Part ofa series on
Pashto language
Pashtuns Culture
Writing systems
Pashto alphabet
Dialects
Wanetsi Central Pashto Southern Northern Other dialects
Language regulation
Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan Pashto Academy
Native to
Afghanistan Pakistan Pashtunistan Pashtun diaspora
v t e

This article containsPashto text. Without properrendering support, you may see unjoined letters or other symbols instead ofPashto script.

Pashto dialects (Pashto:د پښتو ژبګوټي də Pəx̌tó žәbgóṭi) can be divided into two large varieties:Northern Pashto andSouthern Pashto. Each of the two varieties ofPashto is further divided into a number of dialects. Northern Pashto is spoken in eastern Afghanistan, and central, northern and easternKhyber Pakhtunkhwa (includingPeshawar). Southern Pashto is spoken to the south of it, in southern and western Afghanistan (includingKandahar), southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northernBalochistan (includingQuetta). 'Ethnologue' divides Pashto into Northern, Southern andCentral Pashto, andWanetsi.^[2]

Pashto Dialects - "we"

Northern [Eastern and Western dialects]

/muɡ/

---

Northern [Eastern and Western dialects]

/munɡ/

---

Northern Eastern [Wardak Dialect]

/muʝ/

---

Central [Waziri]

/miʒ/

---

Central [Zadrāni]

/miʝ/

---

South Western [possibly Kunduz]

/muʐ/

---

South Eastern [Quetta]

/muʒ/

---

South Western [Kandahar]

/muʐ/

---

Problems playing these files? Seemedia help.

According toDavid Neil MacKenzie, a consonant shift took place in the northern parts ofPashtunistan in several phases in the medieval era. During the shift, the retroflex fricativeṣ̌[ʂ] changed tox̌[ç] or tox[x], whileẓ̌[ʐ] changed toǵ[ʝ] or tog[g].^[3] That is supported by the linguistGeorg Morgenstierne's assertion that the Pashto script developed in the Northeast which had the phonology of a Southwestern Pashto in the 16th century.^[4] The shift was likely complete before the Pashto bookKhayr al-Bayān was written byBayazid Pir Roshan fromWaziristan in 1651. According toMichael M. T. HendersonArchived 2021-02-28 at theWayback Machine in Balochistan [Southeast]: the spiltṣ̌[ʂ] into š[ʃ] andẓ̌[ʐ] into ž[ʒ] may never have occurred in that they were always pronounced as š[ʃ] and ž[ʒ] thereor that a split did occur.^[5]

Among the otherEastern Iranian languages outside Pashto, theShughni (Khughni) andYazgulyami branch of thePamir languages also seem to have been affected from theṣ̌ tox consonant shift. E.g. "meat":ɡuṣ̌t inWakhi andğwáṣ̌a in Southwestern Pashto, but changes toguxt in Shughni andğwáxa in Northeastern Pashto.^[6]

1.Southern variety

• Abdali dialect (orSouth Western dialect)
• Kakar dialect (orSouth Eastern dialect)
• Shirani dialect
• Marwat-Bettani dialect
• Southern Karlani group

• Khattak dialect
• Baniswola dialect
• Dawarwola dialect
• Masidwola dialect
• Wazirwola dialect

2.Northern variety

• Central Ghilji dialect (orNorth Western dialect)
• Yusufzai dialect (orNorth Eastern dialect)
• Northern Karlani group

• Taniwola dialect
• Khosti dialect
• Zadran dialect
• Mangal dialect
• Afridi dialect
• Khogyani dialect
• Wardak dialect
• Miranzai Dialect (Bangash and Orakzai)

3. Waṇetsi Dialect

There are several regional standard forms of Pashto which have high prestige, and serve as a means of communication between the various tribal communities in those regions.

Central Pashto dialects are also referred to as middle.

Central Pashto Speak Mostly The Tribes ofBangash ,Wazir ,Banusi, Zadran ,Mahsud &Dawar.

Southern Pashto compromises of the South Western and South Eastern dialects.^[7]

Southern Western Pashto, also called Kandahari Pashto, is the prestige variety of Pashto in southern and western Afghanistan.

A similar variety known as South Eastern is spoken in theBalochistan province of Pakistan.^[8]

Northern Pashto compromises of the North Western and North Eastern dialects.^[9]

North Eastern Pashto, also called Eastern Pashto, is the prestige variety of Pashto, known as Yusufzai Dialect, it is spoken in central, northern, and eastern parts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan and in northeastern Afghanistan.

North Western Pashto is spoken, in eastern and northeastern Afghanistan, in the central Ghilji or Ghilzai region.^[8]

Although this dialect is spoken only by the Spin Tareens and not the Tor Tareens, it is known locally as Tareeno and by Western academics as Wanetsi. It is the most distinct amongst the dialects of Pashto.

Variations have been noted in dialects of Pashto.^[10] The differences between the standard varieties of Pashto are primarily phonological, and there are simple conversion rules.^[11] The morphological differences between the standard varieties are very few and unimportant. Two of the key phonemes whose pronunciation vary between the different Pashto dialects areښ andږ. The southern dialect ofKandahar is considered to be the most conservative with regards to phonology. It retains the original pronunciation of these two phonemes asvoiceless andvoiced retroflex sibilants, respectively, and does not merge them into other phonemes unlike the northern dialects.^[12]

The dialects spoken by the tribes from theKarlani confederacy of Pashtuns are lexicologically different and very varied. Moreover, the Karlani dialects have a tendency towards a change in the pronunciation of vowels. Depending on the particular dialect, the standard Pashto [a], [ā], [o], [u] may change into [ā], [â/å/o], [ȯ/ȫ/e], [i], respectively.^[13] In the Karlani dialects ofWaziristan,Bannu, andTani (southern Khost), which follow the vowel shift to the greatest extent, these four vowels normally change into [ā], [o], [e], [i], respectively.

The nine phonemes represented in the column headings below show key phonetic differences between the dialects. Five of them are consonants written in thePashto alphabet, and four are vowels written in the Latin script; sounds are transcribed in theIPA:

• Dialects belonging to thesouthern non-Karlani variety, thesouthern Karlani variety, thenorthern Karlani variety, and thenorthern non-Karlani variety, respectively, are color-coded.
• Tareeno/Wanetsi is color-coded as pink

The grammatical rules are may vary slightly in dialects; with the most divergence inTarīno. Example:^[21]

Dialects can also have special vocabulary^[22]:

Example:

Special Vocabulary Example

Kə́līs (intellect)

---

Tareeno

---

Pashto [Southeastern Dialect]

---

Problems playing these files? Seemedia help.

ما دې دا خبرې ته کليس نه رسېژ

Compare:

زما دغه خبرې ته ذهن/عقل نه رسېږي

These can be classed as deriving from "standard" Pashto

In general, the Karlani dialects, both in southern and northern varieties, show more vocabulary differences than the non-Karlani southern and northern dialects.

• Pashto Swadesh list
• Eastern Iranian languages
• Proto-Indo-European language
• Indo-Iranian languages

• Pashto dialects

• CS1: unfit URL
• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from August 2025
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Pashto-language text
• Pages with plain IPA
• Articles with hAudio microformats
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with ambiguous glossing abbreviations