SWAT: Speakers at a seminar held here the other day urged linguists from all parts of Pakhtun belt to work collectively for adopting a standard script of Pashto language.

They said several issues erupted in the written script of Pashto due to diversity in its dialects. The seminar on the modern script of Pashto language was organised by the Pashto department of Postgraduate Jahanzeb College Saidu Sharif. Experts, writers, poets, teachers and students participated in the event.

Renowned writers Hanif Qais, Dr Attaur Rehman, Attaullah Jan, Ihsan Yousafzai, Usman Ulasyar, Zafar Ali Naz, Dr Didar Yousafzai, Ihsanullah Shahid, Fazal Mahmood Rokhan, Fazal Mabood Diyar, Saeedullah Khadim, Rozi Khan Baba and Abdul Ghafoor Baba were prominent among the participants.

Dr Attaur Rehman said that the correct use of Pashto script was the most important issue for students and writers of the language. That’s was why the Pashto department organised the event to teach the students and other people to write Pashto correctly, he added.

“There is a longstanding issue of the use of vowels in the modern Pashto script. We have tried to educate our youngsters about the issue and devise a proper mechanism to resolve it,” he said.

Hanif Qais said that the written script of the Pashto language was made more complicated than before.

“The biggest issue with the Pashto language is its diversity in dialects and the scholastic division between the linguists living in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said.

He said that the division caused a big harm to the language as it made the writing script more difficult than its earlier version. “In the modern script, linguists have introduced unnecessary alphabets and silent letters, which caused complications in writing it,” said Hanif Qais.

He said that linguists and writers from Swat and nearby regions made an effort to make the Pashto script easier and resolve the issue.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2023