Pashto Problems III
Résumé
The present study discusses the borrowings from older Indo-Aryan — Sanskrit, Gandhari Prakrit and Proto-Dardic — and early New Persian that have entered the Pashto language. This is carried out through specific phonological features in Pashto that betray both the relative age and foreign character of the borrowing. In addition, the older loanwords provide us with some clues of the scale and nature of the historical contacts that the Pashto speakers enjoyed with culturally more advanced neighbours in the region that encompasses eastern Iran, Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.