Southern Pashto

Kandahārí Pashtó (Pashto: کندهارۍ پښتو), also known as, Southwestern Pashto,^[3] is a Pashto dialect, spoken in southern and western Afghanistan, including the city of Kandahar.

Kandahari Pashto is spoken in Kandahar, Helmand, Ghazni, most of Urozgan, Farah, Faryab and Nimruz, southeastern Ghor, the districts of Murghab, Ghormach, Muqur, and Jawand in Badghis, and parts of Zabul, Paktika, and Herat provinces of Afghanistan. It is also spoken in parts of the provinces of Razavi Khorasan and South Khorasan in Iran, where they numbered roughly 120,000 (in 1993).^[4]

It is one of the most archaic varieties of Pashto: the Kandahari dialect retains archaic retroflex sibilants, /ʂ/ and /ʐ/ (in other dialects, they have shifted to ʃ/x and ʒ/g). Kandahari also has the affricates /t͡s/ and /d͡z/.^[5]

In the South Eastern dialect, /ʂ/ and /ʐ/ in South Western sometimes change to ʃ and ʒ. Whilst /t͡s/ and /d͡z/ are generally pronounced.^[7]

In all 3rd-person pronouns 'h' is not articulated. And distinction in 'he' and 'she' pronouns is not noted.

Kākaṛi is classed as Southeastern dialect.^[8] The following has been noted:^[9]

According to Josef Elfenbein, Sherani Pashto can be classed either as South Western or South Eastern.^[11] Word choice can be distinct:^[12]

In Marwat-Bettani the following is noted:^[13]

Marwat Words

مېړګی [pony]

/meɽ.ɡaˈɪ/

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بغور [cheek]

/ba.ɣwəˈr/

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Compare the words