All pashto texts in UD are transliterated to capture their pronounciation.
The transliteration used here is strictly phonemic: it aims on including all pronounced sounds, although they are not expressed in writing and on the contrary, it omits all unpronounced orthographic letters.
The transliteration of each sentence is written on a line beginning with # translit =.
The transliteration of word is given in the MISC column under the Translit attribute.
The transliteration of each lemma is shown in the MISC column under the LTranslit attribute, but only if it differs from Translit.
Vowels
i - closed front vowel [i]
e - mid front vowel [ɛ]
a - open front vowel [a]
ë - mid central vowel (shwa) [ə]
u - closed back rounded vowel [u]
o - mid back rounded vowel [o]
â - open back rounded vowel [ɒ]
Consonants
Nasals
m - bilabial nasal [m]
n - alveolar nasal [n]
ṇ - retroflex nasal [ɳ]
Plosives
b - voiced bilabial plosive [b]
p - unvoiced bilabial plosive [p]
d - voiced alveolar plosive [d]
t - unvoiced alveolar plosive [t]
ḍ - voiced retroflex plosive [ɖ]
ṭ - unvoiced retroflex plosive [ʈ]
g - voiced velar plosive [g]
k - unvoiced velar plosive [k]
q - unvoiced uvular plosive [q]
Fricatives
f - unvoiced labiodental fricative [f]
z - voiced alveolar fricative [z]
s - unvoiced alveolar fricative [s]
ž - voiced post-alveolar fricative [ʒ]
š - unvoiced post-alveolar fricative [ʃ]
ǧ - the local realization of this voiced fricative spans from post-alveolar [ʒ] through retroflex [ʐ] and palatal [ʑ] to velar [ɣ] depending on dialect
x̌ - the local realization of this unvoiced fricative spans from post-alveolar [ʃ] through retroflex [ʂ] and palatal [ɕ] to velar [x] depending on dialect
ġ - voiced velar or uvular fricative [ɣ ~ ʁ]
x - unvoiced velar or uvular fricative [x ~ χ]
h - glottal fricative [h]
Affricates
ż - voiced alveolar affricate [d͡z]
c - unvoiced alveolar affricate [t͡s]
ǰ - voiced post-alveolar affricate [d͡ʒ]
č - voiced alveolar affricate [t͡ʃ]
Taps and Approximants
r - alveolar tap [ɾ]
ṛ - retroflex tap [ɽ]
l - alveolar lateral approximant [l]
w - bilabial approximant [w]
y - palatal approximant [j]
Stress
Pashto has a phonemic stress that can fall on any syllable (but mostly falls on the last one).
The stress should be marked with an accent mark (´) above the vowel of the stressed syllable in every word that includes two or more syllables.
If such a word does not bear a stress, it indicates that it forms a stress group with another word, which is stressed (نه کوم në́ kawëm “I do not do”)