An Old Phonological Study of New Persian and Balochi

Hamid Ali Baloch*
Dr. Abdul Saboor Baloch†
Dr. Bilal Ahmed‡

ABSTRACT
The Balochi language is one of the ancient languages, which belongs to the Iranian branch of Indo-European family. This language has a very deep-rooted history and similarities with the Sanskrit, Avesta, Old Persian and Pahlavi (which are now considered as dead languages). These languages flourished side by side for thousands of years and the concerned language did not let itself dead because of its enrichment and nomadic environment. Balochi is currently spoken in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, the Arab Gulf States, Turkmenistan, east Africa and some Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Norway. The aim of this paper is to show the differences between the new Persian and the Balochi languages and to clear the misunderstandings of those writers who have considered the Balochi language as a contemporary of the new Persian. In this paper phonetics and the phonological basis of the Balochi language will be discussed to prove that the Balochi language has a long history of approximately 5000-6000 years. As far as, the Persian language concerns, the evolutionary changes and the changes of phonetics, the phonetically variations will be mentioned that which language (Persian or Balochi) is most affected. References from different sources will be given to eliminate the misunderstandings of those so-called linguists who not lingual approach to the Persian and the Balochi languages. Different epoch will be mentioned to prove the internal changes of both languages.

INTRODUCTION
The origin of the Balochi language was an enigma* for the linguists before one and a half century and the Balochi language has been considered as a dialect of the Persian language. These concepts took place when the British Imperialists captured the Baloch land for the political and financial interests. A.W. Hughes was the first man among the British colonial Generals who directly raised hands towards the Balochi language without a lingual approach of both Persian and the Balochi languages, considered the Balochi as a dialect of the New Persian.
This is also a prevailing concept in Persia and majority of the Persian net sites are in the view that Balochi has not its own existence and history, except a dialect of the Persian.
But the development and analyses of the modern linguistics and lingual researches showed that these ideas were fake, counterfeit and unacceptable.
Approximately, all linguists are agreeing on the point that the Balochi language belongs to the Iranian Branch of Indo- European family, which has a very long and deep-rooted history.
Joseph Elfenbein inscribes that the Balochi language belongs to the eastern group of the Iranian languages like Parthian and Arsacid Pahlavi. Ancestor of the Balochi language was neither Parthian nor Middle Persian ( Sasanid Pahlavi), but a lost language which thus while sharing a number of characteristic features with either, some with both, had a pronounced individuality of his own. This language may have been a variety of Median speech since the Kurdish dialects, which have a noteworthy affinity with Balochi are to be traced, in Minorasky’s opinion, to the ancient Median (Josef. Ency: Vol-1: 1960).
Another European linguist T.A Mayer who has a wide grip over the Iranian languages had been confirmed this statement before Josef Elfenbein that the Balochi to be the remnants of the Medians or the ancient west Iranians,
whose language bears signs of affinity to the language of the Medes (Mengal: 1988:8)
The later scholars and linguists approved it. In 1925, Robert Gilbertson found certain affinities between Kurdish and Balochi but Tedesco carried a vast research on the Iranian dialects in 1921. He places Balochi in the center of western Iran or Zagros range, but Longworth Dames refers to the abode of it to be around the Caspian coasts (Cosa-bir, a Baloch tribe). Tedesco, however, puts pre-Balochi among the North Western dialects of Iran, including the present Caspian dialects. Mackenzie in 1961 also places the Balochi in Central West Iran (Windfuhr: Isogloses:458).
Dr. G.L Windfuher writes, sketch of Persia and Parthians; Kurds and Medes and adds Kurdish shares a number of features with the Median band of dialects. However, it also exhibits a cluster of innovations and lexical items which it shares with a dialect group now adjacent to Kurdish, namely, Persian and Baloch (Windfuhr: Isogloses. P. 458). K. Mason writes that Balochi is another Aryan language of akin to the Old Persian, Old Arian, Achaemanid and Median (Masson: 1945: 325).
No doubt, Balochi stands closer to the Achaemanid, the court language of the Achaemanid King who spoke Persian at home and also shared features with the Avesta dialect of Median language, the one in the Gathaas or Hymns of secret Knowledge, called “Gat” in Balochi ( Mengal: 1988:11). None of the above-mentioned linguists declared Balochi as a dialect, even the contemporary of the Persian language, but akin of the Old languages such as Old Persian, Avesta and Sanskrit. The supposed linguists differentiated the Balochi language with New Persian by studying the phonetics, semantics, etymology and grammar. Balochi has a lot of phonetic differences, which even not match with the new Persian, but a great similarity with Old Persian, because it flourished at the same time, in the same region. Being the Akins of each other, it is a real fact that there will be a little bit lexical influences or similarities in the concerned languages.

Phonological Changes:
The linguists have deeply studied the phonological differences between the new Persian and the Balochi language, and proved that both languages have a lot of Phonetic variations. In this context, Professor Khalil Saddiqui mentions that Balochi language has a Phonetical similarity with the Sanskrit. It has also maintained it’s Avestan and Pahlavi Phonemes and the phonemes have been themselves in the New Persian. He further adds, that phonetically the Balochi language, somehow near similarity with the Avestan and on the other hand, it also relates a little bit with Pahlavi. The palatal voices in the Balochi and Pahlavi languages are same and still maintained their positions, but these phones and phonemes have been changed in the New Persian.
For example, the words, Rōč and Rōčan are still in its concerned form in the Balochi but changed its shape into Rōz and Rōzan in the New Persian .Balochi has not even been changed the unvoiced phonemes, but in the new Persian the case is different , it has changed the unvoiced phones into the voiced from. The word Zāt, Kurt have been converted into zād and Kard; āp, šap, and dāt converted into āb, šap and dād in the new Persian, but the Balochi did not break up its kinship with the Pahlavi and Avesta but phonetically made its relationships strong with the said languages.
He further adds that Balochi might be older than newer and may be the contemporary of the Pahlavi language (Siddiqi: 2001 :202-203).
Agnes Korn adds a new point about the classical approach of the Balochi language among the other Iranian languages, she mentions that “Balochi is of particular importance for the study of the history of the Iranian languages since (in contrast to all other modern Iranian languages) it directly reflects the old Iranian consonants in all position of the word. Although the remarkable archaicity noted by Geiger might be the result of somewhat more complex processes than hitherto assumed, Balochi is a key witness for the reconstruction of earlier stages of the Iranian languages for which the evidence often scares or difficult to interpret. Among the contemporary Iranian languages, Balochi occupies and important place, as the area where it is spoken is comparatively large and the number of its speakers comparatively high. A further interesting point is that the Balochi lexicon as well as its historical phonology reflects with a variety of neighboring languages. (Korn: 2005:7)
It’s clear to note that the Persian language has changed its phonological, morphological and even the lexical structures since centuries ago. Thousands of years before the Persian language was known as the Pārsī ay bāstān (Old Persian), the language of Cyrus the Great.*
At that time, the Persian was in its purified form, but when the time passed simultaneously and the rulers came one after another to occupy the seats of the Kingdom, the process overthrew a major effect on the Persian language. The Old Persian appeared in the shape of Pahlavi after five centuries to the Iranian subjects, and it was adopted as the court or official language of the Iranian Kings.
The catastrophic change in the Pahlavi* language takes place, when the Caliph Umar manages an expedition to Iran by his commander Abu Musa Ash’ari†. When is Iran is conquered in the era of the caliph Umar, the Arabic language became the official language of the Iranian masses and it engulfed the Persian language in all aspects. It’s interesting to note that the major phonological change occurs at the said time. Even the proverbs, idioms and structure of sentences have been changed.‡
In the early years of the twentieth century the passions of patriotism and love to the Persian language stimulated a prejudice against the Arabic language and once again a movement of purification was started by some Iranian linguists. Pur Daud was one of the key figures among them, who led the movement in the name of “Pārsī ay bāstān” with his nearest companions. The aims and objectives of this movement were to eliminate the Arabic words, purify the language in its old form such as the Old Persian. But his language purification movement became unsuccessful because of his extreme linguistic views. He was condemned by the other Iranian linguists throughout Iran. On the one hand Mirza Muhammad Khan gave him the title of “extremist” and on the other hand, the words of French, German and English languages were Persianized simultaneously. So, this movement took his last breath and could not succeed it from the influence of other languages till now, and this process led the Persian language to another way e.g. This changed its structure (Siddiqi: 2001:202-203)
Beside, the Balochi language has not lost its original form and after thousands of years, it has fully maintained its old linguistic structure, but somehow, because of mass migration through different communities the Balochi language has adopted a little bit sounds i.g. ţ, ŗ and Ď,* which are basically the Indian sounds.
A comparative of sketch of the Old Iranian sounds:
It is interesting to note that Balochi is the only language in the Iranian region, which has preserved its old Iranian sounds, but the other languages like Kurdi, Persian, Pashtu Luri and Saghdi have lost the sounds of their parent languages. A small comparative sketch of the Old Iranian sound is given here to specify that how Balochi has been preserved its old sounds.
The sound of OIr. Č (Korn:2005:84)
♦ Bal. čar (r) “turn/move” ( AV. čara- “move”- Parth. Čar “graze”†
♦ Bal. gičin‡ “select” (Av. Vī-činao-) NP- guzīn/ guzīd, Parth. wižīn-/ wižīdｧ, wižīdｧ, Balo. Rōč “day” (Av. rōčah) and the NP. Rōz.
Here we see that how the new Persian its original sound. The sound of Old Persian “č” is being converted into “z” but the Balochi has sustained it till today. Ĵ (Korn: 2005: 86)
Some examples of the Balochi and Olr sound č “چ”are as follows which have changed themselves into z”ز”. Sūčin(سوچن ), ey rōč(اے روچ ), dōč(دوچ ),pač(پچ ),pačag(پچگ ), tāč(تاچ ) and rōčag(روچگ ) have been changed phonetically as sōzan(سوزن ), imrōz(امروز ), dōz(دوز ), paz(پس ), paza(پسہ ), tāz(تاز ) and rōza(روزہ ) in persian.
The sound of Old Iranian Ĵ is converted in z in the new Persian. According to Grunburg the age of Ĵ is *older than the sound of z.

♦ jan-† / jat “strike” (Av. Jan-, Np zan-/ zad, Parth žan-/ žad), jan “woman, wife”(Av. Jinni-, NP- zan
♦ bōj- “open” (buj, MP boz-/ bōxt, Parth.bōž‡-/ bōxt “save”), raj- “colour”(NP “colour”(NP raz-/ rašt) drāĵ and in NP dirāz.
The OIr Z(Korn:2005:88)
♦ Zān- “know”(Av. Zanā-, NP dān-/dānist, Parth. Zān/ zānād), zāmāt “son-in-law”(Av. Zāmātār-, NP dāmād);mazan “big”(Av. Maz-, MPM mazan “monster”, OInd. Mahant-),mēz “urinate”(Av. maēza§-, NP mēz/ mēzīd.
OIr. I ( Korn: 2005:141)
♦ išt “brick” (Av. Ištiia-, NP xišt
♦ pit”father” (Av. Pitar-, NP pidar, Prth.pid (ar) Sans.pita
Olr. T”ت” changes itself in d”د” in the new persian(Moosa Mahmoodzahi 1370H:33)
♦ āzāt “ free, liberated” (Av. Āzāta- NP āzād )
♦ māt “mother”(Av.mātar-, OP mātar, Sans. Māta** , NP mādar).
♦ zūt “speed, haste”(Av. Zūt-Pah. Zūt, NP- zūd
♦ palīt “impure, comtaminated ” Pah,OP- palīt, Pah- palīt, Av. Palīt, NP- palīd

The new Persian has lost the old Avestan and Old Persian clusters which are the signs of the oldness of the Iranian languages. Whether Sanskrit is considered to be the langue of Indo-Aryan language and it has very near kinship to the Old Persian Avestan and the Balochi languages. The cluster
sounds “granč/ ōšt*” of Sanskrit, Avesta and Balochi are mostly same. For instance, the clusters bra-, tra-, sra-, gra,- kra- and such like other clusters are the same morphologically and phonologically. These cluster sounds are found in the Vedas and in the Avestan sacred books†. The clustered words like, brā-t, krā-m, dra-hmadān, gwam, gwaz‡ and thousand of other clustered clustered words are found in the Balochi language which specifies the old sounds of the Iranian region.

