REPORT ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF
UNITED NATIONS ROMANIZATION SYSTEMS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
Compiled by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems
Version 4.0, March 2016

Pashto

No romanization system for Pashto (Afghan) has been approved at the United Nations conferences on the standardization of geographical names.

Pashto uses a Perso-Arabic script that is written from right to left. As in Arabic and Persian, vowels are marked only sporadically to indicate pronunciation, otherwise they are omitted.

System of romanization

The BGN/PCGN 1968 System gives the following romanization:

1	ا	-A
2	ب	b
3	پ	p
4	ت	t
5	ټ	ṯ
6	ث	s̄
7	ج	j
8	چ	ch
9	څ	ts
10	ځ	dzB
11	ح	ḩ
12	خ	kh
13	د	d
14	ډ	ḏ
15	ذ	z̄
16	ر	r
17	ړ	ṟ
18	ز	z
19	ژ	zh
20	ږ	z͟h
21	س	s
22	ش	sh
23	ښ	s͟h
24	ص	ş
25	ض	ẕ
26	ط	ţ
27	ظ	z̧
28	ع	‘
29	غ	gh
30	ف	f
31	ق	q
32	ک	k
33	ګ	gC
34	ل	l
35	م	m
36	ن	n
37	ڼ	ṉ
38	و	w
39	ه	h
40	ى (ي)	y

• ^A Not romanized, but see romanizations accompanying alip (ا) in the table for vowels.
• ^B This character is sometimes also seen as ج with a dot above (ج۟).
• ^C This character is also written as گ.

Vowel characters and diacritical marks (ب stands for any consonant)

1	بَ	a
2	بَا	ā
3	بِ	i
4	بِى	ī
5	بِي	ī
6	بَىْ	ay
7	ې	ē
8	بَو	aw
9	بَاو	āw
10	بٙ	ê
11	ۍ	êy
12	ٸ	êy
13	بُ	u
14	بُو	ū
15	بُوْ	ow
16	بُوى	ūy
17	بَاى	āy
18	آ	ā
19	ء	’
20	بّ	(A)
21	ىٰ	á

• ^A Doubling of consonant letter.

Note. For specific romanization rules of Alīf, Hamzah and other elements see the original BGN/PCGN System.