In an interview on The Khyber Pass

The final book you chose, The Languages of the World by Kenneth Katzner, is a 400-page volume containing information about 600 of the world’s languages, as well as a country-by-country survey of the principal languages and numbers of people who speak them. I understand that it was written with the non-specialist in mind, but it still sounds rather daunting. How would you encourage people to read it?

Actually I wouldn’t say that it’s daunting because it’s a one-volume reference work set out in a very user-friendly way. Outside of a heavy volume of linguistics, it is the best way of understanding the connections between different languages. It might seem a slightly odd book to include, but the reason I did so is because it was incredibly useful when I was trying to understand the movement of people. And while I was obviously interested in particular areas, it covers the whole world.

Are there many different languages spoken in the Khyber region because so many people have passed through it over the ages?

Not really. Certainly lots of people have passed through – the Moguls, the Sikhs, the Persians – many, many different peoples. But the dominant language there is Pashto. And obviously as it close to Peshawar, there is a lot of Urdu, and the Afghan version of Persian, which is Dari.