CONCLUSION:
A thorough phonological study showed that the Balochi language still keeps a vast place in the Old Iranian languages. The Balochi language preserved its old sounds what its contemporary languages could carry it on. The languages like Medi, Old Persian, Parthian , Sanskrit and Avestan languages which were considered to be the language of religions and officials in the courts of kings in different eras of the history. Being in the strong safeguard and protection they cannot preserve themselves in the pages of history. By the passage of time when the kingdoms collapsed the said languages already started declining simultaneously. Regarding to the new Persian language it lost its old shape and as it has mentioned before that after conquering the Persian region the Arabic language laid a strong effect on the Persian language.
Balochi is the only language which has maintained its original form and the Old Iranian sounds. It has been said that it has lost a little bit sound and adopted some Indian sounds like Sindhi and Lehindaｧ.
As it has been mentioned that the Balochi is the only survived language in the region and if someone wants to study the historical background of the Old Iranian languages he has to study the Balochi language**.
Some writers in the British era misunderstood the Balochi language and interpreted as the dialect of the Persian language but the modern research and linguists concluded that the modern Persian is itself lost away its original phonological and morphological structures.

References:

* Lecturer, Departmanet of Balochi, University of Balochistan, Quetta.

† Assistant Professor and Chairperson, Department of Balochi, University of
Balochistan, Quetta.

‡ Chairperson Department of Persian Universiy of Balochistan, Quetta

*The writers who worked on the Balochi language during the British era in the Indian subcontinent could not differentiate the Balochi language to the Persian language, because most of them were not linguists.

* Cyrus the Great is known as Kōryūš e Azam in the Persian history. He defeated the Medes king and maintained the Old Persian language as the official language of his court. He was the first king or ruler who expanded the boundaries of his kingdom from Persia to the Greece.

* Pahlavi is basically called the Middle Persian and most of the Persian intellectuals are in views that language of Šāhnāmeh Firdōsī is Pahlavi but there are some confusion concerning to the Pahlavi word.some say that the word “Pahlavi” was the name of a city in Iran which meant “Cantonment or Army”. In this regard the great poet Firdōsī mentions in his book:
Za pahlav barūn raft Kaūs Šāh
Za harsū hamē gašt gard e sipāh
Firdōsī further mentions that this was the language of Pahlavans (inherited singers), who used to sing different songs in the courts of kings.
Agar pahlavani nadānī zubā
Bitāzī tū arwandrā Dajlw xwā
Nizami converys a different message about the name Pahlavi and says that Pahlavi is the name of a musical mode.
Bahar ē ganjiš ču pidaram kard
Ba pahlav zubāniš harē nām kard
For further details see (Muhammad Hussain Azad. 1988:143-147).

† Abu Mūsa Aš’arī was one of the key commanders of the muslim army in the battle of Qadissiyya. He was sent to the Baloch Sardar and commander Siyahsawar ( known as Al-Dissawar in the Arbian History), to reconciliate upon some strategic issues against the Persian army. Aš’arī along with the Baloch army assaulted the Persian throne and occupied the Iranian region. This was a good omen for the Arabs and Islam and this was the time when the Arabic language started penetrating in the core of Persian language and engulfed it.

‡ For further details see the poetry of Sheikh Sadi and Hafiz and the contemporary Persian poets and prose-writers.

* Most of the linguists favor this idea that all the Iranian languages have not the sound of ţ,ŗ and Ď, basically these sounds are found in indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and new indo- Aryan languages, such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Lehinda , Marhathi and others etc. such sounds are also found in the Pushto language but actually Pashto has also taken these sounds from Indian languages by mass migration through the indo- subcontinent.

† Basically čarr and čar both words are found in the Balochi language in the whole dialects. The meaning of čar is same as in the Parthian.

‡ Korn has taken reference of this word from Mocker. The real pronunciation of this word is gičēn which means “select or purify”.

ｧ The Parthian sound ž is also found in the eastern hill dialect of the Balochi language (see details in the book of Josef “Balochi language, a dialectology with texts). The word “gōžd- meat” specifies the Parthian sound. Balochi thus corresponds to the Early Parthian stage with regard to word- internal č ( Korn:2005: 86)
* For details see monthly gwānk ( Baloch: 2009:Balōčī o Fārsī e rājdaptarī arzišt)

† Jan is used for both noun and verb. In the eastern dialect of the Balochi language jan means means “to strike” but in the western dialects of the Balochi language the verb form is “janag”. For example ā janagā int (he is striking) etc.

‡ The word bōž has the similar sound and meaning in the eastern dialect of the Balochi language and the Parthian language.

ｧ The Avestan word maēza is very near to the Balochi verb mēzag phonologically and morphologically.

** The Sanskrit sound of māta is very near and similar to the Balochi word māt morphologically and phonologically. The above-mentioned word pita of the Sanskrit is structurally same to the Balochi language.

* The word ōšt was used for cluster in the Balochi language by Sayad Zahoor Shah Hashmi and the word granč used by a small group of literary men in Turbat which not yet been accepted by the total literary men of the Balochi Literature.

† See further details (Baloch: monthly Gwānk Jan, Balōčī o Sanskrit e hamgōnagī).

‡ These sounds are only found in the Sanskrit, Avesta and the Balochi languages not any other new Iranian languages.

ｧ The Saraiki language which was firstly mentioned by William Jones in his book, the linguistic survey of India and after that the later writers adopted the same word for Saraiki.
** See Korn 2005 introduction of her PhD thesis

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Elfenbein, Josef: The Balochi Language: A Dialectology with Texts
2. Mengal, Mir Aqil Khan: 1990, A Persian-Pahlavi and Balochi Vocabulary, Vol. 1, Balochi Academy, Quetta.
3. Gilbertson, Gorge Waters English-Baloch・colloquial dictionary: Ghāno Khān (Haddiānī.), Haddiānī Ghāno Khān – 1925 – Volume 2.
4. Korn, Agnes: 2005. Towards a Historical Grammar of the Balochi Grammar, A Phonology and Vocabulary,
5. Siddiqui, Khalil Ahmad. ” Zubān kyā hae” Bacon Books, Gulgasht Multan 2nd Edition.
6. Windfuhr, Dr. G.L: 1975. “Isoglosses: A Sketch on Persians and Parthians, Kurds and Medes”,.
7. Masson, Charles: 1844. Narrative Of Various Journeys In Balochistan Afghanistan The Panjab And Kalat Vol IV.__

 

Socio-linguistic Contact and the Providence of the Balochi Language in Modern Times

Hamid Ali Baloch٭
Lecturer, Department of Balochi
University of Balochistan

Abstract:
The Balochi language is spoken in many countries of the world and it has socio-linguistic contacts with the other native languages. In the modern times, Balochi is to contact with Persian, Arabic, Pashto, Turkmen, Sindhi, Punjabi, Saraiki (Lahinda), English and other European and African languages. At the same time, the Balochi language has been influenced on the one hand and on the other hand Balochi has influenced other languages and assimilated them within it. But Balochi has been largely influenced in Iran, Afghanistan, and in the Arab countries. In Pakistan and Turkmenistan the case is different. In many areas in Balochistan, the foreigners and other native speakers have changed their language into Balochi or bilingual.

Introduction:
The linguistic outcomes of language contact are determined in large part by the history of social relations among populations, including economic, political and demographic factors. The crucial point here, almost too obvious perhaps to merit stating, is that languages spoken by bilinguals are often altered such that ensuing changes differ from the results of internal processes of change within monolingual speech communities. In other words, languages spoken by bilinguals affect each other in a different ways. 1
Language contacts have, historically, taken place in large part under conditions of social inequality resulting from wars, conquests, colonialism, slavery, and migrations–forced and otherwise. Comparatively, benign contacts involving urbanization or trade as a contact stimulus are also documented, as are some situations of relative equality.
Language contacts have in some times and places been short-lived, with language loss and assimilation a relatively short-term result, whereas other historical situations have produced relative long-term stability and acceptance by the bi- or multilingual population.
Very broadly speaking, two major social processes have given rise to contact situations of interest to linguists: conquest and immigration. The imposition of a language of wider communication has occurred both as a result of conquest per se, and in the establishment of standard languages via institutions like universal elementary education, where local populations have been transformed into linguistic minorities in a broader political unit. In the case of a local linguistic group that has been conquered or surrounded by a larger group, slow language shift may mean many generations of bilinguals, providing ample opportunity for substratum influence to become established in the language towards which the community is shifting.
Historically, many conquered or colonized peoples, or those who have found themselves newly incorporated in a nation state, have felt the linguistic effects of these social changes only very slowly, giving rise to language contacts that have endured over decades, generations, or even centuries. These situations of stable bilingualism are perhaps the most likely of all to lead to what Weinreich called “integration”: the acceptance of structures due to interference as part of the receiving language, and even to structural convergence and the Sprachbund phenomenon recognized in many parts of the world.
With the obvious exemption of those situations where the death of an a language, language death is the conclusion of a process whereby a speech community moves from a primary use of one language to another in a process that is known as language shift.

Socio-linguistic contact and the Balochi Language:
In the modern times the Balochi language is in contact with different languages in different countries. As it is a natural phenomena that the languages which are in contact with other languages in the same country or state, occasionally enrich the languages vice versa, but sometimes there will be possibilities to lose their own identity. In case of the Balochi language, it is confronting a miserable situation in the countries where it is spoken. The ruling governments of different countries never proposed to teach, promote and preserve the Balochi language in their own countries, where the Balochi is spoken in a vast majority area.
This phenomena or policy of the governments has worsened the linguistic position of the Balochi language in different neighboring countries. In the past and even today, the situation is the same.

