2009. "At the same time Pashto has borrowed largely from Persian, and through those languages from Arabic."
^ Afghanan.net. Pashto alifba (pdf)
^ D. N. MacKenzie, "A Standard Pashto", Khyber.org

External links [link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pashto language

Pashto language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pashto Language & Identity Formation in Pakistan
Indo-Aryan identity of Pashto
Henry George Raverty. A Dictionary of the Puk'hto, Pus'hto, or Language of the Afghans. Second edition, with considerable additions. London: Williams and Norgate, 1867.
D. N. MacKenzie, "A Standard Pashto", Khyber.org
Freeware Online Pashto Dictionaries
A Pashto Word List
Origins of Pashto
Resources for the Study of the Pashto Language

v t e Pashto language · پښتو

Overview	Language · History · Alphabet · Dialects · Grammar · Keyboard · Literature and poetry (List of poets) · Names · Numerals · Phonology · Script	پښتو

Media	Cinema (Afghanistan · Pakistan) · Films · Music (List of singers) · Newspapers and magazines · Radio · Television (List of television channels)

Related topics	Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan · Pashto Academy (Pakistan)

Pashto literature

Classical

Amir Kror Suri Khushal Khan Khattak Rahman Baba Nazoo Anaa Hamza Baba Ajmal Khattak Kabir Stori Babarzai Karwan Malang Jan Baba Shah Sayed Miran Shah Sayed Guloon Ahmad Shah Baba Shah Shuja Timur Shah

Contemporary

Abdul Bari Jahani Abdul Shakoor Rashad Ajmal Khattak Ghani Khan Gul Pacha Ulfat Hamza Shinwari Hashem Zamani Ismail Yoon Kabir Stori Malang Jan Mujawar Ahmad Ziar Pir Mohammad Karwan Rahmat Shah Sail Sulaiman Layeq

Pashto (an East Iranic language) is one of the official languages of Afghanistan and a provincial language of Pakistan - spoken as the main language in the regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA and Balochistan.

v t e Languages of Pakistan

Official languages	Urdu English

Provincial languages	Punjabi Pashto Sindhi Balochi

Regional languages	Brahui Chitrali Dari Hindko Kashmiri Persian Potwari Saraiki Shina

Related topics	Dardic languages Iranic languages Indo-Aryan Languages Pakistani Sign Language Arabic

Iranian languages

Old

Eastern	Avestan · Old Scythian

Western	Median · Old Persian

Middle

Eastern	Bactrian · Khotanese · Khwarezmian · Medieval Ossetic · Scythian · Sogdian · Tumshuqese

Western	Middle Persian · Parthian

Modern

Eastern	Munji · Ormuri · Ossetic (Digor · Iron · Jassic) · Pamir languages (Bartangi · Ishkashmi · Roshani · Sanglechi · Sarikoli · Shughni · Vanji · Wakhi · Yazgulami · Yidgha · Zebaki) · Parachi · Pashto · Waneci · Yaghnobi

Western	Lorish (boyerahmadi · Bakhtiari · Northern Luri · Kumzari · ) · Balochi · Bashkardi · Central Iran dialects · Dari (Zoroastrian) · Gilaki · Kurdic (Gorani · Kurmanji · Laki · Sorani · Southern Kurdish) · Mazandarani · Old Azari · Persian (Dari · Farsi · Hazaragi · Tajik) · Sangsari · Talysh · Tat · Tati · Zazaki

Italics indicate extinct languages

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Ghani Khan غني خان
Picture of Ghani Khan
Born	Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan 1914 Hashtnagar,
Died	1996
Resting place	Charsadda
Nationality	Pakistani
Other names	Abdul Ghani Khan, Ghani Baba, Ghani Dada and Ghani Malang
Ethnicity	Pakhtun
Citizenship	Pakistan
Known for	Poetry
Notable work(s)	Da Panjre Chaghar, The Pathans, Da Ghani Latoon
Home town	Peshawar
Title	Baba, Dada
Religion	Sunni, Muslim

Ghani Khan (Pashto: غني خان) (1996-1914) is widely considered as one of the best Pashto language poets of the 20th century, along with Ameer Hamza Shinwari. He stands on a par with Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba. He was also a respected writer and artist. He was son of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and older brother of Khan Abdul Wali Khan.

