Who Wants to Help?

Doc Bernard

Doc Bernard

Indie Arms Member
I have decided......I need to expand my knowledge, so I am going to learn Pashto. Any Pashto speakers here?
 
There's a guy from Lebanon here. Not sure if he speaks it. How common is it? (I'll pm you.)
 
Doc Bernard said:
Very Afghanistan centric, has ties to Arabic.
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Uh... well... no... Other than perhaps the same relationship Latin stands to English, in that there may be some number of borrowings... but the 'core' language is an Indo-European-Iranian stem, and in particular the Iranian stem, and as such has at its very core more in common with English than Arabic (of any sort...), but some times it requires a linguist to 'see' the similarities...

The script is derived from Arabic script, and so, at first glance would give the belief that it is 'arabic'... but just as Latin letters have been used for all Western Europe languages, with enhancements as required to represent the specific language, so too is Arabic script used for non-arabic languages, such as Iranian and Pashtun.

Anyway, the closest I've come to the eastern 'indo-european-iranian' langauge groups is wanting to learn Sanskrit, which in my area there are several of 'indian culture' centers that have instructions, mainly used by those from India who want to keep a bit of culture alive for their children.

Arabic is of course the language of the Koran, and traditional values require that Arabic be learned to correctly read the Koran, so some number of people in the Muslim World learn Arabic. Again, similar to the Latin Bible in the West prior to the Reformation, which had as part of a 'goal' to translate that holy text in to the language of the people.

The other language of the region is Urdu. That word is given as derived from a Turkish word for 'camp', and the Turkish is also the origin of the word 'horde'...

Update... The language of Iran is Farsi and of Afghanistan, Pashto... not 'Iranian' or 'Pashtun' respectively... those are adjectives describing the people... too hurried a post...
 
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he was trying to clarify something to the over the top/(borderline insulting) generalizations that were made in this thread.
 
No insults were intended. It may be an overgeneralization, yes. But to someone new to languages from that region......to the untrained eye, there are a lot of similarities. Uses Arabic lettering, uses many of the same rules of grammar, pronunciations for sounds also similiar.


If insult was taken, I apologize. It was not meant, nor intended. And I would never be insulted if someone suggested English had many similarities to other languages, because it does.

Again, j1clark, you seem to know a lot about the language. Can you help? Would love assistance.
 
Alelo.com has free tactical language training(pashto included) online courses available for DoD personnel. u must have friends in the military, no?
 
Doc Bernard said:
No insults were intended. It may be an overgeneralization, yes. But to someone new to languages from that region......to the untrained eye, there are a lot of similarities. Uses Arabic lettering, uses many of the same rules of grammar, pronunciations for sounds also similiar.


If insult was taken, I apologize. It was not meant, nor intended. And I would never be insulted if someone suggested English had many similarities to other languages, because it does.

Again, j1clark, you seem to know a lot about the language. Can you help? Would love assistance.
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I was offering some explanations so you could ask around with a better idea of 'who to ask'. (Most people in the US have the same problem with Cyrillic script and identifying Russian, Ukrainian, and other languages that use a 'greek-ish' letter sytem... I got 'busted' a few months ago misidentifying Turkish for Russian... some the 'sh' sounds sounded so 'russian', but I should have waited for a few more markers to make my identificaiton... because none of the 'russian' markers I know were coming up... so I was thinking one of the other Slavic languages...). The language's I have taken formal instruction in are Greek, Latin, German, French and Spanish, all Western European languages. I did try a home study course in Korean... but most Koreans, at least the ones I knew... were reluctant to assist...

What I know about the languages of the Middle East comes from studying the history and the various invasions, empires, etc. As well as a general interest in languages, although due to the languages I've studied they are of the Indo-European-Iranian group.

Outside of 1) some sort of academic program at a university or college, 2) expensive private language schools, 3) does the Army still have the Monterey Language school (??? *)... my suggest would be to find a expatriate Afghan culture center and see if they have some programs. The other thought would be some sort of christian missionary group... but that would be a wild guess.

*Even if Monterey still exists, there' s no guarantee that one would be 'trained' in the language of choice... a friend in the 70's got an advanced degree in Russian Lit... spoke Russian, etc... joined the Army, went to Monterey... was assigned to Korean Language School and spent his tour in Korea...
 
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Amr Rahmy said:
he was trying to clarify something to the over the top/(borderline insulting) generalizations that were made in this thread.
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If you were referring to my post, you never said which one, which is insulting in and of itself, is that I only know one person close to the region that might be able to help.


j1clark@ucsd.edu seems infinitaley more able to help than me. People here at dvx still surprise me with their knowledge.
 
Rosetta Stone really helped me to pick up some Turkish for a trip a while ago. It's mostly gone now, as I have never used it since, and I have a sieve for a memory centre. But you can try it for free, and the program focuses on conversational and practical skills.

Best of luck,
Craig
 
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