Persian vs Pashto: How the Two Languages of Afghanistan Differ

Persian and Pashto are two separate languages, not dialects of one. Both are Iranian languages and both are official in Afghanistan, but Persian (فارسی, fârsi) belongs to the western branch and Pashto (پښتو) to the eastern one. They share an alphabet, some ancient cognates like the numbers, and many loanwords, yet a Persian speaker cannot follow a Pashto conversation without studying it.

Below you will find the two languages compared point by point: family tree, where each is spoken, the extra Pashto letters, sounds, grammar (gender and the famous Pashto past tense), shared and different words, and everyday phrases side by side. Persian appears with the transliteration we use across this site; Pashto appears with a simple romanization in which ə is a short “uh” sound.

Persian vs Pashto at a glance

How Persian and Pashto are related

Both languages come from the same ancient ancestor, Proto-Iranian, so they are genuine relatives. But the Iranian family split very early into a western and an eastern group, and the two languages sit on different sides of that split.

• Persian is a Western Iranian language. It descends from Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenid inscriptions, through Middle Persian (Pahlavi) to the modern language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Kurdish and Baluchi are also Western Iranian.
• Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language. Its relatives in that branch include the Pamir languages of Tajikistan and Afghanistan and Ossetian in the Caucasus, not Persian.

A useful comparison is English and Swedish: both Germanic, both clearly related once you look at basic words, but from different branches and not understandable to each other without study. Over the centuries Pashto has also borrowed heavily from Persian, and Arabic words often reached Pashto through Persian, which makes the vocabulary look closer than the grammar really is.

Where each language is spoken

Persian

Persian is the national language of Iran, where it is called Farsi. In Afghanistan the same language is officially called Dari, and in Tajikistan it is called Tajik and written in Cyrillic. Iranian Farsi and Afghan Dari are two standard forms of one language, with differences in accent and some vocabulary, much like American and British English. Our guide to Farsi vs Persian vs Dari vs Tajik explains those names, and the map of where Persian is spoken covers the wider picture.

Pashto

Pashto is the language of the Pashtun people. It is spoken mainly in southern and eastern Afghanistan, including Kandahar, and in northwestern Pakistan, especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Balochistan, with large communities in cities such as Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi. Pashto has long been one of Afghanistan’s two official languages, alongside Dari, and it was declared the national language of Afghanistan in 1936.

Afghanistan: two languages side by side

In Afghanistan the two languages live together every day. Dari has long served as the common language of Kabul, business and much of the media, and many Pashtuns, especially in cities, speak Dari as a second language. Fewer Dari speakers learn Pashto, though many know some. So in Afghanistan you may hear a family switch between the two, or a conversation where each person speaks their own language and both follow, because they have grown up hearing both. That is bilingualism, not the languages being the same.

Script: one alphabet, extra Pashto letters

Both languages are written right to left in the Perso-Arabic script, and both usually leave short vowels unwritten. A Persian reader already knows most Pashto letters, including the four letters Persian added to Arabic: پ (p), چ (ch), ژ (zh) and گ (g). If you are still learning those, start with our Persian alphabet guide.

Pashto has sounds that Persian lacks, so it added more letters, many of them built from familiar shapes with a small ring or extra dots. These letters do not exist in Persian:

Pashto also uses several different forms of “y” at the end of a word to show different vowels and genders, where Persian has only one letter, ی. In practice this means a Persian reader can sound out much of a Pashto text but will stumble on these letters and on the vowels. It also means a standard Persian keyboard is not enough for Pashto; you need a Pashto keyboard layout.

Sounds: why Pashto sounds different

Even when a Persian and a Pashto word share a root, they rarely sound alike. The main differences:

• Retroflex consonants. Pashto has t, d, n and r sounds made with the tip of the tongue curled back, like in Hindi and Urdu. Persian has none.
• ts and dz. Pashto has څ (ts) and ځ (dz) as single sounds, so “four” starts with ts: tsalor. Persian has neither.
• Consonant clusters at the start of words. Pashto happily begins words with two consonants: dwa (two), dre (three), plâr (father), starga (eye). Persian never starts a word with two consonants, which is why Iranians say eski for “ski” and estâdiyom for “stadium.”
• The short “uh” vowel (ə). Pashto has a schwa vowel, often written with final ه, as in مننه (manəna, thank you). Standard Persian has six vowels and no schwa.
• Stress that changes meaning. Pashto stress can move and can distinguish words and verb forms. Persian stress is much more predictable, usually on the last syllable of nouns.