Socio-linguistic contact with the Sindhis:
In the modern times, 60 percent of the population of the Sindh Province is racially Baloch; out of which 40-45% Baloch speak their mother tongue. The Baloch settlement in the Province of Sindh is not new, but back dates to the Muslim era in Sindh. The Baloch people, according to some historians, were the key commanders in the Muslim army of Muhammad bin Qasim ( the Muslim commander and the nephew of Hajjaj bin Yousuf Athaqafi) when they attacked Sindh especially, the port of Debal to revenge the pirates who abducted some Muslim women and children. From that day, Baloch settled in the different parts of Sindh, which was then part of the Great Hindu Kingdom. 1٭
According to Dr. Shah Muhammad Marri, an eminent Baloch writer and historian, describes that the Baloch are one of the ancient settlers of the Sindh region. He opines that, the remnants of the Mehr Gahr Civilization show that the Baloch has been the part and parcel of this civilization, which has about 7000 years estimated history. 2٭
In Pakistan, the majority of the Baloch Population is living in the Province of Sindh and shares a good relation with Sindhis. The eminent tribes of the Sindh province are considered as Baloch.
The Shar Baloch is a sub-branch of the Jatoi tribe living in the different parts of Sindh, their women dress in Balochi embroidered garments, same to the Baloch of the different of parts of Balochistan. They have maintained their cultural norms and values, in their homes as well as in the public places. Men having traditional beards (as they had kept centuries before), but they speak the Sindhi language at home as well as in the market places.. The Kosh Baloch tribe is living at Gotki, their cultural norms and values, and psyche is totally Baloch, but they speak Sindhi at home as well as in public places. 3٭
Another well-known tribe which is known as Pitāfi, inhabiting at Ghotki and Sukkar, still preserves its language. Some of the people are in opinion that 50-60% masses of this tribe have preserved its language, but the remaining 40% speaks Saraiki (Lahinda), instead of Sindhi. Lund tribe also occupies a vast area of Sindh Province, and inhabiting different parts of it. This tribe has also preserved 50% of its language. Apart from this, a large number of Lunđ clan who are believed to be the primitive inhabitants of Yārā Lunđ Ghoţki, out of whom 50 percent of them speak Balochi and 50 percent has lost their language, who by now speak the Sindhi language. Whether, Legharis are residing in Sindh and Sindhi Speaking areas but mostly they speak Balochi and a small number of them speak Saraiki than that of Sindhi.
In 1843, when Charles Napier conquered Sind the Baloch tribe of Talpurs was ruling the whole Sindh area. The Talpurs had seized the powers from the Kalhoras in 1783. The court language of Sindh was Persian and somehow Sindhi.
In 1847, R. K Pringle, the Commissioner of Sindh, submitted a report on the language situation in Sindh to George Russell Clerk, Governor of Bombay, suggesting that education may be encouraged in the local language. He writes ” it may also be for consideration whether the vernacular language of the people may not with advantage be introduced in business; but I have not yet had and opportunity of ascertaining its capabilities for this purpose.”2
Most British officers favored the use of vernacular language at the lower levels and Sir George Clerk wrote to his minute of 24th April 1848.
“We should introduce the language of the country (namely, Sindhee) as the medium of official intercourse.
I do not see in what way our revenue and judicial officers (however their offices and courts may be constituted) can work effectually through a foreign medium of communication, such as Persian and English.”3
Here it is a sorry state that the ruling language and the language of a great number of people of Sindh was Balochi, but the British imperialists acted upon the policy of divide and rule. They wanted to root the Balochi language out from Sindh and destabilize the Baloch rule in the area. They intentionally were not in favor of the preservation and conservation of the Sindhi language, but they had their own interest behind this policy. Come what may, these steps destabilized the Balochi language in the market as well as in the courts and offices.
Before the formation of Pakistan in 1947, the circumstances were different than that are today. The Balochi language was playing a key role in different parts of Sindh and the Baloch were in touched with the Baloch population of Balochistan. But, when the Baloch areas were tri-furcated into Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, it started deteriorating the condition of the Balochi language in Sindh as well as in Punjab.
In Karachi, which is the metropolitan and densely populated city of Pakistan, where different ethnic groups reside. The Baloch is considered to be the preliminary inhabitants of this city, and in the modern times the Baloch population occupies a large area and the population is estimated at above 2.5million in Karachi.
Before 1947, Karachi was the sole and only city where the majority of the population was Balochi speaking people, but after the foundation of Pakistan, a huge number of Indian Muhajireen (refugees now call themselves as Urdu speaking) were rehabilitated in Karachi city and its vicinity, and the Baloch population was converted in the minority. This process of mass migration through Baloch population never stopped and it is simultaneously under wary till today.
In the later years, Urdu was declared as the national language of Pakistan and it was implemented as the medium of education, communication and instruction throughout Pakistan.
This made the Muhajireen (refugees) stable, because they already had a language which was called Bihāri or Urdu. A catastrophic change begins in the social life of the Baloch of Karachi when Mahajirs started enjoying Urdu as market language as well as the language of communication. A Baloch has to contact with a Muhajir in everyday life and he has to speak in Urdu every first or second person. In this scenario, the Baloch of Karachi speak an Urdu-mixed Balochi language, where the influence of Urdu is lucid and apparent in Karachi.
The major reason of this is a large number of shifting of Muhajirs to the Baloch majority areas by the local government. Mass shifts laid a great impact over the Baloch because the Muhajirs were educated and they penetrated into the institutions of the Baloch areas of Karachi.
Lyari and Malir districts are the densely populated area of Karachi, where the Balochi language is still considered to be the market language, but the karachiites Baloch fear the huge mass flow of other communities especially the Muhajirs to the Baloch areas make the things worse.Apart from the Karachi city, as I mentioned earlier that the Baloch have a majority population in the remote or periphery of Sindh province and they constitute a major economic body.
The main Baloch tribes that compose a huge number of the population of the province of Sindh are as follows:
Ahmedani, Almani, Bijarani, Buledi, Bulfati, Bhurgari, Gabol, , Jakhrni, Jagirani, Jiskani, Jamali, Jamot, Jarwar, Jatoi, Khoso, Kalpar, Kalmati, Lashari, Leghari, Magsi, Marri, Mazari, Mirani, Nizaani, Nutkani, Qaisrani, Rind, Shar, Shirani, Sanjrani, Talpur, Umrani and Zardari.
The case is different in Balochistan where the socio-linguistic contact is with Pashtun, Sindhi and Brahui Baloch. The most considerable place where linguistically Baloch are in contact with other ethnic groups is Quetta. This time the population of Quetta city is at least 1.5 million. The ethnic majority of the population e.g. Sixty percent is Baloch but a huge number of Afghan Muhajireen (refugees) have come to settle in Quetta city. Baloch have a great relationship and social contact with local Pashtun.
The primary local inhabitants of the Quetta city are Kasai (Pashtun) and Shahwanis (Baloch). These two groups are living for centuries in Quetta and intermarried with each other. Ninety percent of the population of Quetta city is bi-lingual. Baloch can speak a fluent Pashto and Pashtun can speak a fluent Balochi, but neither Pashto has influenced Balochi nor has Balochi influenced Pashto. Even a single word of Pashto is not found in the Balochi language, and the same case is with Pashto. But another thing which is very interesting and discussable is that the Afghan Muhajireen (refugees) who migrated from Afghanistan and settled at Nokundi, Taftan and Noshki, intermixed with the Baloch, hundred percent of settled Pashtun speak fluent Balochi and a huge number of them has lost their language, and now part of the Baloch community. They have also adopted the Baloch culture and norms, customs and values. Some of them consider themselves as Baloch. Bareech, a leading clan of the Pashtun ethnic group scattered in different area of Noshki, speak a meager Pashto but fluent in Brahui and Balochi. At present they are living at Killi Gharīb ābād, Killī Mēngal, Killi Faqīrān and Badini Karēz and outskirts of Noshki town. 4٭ They have intermarried with the majority Balochi speaking people and in the modern times, they share an enormous business in the Noshki town. In the areas of Nokundi, Taftan, and Chagai Balochi has no threat in nearby Pashto language, but the annals show that the Pashto language has been influenced a lot.

Socio-linguistic Contact in Iranian Balochistan:
Languages in contact can affect each other in different ways. Much depends on the relative status of the languages. Two or more languages of more or less equal status may be spoken side by side and mutually affect each other in terms of structure and lexicon without eradicating either one or the other language. This is called adstrate influence.
Another setting is when a dominant language, e.g. the language of a conquering group or the political elite, exercises influence on a dominated language, e.g. the language of a minority group.
This type of influence is often called superstrate. Sometimes this term also implies that the final outcome of language contact is that the prestigious language is abandoned by the conquerors in favor of the local language, which, however, has been considerably influenced by that language. Such an outcome is more likely when a small number of conquerors seize political power in an area where a language other than their own is spoken, e.g. At the Norman conquest of Britain.4
Since education is in Persian, it considerably strengthens the Persian influence. This, together with the immigration of Persian speakers to Sarawan in the past centuries, has made this dialect a very interesting object for studying linguistic contact.
During the Qajars in Iran, the Qajari King Reza Shah Pahlavi followed his ruthless and cruel policies over the Baloch people of Iran. He was against the autonomy of the Baloch people, and wanted the crushed down them by hook or by crook. For heavy mass destruction he used the Baloch Sardars against their own people. 5٭ In 1928, Raza shah sent his army to Balochistan to bring the whole region under his direct control. 5
During his assault over the different part of Kirman, Sistan and Balochistan he crushed the Baloch, and the Baloch were dispersed. A phase of socio-linguistic change begins, when the Persian speaking people are stimulated to live in the Baloch areas.
In September 1936, by a decision of the ministers’ council, the name of the capital of Iranian Balochistan was changed from Duzzāp to Zāhidān. The Iranian government encouraged people to migrate thereby providing public services and giving them land free of charge under the condition that it would be used for the construction of houses, shops or other businesses. By allocating more public services, the Iranian government encouraged civil employees to live in Zahedan and trading and business activities grew in the region. The state’s investment in civil development encouraged more of Sistan and Balochistan’s population to shift to Zahedan and population had grown to 17,495 in 1956 and 38,976 in 1966.6

The second city of Iranian Balochistan was affected, is Pahra. In 1935, the name of Pahra was changed to Iranshahr by the ministers’ council decision and thousand of masses from different parts of Iran were shifted to Pahra (Iranshahr).7
The population of this city was doubled. The third effected city of the Iranian Balochistan is Chahbār (Chābhār), which is known to be one of the famous coastal cities, a harbor and strategically important point for trade to the Indian sub-continent as well as to the Arab and African countries. Since the 1970s, the strategic location of the Chabahar, Gulf has received attention again in connection with intensifying trade towards the Indian Ocean (Planning Organization 1988: 26-36). Basically, this city has been a Baloch populated city since the beginning, but the so-called Iranian socioeconomic development laid a great impact over the local population socially, culturally and linguistically. 6٭
The huge number of mass shifting laid a great impact on the language and population of the Baloch people. Before the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the total population of the Iranian Balochistan and Sistan was Balochi speaking and the sole and only language was Balochi.
In different cities of Iranian Balochistan the outsiders were assimilated by the huge population of the Baloch people. For example, in Zahedan, Pahra, Zabol and other cities which share borders to the Persian speaking people, totally assimilated the incomers. But simultaneous mass shifting changed the Baloch population from 1936 till now.
This time, in Zahedan, the official statistics show that the population is, 37 percent Sistan, 32 percent Baloch and the remaining other 22 percent are from other Iranian provinces, like, Birjand, Kirman, Yazd and Azerbaijan. In Chabahar the population of the Balochi speaking people is 54 percent and Sistanis are 9 percent. In Iranshahr the vast majority is of the population is Balochi speaking. 8
In Sarawan the case is totally different than that of other parts of Sistan and Balochistan. According to Adam Nadir Baranzahi “ central Sarawani is especially fascinating from a contact linguistic point of view, since it seems to have been in contact with Persian longer, and influenced by Persian more most other Balochi dialects spoken in Iran…. However in more recent times, especially after the establishment of direct rule from Tehran in Balochistan (1928), Persian has more and more started to take on the role of a language of high prestige, and is definitely the language associated with modern education. It is possible that longer and more intense contacts in Sarawan between Balochi and Persian, due to a longer tradition of education there than in many other parts of Balochistan has also played a part in the Persian structural and lexical influence on Central Sarawani.9
But on the other hand Nadir Baranzehi shows a different picture of this scenario and says that “it is quite possible that some or most of the speakers of central Sarawani originally were speakers of a dialect of Persian and belonged to the immigrant Afghans, Tajiks, Sistanis and Persians and that they, after settling in Balochistan, switch to speaking Balochi but retained some grammatical features of their original language as substrate phenomena. Thus, in pre-modern times, when the Baloch tribesmen were politically dominant in Balochistan, Balochi was the prestigious language which the immigrants acquired after settling in Sarawan. But, it is quite clear, that today the substrate effects of Persian on central Sarawani, as well as on the other Balochi dialects in Iran is heavy. 10
The simultaneous mass shifting and penetration of Persians towards the Baloch region, made a huge linguistic change. The Persian language was declared as the official and national language of Iran and other languages were restricted to read, write and speak in public places as well as in offices. Jobs were created for those people who were qualified in Persian. Television and Radio Programs were appreciated in the Persian language and the curriculum of different subject was made in Persian.
According to Carina Jahani “it is quite obvious that the national language, Persian, is the socially and culturally dominant language, and that Balochi is the low-status vernacular. However, this has not always been the case, and the example of Sarawan proves that clearly. Within this area one or two centuries ago, Baloch tribesmen of high status in the local society lived side by side with immigrant peasants of Afghan or other Persian-speaking origins, who had come to Sarawan more recently than the Baloch.”7٭
Moosa Mahmoodzahi has described the main influencing linguistic factors over the Balochi language in Iran in a clear and apparent way. He writes that “the huge impact of Persian in Iranian Balochistan was the continued electrification of the province, which, although it had already started, was speeded up and almost totally completed soon after the Islamic revolution. With electricity, TV spread all over the province. Television has been a major breakthrough in the introduction of Persian in Balochistan, far more powerful than radio. By watching Persian programs at an early age, often even before going to school, the children get acquainted with this language and learn to pronounce it with a Tehrani accent. Another reason is this that they were introduced to Persian at school generally by local teachers. 11
The second reason he asserts that “the spread of the official administrative system, invariably carried out in Persian, has caused an influx of administrators, many of them Zaboli or other Persian speaking persons with a certain local connection originating from Birjand, Bam, Jiroft or Jask, into all parts of Balochistan. This has also brought about an increase in the number of intermarriages between the Baloch and Persian speakers. He adds that new industries have been established in the in the province by Persian speakers, employing both local Baloch and Persians moving into the region and their language of business administration , of course, is Persian.12

