ABSTRACT
Pashto is an Indo-European language belonging to the Eastern Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian sub-group of languages, and is therefore a fairly close relative of the Western Iranian language Persian. Its morphology, however, is considerably more archaic and complex. Since 1936 it has been the official language of Afghanistan (along with Dari/Farsi Kabuli) and it is now spoken in Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan (Pashtunistan) by at least 20 million people. The main dialect split is between Eastern (Mašriqi, Pešawari) Pashto and Western (Kandahari).
