Persian to Pashto: the familiar spelling ما does not always mean we
Read the target pronoun in its own system
Persian Online lists mā, written ما, as the first-person plural pronoun. In a Persian account it normally identifies the speaker together with others. The Pashto grammar documentation, however, lists ما, transcribed mâ there, as a first-person singular oblique form. A familiar spelling can therefore identify one person in the target rather than a source group.
This difference matters when reading the result of a Persian-to-Pashto translation. Seeing ما in the target is not sufficient evidence that the translator has retained a Persian we. Its interpretation must follow the Pashto construction. Conversely, a Persian group should not become one speaker merely because a shared-looking form seems convenient.
The oblique participant can act rather than receive the action
The Pashto documentation distinguishes active transitive nonpast and past patterns. In the past pattern, the actor has an oblique form and the verb agrees with the object. In the nonpast pattern, the subject is direct, with special oblique object forms for first- and second-person singular pronouns. A case label alone does not identify an object across those environments.
Robson and Tegey likewise explain that independent oblique pronouns can serve as present-tense objects, past-transitive actors and complements of adpositions. Their description confirms that a form associated with me is not restricted to receiving an action. In a past report, that participant can be responsible for doing it.
Persian Online makes a revealing contrast: man remains recognizable in man raftam, where the speaker went, and u man rā did, where somebody saw the speaker. The Persian distinction is expressed through the surrounding construction and rā rather than an equivalent direct-versus-oblique change of the independent first-person pronoun.
Do not let agreement change a group into its object
Suppose the Persian source reports that we saw somebody. The source group is doing the seeing; the person seen is its object. In a Pashto past-transitive construction, an ending related to that object does not mean that the source group stopped being the actor. Agreement and responsibility need separate interpretation.
The reverse practical problem occurs when a Persian first-person singular report receives a Pashto oblique actor. Reading the target form through Persian vocabulary could incorrectly suggest several speakers. This would change a personal account into a group account even though the Pashto form identifies one participant in the selected construction.
For this direction, establish the source count and roles before judging the target pronouns: one speaker or several, actor or affected participant, present or past construction. The shared spelling ما supplies a particularly concrete warning. A target form may be correct for one person while looking like the Persian word for a group, and an oblique actor can remain the person who performed the action.
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