Socio-linguistic Contact of Baloch areas in Afghanistan:
In Afghanistan, Balochi is the principal language of the Nīmrūz province. There are also colonies of Balochi speakers scattered throughout the western part of the country, as far north as the Soviet frontier; but Balochi is the principal local language only from Čaḵānsūr southward. It extends past Zaranj, the provincial capital, along the Helmand valley eastward to about 64° east longitude, and southward of the river to the Pakistan frontier in Chagai.13
A common Afghan vocabulary exists for everyday topics only found to a small extent. Border field—there is commonly in etiquette, religion, but only because there is little outside contact.
In the area of communication, modern mass media, education, migrations and non-traditional professions are widely dominated by common vocabulary.
Similarities subsist between Balochi and other languages, copying Persian patterns since Persian has been held in high regard for a long time. However, there is little Pashto influence, but this is changing due to business. 8٭
Before 1978, there was no written material in Balochi of Afghanistan, Dari was the official language. After the 1978 revolution, the Soviets streamlined ethnic identity that had been outlawed from 1973-1978. In the 1980’s Russians influenced language education and policy. Over 1992, there is a return to the status of an almost unwritten language. As for the development of an alphabet for Balochi, this is similar to other Afghan languages—a national alphabet exists, but not another foreign dialect of Balochi. In writing, the alphabet is also different because of limits on availability of symbols available in pre-computer printing facilities. 9٭
According to Lutz, the Balochi of Afghanistan, linguistic contact with Persian, Pashto and of course Brahui is most important. Most of the languages of Afghanistan share a common vocabulary of economics, politics and religion. Pashto has an insignificant influence over the Balochi which is limited to lexical copies and which does not include structural reproductions. Although on a higher political level the Baloch of Afghanistan never tired of underlining their fraternal links with the Pashtun, on the local level of Nimroz some tenses in the social relations between the Baloch and Pashtun may have created psychological impediments and may have influenced the prestige of the Pashtun. When quite a number of Pashtun settled in Afghani Sistan they thereby displaced Baloch from that region. 14
This displacement of the Baloch ethnic group in Afghanistan enhanced the gap between the Pashtun and the Baloch in Afghanistan and they were compelled to make their relations stronger with the Persians. It’s very interesting to note that they have intermarried with the Persian and prefer to live with the Persian communities in Afghanistan.

Socio-Linguistic contact of Baloch in Turkmenistan:
The Baloch are a people which have a strong sense of unity, sharing a common origin, history, language, traditions and religion.15 The Baloch occupies a vast area of the state of Turkmenistan, named as Mari Vilayat or Marv.
It is reported that the Baloch have migrated from Afghanistan and Iran to Turkmenistan in the early years of the twentieth century. They become united under the hegemony of a Baloch leader named Kareem Khan. At present, the Baloch of Turkmenistan lives mainly in the districts of Bayram Ali and Iolotan of the region of Mari (Mariyskiy Velayat). There are in 1997 probably approximately 38000-40000 Baloch in Turkmenistan, although some give a higher estimate of around 50000 or even more. The very strong loyalty among the Baloch to their mother tongue is quite noteworthy, and can at least to a certain degree be explained by the rural way of life. 16
The position of the Baloch people is very worse and miserable in Turkmenistan in comparison with the others. Not very much has been done to study their language and culture. The disintegration of the USSR had brought more losses for the Baloch of Turkmenistan, because the USSR had provided them some opportunities in education, science and culture. The Balochi language is not so influenced by the Turkmen language, a small number of words of Russian and Turkmen language have penetrated into the Balochi Language, but it is a rare case. No one has counted up that how many Russian and Turkmen words have been borrowed, because there are no dictionaries or recorded data on this. A few number of Arabic and Persian words are seen in the Balochi of Turkmenistan.17
As it has been mentioned that on the one hand Balochi of Turkmenistan has borrowed a few words, but on the other hand it has influenced the newcomers to the Balochi speaking areas of Turkmenistan. People who came to inhabit on the Balochi speaking areas are Bareech, Malik (basically Punjabi speaking) and Persian, who now-a-days speak the Balochi language. Besides, other ethnic groups who are living within the Baloch community in Mari Velayat understand and speak Balochi before going to school, even a few numbers of the Turkmen who are living in the Baloch areas, speak Balochi well.
It is a good sign for the Baloch of Turkmenistan, but is difficult to decide that at the current age of modern technology, where the official and national language of Turkmenistan, and the language of education as well as the language of business and communication is Turkmen how can the Baloch sustain their language in future. Balochi is neither the language of education nor the language of communication. It’s just considered a regional language, which is limited in the area of Mari Vilayat. Balochi is neither taught in schools nor appreciated to be produced literary material or curriculum for the nursery students by Balochi speaking students in schools. In this condition, the Balochi language is confronting a lot of problems and it will take catastrophic mode to the Balochi language.
The socio-linguistic contact of Baloch are as we know with Turkmen people who speak the language of government where it is considered the official and national language, without which no job, no business or no communication is possible. It’s a good sign for the Baloch of Turkmenistan that they have preserved their language in preliminary level, but there are some reservations for the Balochi language in the future, because Baloch are moving towards big cities of Turkmenistan for jobs, business and higher education, where they confront the market as well as the national language. Another reason which will threaten the Balochi language in the future is intermarriage. Many of the Baloch educated persons who work in the government institutes; army, police and the administration have married to Turkmen women and their children hardly speak Balochi, they consider Turkmen as their mother tongue.
The biggest reason is that, the Balochs of Turkmenistan are illiterate and there is no choice for them to get through in different institutions and to lead their national identification.

Conclusion:
In different parts of the world, especially in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and in the Gulf countries where the Baloch are Bi or tri-lingual and they have the socio-linguistic contact directly and indirectly with the other dominant as well as official languages. In Iran the situation is very deteriorating for the Balochi language, where no one is allowed to even do debates or discussion in Balochi. No newspaper is being issued with the support of the Government of Iran and no academies of the preservation of the Balochi language. The Balochi language is not taught in the schools and colleges. This alarming situation is endangering the Balochi language in Iran and if pre-cautionary actions were not taken to preserve and promote the Balochi language it would imperil the existence of the Balochi language in Iran.
In Afghanistan and Turkmenistan the position of the Balochi language is same, where the socio-linguistic contact of the Baloch with the other official and national languages, put it into the danger. In Afghanistan, the official languages (Pashto and Dari Persian) are the language of communication and education. The Baloch of Afghanistan have a direct contact with the speakers of the two major languages in every sphere of life. According to estimation approximately thirty percent of the Baloch of Afghanistan speaks Persian.

Endnotes:
1٭ This is a prevailing concept among the Baloch writers and intellectuals. Apart from this , the Iranian Baloch commander Siyah Sawar, who was then the key commander in the Persian army during the Muslim Caliphate Umar Ibn e Khattab (R.A)
2٭ For detail see the Book of Dr. Shah Muhammad Marri ‘ Balochi Zuban o Adab, Muqtadara Qomi Zuban, Islabam abd Pakistan.
3٭ a telephonic interview with Saeed Ahmad Mazari ( Rojhan Mazari) on 22nd January, 7:00pm, 2012
4٭ A telephonic discussion with Abdul Malik Taj (Killi Ghareeb Aabad) currently Lecturer of Botany in Agro-tech Quetta, on 5th Feb. 11:00am, 2012
5٭ According to the historical records, Dost Muhammad , the Sardar of Baranzahi tribe was fully supporting the Iranian army against his own people and enjoy a luxurious life in compensation.
6٭ This time a huge number of Iranian officials, administrators and people of another sphere of life are living in this coastal city and enjoying the whole facilities than that of the local people.
7٭ See the details in the article of Jahani, Carina, “STATE CONTROL AND IT S IMPACT ON LANGUAGE IN BALOCHISTAN”.
8٭ See the details on “Languages in and around Afghanistan, Resources on Language Policy Group. Notes for 12-13 December 2003, University of Pennsylvania Pedagogical Materials Project South Asia Language Resource Center December 12-14, 2003
9 ٭ibid

References:
1. Peter Trudgill, J. Chambers & N. Schilling-Estes, Eds., Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2001. P-3
2. Tariq Rahman, language and politics in Pakistan, p-104
3. Ibid
4. Carina Jahani ” State Control and its Impact on Language in Balochistan” p-9
5. Noraiee, Hoshang: “ Change and Continuity: Power and Religion in Iranian Balochistan”, (ed): the Baloch and others: Linguistic, Historical and Socio-political Perspectives on Pluralism in Balochistan, p-347.
6. Hassan Afrakhteh: ‘ Social, Demographic and Cultural Change in Iranian Balochistan: Case studies of the three Urban regions of Zahedan, Iranshahr and Chabahar (ed): Korn, Jahani and Titus “ BALOCH AND OTHERS: Linguistic, Historical and Socio-political Perspectives on Pluralism in Balochistan, p-199
7. Ibid p-200
8. Hassan Afrakhteh: ‘ Social, Demographic and Cultural Change in Iranian Balochistan: Case studies of the three Urban regions of Zahedan, Iranshahr and Chabahar (ed): Korn, Jahani and Titus “ BALOCH AND OTHERS: Linguistic, Historical and Socio-political Perspectives on Pluralism in Balochistan, p-203
9. Baranzehi, Adam Nadir: “The Sarawani dialect of Balochi and Persian influence on it” (Ed). Carina and Korn: “THE BALOCH AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS: Ethnic and Linguistic Contact in Balochistan in Historical and Modern Time” p-104
10. Ibid. pp-104-105
11. Moosa Mahmoodzahi: “Linguistic Contact in Iranian Balochistan in Historical and Modern Times” (ed). Carina and Korn, “ THE BALOCH AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS: Ethnic and Linguistic Contact in Balochistan in Historical and Modern times, p- 151-152
12. Ibid. pp-151-152
13. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/baluchistan-iii
14. Lutz Rzehak. “ Some thoughts and material on Balochi in Afghanistan.” (eds) Jahani, Carina and Korn “ the Baloch and their neighbours: Ethnic and linguistic Contact in Balochistan, in Historical and Modern Times. Pp-263-268
15. Mashkalo. http://balochilinguist.wordpress.com
16. Ibid
17. Ibid

 

Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages.

