A Century of Efforts in Standardizing Pashto

Abstract

Pashto standardization initiatives did not begin long ago, nonetheless. The military designations were changed to Pashto in the 19th century, during the second reign of Amir Sher Ali Khan, but in the last century, efforts to make Pashto the official language have moved ahead. In the last 100 years, during the time of His Highness Amanullah Khan, məraka də paʂtʊ was established and published dictionaries and two books called "jawαzinəi paʂtʊ" and "paʂtʊ pʂwoja". The dictionaries have been destroyed, but the last two books remain. The names of Pashto months and other things came from these books, and they created new words for politicians and courtiers. We do not use most of the məraka də paʂtʊ words now, but instead we use other words because these words are not easy and are not clear in terms of meaning. After the mərakə də paʂtʊ, the Kandahar Literary Association worked in the field of creating new words. Later, the paʂtʊ ʈolәna (Pashto community) held several meetings on orthography, the first of which was held in 1321 and the others in 1327 and 1337. paʂtʊ ʈolәna has done a lot of work on orthography instead of creating new words (neologism). After the paʂtʊ ʈolәna, Peshawar Pashto Academy has also done commendable work in the field of orthography. In 1992, they held the Bara Gully seminar and many meetings after that. As individuals, Wazir Mohammad Gul Khan Momand, Habibi, Hussain Kawsar Ghoryakhil, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, Zyar, and others did the work, which involved both neologism and orthography. These works do have issues with the standardization of Pashto, but the benefits and good things outweigh the negatives. The plan for language enrichment and standardization has gained importance recently. Any language that does not have this strategy is gradually losing its structure. It is anticipated that institutions of higher learning and individuals will take note of this.