1 Life
2 Works
3 Quotes & Prose
4 Tribute
5 Literature
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

Life [link]

Khan Abdul Ghani Khan was born in Hashtnagar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then NWFP), British India, modern day Charsadda, Village Utmanzai, Pakistan, the son of the Red-Shirt Leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and older brother of Khan Abdul Wali Khan. His wife Roshan came from a Parsi family and was the daughter of Nawab Rustam Jang. He went to study at the art academy at Rabindranath Tagore’s university in Shantiniketan and developed a liking for painting and sculpture. He visited England and studied sugar technology in the United States, after which he returned to India and started working at the Takht Bhai Sugar Mills in 1933. Largely owing to his father’s influence, he was also involved in politics, supporting the cause of the Pashtuns of British India. He was arrested by the Government of Pakistan in 1948 – although he had given up politics by then – and remained in prison till 1954, in various jails all over the country. It was during these years that he wrote his poem collection Da Panjray Chaghaar, which he considered the best work of his life. His contribution to literature (often unpublished) was ignored by the Pakistan government for much of his life although near the end of his life his works did receive much praise and as well as an award from the Government of Pakistan. For his contributions to Pukhto literature and painting, the President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, conferred on him the prestigious award of Sitara-e-Imtiaz (23 March 1980).

Works [link]

Aside from a few poems of his youth and early manhood, Ghani Khan’s poetry, like his temperament, is anti-political. His poem collections include Panoos, Palwashay, De Panjray Chaghar, Kullryat and Latoon. He also wrote in English; his first book was The Pathans (1947). His only published work in Urdu was his book titled Khan Sahib (1994).

The singular distinction of his poetry – aside from his obvious poetic genius – is a profound blend of knowledge about his native and foreign cultures, and the psychological, sensual, and religious aspects of life.^[1]

Quotes & Prose [link]

Ghani Khan's love for nature and the local habitat of the Pashtun people is visible in his work. He wrote

"Pashtun is not merely a race but, in fact, a state of mind; there is a Pashtun lying inside every man, who at times wakes up and overpowers him."

"The Pashtuns are a rain-sown wheat: they all came up on the same day; they are all the same. But the chief reason why I love a Pashtun is that he will wash his face and oil his beard and perfume his locks and put on his best pair of clothes when he goes out to fight and die."

As a progressive and intellectual writer, he wrote, "I want to see my people educated and enlightened. A people with a vision and a strong sense of justice, who can carve out a future for themselves in harmony with nature."

Tribute [link]

After his death, in recognition of his outstanding achievements, the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province built a public li and park as a memorial to him on about 8 acres (32,000 m²) of land, naming it "Ghani Derai" (the mound of Ghani). The site is an historical mound very near his home, Dar- ul-Aman, and within the confines of his ancestral village, Utmanzai, on the main highway from Razzar to Takht-i-Bhai.

Literature [link]

Mohammad Arif Khattak: Ghani Khan – A Poet of Social Reality, ISBN 978-3-639-32391-7

References [link]

^ Rafay Mahmood (April 20, 2011) Ghani Khan: The rhythms of hope Express tribune accessed 21 April 2011

External links [link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Khan Abdul Ghani Khan

Ghani Khan - interviews, images, and poems
Harappa - Audio and video interviews
Ghani Khan - The Man in the Poet
Ghani Khan - Poetry