By: Elena Bashir

Since the time of the Achaemenid Empire, the territory of present-day Pakistan has been under the cultural and linguistic influence of successive stages of the Persian language. The political history of Persian in South Asia and its spread as the language of literature and politics is traced in Alam (1998, 2003), while its role in South Asian education is discussed in Rahman (2002, pp. 121-60).

The northern and western parts of this region are now occupied by speakers of Khowar, Kalasha, and Shina (Indo-Aryan, “Dardic” languages: see DARDESTĀN ii), and recently Urdu (q.v. at iranica.com, Indo-Aryan); Balochi (Western Iranian; see BALUCHISTAN iii), Pashto and Wakhi (Eastern Iranian); Brahui (q.v., Dravidian); and the isolate Burushaski (q.v.). Since Urdu became the national language of Pakistan in 1947 and increasingly functions as the country’s lingua franca, it has replaced Persian as a compulsory language in the curriculum. From the 1980s the presence of Persian in the educational system became negligible. Despite this, a significant influx of additional Perso-Arabic words has entered the lexicons of all the languages of Pakistan through Urdu. Several recent publications deal with such loanwords: Bukhari (2003) lists 1,003 words of Persian and Arabic origin common to Urdu and Khowar; Akbar (1992), a similar work, lists numerous words common to Urdu and Shina. Khattak et al. (1977), lists some 3,700 nominal forms common to Urdu, Sindhi, Pashto, Panjabi, and Balochi; of the 200 basic verbs listed there, most are not shared. The great majority of the shared words are of Perso-Arabic origin and, in addition to their nominal or adjectival function, provide the raw material for new verbs, since the primary mechanism for formation of new verbs in these languages is the combining of a nominal loan element (Perso-Arabic or English) with a native verbalizer, most frequently “be” or “do.”

Persian models have served as the stimulus for the beginnings of literary production in most of these languages, and Persian poetic forms are still highly influential in Khowar and Balochi. The contemporary Balochi poet Gul Khan Nasir wrote first in Persian and Urdu, then in Balochi, and his Balochi poetry employs the prosodic structures and poetic genres of classical Persian (Jahani, 1994-95). Persian has also been the principal vehicle for the transmission of Arabic vocabulary throughout the Islamic culture area (Perry, p. 3). The strength and influence of the Perso-Arabic and Islamic cultural heritage is the major reason for the decisions of most writers in these languages to retain the original spellings of their numerous Perso-Arabic loans, rather than to devise more phonologically based orthographies. The case of Balochi differs somewhat in this respect; a significant percentage of Perso-Arabic words are written with “balochified” spellings (Jahani, 1989, p. 159), e.g., tufān “storm” instead of ṭufān.

Persian has influenced the phonology, lexicon, and syntax of all these languages, both directly and indirectly; Khowar and Balochi, for example, show a pervasively direct influence. In turn, Khowar has been a channel of secondary transmission of Persian lexical items and grammatical features to Kalasha and Burushaski. Balochi has been the vector for secondary transfer of many Persian words into Brahui. Pashto too has functioned as a vehicle for Perso-Arabic words into languages spoken in areas where it is the regional contact language. For example, in Torwali, spoken in upper Swat (Inamullah), we find laṛaz-u “to tremble” (< Psht. laṛz-edal “id.” < Pers. larzīd-an “id.”); adōs “ritual cleansing before prayer” (< Psht. awdas “id.” [Bellew, p. 7]) Khowar retroflex sibilants and affricates: Kho. ṧéγun “liver” (cf. Pers. šugūn/šugŭn “auspicious (omen)”; Kho. niṧán “gift” (cf. Pers. nišān “sign”); Kho. daṧmán “mullah” (< Pers. dānišmand “wise”; contrast the later borrowing dúšman “enemy” from Urdu); Kho. čˊhīr “milk” (cf. Pers. šīr “id.”); Kho. čˊhoi “six” (cf. Pers. šaš, and Urdu čhe). Semantic doublets are found, e.g., xošani “festivity, marriage, happiness” (Pers. koš “happy”) and šādi “marriage” (< Ur. šādī “marriage” < Pers. šādī “festivity, marriage”). Repeated borrowing of the same element at different stages also results in doublets, e.g., we-sóoru “widow” (lit. “lacking a head”), an earlier borrowing, and be-talím “uneducated,” a recent Urdu loan. Some entire phrases have entered the spoken language, e.g., anč-e-bayād “as much as necessary”: ma brār ma-sum anč-e-bayād madát areér “My brother helped me as much as was needed.” The Persian names for days of the week are used in Khowar, as in Balochi and Brahui.

Grammatical influences on Khowar include subordinate clauses introduced by ki, the eẓāfa construction, and a spreading use of the Persian (animate) plural marker -ān. Direct case plurals in -án (< Pers.), originally used with Persian words denoting animate beings, e.g., buzurg-án “elders,” are spreading to native words, e.g., Ḍaq-án “boys,” replacing the older, unmarked direct plural. Relative clauses employing ki ( /q/ (> /k/), e.g., Hunza Burushaski (HB) aqmaq “bloom of youth; drunkenness” (Berger, III, p. 20; cf. Kho. aqmaq/aḥmaq “fool”; also > Kal. hakmák “fool,” /qh/, e.g., HB qharáp “bad” (Berger, III, p. 353; /x/, e.g., Kho. ambóx “much” /ph/, e.g., YB phiryát “request, plea” (cf. Ur. faryād “id.”). Epenthetic consonants develop, e.g., YB ambrōz “kind of pear” (Lorimer, 1962, p. 14), Kho. ambróz “id.” Ur. šalγam “id.”); Kho. ṧoṧp “type of halwa” and Wakhi ṧuṧp “id.” (cf. Tajik Pers. šošp “id.”). The main native Wakhi subordination marker is tsə (pre-verbal)/tsəy (clause-final). However, Wakhi has also borrowed Tajik Persian ki, which, like tsə, introduces a wide range of subordinate clauses, including relative clauses, various adverbial clauses, and complements of verbs of cognition. For example, yem xun-i ha-yá halg-ev-en RC[kumd-ar ki sak-e ҳi δegit δetk] “This house belongs to the people [to whom we have given our daughter]” (Bashir, forthcoming).
Pashto too has incorporated a large number of Perso-Arabic borrowings, the earlier of which have undergone change of palatal sibilants to retroflex and palatal affricates to dental: e.g., duṧmán “enemy” (Pers. dušman “id”); doJák “hell” (cf. Parthian dōžak “id.”); tsarx “circle” (Pers. čarḵ- “id.”); dzigár “liver” (Pers. jigar “id.”). Later loanwords retain the palatals, e.g., jism “body” (Pers./Ur. jism “id.”; Elfenbein, pp. 757-58). Some borrowed elements have been morphologically verbalized with the indigenous infinitive ending -edal, e.g., šarmedal “to blush, be modest, etc.” (< Pers. šarm “bashfulness, modesty, shame” [Steingass, p. 742]). However, Pashto has adopted fewer Perso-Urdu grammatical features than other languages of the area. For example, it forms its relative clauses using the Pashto conjunction če, rather than the Persian/Urdu ki. The gender assignment of Arabic words reaching Pashto through Persian and/or Urdu has been restructured according to the dominant Pashto pattern, in which consonant-final nouns are masculine and vowel-final nouns are feminine. Thus e.g. zanjīr “chain” is feminine in Urdu, but dzandzir “id.” is masculine in Pashto; darwāza “door” is masculine in Urdu, but darwaza “id.” is feminine in Pashto; ḥālat “condition” is feminine in Urdu, but masculine in Pashto; iżāfa “increase” is masculine in Urdu, but feminine in Pashto.

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Inamullah, Digital Dictionary of Torwali (to appear on the website of the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia Project, at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries, in preparation.
C. Jahani, Standardization and Orthography in the Balochi Language, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 1, Uppsala,1989.
Idem, “The Formal Structure of Gul Khān Nasir’s Poetry,” Orientalia Suecana 43-74, 1994-95, pp. 141-47.
Idem, “Persian Influence on Some Verbal Constructions in Iranian Balochi,” Stud. Ir. 28, 1999, pp.123-43.
Pareshan Khattak, Purdil Khattak, and M. Ishaq, ATūT lisānī rawābit, Peshawar, 1977.
D. L. R. Lorimer, The Phonology of the Bakhtiari, Badakhshani, and Madaglashti Dialects of Modern Persian, withVocabularies, London, 1922.
Idem, Werchikwar English Vocabulary, Oslo, 1962.
Tajammal Šāh Maḥvī, Kulliyāt Maḥvī, ed. and tr.Muhammad IrfanChitrari, Chitral, n.d.,
C. P. Masica, Defining a Linguistic Area: South Asia, Chicago, 1976.
G. Morgenstierne, “Iranian Elements in Khowar,” BSOAS 8, 1936, pp. 657-71.
Y.-C. Morin and L. Dagenais, “Les emprunts Ourdous en Bourouchaski,” JA 265, 1977, pp. 307-43.
R. Patry and É.Tiffou, “Les emprunts lexicaux à l’ourdou en bourouchaski du Yasin: un phénomène qui varie selon l’âge,” Communication au congrès New Wave, Québec, 1997.
J. R. Perry, Form and Meaning in Persian Vocabulary: The Arabic Feminine Ending, Costa Mesa, and New York,1991.
T. Rahman, Language, Ideology and Power: Language Learning Among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India, Karachi, 2002.
B. Reinhold, “The Incorporation of Urdu and Persian into the Wakhi of the Karakorams,” unpubl. ms., 1992.
A. V. Rossi, Iranian Lexical Elements in Brāhuī, Naples,1979.
M. (Bābā) Sayyār, Dewān Bābā Sayyar, tr. and comm.Maula Nigah, Islamabad, 2004.
F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, London, 1892; repr., Lahore, 1981.

 

The closest language to Balochi is Kurdish

Area of distribution of the Iranian Languages

Hamid Ali Baloch

Hamid Ali :

Interview By: Karlos Zurutuza

Karlos Zurutuza is a freelance journalist covering off-the-radar conflict regions in the Caucasus and Central Asia. He was awarded the Nawab Bugti Reporting Award 2009 for his reporting on the Baloch areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

“Despite the appalling illiteracy rate among us, many Baloch speak more than four languages.”

Hamid Ali Baloch

It’s not only that the Baloch have managed to keep their language alive amid decades of terrible repression. Multilingualism is also a feature of a country where almost 80% of the people are illiterate.

How would you describe the Balochi language?
Balochi is an Indo-European language, hence close to English, Russian or Pushtun, just to mention a few. The closest language to Balochi is Kurdish, as ours also belongs to the Iranian family. Moreover, many scholars claim that Balochi has kept Sanskrit’s original pronunciation. Balochi is written in the Arabian-Farsi alphabet, even though several diaspora intellectuals use the Latin alphabet, which also matches the needs of our tongue. Unfortunately, we still haven’t agreed on a common standard for all of us.

