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That said, the “kh” (Pekhawar, Pukhtun, Pukhto, Pakhto, kha) is used in the
hard dialect. The soft dialect uses “sh” for the same words: Peshawar,
Pushtun/Pashtun, Pashto/Pushto, sha.
In Pashto, we have more letters than we do in Arabic. One of the ones not
included in Arabic is “khin” ( )ښ, and that’s the “kh” sound you hear in the
hard dialect. The “sh” sound is the same as “sheen” ( )ش. Pashto and Arabic
both have the letter “kha”/”khey” ( )خ, however, so ښdoes not replace
kha/khey.
Me, since I’m from northern Pashtunkhwa, I use the “kh” dialect, but since
“kh” is a hell of a difficult letter for most westerners or others who don’t
have the letter in their languages, I prefer to use “sh” when talking to a non-
Pashtun audience. With my family, though, using “sh” instead of “kh”
sounds really weird.
The sound system of Pashto has many similarities to that of other Indo-
Iranian languages. At the same time, Pashto stands out among them as
having adopted certain features from neighboring Indo-Aryan languages,
such as retroflex consonants.
There are other differences in the dialects, too. For instance, the soft dialect
uses “zh” where the hard dialect uses “g” (e.g., mung vs muzh (both mean
we)). There are several regional standard forms of Pashto which have high
prestige, and serve as a means of communication between the various tribal
communities in those regions. Yusufzai Pashto, called Peshawari or
Northeastern Pashto, is the prestige variety of Pashto in central, northern,
and eastern parts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.