Pashto or Pakhto? The “soft” and “hard” dialects

Pashto dialects fall into two broad groups. Southern dialects, such as that of Kandahar, pronounce ښ as sh and ږ as zh, so the language is pashto. Northern dialects, such as those around Peshawar, pronounce the same letters as kh and g, so the language becomes pakhto and its speakers pakhtun. The spelling stays the same: پښتو. Persian has regional accents too, but nothing that changes the name of the language.

Grammar: where the two really part ways

Persian and Pashto both put the verb at the end of the sentence, but almost everything else in the grammar works differently. For a learner, Persian is the simpler of the two.

1. Gender

Persian has no grammatical gender. The same pronoun او (u) means “he” and “she,” and adjectives never change:

• او خوب است. (u khub ast.) He is good. / She is good. Listen

Pashto nouns are masculine or feminine, and adjectives and verbs agree with them:

• هغه ښه دی. (hagha sha day.) He is good.
• هغه ښه ده. (hagha sha da.) She is good.
• کور جوړ (kor jor, a house made) but ډوډۍ جوړه (doday jora, food made): the adjective takes a feminine ending with the feminine noun.

For speakers of English, gender is one of the first things that makes Pashto harder than Persian.

2. Cases

Pashto nouns change form depending on their role in the sentence: a plain (direct) form and an oblique form used after most prepositions and for the subject of past transitive verbs. For example, the pronoun “I” is زه (za) in the present but ما (mâ) as the subject of a past transitive verb. Persian nouns never change for case. The only marker is را (râ, spoken -ro or -o) after a definite direct object: کتاب را خواندم (ketâb râ khândam, I read the book).

3. The ergative past tense

This is the feature linguists mention first. In Persian, the verb always agrees with the subject:

• من لباس پوشیدم. (man lebâs pushidam.) I put on (the) clothes. The ending -am points to “I.” Listen

In Pashto, in the past tense of transitive verbs, the subject goes into the oblique form and the verb agrees with the object instead. A textbook example:

• ما جامې واغوستې. (mâ jâme wâghuste.) I wore the clothes. Here ما is the oblique “I,” and the verb ending ې (-e) agrees with جامې (jâme, clothes), which is feminine plural, not with “I.”

In the present tense Pashto works like Persian, with the verb agreeing with the subject. This “split” system, ergative in the past and not in the present, is shared with Kurdish dialects such as Kurmanji and with Hindi and Urdu, but modern Persian lost it long ago. Middle Persian still had a version of it.

4. Adjective order and the ezâfe

Persian puts the adjective after the noun and links them with the ezâfe vowel: کتاب خوب (ketâb-e khub, a good book). Pashto puts the adjective first, like English, with no linking vowel: ښه کتاب (sha kitâb, good book). If the ezâfe is new to you, read ezâfe in Persian.

5. Prepositions vs “sandwich” words

Persian uses prepositions before the noun: در خانه (dar khâne, in the house). Pashto often wraps the noun between two small words, one before and one after, as in په … کې (pə … ke, in): په کور کې (pə kor ke, in the house). Pashto also uses words that come after the noun alone.

6. Verbs

Persian verbs are famously regular once you know the two stems: the endings are the same for every verb, and there is no gender agreement. Pashto verbs agree in gender in the past, use the ergative pattern, and have more irregular forms. To see how simple the Persian system is, try the Persian verb conjugator.

Vocabulary: shared, related and completely different

Pashto vocabulary has three layers, and a Persian speaker meets each one differently.

Ancient cousins: words from the common ancestor

Basic words such as numbers and family terms go back to Proto-Iranian. They are related, but sound changes on each side make them hard to recognize by ear.

Look at “ten”: Persian dah, Pashto las. The same old word went down two different paths. Pairs like this are exactly why the languages are related but not mutually understandable. For the full Persian number system, see Persian numbers.

Borrowed words: the easy layer

Pashto took many words from Persian, and many Arabic words through Persian. A Persian speaker recognizes these at once, although the pronunciation shifts a little: کتاب (kitâb in Pashto, ketâb in Iranian Persian, book), and the greeting سلام (salâm), used in both. Religious, legal and literary vocabulary is especially close. This layer is why a Persian speaker reading a Pashto newspaper headline may catch the topic but not the sentence.

Everyday words that look nothing alike

Note that “hand” in Pashto, لاس (lâs), and “ten,” لس (las), are different words, a classic beginner mix-up.

