r/Pashtun

On bed at 1AM watching something in English, then stopped that and started listening to a Hindi song, and I swear my brain just can’t take it anymore.

I was born in Pakistan, then went back to Afghanistan and lived there for 7 years. Then moved to India to study, did my bachelors and masters there, then moved to Germany for work, then moved to the USA for a girl.

I’ve lived in all these places, learned their languages, tried to be one of them. I never wanted to be the black sheep. But now I feel like I’ve lost my identity. My food choices, music choices, clothes, hair, values, basically everything has turned into some freaking salad with no taste and no actual personality. Like I can literally eat anything now because my mouth has lost its taste buds and just gave up.

I don’t use social media much, but even the content I watch is so mixed. Rarely Afghan stuff. It’s all soccer, basketball, cricket, random politics from those countries, their humor, their culture. I’m not funny to any of them, but all of them are funny to me.

Sometimes I remember my mom saying “sang da jay khod sangeen” a stone is heavy in its own place. And damn, I feel that. I wish I belonged somewhere. I wish all the friends I made throughout my life could at least be in the same country so we could actually see each other. Everyone is scattered everywhere and I can barely keep in touch with anyone properly.

I got married into another culture too and that didn’t work out, now I’m going through divorce.

Sometimes I feel like writing a book about my life, but then I’m like wtf man, just have some peace in your head first before you start venting to the whole world about your personal issues.

Anyways, please tell me someone relates. Come on. Don’t tell me I’m unique lol. How does this affect your life? Is your Spotify or music app also shuffled with half a dozen languages and completely random vibes?

This is a question for lar pashtuns but bar pashtuns can also contribute.

How many of you are expected to learn/know urdu (if you don't already)?

Me personally, I don't know a lick of urdu and I wanna keep it that way. I'd rather learn more pashto dialects for the fun of it or arabic for religious/tourism reasons. I speak the afridi pashto dialect but can adapt my pashto depending on the person I'm speaking to (sometimes I speak the sha dialect to my southern friends).

My parents are trying to pressure me to learn urdu saying it's the country language but I just don't want to/ dont care to 😭. When I visit Pashtunkhwa, all my time is spent in rural village regions where urdu has no use.

Thoughts?

a friend of mine keeps telling me that the Peshawari dialect of Pashto is the purest and most authentic form of Pashto and she claimed that the Kandahari Pashto is too Farsi influenced . is this true ?

Assalamualaikum doston I'm from Karachi I'm from a very conservative Pukhtoon family but we don't speak Pashto, our ancestors migrated from Pukhtun belt to india a long time ago but through endagomy they managed to remain fully Pashtun, so guys I have ancestry from Ghilzai, Afridi and Yusufzai and whenever I meet a Pukhtoon they ask the same question why don't I speak Pashto since I look pretty Pashtun to them so I've decided I want to learn a bit of pashto so can you guys guide me some books, or videos etc?

im a pashtun girl (khattak, from karak) and im dealing with a really frustrating situation with my parents over marriage.

theres someone i like, hes also pashtun (wazir from north waziristan), and when i told my parents i wanted to marry him they shut it down immediately. they didnt even try to hear me out, didnt ask about his character, his family, nothing. they were more focused on the fact that i liked someone without their involvement and kept saying i went behind their backs.

when i said i have a right to choose my partner, they were like fine, go do a court marriage then, but dont come to us for anything and dont expect support when it fails. they also started saying negative things about wazirs as a whole and that i dont understand because i grew up in the west.

what makes it worse is how inconsistent this feels. my uncle married outside our tribe (his wife is mohmandzai) and everyone accepted it. my brother is also married to an afridi and no one made it about tribe. so it really feels like its not about tribe at all, its about the fact that i chose someone myself and im a girl.

they even gave me these options: either stay in their house for the rest of my life and grow old, go marry him without their acceptance, or marry someone of their choice.

i dont want to go against my family, but i also dont think this is fair. has anyone been in a similar situation? how did you deal with it, and is there any way to get parents to at least hear you out?

I’m Mangal from Paktia I just want to ask what does the Mangal dialect sound like to you guys? Is it good or bad? Some Pashtuns don’t understand us when we speak in our dialect because they don’t recognize some of our words

I’m curious if any other Pashtuns with the khan surname heard this growing up. I’m half Pashtun from my dad’s side as he is from Buner. Growing up when people knew I was a khan they’d always say khan is Pathan which I found weird because not every khan is necessarily a Pashtun.

Edit: I am well aware that Pashtuns are not called pathans but I am using the word Pathan to provide context as that’s what I’ve been called

Many people ask, what's famous in Swabi? but every time I fail to answer him, So tell me if anyone is from Swabi and know the famous things of Swabi.