The Early History of Pashto
According to G.P.Tate, the author of "The kingdom of Afghanistan" - the first to use Pashto for literary purposes was the famous Pir Roshan in the 7th century. His arch rival Akhund Derweza (1533-1638) was also compelled to use Pashto to arouse his followers against the Roshania movement. Apparently, both the giants exploited religious and mystic sentiments of their followers. The windfall of that movement was the freedom of Pashto prose from the influence of Arabic and Persian languages.
The most remarkable achievement of that era was the innovation by Pir Roshan that made the writing of Pashto easy. He realized that Pashto could not be written in Arabic script owing to some of its peculiar sounds. He therefore, invented 13 alphabets to represent those sounds. Some of these alphabets patched up vocal differences between the hard and soft dialects of Pashto as well.
Subsequently, Khushal Khan Khattak came to be known "The father of Pashto". Apart from his unsurpassed works in verse and prose on various topics including hunting, falconry, medicine and religion, he compiled a deal of information on the history of Pashtoon.
Then comes Syed Rahmatullah alias Rahat Zakheli(1884-1963),the harbinger of modern Pashto prose. He introduced or revived almost every genre of the time in Pashto. He wrote the first imaginary novel, published in 1912 under the title of "Mah Rukh".His short story "Konda Jeenae" was published in the newspaper AFGHAN in 1917.It was the first but a perfect short story. He compiled history and grammar as well in Pashto.
In the political arena, Bacha Khan gave due attention to the renaissance of the Pashto language, literature and culture. He encouraged and sponsored Pashto poets and writers. Professor Hafiz Mohd Idrees wrote a novel "Peghla" which is considered the first comprehensive novel in Pashto. Said Rasul Rasa, Abdul Rahim Majzoob and Fazal Haq Shida modernized Pashto literature by introducing odes and some other genres of English literature. At this juncture, Pashto took a sharp turn to change its oriental style into a European style. Said Rasul Rasa was a good poet but he is best known for his five novels "Mafroor, Shamae, Khund Kushi, Maimunae and Maikhana".
By that time Pashto received momentum in Afghanistan also with the emergence of a number of good writers, Saleh Mohd Hotak, Abul Haye Habibi, Gul Pacha Ulfat,Qiamuddin Khadim, Siddiq Ullah Rishtin, Zelmay Hiwadmal, Abdul Rauf Benawa and many others. Abdul Mahak wrote "Zamararudda" in three volumes on the post revolutionary situation in Afghanistan.
A great number of Afghan writers are busy nowadays in almost every field of literature. In the field of research, the PhD holders, whose thesis have been published include Iqbal Naseem Khattak, Rajwali Shah Khattak and Mohd Azam.
Some writers work on the religious matters also. The outstanding in this field is Faqir Mohd Abbas Qadria whose work in various sizes from 10 to 1000 (One thousand) pages-have been published in more than 3000 (Three thousand) books.
Pashto language was popularised by the print and electronic media. The poets and writers widened the vision and mental horizons of the Pashto. About 18 radio stations, including those from India, USA, England, Germany, Russia and China, are now broadcasting literary programs in Pashto which now enjoys the 41st position among the languages of the world.
Pashto language is as old as the “Pashtoon” because Pashto is not only the name of a language that has a very rich history, but a language with deeply rooted norms, values, and traditions. Pashto language has a very rich, traditional culture dating back almost 7000 years. In fact, the “Pashtoons” are considered to have branched off from “Aryan”— a civilization that existed around 3000 BC.
Ancient texts such as the Rig-Veda,a sacred Hindi collection written in 1400 B.C., have also been found to contain references to Pashto and the “Pashtoon” peoples (Khan, 1964). Herodotus, a Greek historian who wrote his biography from 486-521 BC, mentions the word Paktika — a province in northern Afghanistan. From such compilations of artifacts and historical data the majority of researchers now believe that the Pashto language is roughly 3500 to 2500 years old. This assertion has also been confirmed by Afghan Researcher Abdul Hai Habibi in his book “Pata Khazana” (Habibi, 2001).
As you can tell, the roots of the Pashto language and foundations of Pashtoon culture developed in very interesting ways. Jibe in his thesis notes that “Lwekan”, which ruled Ghazni and Baltistan in 960 B.C., contains the root “Lway” which translates to big and powerfulin Pashto (Jebi, 1960). Furthermore, archeologists have discovered that some Pashto letters contain mud stamps in the area of Swat, which belonged to the Asori Regime that ruled in 700 B.C. In his book “Da Pashto Tarikh” (History of Pashto), Muhammad Younus Khan points out that in Japanese emperor Mikado’s library there were many books on the teachings of Buddhism that were simultaneously written in Pashto. Accordingly the current writing style of Pashto can be traced back 2500 years ago (Khan, 1964).
Pashto is also considered to be a part of other language families. Author Jebi in his research “Pakhwani Pakhto Dwa Neem Zara Kala Makhkay”(Old Pashto 2500 years before) writes that Iran was ruled by Darwesh around 486 BC to 522 BC. Darwesh was a ruler well-known for his leadership skills and the legislative reform. After passing away, poems were written praising the qualities of the ruler, with most of these poems written in Pashto (Jebi A. R., 1974). Since then, Pashto has been world-renowned for its poetry. Perhaps this is the reason that numerous historians and Iranica(Encyclopedia of Iran) believe that the Pashto language belongs to the Eastern Iranian family of languages (Williams, 2010).
On the basis of above discussions, one could argue that Pashto is as old as many other historic languages like Sanskrit and Osta. According to the most reliable sources and facts, its roots can be traced back some 3500 years to 2500 years ago. Despite the fact that the lion’s share of researchers have concluded that Pashto is a 5000 years old language, more empirical research must be completed to support of this view. Whatever the case may be, its origins are clearly very diverse and fascinating to learn about.
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