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Pashto Language Resources

Pashto is an official language of Afghanistan. It is an Indo-Iranian language and is spoken by an estimated 40 million people, primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 'Pashto' is the most common English spelling though it is sometimes referred to as 'Pakhto', 'Pushto', or 'Pukhto'.

This site is intended as a practical reference for the Pashto language learner. Resources on the linguistic analysis of Pashto are largely omitted, as are most materials intended for non-English speaking students of Pashto.



The Pashto Language Resources section of this website was created September 2010 by Sean Mann.

Last updated: January 5, 2012



If you have suggestions for additional Pashto resources to include on this site, please contact me at:

sean.mann@afghanistan-analyst.org



Recommended Materials


This site provides information on a large number of textbooks, dictionaries, and online resources for learning Pashto, each of varying quality. For independent students of Pashto, as well as for students looking to supplement their classroom studies, the following resources may be of use.

Textbooks: Randall Olson's Speaking Afghan Pashto or Rakhmon Inomkhojaev's Pashto: An Elementary Textbook are both good introductions to the language. They are helpfully supplemented by Tegey and Robson's (free) Beginning Pashto Textbook, Intermediate Pashto Textbook, and Pashto Conversation.

Readers: Dunwoody Press' Pashto Newspaper Reader is helpful for the intermediate student looking to begin working with authentic written sources. Tegey and Robson's (free) Pashto Reader is also useful.

Interactive Online Learning: DLI's (free) GLOSS Lessons and Weekly Training Events provide many excellent multimedia learning modules for the intermediate or advanced student.

Reference Grammar
: Tegey and Robson's (free) A Reference Grammar of Pashto.

Reference Dictionary: An excellent online dictionary is Qamosona.com (free). For print dictionaries, S. Yarzi's English-Pashto Dictionary and Abdul Hamid Bahij's Pashto-English Dictionary are useful, as are a number of others.

Authentic Media: The BBC and VOA radio broadcasts and online news sites are high-quality and available online, as is VOA's Ashna Television. Radiotime.com provides access to Afghan radio stations, including Kandahar's Rana FM. A variety of other Pashto media sources are listed under Pashto Radio and Television, Pashto News, and Pashto Online Resources.