What´s the current situation of Balochi in East Balochistan?
When East Balochistan was annexed by Pakistan in 1948, Islamabad promised our people that Balochi would be taught at school. In one way or another, this was observed until 1973. The Constitution signed that same year granted us an education in Balochi but, sadly enough, we got none of that. Today Islamabad does not support education in Balochi in any way so we have to do it by ourselves.

How do you manage?
Recently several private schools have taken up education in Balochi. The number of lessons is still very scarce as we rely solely on private funding. For example, my monthly salary is 22,000 rupees (180 euro) from which I give 1,000 to support education in Balochi. There is a very solid group in Quetta (East Balochistan’s capital) which deals with the issue and, as a teacher, I think it’s of the biggest importance. On the other hand, the diaspora is also helping. There are many Baloch in Arab countries such as Bahrein, Oman and Dubai who also support us. The Academy of Balochi publishes between 15-20 books every year and it will soon publish a Balochi-Balochi dictionary.

What can you tell us about the situation of Balochi in Western Balochistan?
As far as I know, our brothers from the other side of the border cannot publish anything in Balochi at all, at least not in an open way. Several Balochi magazines were published after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 but all of them were soon banned by the Atatollah’s regime. Bear in mind that being a Baloch in Iran implies a double “handicap”: you’re “non Farsi”, but also “non Shiite”. Besides not getting any support at all to sustain their language, Western Baloch are also prosecuted for it. Another matter of deep concern for us is the ever growing influence of Farsi in Balochi.

But, against all odds, the Baloch are still a polyglot people, are they?
Very much indeed! Despite 80% of the Baloch being illiterate, many of them speak four languages, or even more. In Eastern Balochistan all of us speak Balochi as our mother tongue and Urdu as a second language, but also Pushtun because of the big intercourse with them. And don´t forget we were a colony of the British Empire for decades so many of us speak English too. Besides, around a million speak Brahvi as well.

Brahvi?
Yes, it´s a local and very ancient language of Dravidian roots so it’s not Indo- European. For example, the Mengals always speak Brahvi among themselves. At some point Islamabad tried to sustain “Brahvi nationalism” to enforce division among ourselves but they never succeeded The Brahvis have always taken themselves as Baloch, which is something none of us has ever disputed.

So we get two native languages for the same people, is that right?
Absolutely right.

 

Workshop on languages of Afghanistan and neighboring areas

By: Elena Bashir

The following notes (from Bashir 1991, unless otherwise indicated) are intended as the briefest of introductions to Balochi materials.

The language.

Balochi is a Western Iranian language, thus grouping with Persian, in
contrast to Pashto, which is Eastern Iranian. It is an SOV language, some of its dialects showing partial ergativity. It also displays much lexical influence from various stages of Persian.

Dialects.

Elfenbein (1966, 1990) identifies six dialects: (1) Rakhshani, (2) Kechi, (3)
Coastal dialects (in some sources called Mekrani), (4) Sarawani, (5) Lashari, (6) Eastern Hill dialects. Of these, Rakhshani, Kechi, the Coastal dialects, and the Eastern Hill Dialects are spoken in Pakistan; while Sarawani and Lashari are spoken mostly in Iran. There are also substantial numbers of Rakhshani speakers in Afghanistan, and (former Soviet) Turkmenistan. The dialects of Balochi form a continuum, with the westernmost varieties most heavily influenced by Persian, the easternmost by Sindhi and Siraiki, and the dialects adjacent to the Brahui-speaking area by Brahui. In Pakistan, Rakhshani and the Coastal dialects are culturally dominant: radio and television programs from Quetta are broadcast mainly in Rakhshani, while much of classical Balochi literature is written in one or the other of the coastal dialects.
There is an excellent color map of Balochi dialects at http://titus.uni_frankfurt.de/didact/karten/iran/baloc.htm
The names of the dialects on this map differ somewhat from Elfenbein’s names above.
Within Balochistan, the dialect distribution is as summarized in the following table.

Table 1. Speakers of Balochi in Balochistan

Dialect Number of Speakers
Eastern 630,000
Western
Rakhshani 590,000
Mekrani (=Coastal 660,000
dialects + Kechi)
Total 1,880,000

Phonology.
Balochi consonant system

Original Balochi phonemes
Bilabial Labio-dental Dental Alveolar Palatal Retroflex Velar Post-velar Glottal
Bashir – Balochi notes 2
Stops
Voiceless p t k
Voiced b d g
Affricates
Voiceless 􀀀
Voiced j
Fricatives
Voiceless s  h
Voiced z 〉
Nasals m n
Laterals l
Trills r
Semivowels w y
Borrowed phonemes
Stops
Voiceless T q
Voiced D
Fricatives
Voiceless f x
Voiced (
Flaps R

Selected linguistics-oriented references

Elfenbein, J. 1966. The Baluchi Language: A Dialectology with Texts. Royal Asiatic Society
Monographs, Vol. XXVII. London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
[Important work by this preeminent scholar of Balochi.]
. 1982. Baluchi-Brahui Linguistic Commensality. Transactions of the Philological
Society, 77-98. [Discusses the long-standing cultural and linguistic interaction between
Balochi and Brahui. An important paper, and accessible to the non-specialist.]
. 1989. Baloci. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Weisbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert
Verlag. pp. 350-362. [A thumbnail sketch of Balochi grammar, with emphasis on historical
development]
. 1990. An Anthology of Classical and Modern Balochi Literature, Vol. I. Anthology, Vol.
II, Glossary. Weisbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. [This is the largest and best anthology of
Balochi literature in English. Indispensible for English speakers trying to gain a familiarity
with Balochi literature.]
____. Baluchi language and literature. Encyclopaedia Iranica (web-based edition), pp. 633-
644. ed. Ehsan Yarshater. (http://www.iranica.com) [A good introduction to both language
and literature. Contains examples of written literary Balochi and nominal and verbal
paradigms.]
Jahani, Carina. 1989. Standardization and Orthography in the Balochi Language. Acta
Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 1. Uppsala: University of Uppsala.
Bashir – Balochi notes 3 [This book is a detailed study provides a description and assessment of the development of
Balochi as a written literary language. Its conclusion is that at present there is no single accepted standardized norm for written Balochi.]
Korn, Agnes. Towards a Historical Grammar of Balochi: Studies in Balochi Historical Phonology and Vocabulary. Ph.D. thesis ms. (at
http://titus.uni_frankfurt.de/personal/agnes/diss.htm) [This very recent work of historical linguistics contains a very detailed and recent bibliography on Balochi and Balochi studies. Though this work itself is not pedagogically oriented, some of the references listed may be helpful in preparing educational materials.] The following book is in press, and promises to be an extremely valuable new resource for Balochi studies. Jahani, Carina and Agnes Korn (eds.) The Baloch and Their Neighbours: Ethnic and Linguistic Contact in Balochistan in Historical and Modern Times. Wiesbaden (Reichert). [Contains rticles by important scholars of Balochi. Sections are: I. Historical linguistics; II. Language contact in modern times with subsections on Iran, Pakistan, and other countries; III. History, culture, and the future of the Balochi language. Includes ten maps. (full table of contents can be viewed at: http://titus.uni_frankfurt.de/personal/agnes/contents.pdf )]

Selected pedagogically oriented references

Ahmad, Mumtaz. 1985. Baluchi Glossary: A Baluchi-English Glossary: Elementary Level. Dunwoody Press. [A pedagogic work for beginning learners of Balochi. Part of the Dunwoody series of readers in uncommonly taught languages. May represent Balochi of Pakistan, concentrating on core vocabulary that is probably common to most written dialects found in Pakistan.] Barker, Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman and Aqil Khan Mengal. 1969/1980. A Course in Baluchi. Montreal: Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. [Parallel in format to Barker’’s three-volume introductory Urdu course, these materials were developed with A. K. Mengal at the University of Balochistan. Volume II contains 197 pages of Balochi-English vocabulary, coordinated with the grammar materials and texts. Pages 604-660 are an English-Balochi index. This reflects Balochi usage in Pakistan current in the late 1960s, which is likely to be closest to standard literary usage in Pakistan.] Bashir, Elena. 1991. A Contrastive Analysis of Balochi and Urdu. Peshawar, Pakistan:
Directorate of Primary Education; Washington, D.C.: Academy for Educational Development. [This study was prepared with the aim of identifying areas of Balochi phonology or grammar which might illuminate differences faced by Balochi-speaking children in learning Urdu.

 

Balohi Language Profile

Number of Speakers: Seven million

Key Dialects: The Baluchi language divides into two main dialects:
Eastern Baluchi and Western Baluchi. Within the Western dialect are
three further key sub-dialects, Rakhshani and Sarawani (spoken in
northern areas) and Makrani (spoken in the south). The Western
dialect is the primary dialect and is used in literary Baluchi. Some
scholars differentiate a third dialect, Southern Baluchi. However,
most linguists agree that Southern Baluchi does not constitute a
third dialectal division and is, on the other hand, subsumed under
the Western dialect.

Geographical Center: Province of Balochistan, Pakistan

GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Baluchi (also spelled Balochi) is the principle language of
Balochistan, a province of Pakistan. It is not, however, a national
language nor does it have official status. It is spoken in a number
of other regions including Iran, Afghanistan, India, the United Arab
Emirates, Oman, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and East Africa. Baluchi
is classified as an Iranian language of the Indo-European language
family. It is closely related to Kurdish and Persian (Farsi). Other
related languages include Pashto, Dari, Tajik, and Ossetian.

LINGUISTIC AFFILIATION
Baluchi is an Indo-European language classified as a member of the
Northwestern branch of the Western Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian
language family.

LANGUAGE VARIATION
The Eastern and Western dialects of Baluchi are sufficiently
distinct, yet for the most part mutually intelligible. The Western
dialect is strongly influenced by Persian, although the two
languages are not intelligible. The dialect has both considerably
borrowed from and influenced a number of neighboring languages
including Persian, Arabic, Pashto, and Turkmen. Western Baluchi is
much less linguistically homogeneous than Eastern Baluchi, as there
are three distinct sub-dialects within the Western dialect
(Rakhshani, Sarawani, and Makrani) and no further notable
subdivisions concerning the Eastern variant. Eastern Baluchi has
also borrowed from and influenced nearby languages such as Sindhi
and Pashto, although to a lesser degree than the Western dialects.

ORTHOGRAPHY
Prior to the 19th century, Baluchi was an unwritten language. The
British introduced Baluchi in written form during the 19th century
with a Roman script. In the late 19th century, a substantial sect of
scholars adopted the Naskh or Arabic script, thus dividing the
language community. Today, there is no standard orthography. In
Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, Baluchi is written using the
Arabic/Urdu orthography. The Roman script is widely employed by
Baluchi speakers outside these countries.

LINGUISTIC SKETCH
The phonology of Baluchi is characterized by a phoneme inventory
consisting of eight vowels, three diphthongs, and twenty-five
consonants. Among the vowels, a long/short distinction exists and is
contrastive in the language. The use of retroflex articulations
(gestures involving the tongue tip raised or curled towards the back
of the mouth) is a characteristic property of the Baluchi sound
system and is likely to have been influenced by the languages of
India, especially Urdu and Sindhi.

