| Description | Pashto is a language characterized by its variability. The
challenges of reaching a universally acceptable
transliteration standard for personal names are posed both
by the dialect spread trending roughly from the southwest
to the northeast parts of its geographic area, and also by
the competing influences of Dari and Urdu. Given the lack
of any dominant standard on some points, it has been
considered necessary to define a certain degree of
flexibility within this standardization system in order to
enable it to capture the variability of the language it
seeks to reflect. A great effort has also been made to
research and reflect common usage in the Pashto- speaking
areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to define rules
which capture these trends to the best extent possible.
However, a respect for the norms of usage has also been
balanced with the need for consistency and intelligibility.
Therefore, there are cases where a less common spelling
will be the preferred usage under the guidance of this
system. Lastly, specific names that cannot be incorporated
gracefully into the rules described below are included with
case-by-case preferred spellings in a list near the end of
this document.
|