Everyday phrases side by side

Here are a few common expressions in Persian (Iranian usage, with spoken forms marked) and Pashto. Listen buttons read the Persian.

The “may you not be tired” greeting shows how much culture the two languages share even when the words differ. Iranians and Afghans say خسته نباشید (khaste nabâshid) to someone finishing work, and Pashtuns say ستړی مه شې (staray ma she) as an everyday greeting, often answered with خوار مه شې (khwâr ma she, “may you not be poor”). For more Persian greetings, see how to say hello in Persian.

Can Persian speakers understand Pashto?

Not without learning it. A Persian speaker hearing Pashto for the first time will catch greetings, Islamic expressions, many Persian and Arabic loanwords, and perhaps a number or two, but the native words, the sounds, the gender endings and the past tense make whole sentences hard to follow. Reading is a little easier than listening, because the shared script and loanwords stand out on the page.

The picture in Afghanistan is different from the picture in Iran. Many Afghans, Pashtuns and Dari speakers alike, grow up hearing both languages, so they often understand much more than an Iranian would. An Iranian who meets a Pashtun from Kandahar will usually end up talking in Dari, not in Pashto.

Pashto speakers who know Dari, on the other hand, have a clear head start in Iranian Persian: the main hurdles are Iranian pronunciation and everyday vocabulary. Our list of differences between spoken and written Persian helps with the Iranian colloquial forms.

Literature and culture

Persian has one of the world’s great literary traditions: Ferdowsi, Rumi, Saadi, Hafez and Khayyam. These poets belong to Afghans as much as to Iranians; Rumi is traditionally said to have been born in Balkh, in today’s Afghanistan, and Persian poetry is loved and recited across the region, including by many Pashtuns.

Pashto has its own rich tradition. Khushal Khan Khattak (1613 to 1694), warrior and poet, is often called Afghanistan’s national poet, and the Sufi poet Rahman Baba is among the most loved Pashto writers. Pashto folk culture is famous for the landay, a short two-line poem traditionally passed on orally, often by women. Pashtun social life is shaped by its own code of honor and hospitality, known as Pashtunwali.

Which should you learn, Persian or Pashto?

Both are worth learning, and the right choice depends entirely on who you want to talk to. A few honest points:

• Reach. Persian is used in three countries and is the language of Iran’s large population and of Afghanistan’s common language, Dari. Pashto is the language of Pashtun communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the diaspora.
• Difficulty. Persian is usually easier for English speakers: no gender, no cases, regular verbs. Pashto’s gender, cases and ergative past take longer. Our post on whether Persian is hard to learn gives a realistic picture.
• Materials. There are far more courses, books, podcasts and tutors for Persian than for Pashto.
• Order. If you need both, learning Persian (Dari) first gives you the script and a large share of Pashto’s borrowed vocabulary.

Common questions

Is Pashto the same as Persian?

No. Pashto and Persian are different languages from different branches of the Iranian family. They share an alphabet, some ancient cognates and many loanwords, but their grammar and sounds differ, and speakers of one cannot understand the other without learning it.

Is Pashto closer to Persian or to Urdu?

By family, Pashto is closer to Persian: both are Iranian languages, while Urdu is Indo-Aryan. But Pashto shares some features with Urdu that Persian lacks, such as retroflex sounds, gender and an ergative past tense, mostly because of centuries of contact. For Persian and Urdu, see our Farsi vs Urdu comparison.

Do Afghans speak Persian or Pashto?

Both. Afghanistan has two official languages: Dari, which is Persian, and Pashto. Dari is widely used as a common language, especially in Kabul, the north and the west, while Pashto is strongest in the south and east. Many Afghans speak both.

Is Dari closer to Pashto than Farsi is?

Dari and Farsi are the same language, so in grammar both are equally far from Pashto. Afghan Dari has absorbed some Pashto words and expressions, and its speakers hear Pashto every day, which makes Pashto more familiar to them than to Iranians.

Is Pashto harder to learn than Persian?

For most English speakers, yes. Pashto has grammatical gender, noun cases, an ergative past tense and sounds that Persian lacks, and there are fewer learning materials. Persian grammar is famously regular, which is why many people find it one of the more approachable languages of the region.

What does “Pashtun” mean?

Pashtun (also Pakhtun) is the name of the people whose language is Pashto. In Persian they are called پشتون (pashtun) and the language پشتو (pashtu). Listen

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