H. G. Raverty (1825–1906)

An interesting historical grammar of Pashto, historical in the sense of having being written in 1880 by H. G. Raverty, a Major in the Bombay Native Infantry. It has a most eclectic set of texts, partly consisting of the author's own translations into Pashto of Aesop's Fables, partly of Pashto proverbs. The Pashto text is all in transliteration, though the alphabet is briefly introduced. While of historical interest, it is not a good place to start modern Pashto. The series of textbooks show more (_Beginning Pashto_ and _Intermediate Pashto_), readers and dictionary produced for the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) by Habibullah Tegey and Barbara Robson and freely available from the US Government's ERIC website are a far better starting place. show less

Not a primer of Pashto, of which it requires considerable prior knowledge. The translated Pashto tales in the Appendix are entertaining, and there are, no doubt many jewels among the examples cited from the poets Raverty translated in his _Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans_.