Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 August 31

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 31

"Da" Afghanistan Bank

What does "da" mean in Da Afghanistan Bank (Pashto: د افغانستان بانک‎; Dari: بانک مرکزی افغانستان‎). "Central"? "The"? --Error (talk) 15:24, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the answer, Error, but wikt:د#Pashto says (under "Etymology 2")

Preposition
د • (dë)
of

--ColinFine (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense. Pashto grammar#Prepositions has

Mark possession e.g. د سړي لاس [A man's hand]

So it seems that Pashto puts noun phrases before their main nouns. However that article also says:

The salient exception to the head-final principle can be found in adpositional phrases, given the existence of prepositions, postpositions, and circumpositions

Resolved

--Error (talk) 15:50, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

My word that's quite a mouthful. I didn't know Robert John Gorham was a Pashtun. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)