Pashto celebrities involved in the showbiz industry took advantage of their fame to try and gain political mileage in Pakistan. Musarrat Shaheen, a famous actress who has acted in 101 Pashto films, 23 Urdu films and 22 Punjabi films, formed her own political party, Tehrik-e-Musawaat, so as to contest in the 2013 Pakistani elections. She had also contested in the 2008 elections but she lost to Maulana Fazlur Rahman. Gulab Chandio, is also an actor who is running as an independent candidate in the 2013 elections. He previously contested in the 1993 elections but lost. Abrarul Ha is a famous singer who launched his political career in 2011. He contested in the 2013 Pakistan elections on a Tehrik-e-Insaaf ticket.
Pashto is an Indo-Iranian language that is spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. There are 3 different varieties of Pashto. These are Northern and Central Pashto, which are spoken in Pakistan and Southern Pashto, which is spoken in Afghanistan. The estimated number of Pashto speakers ranges between 45million to 55 million people. Pashto is a native language to about 40%-55% of the total population in Afghanistan. 10%-28% of people in Afghanistan also speak it as a second language. Pashto speakers can also be found in Tajikistan, Iran, India, United Arab Emirates, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Qatar, Japan, Russia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia. The contact the language has had with other languages has resulted words being borrowed from other languages. This includes the Greek language, Persian, Saka and Perthian.
Pashto is written using the Pashto alphabet, which was derived from the Persian alphabet and the Arabic alphabet. It first appeared in writing during the 16th century. There are 2 standard writing systems for Pashto. One writing system is based on the Kandahar dialect, while the other writing system is based on the Peshawar dialect. Pashto is the most popular English spelling of the language, but the language can also be spelled as Pakhto, Pukhto and Pushto. Pashto is sometimes referred to as Afghani and Pathani. The Pashto language descended from Avestan, which is an old Iranian language.
