Pashto Alphabet & Letters

Pashto (also Pakhto, in Pashto پښتو) is written right to left in the Arabic script, in the flowing letters that join to their neighbours and change shape at the start, middle and end of a word; your keyboard and font do this for you, and there are no capital letters. Counted the usual way, the alphabet has 44 letters: ا ب پ ت ټ ث ج ځ چ څ ح خ د ډ ذ ر ړ ز ژ ږ س ش ښ ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک ګ ل م ن ڼ و ه ي ې ی ۍ ئ.

Thirty-one of them are shared with Persian, including the Persian additions پ (p), چ (ch) and ژ (zh). Letters such as ث ح ذ ص ض ط ظ ع and ق appear mainly in words from Arabic, and their sounds merge with ordinary s, h, z, t and k-like sounds. The rest are Pashto's own, and they are what people mean by the Pashto special letters: ټ ډ ړ ڼ and ګ, which carry a small ring; ځ and څ; ږ and ښ, each with one dot above and one below; and the extra ye letters ې ۍ ئ.

Two more forms belong on any complete chart. آ (alif with madda) writes a long ā at the start of a word, as in آس (ās, horse), and ء, أ, ؤ and ة keep the spelling of Arabic loanwords. Some writers, especially in Pakistan, end words that finish in the vowel ə with ۀ instead of plain ه; the Persian گ also turns up in place of Pashto ګ in older print and on keyboards that lack ګ.

Pashto special letters and their sounds

The ring letters write retroflex sounds, made with the tip of the tongue curled back: ټ ṭ as in ټول (ṭol, all), ډ ḍ as in ډېر (ḍer, much, very), ړ a flapped ṛ as in زړه (zṛə, heart), and ڼ ṇ, which never starts a word. ګ is simply g, as in څنګه (tsənga, how). Urdu writes its retroflex sounds differently, with a small ط above (ٹ ڈ ڑ), so Pashto and Urdu text use different characters for what sounds alike. ځ is dz, as in ځای (dzāy, place), and څ is ts, as in څه (tsə, what).

ښ and ږ are where Pashto dialects part. In the south and west, around Kandahar, they are said as retroflex sh and zh; in the north and east, around Peshawar, ښ becomes kh and ږ becomes g. That is why the language's own name پښتو is read Pashto in Kandahar and Pakhto in Peshawar, and why both spellings exist in English: they are the same written word.

The ye letters do real grammatical work. At the end of a word ی (without dots) writes -ay and ي (two dots below) writes -ī, so سړی (saṛay) is a man and سړي (saṛi) is men. ې, with two dots one above the other, is the vowel e, as in ډېر and in plurals such as ښځې (ṣ̌əźe, women). ۍ, a ye with a tail, ends many feminine nouns, as in ډوډۍ (ḍoḍəy, bread, a meal), and ئ writes the same -əy sound at the end of verbs, as in کوئ (kawəy, you do). Mixing these up changes the meaning, so copy the exact letter.

Vowel marks, punctuation and Pashto numbers

Long vowels are written with letters (ا و ي ې ی), but short vowels usually are not, and readers supply them from the word. Primers, dictionaries and the Qur'an add them as marks: َ (zwar, a) above, ِ (zer, i) below, ُ (pesh, u) above. ّ (shadda) doubles a consonant, ْ (sukun) shows that no vowel follows, and the tanwin marks ً ٍ ٌ appear in Arabic words such as مثلاً (masalan, for example). These are combining characters: paste them straight after their letter.

Pashto uses the turned Arabic comma ،, semicolon ؛ and question mark ؟, and « » for quotations. Afghan texts end sentences with a plain dot, while Pakistani print sometimes uses the Urdu full stop ۔. Numbers are written with the same Extended Arabic-Indic digits as Persian, ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹, left to right even inside right-to-left text, with ٫ as the decimal separator; Western 0–9 are common online and in Pakistan.

Prices in Afghanistan are in afghanis, with the sign ؋ (U+060B); in Pakistan they are in rupees, written Rs or ₨.

How to write Pashto on a keyboard and phone

Windows includes a Pashto keyboard: add Pashto in Settings › Time & language › Language, then switch layouts with Win + Space. It has all the special letters, so typing Pashto in MS Word or a browser works like any other language. On a Mac, add Pashto under System Settings › Keyboard › Input Sources if your macOS version lists it; otherwise the Persian layout covers the shared letters and you can copy ټ ځ څ ډ ړ ږ ښ ګ ڼ ې ۍ from this page.

In Microsoft Word any letter can be typed by its code followed by Alt + X: 067C for ټ, 0681 for ځ, 0685 for څ, 0689 for ډ, 0693 for ړ, 0696 for ږ, 069A for ښ, 06AB for ګ, 06BC for ڼ, 06D0 for ې, 06CD for ۍ and 060B for ؋. On phones, Google's Gboard and other keyboard apps offer Pashto; the special letters sit on their own keys or behind a long-press on the base letter.

HTML has no named entities for these letters; use numeric ones such as ټ for ټ, ښ for ښ and ۍ for ۍ, and set dir="rtl" and lang="ps" on the element. Afghan print uses Naskh-style fonts, while some Pakistani Pashto is set in Nastaliq like Urdu; any font with full Arabic-script support shows every letter on this page.

Look-alike letters to avoid

Several Pashto letters have twins elsewhere in Unicode, and the wrong one breaks searching, sorting and spell-checking. Pashto ګ (U+06AB, kaf with ring) is not Persian گ (U+06AF); ک (U+06A9) is not Arabic ك (U+0643); and the Pashto ring letters ټ ډ ړ are not the Urdu letters ٹ ڈ ڑ, though they write similar sounds.

The ye letters are the easiest to confuse. ی (U+06CC) loses its dots at the end of a word while ي (U+064A) keeps them, and in Pashto that is a real difference (سړی, سړي); ې (U+06D0) has its two dots stacked vertically, ۍ (U+06CD) has a tail, and the Arabic ى (alif maksura) is not a Pashto letter at all. The Pashto letters in the grid above use their standard Unicode characters.

Where Pashto is spoken

Pashto is the language of the Pashtuns. CLDR estimates around 58 million speakers: about 40 million in Pakistan, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the north of Balochistan and the city of Karachi, and about 17 million in Afghanistan, where Pashto is one of the two official languages alongside Dari. Communities of roughly 290,000 in the United Arab Emirates and 140,000 in Iran come next, and there are more in the Gulf, Europe and North America. All these figures are estimates.

Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language, a relative of Persian and Balochi, which is why it shares so many letters with Persian; its retroflex sounds it shares with neighbouring South Asian languages such as Urdu and Sindhi. Each of those languages has its own collection here, as do the countries Pakistan 🇵🇰, Afghanistan 🇦🇫, the United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪 and Iran 🇮🇷.