Figuring out language from phrasebooks: Pashto

A while back, I wrote about using sentences from phrasebooks to piece together an informal understanding of grammar, and offered a few examples from Uzbek. Of course, since I already knew a fair amount about Uzbek, it came relatively easily. So today, I pulled out Accent on Afghanistan: Pashto to see how it would work with a language I don’t know much of anything about.

What I am doing here is simply taking phrases where I see common elements in both the Pashto transliteration and the English translation. Using this will not unravel all the mysteries of Pashto, but it will clear up one or two details and reveal some tricks to make the learner’s task easier:

1. mo peh khair and staasay… ham peh khair
Good morning: Sahaar mo peh khair
in reply: Staasay sahaar ham peh khair
Good evening: Maakhaam mo peh khair
in reply: Staasay maakhaam ham peh khair
Good night: Shpa mo peh khair
in reply: Staasay shpa ham peh khair

So, to form a greeting, you tack “mo peh khair” on after the time of day. To form the reply, you do “staasay… time of day… ham peh khair.”

Note that welcome is “Peh khair raaghlay.” It doesn’t follow our rule, but it still has “peh khair” so you can still keep track of it as a greeting.

2. zeh… yum.
I am fine: Zeh kheh yum.
I am sorry: Zeh mutaasif yum.
I am ready: Zeh tayaar yum.
I am from: Zeh yum de…

So, “I am” is “zeh yum” but adjectives go between the “zeh” and the “yum.”

3. Daa… dai.
It is good: Daa kheh dai.
It is bad: Daa kharaab dai.
It is expensive: Daa Graan dai.
It is expensive: Daa Qeematah dai.

So, “It is” is “Daa… dai.”

4. …num…dai
What is your name?: Sta num tseh dai?
My name is…: Zmaa num… dai.

It looks like you ask, “Your name what is?” and the answer is “My name [name] is.” If so, then “sta” is “your,” “zmaa” is “my” and “tseh” is “what”. Of course, some of this is conjecture, so you’d need to look for other phrases that support the conclusions you’ve drawn. But if you flip to card 21, you find that “tseh dai” is “what is it?” and there you go.

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On the phrase cards I’m drawing from, there are roughly 40 phrases. As you can see, just by doing comparison and without a dictionary or grammar, it was possible to find a structure for 16 of them. What’s more, it was possible to identify around four basic structures, two of which (zeh… yum; …dai) seem to have broad potential application.

Does this mean you need never study grammar? Or that you can write your own grammar? Probably not, unless you’ve got a lot of time – and a lot of trust that the phrasebook authors got everything right. But exercises like this help you spot patterns to the language that your textbooks will take chapter upon chapter to get to – if they cover them at all. This will help you remember – both the phrases and the structures! –, and it will make it so that when you’re learning formally, you’re merely putting a formal structure under something you already know, the way you learned grammar for your native language.

Actually, as I think about it, something that would be great is a grammar guide for a language that eschews a systematic presentation of the language, instead going through a phrasebook, section by section, and explaining the grammar underlying each phrase. That way, you could learn the structures you need for everyday survival language and build from there.