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This article aims at dealing with the dawn of Pashto studies, from the first mention of this language, in the 16th century, till the first scientific treatises on Pashto grammar, literature and lexicology by Bernhard Dorn, published between 1840 and 1847. The questions this article tries to answer is: how was the documentation of Pashto collected? By whom? For which purpose? The aim of the following overview of all western authors who dealt with Pashto in the initial epoch is also to show how general knowledge increased more and more quickly with the military involvement in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Waziri dialect of the Pashto language, spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan, features a vowel shift with respect to other varieties of Pashto. Kieffer calls this process metaphony, but referring to it as a vowel shift facilitates comparison with similar phenomena in other languages. This shift involves three standard vowels, /ā/, /o/ and /u/, which in Waziri can shift to /o/, /e/ and /i/, respectively. We will discuss the phonetic processes involved, and find parallels in languages genetically near and far. In addition, we will discuss the status of the change, through the quantitative analysis of three geographically and chronologically separated glossaries (Lorimer, Hallberg, Septfonds). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]