Southern Pashto


Kandahārī Pashtō, also known as Southern Pashto, Western Pashto, or Southwestern Pashto, is a Pashto dialect, spoken in southern and western Afghanistan, including the city of Kandahar. It is similar with Quetta and Khattak dialects. It is one of the most archaic and most prestigious varieties of Pashto.
Kandahari Pashto is spoken in Kandahar, Helmand, Ghazni, most of Urozgan, Farah, 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. Kandahari Pashto is almost same as the southeastern Pashto dialect, spoken in northern Balochistan including Quetta city, except for few phonetic differences.
The Kandahari dialect retains archaic retroflex sibilants, and . In the Quetta and Kakar dialects they change to ʃ and ʒ. Kandahari also has the affricates and.
Dialectښږڅځژā
Kandahar
Khattak
Quetta
Peshawar

Pronouns are also archaic. It is differences in 'he' and 'she' pronouns. In all 3rd-person pronouns 'h' is articulated.
Personal pronounKandaharQuettaPeshawarMeaning
زهzəzəzəI
تهtə, less often təitə, less often təitəyou
هغهhağəağəəğəhe
هغهhağeağəəğəshe
موږ/مونږmʊž̥mʊž/məžmuŋ/muŋgwe
تاسو/تاسېtāse/tāsītāse/tāsītāsoyou
هغویhağwi/hağūiağwi/ağūiağʷi/ağʷəithey

The Pashto spoken in Kandahar has adding to that more unique features. Such as the Letter ه is pronounced as -eh not as -ah like in the North. Further more there is a distinction between /w/, /v/ and /u/ in speech yet it is all written with the letter و. Unlike other Dialects in Pashto the /v/ and /w/ sounds are separate while in the other Dialects they morphed to /w/ or /v/.