<h2>Pashto interpreters and translators</h2>
            CIT offers Pashto interpreters and translators with legal, medical and specialty experience, including criminal and civil matters, employee meetings, engineering, patent cases, labor disputes, immigration and more.

            Although based in Los Angeles, CIT offers comprehensive Pashto language services including interpretation, translation and transcription, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, worldwide. Our interpreters and translators are native speakers who have been screened, certified, have provided credentials, field tested, and kept up to date with developments in both English and the Pashto language through means such as lectures, conferences, and travel. CIT’s Pashto language interpreters and translators possess in depth knowledge of the Pashto language, as well as of the culture and history of the Pashto people, allowing them to provide informed and complete interpretation and translation.
            <h2>The Pashto Language</h2>
            The Pashto language, or Pukhto, is an Eastern Iranian language belonging to the Indo-European language family. It is also known as Afghani or Pathani. Those who speak the language are sometimes referred to as Pashtuns, Pakhtuns, Pathans or Afghans. There are about 55 million native Pashto speakers worldwide. Pashto, along with Dari, is the official language of Afghanistan and became the official language in 1936 by King Zahir Shah. It is also spoken in Pakistan and is the second-largest regional language of the country. Additionally, there are smaller communities of Pashto speakers in Iran, Tajikistan, the UAE and the UK.
            <h2>Origins of the Pashto Language</h2>
            There are debates as to where Pashto originated from. There are many commonalities with other languages such as Greek, Saka, Parthia and Persian along with some Indian languages such as Prakrits, Balochi and Sindhi. In Pashto, there are about 5,500 loanwords. There are two main dialects in the Pashto language: southern (more ancient <em>sh</em> and <em>zh</em> sounds) and northern (<em>kh</em> and <em>gh</em> sounds). Central Pashto is another, less popular dialect spoken primarily in Pakistan.
            <h2>Grammar and Literature of Pashto</h2>
            The grammar and literature of the Pashto language can be quite similar to Hindi. In Pashto, pronouns come after the adjective. The verb will agree with the subject in transitive and intransitve tenses. The Pashto language is written in the Naskh Arabic alphabet, although it is modified slightly. The Pashto alphabet has forty-four letters as opposed to standard Arabic, which only has twenty-eight letters.

            The earliest form of recorded Pashto literature was poetry. Mohammad Hotak composed a text titled <em>Pata Khazana </em>(1728-1729), “The Hidden Treasure.” It was a collection of Pashto poetry from the 700s to the mid-18<sup>th</sup> century. Khushhal Khan Khatak was known as the national poet of Afghanistan, living from 1613-1694. He wrote powerful, yet impulsive poetry with a lot of charm. Several years later, his grandson, Afzal Khan, was a well-respected and known author of the history of Pashtun. Other than this, the Pashtuns are well known for their oral literature, including stories and poems that were passed down from generation to generation through rich storytelling.