According to data from the United Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), which is one of the
most authoritative sources, the population of Afghanistan in 2000 was
21.77 million
http://www.unescap.org/stat/statdata/afghanistan.pdf
Afghanistan has two official languages, Dari and Pashto. Here is some
information about them from the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights of the United Nations.
Dari: "an Indo-European language spoken by over 5 million people in
Afghanistan. Dari is a variety of Persian Farsi. It is taught in
schools and a standardised pronunciation of the literary language is
being promoted. Formal style is closer to Persian Farsi, whereas
informal style in some parts of Afghanistan is closer to Tajik of
Tajikistan."
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/prs1.htm
Pashto (Pushto, Pakhto are alternative names): "It belongs to the
Indo-European family, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranic group. Western
Pashto is the official language of Afghanistan, spoken by over 8
million people who are called "Pahtoon" in the north and "Pashtoon" in
the south. Since the early 1930's the Afghan government has been
making considerable efforts to standardise the language."
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/pbu.htm
Search strategies on Google: 1. Afghanistan + population + statistics
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Afghanistan+population+statistics
2. Afghanistan + "official language"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=Afghanistan+%22official+language%22 |