The word order of Baluchi, like many other Indo-Iranian languages,
is SOV. The verbal system of the language is comprised of two voices
(active and passive), four moods (indicative, interrogative,
imperative, and subjunctive), two tenses (past and present/future –
nb. morphologically, there is no formal distinction between present
and future forms in all verb forms with the singular exception of
the copula ‘to be’), and two aspects (perfect,
imperfect/continuative). Verbs agree with their subjects in person
and number. Complex or so-called “light” verb constructions are
productive in the language. In this construction, a nominal,
adjectival, or verbal element is followed by an auxiliary verb such
as ‘come’, ‘become’, ‘do’, etc. In this way, the number of
independent/monomorphemic verb forms in the language is reduced
somewhat.

Five cases are attested: nominative, accusative, dative, oblique,
and vocative. Linguists, however, disagree on the status of the
Baluchi case-marking system. Although in most circumstances, the
assignment of case mirrors that of a Nominative-Accusative language
(subjects of both transitive and intransitive verbs surface in the
nominative case), in the past tense, case marking is more akin to
that of an Ergative language. In this way, Baluchi patterns with
other Iranian languages that show a tense-related
Nominative-Ergative split in their case-marking system (e.g. Pamir
(Payne 1980) and Kurdish (Bynon 1980)). More specifically, the
nominative case may mark the subject of any intransitive verb in any
tense. Likewise, subjects of transitive verbs in the present/future
tense show up in the nominative form. However, in the past tense,
the subject of a transitive verb must be marked with the oblique
case and not the nominative. In other words, an Ergative-like
case-marking pattern is found exclusively in the past tense.
Furthermore, transitive verbs in the past tense agree only with
objects and not with their subjects, as is typically the case. Most
dialects of Baluchi, however, are on the way towards abolishing the
ergative construction. The varieties of Baluchi spoken in
Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, for instance, have neutralized this
distinction already.

Gender and definiteness are not grammatically encoded in the
morphology. Prepositions, postpositions, and circumpositions
(adpositional-like morphemes that appear both pre-nominally and
post-nominally) are all attested, another distinguishing grammatical
property of the language. Dialects influenced by Persian tend to
favor the use of prepositions over postpositions, while those
dialects in direct contact with Indian languages prefer
postpositions. At present, the use of postpositions is more
prevalent than the use of prepositions.

ROLE IN SOCIETY
Among the countries in which Baluchi is spoken (Pakistan, Iran,
Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and the Arab Gulf states), it is neither
considered an official language nor (for the most part) taught in
the country’s educational system. In 1989, Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto gave permission for the use of Baluchi (among other
languages) in primary education in Balochistan. Despite this move,
Baluchi language education has encountered numerous difficulties.
There is a severe lack of teachers; many parents object to Baluchi
instruction, demanding their children learn more practical languages
like English, Urdu, and Persian; and there is pressure from outside
language groups seeking to have their languages taught instead. In
this way, education in Baluchi is effectively education in a second
language. The language is thus principally one of the home and the
local community. At present, courses in Baluchi language and
literature are offered at the Balochistan University in Quetta, the
provincial capital. There are also several Baluchi language
publications in Pakistan, the two most prominent being Balochi
(published in Quetta) and Labzank (published in Karachi), in
addition to several newspapers. Additionally, there is a Baluchi
Academy that publishes literary works in Baluchi and supports the
work of literary organizations. The Academy, however, receives
limited government funding. As a consequence, the creation,
maintenance, and enforcement of a single standardized language for
all Baluchi people has proven problematic. Literacy rates are quite
low across the board (roughly 1-5% of Baluchi are literate in the
written language (Western Baluchi)). The media, however, plays a
significant role in the standardization of the language and the
intelligibility of Baluchi among speakers of different dialects.
Radio Zahedan broadcasts a daily Baluchi language program from the
capital of the Sistan-va-Balochistan province, Zahedan.

HISTORY
The Baluchi language is said to have its origins in a lost language
related to those of the Parthian and Median civilizations, sometime
between 200 B.C. and 700 A.D. Baluchi historical scholars have
concluded that Baluchi’s ancestor was neither Parthian nor middle
Persian, but rather a lost language that shared a number of
properties with both. In this regard, Baluchi has no real affinity
with the languages of the Indian subcontinent and is quite distinct
from other Iranian languages of the Indo-European language family.

Baluchi was used solely as an oral language up until the 19th
century. Prior to this time, it was generally regarded as a dialect
of Persian and there was no tradition of using it in writing. Prior
to 1947, Persian and English were used as official languages in
Balochistan. In 1947, the independent Khanate of Balochistan
announced Baluchi as an official and national language. However, in
1948 with the incorporation of Balochistan into the newly created
Pakistan, Baluchi was replaced by Urdu as the national language.
Today, Baluchi is spoken in several different countries, but neither
enjoys official status nor is used in the education systems of the
countries in which it is spoken.

REFERENCES
Barker, Mohammed Abd-al-Rahman and Aqil Khan Mengal. 1969. A Course
in Baluchi. Montreal: McGill University.

Bynon, T. 1980. From Passive to Ergative in Kurdish Via the Ergative
Construction. In E.C. Tsugott, R. Labrum, and S. Shephard (eds.),
Papers from the 4th International Conference on Historical
Linguistics, 151-161. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Collett, Major N.A. 1983. A Grammar, Phrase Book, and Vocabulary of
Baluchi. Great Britain: Burgess and Son (Abingdon) Ltd.

Farrell, T. 1995. Fading Ergativity? A Study of Ergativity in
Balochi. In D.C. Bennet (ed.), Subject, Voice, and Ergativity:
Selected Essays, 218-243. London: School of Oriental and African
Studies.

Gilbertson, Major George Waters. 1923. The Balochi Language. A
Grammar and Manual. Hertford: Stephen Austin and Sons Ltd.

Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Editor). 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the
World, Fifteenth Edition. Dallas: SIL International.

Jahani, Carina. 2000. Language in Society – Eight Sociolinguistic
Essays on Balochi. Universitatis Upsaliensis (Uppsala University).

Khan, Naseer. 1984. The Grammar of Balochi Language. Balochi Acadamy
Quetta.

Payne, J.R. 1980. The Decay of Ergativity in Pamir Languages. Lingua
51: 147-186.

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Introduction to Balochi Language

Balochi is spoken in south-western Pakistan, south-eastern Iran, southern Afghanistan, the Gulf States and Turkmenistan. There are also communities of Baloch in East Africa and India, as well as in several countries of the West, e.g. Great Britain and the USA. It is very hard to estimate the total number of speakers of Balochi, especially since central governments do not generally stress ethnic identity in census reports, but statistics available give at hand that at least between five and eight million Baloch speak the language. Linguistically Balochi belongs to the western group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, and is closely related to Kurdish and Persian.
The main dialect split is that between eastern, southern and western dialects. Eastern Balochi dialects are spoken in border areas to Indian languages in Punjab, Sind, and the north eastern parts of Pakistani Balochistan, and are heavily influenced by Indian languages, e.g. Sindhi and Lahnda. Southern Balochi is spoken in the southern areas of the Balochi speaking parts of Iran and Pakistan, including Karachi, as well as in the Gulf States. Western Balochi is spoken in the northern Balochi speaking area in Iran and Pakistan (except in the north east), in Afghanistan and in Turkmenistan.
The Balochi language is a north-west Iranian language but is nowadays spoken in the south eastern corner of the Iranian linguistic area. According to the epic tradition of the Baloch themselves, they are of Arabic origin and migrated from Aleppo in Syria after the battle of Karbala, where, despite being mainly Sunni Muslims, they fought on the side of the Shi’a Muslim imam and martyr Hussein. Even if these legends must be seriously questioned they may at least carry some truth in them. It is possible that the original home of the Baloch was somewhere in the central Caspian region, and that they then migrated south-eastwards under pressure from Turkic peoples invading the Iranian plateau from Central Asia. It is also possible that tribes and groups of various ethnic origin, including Indo-European, Semitic, Dravidic, Turkic, and others have been incorporated into the very heterogeneous ethnic group known as the Baloch.
The Balochi language has long been regarded as a dialect of Persian, and has not until recently been used as a written language. Balochi possesses, however, a rich oral literature of both poetry and prose. As a written language Balochi can be divided into two periods, the colonial period with British rule in India, and the period after the Independence of Pakistan. During the first period most of the existing written literature was produced as a result of British influence. The literature of this time on and in Balochi consists of grammar books and collections of oral poetry and tales, compiled in order to provide samples of the language and to make it possible for British military and civil officials to learn Balochi.
With the withdrawal of the British and the Independence of Pakistan in 1947, the Baloch themselved became increasingly concerned with the development of their language. Baloch poets, who had previously composed in Persian and Urdu started to write poetry in their mother tongue. Literary circles were founded and publication of magazines and books in Balochi got underway. This use of Balochi as a written language has mainly been limited to Pakistan, where Quetta and Karachi soon developed into the two main centres of Balochi literary activities. In Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and the Gulf States Balochi is still basically an oral language, despite sporadic attempts at writing and publication.
Balochi, thus, has a very short tradition of writing. The works written in the 19th and early 20th centuries by Englishmen are in Roman script. The orthography used today by the Baloch in Pakistan is based on the Arabic script with Persian-Urdu conventions. There is no standard written language, and therefore no fixed alphabet. Depending on which dialect is written the number of letters in a proposed alphabet may vary. The complete Arabic alphabet has, however, been adopted for Persian/Urdu and thereby also for Balochi, and Arabic loanwords in Balochi are generally spelled in accordance with their spelling in Arabic. This leads to overrepresentation of consonant phonemes. Vowel phonemes are, on the contrary, not fully represented.
Balochi was more widely spoken in the 19th and early 20th centuries than nowadays. Especially in Punjab and Sind there are today many people who recognize themselves as Baloch but speak Indian languages. There are also Baloch both in the Gulf States and in East Africa who have switched over from speaking Balochi to speaking (and writing) Arabic and Swahili respectively. On the other hand, several Brahui tribes, both in Iran and Pakistan have switched over from speaking Brahui to speaking Balochi.
Education in the Balochi speaking areas is invariably in a second language, namely in Urdu/English (Pakistan), Persian (Iran and Afghanistan – if there is any education at all in present-day Afghanistan), Arabic (the Gulf States) and Turkmen/Russian (Turkmenistan). This means that Balochi is used only in certain language domains, and by most of its speakers only as a spoken, not as a written language. It also happens that e.g. Baloch from Iran use Persian among themselves for discussing subjects such as science or politics, which are taught in school or acquired through reading books in Persian and other languages. Balochi is thus a language mainly of the home and the local community. In education, administration, and in urban areas, often also at work, other languages are used.
Baloch are also to be found in the Iranian diaspora after the Islamic Revolution. Thus, a limited number of mainly well educated Baloch live in several European countries, the USA, Canada and other countries where Iranians have taken refuge.
Balochi is surrounded by languages belonging to at least five language families. In the Balochi mainland it meets other Iranian languages, Persian (Farsi and Dari) in the west and north-west, and Pashto in the north and north-east, as well as Indian languages, e.g. Punjabi, Lahnda and Sindhi in the north-east and east. All these languages belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. In the Gulf States Balochi stands in contact with Arabic (Semitic) and in East Africa with Bantu languages (e.g. Swahili). In the central parts of Pakistani Balochistan the Dravidian language Brahui has lived in symbiosis with and been dominated by Balochi for centuries, and in Turkmenistan Balochi meets the Turkic language Turkmen. In the diaspora in Europe and North America, Balochi meets new languages, mainly of the Indo-European family.
Balochi is not an official language, i.e. not a language of education and/or administration in any of the countries where it is spoken. Efforts to preserve and promote the language are therefore mainly initiatives taken by individuals lacking the authority that official decisions would have been invested with. This can easily be seen e.g. in the lack of a standard written norm for the language.
However, a number of educated Baloch, mainly in Pakistan, have since the 1950s actively attempted to preserve their language, creating a literature in it, and promoting it as a literary vehicle and in the area of education. Quetta and Karachi are the main centres of these activities. There is a Balochi Academy in Quetta, founded in 1961, receiving some financial support from the Government. Its most important literary activities are publication of books, mainly in Balochi, and arranging literary meetings. There are also other “Academies”, publishing houses and individuals active in these fields. A number of periodicals have been published in Balochi for a shorter or longer period of time. Some of the Baloch in the diaspora are also concerned with the preservation and promotion of Balochi, publishing magazines and arranging literacy classes, cultural evenings etc.
There have been some attempts at starting primary education in Balochi. In 1991 a state programme for mother tongue education in the Province of Balochistan, Pakistan, was established, but it did not carry on for long, neither did it result in any official decision on matters of language standardization. Private initiatives have also been taken to teach Balochi, especially in the main Baloch residential area of Karachi, Lyari. It is also possible to study Balochi for an M. A. degree at the University of Balochistan, Quetta.
The issue of a Latin based script for Balochi was very fervently discussed among young Baloch intellectuals especially in the 1960s and early 1970s. There was also a considerable number of neologisms coined during this period for new phenomena in society and to replace loanwords.
In the present volume different aspects of the Balochi language and its role in society are treated. Josef Elfenbein describes a self-lived process of trying to work out a Latin based script for Balochi in the 1960s and 70s. The issue of script is also addressed by Serge Axenov, who describes the different scripts that have been used for Balochi in Turkmenistan. Vyacheslav Moshkalo, too, describes the role of the Baloch and their language in the Turkmen society. The role of the Baloch in another border area, namely East Africa, is the topic of Abdulaziz Lodhi’s article. The issue of mother tongue education in Balochi is treated by Tim Farrell and Eunice Tan, and Carina Jahani also touches on this question when she describes language attitudes and language maintenance among the Baloch in Sweden. As for Jan Muhammad Dashti, his contribution is an analysis of the relation between Balochi poetry and society from the beginning of the literary movement up to 1985.
Each writer has been free to use his or her own preferred system of transcription. Some homogenisation has, however, been carried out. Thus, Baloch, Balochi, and Balochistan are the spellings that have been adopted, rather than Baluch, Baluchi and Baluchistan. The system for references and bibliographical data has also been unified. A common bibliography was preferred, since several references occur in more than one of the articles, and would have had to be repeated if each article was to be accompanied by its own bibliography. Baloch authors are placed in the bibliography according to their first name. Thus, for example, ‘Atā Shād is placed according to ‘Atā, not according to Shād. Geographical names are written without diacritics throughout the book. Several of these have an established spelling in English, and for the sake of consistency it was decided to omit all diacritics on geographical names. On proper names of persons who normally employ the Arabic script (i.e. not persons from Turkmenistan and East Africa), on the other hand, diacritics are used to indicate the correct spelling of these names in the Arabic script. Exceptions are names of persons well known in Europe, e.g. Bhutto, which are spelled according to the English convention. Also in references to books or articles written in English the name of the author is written in accordance with the spelling used by the person himself.
The aim of the present work is by no means to give a total picture of the status of the Balochi language in the different countries where it is spoken. There is, for example, no reference to Balochi in the Gulf States or in Afghanistan, mainly due to the limited character of the symposium of which this work is the result. Field research, especially of a sociolinguistic character is furthermore a very sensitive issue in all the countries where Balochi is spoken.
On the other hand, the articles all treat subjects that have hardly been studied, let alone described up to the present. This volume wants to shed some light on how a minority group, like the Baloch, try to preserve and promote their language and culture within the framework of the states where they live. This has not always been an easy task, and although it is only in Pakistan that one can actually talk about the existence of a written Balochi language and literature, Baloch in other countries, too, inspired both by the literary movement in Pakistan and by cultural and ethnic movements among other minorities in their neighbourhood, e.g. the Kurds, are eager to see the development of a standard written Balochi language and the creation of a corpus of written Balochi literature.

