Pashto phonology

Foreign consonants

Phonemes that have been borrowed are colour-coded. The phonemes /q/, /f/ tend to be replaced by [k], [p].

Notes on consonants

1. [m] voiced bilabial nasal
2. [n] voiced post-dental nasal; non-phonemic allophones are [ŋ] before [k] and [g], and [ɳ] before [ʈ] and [ɖ], and [ɲ] before [t͡ʃ] and [d͡ʒ], and [m] before [b] and [p]
3. [ɳ] voiced retroflex nasal flap
4. [p] voiceless bilabial stop, somewhat aspirated prevocalically, especially in a stressed syllable
5. [b] voiced bilabial stop, unaspirated
6. [t] voiceless post-dental stop, somewhat aspirated prevocalically in a stressed syllable
7. [d] voiced post-dental stop, unaspirated
8. [ʈ] voiceless retroflex stop, somewhat aspirated prevocalically in a stressed syllable
9. [ɖ] voiced retroflex stop, unaspirated
10. [k] voiceless velar stop, somewhat aspirated when prevocalic in a stressed syllable
11. [g] voiced velar stop, unaspirated
12. [t͡s] voiceless post-dental affricate, slightly aspirated in a stressed syllable
13. [d͡z] voiced post-dental affricate, not aspirated
14. [t͡ʃ] voiceless palato-alveolar affricate, slightly aspirated in a stressed syllable
15. [d͡z] voiced palato-alveolar affricate, unaspirated
16. [s] voiceless post-dental spirant
17. [z] voiced post-dental spirant
18. [ʂ] voiceless retroflex spirant; used in the Southwest dialects (represented by ښ])
19. [ʐ] voiceled retroflex spirant; used in the Southwest dialects (represented by ږ])
20. [ʃ] voiceless palato-alveolar spirant
21. [ʒ] voiced palato-alveolar spirant
22. [ç] voiceless palatal fricative; used in the Wardak and Central Ghilji dialects (represented by ښ])
23. [ʝ] voiced palatal fricative; used in the Wardak and Central Ghilji dialects (represented by ږ])
24. [x] voiceless velar fricative
25. [ɣ] voiced velar fricative
26. [h] voiceless glottal fricative; dropped in most Southwest dialects and Waṇētsī
27. [l] voiced post-dental lateral, non-fricative, medium clear
28. [j] voiced palatal continuant
29. [w] voiced labio-dental continuant
30. [r] voiced post-dental flap, single in most dialects
31. [ɽ] voiced back-alveolar retroflex flap

Voiceless stops [p, t, t͡ʃ, k] are all unaspirated, like Spanish, other Romance languages, and Austronesian languages; they have slightly aspirated allophones prevocalically in a stressed syllable, almost like English.

Phonotactics

Pashto syllable structure can be summarized as follows; parentheses enclose optional components:

Pashto syllable structure consists of an optional syllable onset, consisting of one or two consonants; an obligatory syllable nucleus, consisting of a vowel optionally preceded by and/or followed by a semivowel; and an optional syllable coda, consisting of one or two consonants. The following restrictions apply:

Consonant clusters

Pashto also has a liking for word-initial consonant clusters in all dialects; some hundred such clusters occurs. However consonant gemination is unknown to Pashto.

Vowels

Most dialects in Pashto have seven vowels and seven diphthongs.

Waziri vowels

In Waziri dialect the [ɑ] in Standard Pashto becomes [ɔː] in Northern Waziri and [ɒː] in Southern Waziri.

In Waziri dialect the stressed [o] in Standard Pashto becomes [œː] as in the word [/lor/] meaning 'sickle' becomes [/lœːr/] and [ɛː] as in the word [/oɽəˈ/] meaning 'flour' becomes [/ɛːɽəˈ/] . The [o] in Standard Pashto may also become [(y)e] as in the word [/yeʒaˈ/] meaning 'shoulder' from [/ogaˈ/] or [/oʐaˈ/].

Diphthongs in dialects

The diphthongs varies according to dialect. The stressed diphthong [aɪ] changes to [æɪ] in the Mohmand dialect and [a] in Wanetsi. The diphthong [əi] used to indicate feminine noun gender changes to [ʌi] in the Afridi dialect (and also iyé), [i] in Wanetsi and [ʌi] in Kâkaṛi. The long diphthongs [ɑi] and [ɑw] becomes [ɑe] and [ɑo], respectively, in most Northeastern dialects.

Stress

Pashto has phonemic variable stress, unique amongst Iranian languages.

For instance the pronouns are differently inflected:

In verbs to distinguish aspect:

In verbs to distinguish mood: