'gh' in Afghanistan

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>The "gh" in Afghanistan represents the Arabic/Persian letter "ghayn".

This letter is sometimes called an uvular fricative in Arabic, and
sometimes it may sound similar to French uvular "r" to Anglophones, I think.

The same letter appears in Persian and Pashto and Urdu. In Persian
apparently it is a voiced velar fricative but with variable devoicing
depending on phonetic environment and on speaker. The chief languages of
Afghanistan are apparently Dari (a variety of Persian) and Pashto. Pashto
and Urdu both apparently have the voiced velar fricative.

I suppose a Pakistani might be pronouncing the word as in Pashto or --
perhaps less likely -- as in Dari ... or maybe as in his own language,
which might be Punjabi or Urdu or Pashto or whatever.

-- Doug Wilson