په پښتو ادب کښي د تحقيق ارتقاي پلوُنه : عمومي جائزه Tracking back the footprints of Research in Pashto Literature: A historical analysis Section Pashto (پشتو)

Abstract

Literary Research has been integral to the national, cultural, and social histories of a particular language. Pashto is one of the top 50 languages of the world which has more than 50 million native speakers. Although the language has relied on the oral tradition and the written script, language codification has taken several centuries. The old Pashto script found in the books or inscriptions encompasses contrasting commentaries. The literary periods of Pashto literature reflect an incremental pattern of research. The ancient period which started in the mid-9th century AD provides footprints to track back the poetic and literary history. The second period also known as the classical period from the 16th to 19th century created a substantial corpus for research to be carried out in the following centuries. In the 20^th century, the tradition of literary research has formally evolved. During the first half of the 20^th century, the literary research has been led by individuals, in Afghanistan state patronage was instrumental to figure out research institutions that piloted literary research interventions. While the modern trends in research erupted in the second half of the 20th century in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This paper investigates the prospects of different academic and non-academic research endeavors in the course of history and analyses the features of research ventures in each of the said periods.