I did meet Pashto speakers from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the mid 80’s in Manhattan, a group of immigrants and exiles, devout and hard working Muslims who came from that region where the Taliban would originate. They were respectful of my being a woman, a Mexican in my twenties traveling alone, interested in academics and on being independent, although it was surprising to them why I’d bother, if I could be so happy marrying one of them and be a happy wife. They had an ease at learning new languages; aside from their Urdu, Pashto, and English, they each spoke at least two other European languages, having worked there before coming to The USA.
Thank you for your lesson today on all those interesting languages, it was very educative, and I really appreciate your contributions.
Just came across this. Great explanation. Pashto or Pashtu is the "official" language of Afghanistan and most people speak it more or less. Pashtuns are considered the true Afghans. In fact an "Afghan" meant a person who speaks Pashto specifically. Even though now everyone who lives on the land are called Afghan. As a Pashtun who also speaks German I see many parallels between the two languages. Thank you for your insights.
Very good and interesting explanation of the differences in grammatical simplicity between Dari and Pashto. As someone who speaks Pashto though I have to point out that there was a bit of an error with your reading of the past tense "to fall".
- what you were reading was the imperfective/continuous "to fall" (I was falling/I would fall) because you left out the perfective aspect prefix (oo) on the beginning.
- also, if it was going to be the imperfective aspect, your emphasis needed to be on the end for all the conjugations. (yes that really matters in Pashto!) With the imperfective you need to put the accent on the end and not the beginning. With the perfective it has to go on the beginning. The importance of this become clearer with some verbs that can't take the perfective aspect marker. In those cases the emphasis determines everything!
Eg. kenaas'tum (I was sitting/would sit down - imperfective) vs. 'kenaastum (I sat down - perfective)
Not trying to be too anal, just trying to point out another beautifully complex aspect of this fantastic language. Thanks and great job introducing more people to it!!
I did meet Pashto speakers from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the mid 80’s in Manhattan, a group of immigrants and exiles, devout and hard working Muslims who came from that region where the Taliban would originate. They were respectful of my being a woman, a Mexican in my twenties traveling alone, interested in academics and on being independent, although it was surprising to them why I’d bother, if I could be so happy marrying one of them and be a happy wife. They had an ease at learning new languages; aside from their Urdu, Pashto, and English, they each spoke at least two other European languages, having worked there before coming to The USA.
Thank you for your lesson today on all those interesting languages, it was very educative, and I really appreciate your contributions.
Just came across this. Great explanation. Pashto or Pashtu is the "official" language of Afghanistan and most people speak it more or less. Pashtuns are considered the true Afghans. In fact an "Afghan" meant a person who speaks Pashto specifically. Even though now everyone who lives on the land are called Afghan. As a Pashtun who also speaks German I see many parallels between the two languages. Thank you for your insights.
Very good and interesting explanation of the differences in grammatical simplicity between Dari and Pashto. As someone who speaks Pashto though I have to point out that there was a bit of an error with your reading of the past tense "to fall".
- what you were reading was the imperfective/continuous "to fall" (I was falling/I would fall) because you left out the perfective aspect prefix (oo) on the beginning.
- also, if it was going to be the imperfective aspect, your emphasis needed to be on the end for all the conjugations. (yes that really matters in Pashto!) With the imperfective you need to put the accent on the end and not the beginning. With the perfective it has to go on the beginning. The importance of this become clearer with some verbs that can't take the perfective aspect marker. In those cases the emphasis determines everything!
Eg. kenaas'tum (I was sitting/would sit down - imperfective) vs. 'kenaastum (I sat down - perfective)
Not trying to be too anal, just trying to point out another beautifully complex aspect of this fantastic language. Thanks and great job introducing more people to it!!