Indo-European · ISO 639-3 pbu
Northern Pashto Language
Northern Pashto is an Indo-European language spoken by about 21 million people in 3 countries. It is written in the Perso-Arabic script.
Where Northern Pashto is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Northern Pashto
No country-level speaker figures — see the map.
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Indo-Iranian
- Iranian-Nuristani
- Iranian
- Pashto
- Nuclear Pashto
- Northern Pashto
Writing system
Perso-Arabic script
Related languages
About the Northern Pashto language
Northern Pashto is spoken by about 21 million people, which makes it the 70th most spoken language in the world — just behind Marwari (India) (22 million) and ahead of Magahi (21 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Nuclear Pashto group within the Indo-Iranian branch.
Where is Northern Pashto spoken?
Northern Pashto is used in 3 countries.
Northern Pashto is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Northern Pashto is written in the Perso-Arabic script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Southern Pashto, Central Pashto, Iranian Persian, Northern Kurdish, Tajik, Central Kurdish and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 pbu.
Frequently asked questions about Northern Pashto
How many people speak Northern Pashto?
What language family does Northern Pashto belong to?
Is Northern Pashto an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.