How Old Pashto Language Is? English Blog

 How Old Pashto Language Is?

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).