As in Urdu, these three sounds are represented in the Perso-Arabic script using the characters “ڑ” and “ٹ” and “ڈ” respectively.īalochi does not have labiodental consonants.
Balochi has three retroflex consonants (/ɻ/, /ʈ/, and /ɖ/), all of which have phonemic status. Probably as a result of contact with Indo-Aryan languages, the consonant inventory of Balochi, along with Pashto, is exceptional among Iranian languages in that it uses retroflexes.
The use of Balochi in the Iranian state-run provincial TV in Sistan va Baluchestan is very limited, even compared to the use of other minority languages in other Iranian provincial TV channels. Moreover, there are no major TV channels broadcasting exclusively in Balochi. There is, for example, no Balochi Wikipedia as of 2017. While Balochi has a better status in terms of publications compared to most Iranian languages, it has a relatively weak web presence given its large speaker population and its considerable distance from the official languages of the countries where it is spoken. As of 2010, three bilingual Persian-Balochi magazines were being published in Iran, with headquarters in Zahedan, Iranshahr, and Tehran (Hoseinbor, 2010). Publication in Balochi in Iran was resumed in the 1990s (ibid.). In Iran, the first Balochi publications appeared right after the 1979 revolution in the form of magazines, but they were soon forced to cease (Jahani, 2013). In Pakistan, many books and periodicals have been published in Balochi since 1951, and as of 2016, there were several regularly published monthly magazines in Quetta and in Karachi (Thompson, 2016).
Even though literacy rates in general have risen significantly in Balochi-speaking areas, since the language of education is the official language in each country, the literacy rate of Balochi remains very low (Spooner, 2011). There is no fully agreed-upon standard for writing the Balochi language, but the dominant trend is to use the Arabic script with conventions that resemble those of Urdu in many ways. The first Balochi writings date back to less than 200 years ago (Elfenbein, 1988). Nevertheless, it has a significant contemporary written tradition compared to most other Iranian languages. The examples used in this article, as well as the syntactic and phonological properties described, are based on this dialect.Įastern Balochi: A conglomerate of dialects spoken in the eastern edges of Pakistan’s Balochi-speaking regions, with very little literary output and recent documentations compared to the other dialects.īalochi is not used for administrative or education purposes in any of the areas where it is spoken. Western Balochi: The main dialect in all three countries where Balochi is spoken, covering Zahedan in Iran and Quetta in Pakistan. Southern Balochi: The dialect spoken along the coasts of Oman sea in both Iran and Pakistan, as well as the Persian Gulf states, expanding up to Iranshahr in Iran and Kech valley in Pakistan. The most notable recent classification is that of Jahani (2013), dividing Balochi varieties into three main dialects: Various classifications of Balochi dialects have been proposed since the earliest studies in the 19th century. Due to the long period of contact with Indo-Aryan languages, Balochi (even the dialects spoken in Iran) shows signs of influence by Indo-Aryan languages in both phonology and vocabulary. The migrations are thought to have started at early Islamic or late Sassanian era (ibid.). Scholars believe that Baloch people migrated from the Central Caspian region eastward to today’s Balochistan and surrounding areas long after the divergence between Eastern and Western Iranian languages had taken place (Elfenbein, 1988).
It is estimated to be spoken by nearly 10 million people (Jahani, 2013).Įven though Balochi is spoken in areas closer to the eastern half of the lands of Iranian languages, it shows clear signs of being a northwestern Iranian language. Balochi, or Baluchi, is a northwestern Iranian language spoken primarily in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, and by smaller communities in Turkmenistan, India, East Africa, and the Persian Gulf states.īalochi is the dominant local language in southeastern Iran (mainly in Sistan va Baluchestan province), western Pakistan (mainly Balochistan province), and areas in southern Afghanistan (particularly in Nimruz province (Jahani, 2013)).