Introduction to Pushtu (Paperback)

~ Qazi Rahimullah Khan (Author), H. L. Ogden (Editor)
Key Phrases: uninflected past participle, nuh day, oblique singular, May God, Delawar Khan, Deputy Commissioner (more...)

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Product Description

Pushtu (also known as 'Pashto' or 'Pushto') is one of the official languages of Afghanistan and is also spoken in parts of northern Pakistan. It belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of indo-European languages and is spoken by about 21 million people. This guide to the Pushtu language was originally published in 1938, and is now brought back into print for today's students. The grammar explanations, syntax rules, and exercises are designed to provide the student with a knowledge of Pushtu.

About the Author

Qazi Rahimullah Khan

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0781809398
• ISBN-13: 978-0781809399
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #160,415 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Learn to read Pukhtu (Pushto/u) but..., September 20, 2005

By	Kieli-ja-Musiikki "Scott" (Sumter, SC) - See all my reviews

*Introduction to Pushtu* presents a grammar for reading this language of the Iranian family in a clear, paradigmatic, and concise manner, with numerous example phrases and sentences and English-Pushto and Pushto-English translation practice (no answers given). Although the book does give major dialectal variants when necessary, the language type is somewhat dated (it was first published in 1938) but still usable.

The two main drawbacks of this volume include its lack of clarity in phonological description and its lack of any comprehensive glossary. There is no discussion of the Pushto/Pukhto variation, nor of the two /r/ sounds, and so forth (although I think a recording of some of the text is available); however, all new words are at least presented with a Romanized transcription to give the learner a vague idea of their pronunciation. Pushtu-English word-lists appears before each exercise and within each chapter, but looking up words in the book is nearly impossible as there is no index. A dictionary would be a necessary companion to the book should one wish to pursue any serious study of the language therewith.

*Introduction to Pushtu* is an interesting read for what it is and for when it was first published, but perhaps not the best for learning the modern language.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Outdated, February 28, 2009

By	Jacques H. de Beauvais "Gun Doctor" (Afghanistan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I never did end up studying the whole book, only parts of if. Although first published in 1938, it obviously draws on much older material, from the time of the two British wars in Afghanistan in the mid-1800's.
The phrase list at the end of the book thus had some wonderfully outdated, and now quite useless sentences such as "My servant has the plague" or "Wrap your turban around your gun".

3.0 out of 5 stars you say Pushtu, I say Pashto, September 21, 2009

By	perekladach (Carbondale, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews

This is a work with a lot of flaws, not the least of which is its great age. I don't know how dated the Pashto vocabulary is, but certainly much of the English that is used is out of the pretty remote past (when was the last time you heard 'cantonment' come up in a conversation?) There is next to no coverage of Pashto phonology and in the word lists that accompany the lessons there is no indication of where the stress comes in each word (a very serious omission because Pashto is a language in which stress can come anywhere in the word and sometimes inflections will change the position of the stress). There is no glossary and so you will either have to rely on your memory or be prepared to devote a lot of time to revising sections of the book that you have already worked on.

Still, this book does have a few things going for it. It is divided into two sections- a grammar, which makes up the first part of the book, which is actually a pretty helpful introduction to the language's quirky structure, and a second section called "Prose Composition" where new vocabulary is introduced, there are illustrative sentences, and the student ia asked at the end of each section to translate English sentences into Pashto. There is no key to these exercises, so unless you have a Pashto speaker helping you there is no way to know if you actually did them right or not.

Ordinarily, this many minuses would make a three-star rating out of the question, but Pashto learners don't have a very extensive menu to choose from. Why this should be is hard to understand, since Afghanistan has been a country of historical importance down through the centuries, and never more so than in recent years, from the Afghan people's heroic resistance to the Soviet invasion (something that no doubt contributed to the eventual demise of the Evil Empire), right up to its agonizing present-day situation. But very little material is available for either the Dari or Pashto languages and what is available is pretty old. So for now we work with what we've got, and it is possible to make some progress in Pashto with this book if you have someone to help you who already knows the language.