Quetta, city (1998 pop. 560,307), capital of Baluchistan prov., W central Pakistan, at an altitude of c.5,500 ft (1,675 m), ringed by mountains. Deriving its name from the Pashto word kawkot [...

The Indo-European Family of LanguagesSubfamilyGroupSubgroupLanguages and Principal Dialects* Asterisk indicates a dead language.AnatolianHieroglypic Hittite*, Hittite (Kanesian)*, Luwian*, Lyc...

Kandahar or Qandahar, city (1989 est. pop. 203,000), capital of Kandahar prov., S Afghanistan. The country's second largest city and chief trade center, Kandahar is a market for sheep, wool, c...

Pathans, group of seminomadic peoples consisting of more than 60 tribes, numbering approximately 10 million in Pakistan and 6 million in Afghanistan, where they form the dominate ethnic group ...

Arabic languages, members of the West Semitic group of the Semitic subdivision of the Afroasiatic family of languages (see Afroasiatic languages). The Arabic languages comprise North Arabic (o...

Indo-Iranian, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by more than a billion people, chiefly in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka (see The...

Afroasiatic languages, formerly Hamito-Semitic languages, family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people in N Africa; much of the Sahara; parts of E, central, and W Africa; and W A...

Afghanistan, officially Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, republic (2005 est. pop. 29,929,000), 249,999 sq mi (647,497 sq km), S central Asia. Afghanistan is bordered by Iran on the west, by Pa...

Pakistan, officially Islamic Republic of Pakistan, republic (2005 est. pop. 162,420,000), 310,403 sq mi (803,944 sq km), S Asia. Pakistan is bordered by India on the east, the Arabian Sea on t...