Life & Works of Ghani Khan

v t e Pashtuns

Key figures	Amir Kror Suri · Ibrahim Lodi · Sher Shah Suri · Khushal Khan Khattak · Rahman Baba · Ghiasuddin Ghori · Shahabuddin Ghori · Ala'uddin Ghilzai · Bahlul Khan Lodi · Nazo Tokhi · Mirwais Hotak · Ashraf Hotaki · Mahmud Hotaki · Mahmud Hotaki · Ahmad Shah Durrani · Timur Shah Durrani · Zaman Shah Durrani · Azad Shah Afghan · Jamaluddin Afghan · Akbar Khan · Malalai of Maiwand · Ayub Khan · Abdur Rahman Khan · Mullah Powindah · Faqir of Ipi · Amanullah Khan · Nadir Shah · Bacha Khan · Zahir Shah · Daoud Khan · Abdul Ahad Mohmand · Samad Khan · Nur Muhammad Taraki · Hafizullah Amin · Wali Khan

Culture	Pashtunwali · Pashto language · Pashtun tribes · Pashtun dress · Loya jirga · Attan · Khattak Dance · Mahsud Dance · Adam Khan and Durkhanai · Yusuf Khan and Sherbano

Poets	Amir Kror Suri · Pir Roshan · Rahman Baba · Khushal Khan Khattak · Nazo Tokhi · Abdul Hamid Baba · Hussain Hotaki · Ahmad Shah Durrani · Hamza Baba · Malang Jan · Ajmal Khattak · Kabir Stori · Ghani Khan

Topics and controversies	Durand Line · Khudai Khidmatgar · Pashtunistan · Kalabagh Dam · Taliban · Names of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Battles and conflicts	First Battle of Panipat · Battle of Gulnabad · Third Battle of Panipat · First Anglo-Afghan War · Battle of Attock · Battle of Multan · Battle of Shopian · Battle of Nowshera · Battle of Jamrud (1837) · Siege of Malakand · Second Anglo-Afghan War · Battle of Maiwand · Tirah Campaign · Battle of Saragarhi · Third Anglo-Afghan War · Soviet war in Afghanistan · War in Afghanistan (2001–present) · War in North-West Pakistan

Persondata
Name	Khan, Ghani
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1914
Place of birth	Hashtnagar
Date of death	March 1996
Place of death	Charsada

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Ustad Bahadur Khan (born Bahadur Hossain Khan, January 19, 1931) was a sarod player.

1 Early Life & Family
2 Music & Accomplishments
3 Teaching
4 Discography
5 References
6 Notes and references
7 External links

Early Life & Family [link]

Ustad Bahadur Khan, a Bengali, was born on January 19, 1931 in Shibpur, Comilla, Bangladesh, (then British India), and died on October 3, 1989 in Calcutta, India. He was the son of famous Indian classical musician Ustad Ayet Ali Khan ^[1], nephew of the Sarode legend Ustad Alauddin Khan, cousin of Sarode player Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Surbahar player Shrimati Annapurna Devi, and former cousin-in-law of Sitar legend Pandit Ravi Shankar. Ustad Bahadur Khan learnt playing Sarode initially from his father Ustad Ayet Ali Khan in Bangladesh, and then from his uncle Ustad Alauddin Khan in Maihar, before he finally settled in Calcutta. He also practiced vocal music and earned many gold medals for his performances ^[2]. He was later guided in Sarode by his senior cousins Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Shrimati Annapurna Devi for a long time. Ustad Bahadur Khan was one of the three celebrated musician sons of the great maestro Ustad Ayet Ali Khan ^[3]. His two other brothers, Ustad Abed Hossain Khan ^[4] and Ustad Mobarak Hossain Khan were famous Sarode and Sitar maestros based in Bangladesh, and were the highest civilian honour recipients from the Government of Bangladesh for their contributions to classical music ^[5]. Bahadur Khan was the teacher of the Sarod maestro Tejendra Narayan Majumdar. Tejendra Narayan Majumdar serves as the current Khilafa (torchbearer,leader) of the Sarod in the Maihar Gharana.