 

Balochi is the principal language

Balochi is the principal language of Balochistan. There are several other minor languages which are spoken at the ethnic borders of united or Greater Balochistan. The speakers of minor languages (Brahui, Saraiki[?], Sindhi[?], and Dehwari-Persian[?]) are bilingual. Persian and English were used as official languages in western Balochistan (Iran-Afghanistan), the Khanate of Balochistan, and British Balochistan. In 1947 the independent Khanate of Balochistan announced Balochi as an official and national language, a policy which was continued until March, 1948. In 1948, with the incorporation of Balochistan into Pakistan, Balochi was replaced as the official language and Urdu as the national language. The official language in the areas of Gwadar[?] (occupied by Sultanate of Oman until 1958) was Arabic. Balochi has several dialects. Linguists agree on the following two major dialects: Eastern Balochi and Western Balochi Table of contents 1 Eastern Balochi 2 Western Balochi 3 History 4 Origin 5 Script and Ethnic Borders Eastern Balochi The eastern Balochi dialect is spoken from Karachi northwards up to Dera Ismail Khan and to the Suleman Mountains, including the Marri Bugti areas. And amongst the Baloch of Sindh, Derajat and Punjab, and the north west frontier province of Pakistan. This dialect has borrowed several Sindhi (including Saraiki) and Pashto words and has also contributed to the vocabulary of the said languages. Western Balochi The western Balochi dialect is spoken between Karachi (Pakistan) and Kirman[?] (Iran), among the Baloch of Turkmenistan, the Sultanate of Oman, the Khorasan[?] province of Iran and Seistan (Iran-Afghanistan). The dialect has borrowed several words from neighboring languages such as Turkmen, Persian, Pustho and Arabic. History Balochi has a different historical background and has no affinity with any Indian language. The memorandum of independent Khanate of Balochistan submitted by M. A. Jinnnah to the cabinet mission in 1946 declares: On the point of view of language, there is very little affinity between India and Kalat. The Balochi language belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. The Brahui language was said in the same memorandum, to be a Dravidian language having no affinity with any Indian language except the Gond dialects in central India. Discussing the relation of the Balochi language with Persian or Pashto (the national language of Iran and Afghanistan), Harrison writes: ‘Balochi is a distinct language and is closely related only to one of the members of Iranian language, Kurdish, but it retains striking peculiarities of its own.’ Origin The Balochi language originated in a lost language, related to those of the Parthian and Median civilizations. It is classified as a branch of the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family like Kurdish, Persian, Pashto, and Ossetic. Historically, Balochi was believed to have originated between 200 B.C.E. and 700 C.E. J. Elfenbein, a scholar of Balochi, compared Balochi with Parthian and Persian of middle stage and concluded that: ? ancestor of Balochi was neither Parthian nor middle Persian but a lost language, which, sharing a number of characteristic features with either, and some with both, had pronounced (characteristics) of its own. Referring to the affinity of Balochi language with Kurdish, having an ancient Medean background, this author has stressed that Balochi has its own unique features. The same view presented by L. Dames in his book Baloch Race, in which author reported that Balochi resembles the Zand[?] or old Bactrian[?] rather than old Persian. This special position of the Balochi language, having no real affinity with the Indian subcontinent and being a distinctive language along the Iranian group of Indo-European language family, has strengthened the consciousness of the Baloch people in their demand for the right of self-determination. Script and Ethnic Borders Before the 19th century Balochi was a unwritten language, used in conversation in the Baloch courts. The official written language was Persian, as in India and central Asian kingdoms. It was British linguists and political historians who introduced Balochi in a written form with Roman script. In the late 19th century and later, the Baloch scholars who were influenced either by their geographical or historical environments or by their political thoughts, adopted Nastaaliq[?] (Persian script) and Naskh[?] (Arabic script). The Naskh script became popular among the Baloch scholar, intellectual, and journalists. A smaller group of Baloch linguists and scholars favoured the Roman script, but the didn’t have a popular and powerful voice until 1948.

 

Balochi Dialects

The Balochi language is divided in several dialects: Eastern Balochi, Western Balochi, Northern Balochi and Southern Balochi. Each of these dialects are divided in sub-dialects. For example Rakhshani and its subdialects: Kalati, Panjguri and Sarhaddi), Saravani, Lashari, Kechi, Coastal Dialects, and Eastern Hill Balochi.

Dialects

Northern Balochi

Northern Balochi dialects are settled north of Iranian Balochistan and Golestan Province of Iran, north of Nimruz Province in Afghanistan and north Chagai District of Balochistan and north of Sind in Pakistan. Northern Balochi dialects are similar to northern Rakhshani and southern Makkorani dialects.

Southern Balochi

Southern Balochi in Iran are living in Southern of Sistan o Baluchestan. In Pakistan Southern Balochi are settled in Southern Balochistan, Southern Sind and Karachi. In Oman most are settled in Muttrah but some settle along Omani coastline and they can be found all over UAE.

Western Balochi

Western Balochi in Iran are living in Northwest and Southeast of Sistan o Baluchestan and very few of Western Balochi people can speak Persian. In Pakistan Western Balochi are settled in northwest of Balochistan. In Afghanistan they are settled along Helmand River and Zaranj area, in the southwest desert region and Mari region in Turkmenistan.

Eastern Balochi

Eastern Balochi are settle in northwestern Balochistan, southwestern Punjab and northwestern Sind in Pakistan.

Comparison

Balochi Dialects by population, region, religion, and languages estimated by the government of Pakistan in 1998.

 

Balochi Dialects

      Western

1. Sarhaddi Rakhshani
2. Afghan Rakhshani
3. Turkmen Rakhshani
4. Panjguri Rakhshani
5. Kalati Rakhshani
6. Sarawani

     Southern (Makrani)

1. Coastal
2. Lashari
3. Kechi
4. Karachi

     Eastern or Suleimani Dialect

1. Bugti (Bambore Dialect)
2. Marri-Rindh (Sibi Dialect)
3. Mazari (Upper Sindh, DG Khan Region Dialect)
4. Mandwani & Jatoi Dialects of Western Sindh Region

 

References

Ethnologue report on Balochi

Map showing Balochi dialects areas

http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/karten/iran/baloc.jpg

External links

http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/pco/statistics/pop_by_province/pop_by_province.html

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bgn

http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/ba/Balochi_languageWestern_Balochi

This article is licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Balochi dialects

 

 

 

About Balochi Language

The Balochi language, also spelled Balochi or Baluchi, Balochi is spoken in Balochistan (Pakistan), Iran, Afghanistan, India, the Arab Gulf States, Turkmenistan and East Africaand Baloch diaspora communities. . It is classified as a member of the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family which includes Kurdish, Persian (Farsi), Pashto, Dari, Tajik, Ossetian. Balochi is closely related to Kurdish and Persian.

There are three main dialects: Southren, Eastern and Western. It is difficult to estimate the total number of Balochi speakers, but there are probably around six million, most of whom speak Western Balochi, which is also the dialect that has been most widely used in Balochi literature. Within the Western dialect are two further dialects, Rakhshani (in the northern areas) and Makrani (in the south). The areas where Eastern Balochi dialects are spoken (the north-eastern areas of Pakistani Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh) are in many ways less cdeveloped, espeically when it comes to education, than other parts of Balochistan, which accounts for why it is little used in the written form.

Balochi was used only as an oral language until the post-colonial period. Before that it was generally regarded as a dialect of Persian and there was no tradition of using it in writing. Although some works in Balochi had appeared before then, the Balochi literary movement got fully under way only after the creation of Pakistan in 1947.