Balochi
بلۏچی, Balòci
Balochi in Balo-Rabi and Latin script
Native to	Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Tanzania
Region	Balochistan
Ethnicity	Balochis and some Brahuis
Native speakers	7.6 million (2007)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Northwestern Balochi
Dialects	Koroshi
Official status
Official language in	Balochistan
Recognised minority language in	Pakistan Provincial in Balochistan  Iran Provincial in Sistan and Baluchestan  Afghanistan Provincial in Nimruz Province
Regulated by	Balochi Academy, Quetta, Pakistan
Language codes
ISO 639-2	bal
ISO 639-3	bal – inclusive code Individual codes: bgp – Eastern Balochi bgn – Western Balochi bcc – Kachi Dialect(Southern Balochi) ktl – Koroshi
Glottolog	balo1260
Linguasphere	58-AAB-a > 58-AAB-aa (East Balochi) + 58-AAB-ab (West Balochi) + 58-AAB-ac (South Balochi) + 58-AAB-ad (Bashkardi)
File:Moderniranianlanguagesmap.jpg Geographic distribution of Balochi (yellow) and other Iranian languages
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Balochi (بلۏچی, Balòci) is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken primarily in the Balochistan region divided between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Phonology

Vowels

The Balochi vowel system has at least eight vowels: five long and three short.^{[2][page needed]} These are /aː/, /eː/, /iː/, /oː/, /uː/, /a/, /i/ and /u/. The short vowels have more centralized phonetic quality than the long vowels. The variety spoken in Karachi also has nasalized vowels, most importantly /ẽː/ and /ãː/.^{[3][page needed]}

Consonants

The following table shows consonants which are common to both Northern and Southern Balochi.^{[4][page needed]} The consonants /s/, /z/, /n/, /ɾ/ and /l/ are articulated as alveolar in Western Balochi. The plosives /t/ and /d/ are dental in both dialects.

Notes

In addition, /f/ occurs in a few words in Southern Balochi. /x/ (voiceless velar fricative) in some loanwords in Southern Balochi corresponding to /χ/ (voiceless uvular fricative) in Western Balochi; and /ɣ/ (voiced velar fricative) in some loanwords in Southern Balochi corresponding to /ʁ/ (voiced uvular fricative) in Western Balochi.

In Eastern Balochi, it is noted that the stop and glide consonants may also occur as aspirated allophones in word initial position as [pʰ tʰ ʈʰ t͡ʃʰ kʰ] and [wʱ]. Allophones of stops in postvocalic position include for voiceless stops, [f θ x] and for voiced stops [β ð ɣ]. /n l/ are also dentalized as [n̪ l̪].^[5]

Grammar

The normal word order is subject–object–verb. Like many other Indo-Iranian languages, Balochi also features split ergativity. The subject is marked as nominative except for the past tense constructions where the subject of a transitive verb is marked as oblique and the verb agrees with the object.^[6]

Numerals

Much of the Balochi number system is borrowed from Persian.^[7] According to Mansel Longworth Dames, Bolochi writes the first twelve numbers as follows:^[8]

Notes

Dialects

There are two main dialects: the dialect of the Mandwani (northern) tribes and the dialect of the Domki (southern) tribes.^[9] The dialectal differences are not very significant.^[9] One difference is that grammatical terminations in the northern dialect are less distinct compared with those in the southern tribes.^[9] An isolated dialect is Koroshi, which is spoken in the Qashqai tribal confederation in the Fars province. Koroshi distinguishes itself in grammar and lexicon among Balochi varieties.^[10]

Writing system

Balochi was not a written language before the 19th century,^[11] and the Persian script was used to write Balochi wherever necessary.^[11] However, Balochi was still spoken at the Baloch courts.^{[citation needed]}

British colonial officers first wrote Balochi with the Latin script.^[12] Following the creation of Pakistan, Baloch scholars adopted Persian alphabet. The first collection of poetry in Balochi, Gulbang by Mir Gul Khan Nasir was published in 1951 and incorporated the Arabic Script. It was much later that Sayad Zahoor Shah Hashemi wrote a comprehensive guidance on the usage of Arabic script and standardized it as the Balochi Orthography in Pakistan and Iran. This earned him the title of the 'Father of Balochi'. His guidelines are widely used in Eastern and Western Balochistan. In Afghanistan, Balochi is still written in a modified Arabic script based on Persian.^{[citation needed]}

In 2002, a conference was held to help standardise the script that would be used for Balochi.^[13]

Orthography

The following alphabet was used by Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi in his lexicon of Balochi Sayad Ganj (سید گنج) (lit. Sayad's Treasure).^[14][15]

آ، ا، ب، پ، ت، ٹ، ج، چ، د، ڈ، ر، ز، ژ، س، ش، ک، گ، ل، م، ن، و، ھ ہ، ء، ی ے

Kachi dialect

The Balochi alphabet, standardized by Balochi Academy Sarbaz, consists of 29 letters.^[16]

Latin alphabet

The following Latin-based alphabet was adopted by the International Workshop on "Balochi Roman Orthography" (University of Uppsala, Sweden, 28–30 May 2000).^[17]

Alphabetical order

a á b c d ď e f g ĝ h i í j k l m n o p q r ř s š t ť u ú v w x y z ž ay aw (33 letters and 2 digraphs)