Download or read book A Grammar of the Pukhto, Pushto, or Language of the Afghans written by H. G. Raverty and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-27 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Grammar of the Pukhto, Pushto, or Language of the Afghans: In Which the Rules Are Illustrated by Examples From the Best Writers, Both Poetical and Prose; Together With Translations From the Articles of War, and Remarks on the Language, Literature, and Descent of the Afghan Tribes In offering this Grammar of the Pushto to the Orientalist and the Student, as well as to those who may take an interest in the hardy, warlike, and independent race who speak the Afghan language, I deem it necessary to state, that the idea of the following pages originated in my being under the necessity of making a Grammar for my own convenience, during the years 1849 and 1850, when stationed at Peshawer with my Regiment, which formed part of the Bombay Division of the Army of the Panjab in the late campaign. Having a deal of leisure time on my hands, and imagining that by studying the peculiar and little known language of the Afghans, an Officer mi(ht be considered in some measure qualified for employment where the Pushto is spoken, I determined to try to acquire some knowledge of this dialect, the mastery of which had never been attempted, except by the late Major Leech, of the Bombay Engineers, and (as I have since found) Professor Bernhard Dorn, of St. Petersburgh. Unable to obtain or discover anything like a guide to the grammatical rules of the language, a matter to which the Afghans of the present day appear to have paid no attention, I commenced my studies with the poems of Mulla Æabdur-Rahman. I did not find them very difficult, or even so much so as I had expected; for I had the advantage - if such there be in knowing Oriental languages - of possessing some proficiency in Persian, and some acquaintance with Arabic and other tongues. Still there were difficulties to contend with; and I was obliged to make a sort of outline Grammar, which was filled in as I advanced, and examples compared and selected. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.