Music & Accomplishments [link]

His special contribution to Indian classical music, that he could wonderfully combine folk music elements with that of the classical music, made a unique niche for himself among fellow musicians ^[6].

Ustad Bahadur Khan was a regular performer at the All India Radio, Radio Pakistan, and Radio Bangladesh. He composed and directed music for many films of the legendary Indian filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak. He received the best music director award for Ritwik Ghatak's film Subarnarekha (The Golden Line). Other films that brought out his musical virtuosity into celluloid were Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-clapped Star), Komal Gandhar (E Flat), Jukti Takko Aar Gappo (Reason, Debate and A Story), Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Named Titash), Nagarik (The Citizen), Shwet Mayur (White Peacock), Yekhane Dariye (Where I Am Standing), Trisandhyay (Three Twilights), Notun Pata (New Leaf), Garam Hawa (Hot Winds), and Ajantrik (The Unmechanical) to name a few ^[6]. He also directed music on documentaries on Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore and painter Jamini Roy, and was also a highly esteemed figure in the Indian film-music industries of Bombay and Calcutta ^[7].

He has extensively traveled Europe, Asia, and North America to perform Sarode recitals; and was an honorary delegate of India to the former USSR and China.

Teaching [link]

Ustad Bahadur Khan was a highly sought-after musical guru, and a faculty member at the Ali Akbar College of Music, in California, USA, where he taught Indian classical music ^[8],^[9] Tejendra Narayan Majumdar (student - Sarode player) . It is because of the fame of Tejendra Narayan Majumdar Bahadur Khan's name has come to shine.

Discography [link]

Ustad Bahadur Khan: Raga Ahir Bivash, Raga Dayabati; HMV, India & EMI, U.K.
Ustad Bahadur Khan: Raga Nat Bilawal, Raga Rageshri; Classic Collection, Atlantis Music, India
http://www.sawf.org/audio/bilawal/bk_natbilawal.ram Listen to Raga Nat Bilawal from the South Asian Women's Forum, California, U.S.A.
Ustad Bahadur Khan: Raga Kausi Kahnara, Heritage; Bihaan Music, India

References [link]

^ [1] On Ustad Ayet Ali Khan
^ [2] On Ustad Bahadur Khan
^ [3] "Great Ustad Ayet Ali Khan", The Daily Star Insight, 2006
^ [4] On Ustad Abed Hossain Khan
^ [5] The Daily Star Newspaper, Bangladesh
^ ^a ^b [6] Bangladesh Film Archive, U.K.
^ [7] Ustad Bahadur Khan's works at The Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
^ [8] Faculty, Ali Akbar College of Music, California, U.S.A.
^ [9] Jan Haag

Notes and references [link]

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (May 2009)

[10] Article from Bangladesh on Classical Music.
[11] On Ustad Ayet Ali Khan.
[12] On Ustad Bahadur Khan.
[13] "Great Ustad Ayet Ali Khan", The Daily Star Insight, 2006.
[14] On Ustad Abed Hossain Khan.
[15] The Daily Star Newspaper, Bangladesh.
[16] Review of Subarnarekha.
[17] Bangladesh Film Archive, U.K.
[18] Bangladesh Film Archive, U.K.
[19] Ustad Bahadur Khan's works at The Internet Movie Database (IMDB).
[20] The Daily Star Newspaper, Bangladesh.
[21] Faculty, Ali Akbar College of Music, California, U.S.A.
[22] Jaan Haag.
[23] ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Calcutta.
[24] Sitarist Tadao Ishihama, Japan.
[25] The Daily Star Newspaper, Bangladesh.
[26] Research Database on Alauddin Khan.
[27] On Alauddin Khan's students.
[28] The Arts, New Age, Bangladesh.
[29] MP3.Com

External links [link]

Persondata
Name	Khan, Bahadur
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	January 19, 1931
Place of birth
Date of death	1989
Place of death

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