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Balochi
بلۏچی Balòci
Balòci (Balochi) written Balo-Rabi in Nastaliq style.
Pronunciation	[bəˈloːt͡ʃiː]
Native to	Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan
Region	Balochistan
Ethnicity	Baloch
Native speakers	8.8 million (2017–2020)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Northwestern Balochi
Writing system	Perso-Arabic script (Balochi alphabet)
Official status
Regulated by	Balochi Academy, Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan Balochi Academy Sarbaz, Sarbaz, Iran
Language codes
ISO 639-2	bal
ISO 639-3	bal – inclusive code Individual codes: bgp – Eastern Balochi bgn – Western Balochi bcc – Southern Balochi
Glottolog	balo1260
Linguasphere	58-AAB-a
The position of Balochi language among Iranian languages.[2]
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This article contains Balochi text, written from right to left with some letters joined. Without proper rendering support, you may see unjoined Balochi letters or other symbols instead of Balochi script.

Balochi (بلۏچی, romanized: Balòci) is a Northwestern Iranian language,^[3] spoken by the Baloch in the Balochistan region in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In addition, there are speakers in Oman, and the rest of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Turkmenistan, & even East Africa and in diaspora communities in other parts of the world.^[4] The total number of speakers, according to Ethnologue, is 8.8 million.^[1] Of these, 6.28 million are in Iran.^[5]

Balochi varieties constitute a dialect continuum and collectively at least have around 10 million native speakers. The main varieties of Balochi are Eastern (Soleimani), Southern (Makrani) and Western (Rakhshani).^[6] The Koroshi dialect is a dialect of the Balochi language, spoken mainly in the provinces of Fars and Hormozgan.^[7][6][8]

According to Brian Spooner,^[9]

Literacy for most Baloch-speakers is not in Balochi, but in Urdu in Pakistan and Farsi in Afghanistan and Iran. Even now, very few Baloch read Balochi in any of the countries, regardless of the alphabet in which it is printed.

Balochi belongs to the Western Iranian subgroup.^[10]

Balochi is an Indo-European language, spoken by the Baloch and belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family. As an Iranian language, it is classified in the Northwestern group.

Glottolog classifies four different varieties, namely Koroshi, Southern Balochi and Western Balochi (grouped under a "Southern-Western Balochi" branch), and Eastern Balochi, all under the "Balochic" group.^[11]

According to the research of Carina Jahani, ISO 639-3 groups Southern, Eastern, and Western Baloch under the Balochi macrolanguage, keeping Koroshi separate.^[12][13]

These dialects are broadly categorized into three main groups:^[14]

• Eastern group (the Soleimani dialect group): Found mainly in eastern Balochistan, covering parts of Pakistan, particularly in areas like Quetta, Kalat, and Khuzdar.
• Southern group or Makrani dialect (part of the Makrani dialect group): Spoken in the southern parts of Balochistan, including coastal areas like Gwadar, Chabahar, and southern Pakistan.^[14]
• Western group (part of the Rakhshani dialect group) : Predominantly spoken in western Balochistan, including parts of Iran and Afghanistan. Commonly spoken in Sistan and Balochestan province and Khorasan in Iran.^[7][14]

Koroshi is also classified as Balochi.^[15]

Elfenbein divides the dialects of the Balochi language into six categories: Rakhshani (subdialects: Kalati and Sarhaddi), Panjguri, Saravani, Lashari, Kechi, and Coastal Dialects.^[10]

Rakhshani ^[10]

• Kalati (areas between Las Bela in the north of Karachi to Mastung in the south of Quetta Chaghi and Kharan (northern areas of Balochistan, Pakistan, including Noshki, Dalbandin, Kharan, and Kalat).
• Panjguri(southern and southwestern areas of Afghanistan, mainly the areas around the Helmand River).
• Sarhadhi (an area that extends from the east to Dalbandin in Pakistan and from the northeast to Chahar Burjak in Afghanistan, and includes Merv in the Republic of Turkmenistan and Sistan in Iran, with Nosratabad in Balochistan, Iran, forming its southernmost part).

Panjguri^[16][12] It includes most of the Kharan region, with the kech River forming its southern border and the Rakhshan River its northern border, and Kolwa located to its east.^[10]

Saravani^[16] Saravan and its surrounding areas, with Khash as its northern border and Espidan as its western border. In later works, Elfenbein, Iranshahr, and Bampur are also considered to be within the Saravani dialect area.^[10][12]

Kechi^[16] Kich region in Balochistan, including Turbat.^[10][12]

Lashari^[10] centered on the village of Lashar, south of Iranshahr where Balochi close to Persian and Baskardi.^[12]

Coastal dialects^[17][18] Including Qasr-e Qand, Nikshahr, Rask and the southern coastal areas of Balochistan from near Bandar Abbas to Karachi Port, including the ports of Chahbahar, Gwadar, Pasni.^[10]

There are two main dialects: the dialect of the Mandwani (northern) tribes and the dialect of the Domki (southern) tribes.^[19] The dialectal differences are not very significant.^[19] One difference is that grammatical terminations in the northern dialect are less distinct compared with those in the southern tribes.^[19] 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.^[20]

The Balochi Academy Sarbaz has designed a standard alphabet for Balochi.^{[21][better source needed]}

Uppsala University offers a course titled Balochi A, which provides basic knowledge of the phonetics and syntax of the Balochi language.^[14] Carina Jahani is a prominent Swedish Iranologist and professor of Iranian languages at Uppsala University, deeply researching in the study and preservation of the Balochi language.^[22]

The Balochi vowel system has at least eight vowels: five long and three short.^{[23][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/.^{[24][page needed]} In addition to these eight vowels, Balochi has two vowel glides, that is /aw/ and /aj/.^[25]

The following table shows consonants which are common to both Western (Northern) and Southern Balochi.^{[26][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. The symbol ń is used to denote nasalization of the preceding vowel.^[25]

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].^[27]

Difference between a question and a statement is marked with the tone, when there is no question word. Rising tone marks the question and falling tone the statement.^[25] Statements and questions with a question word are characterized by falling intonation at the end of the sentence.^[25]

Questions without a question word are characterized by rising intonation at the end of the sentence.^[25]

Both coordinate and subordinate clauses that precede the final clause in the sentence have rising intonation. The final clause in the sentence has falling intonation.^[25]

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.^[28] Balochi, like many Western Iranian languages, has lost the Old Iranian gender distinctions.^[10]

Much of the Balochi number system is identical to Persian.^[29] According to Mansel Longworth Dames, Balochi writes the first twelve numbers as follows:^[30]

Notes

Balochi was not a written language before the 19th century,^[31] and the Persian script was used to write Balochi wherever necessary.^[31] However, Balochi was still spoken at the Baloch courts.^{[citation needed]}

British colonial officers first wrote Balochi with the Latin script.^[32] Following the creation of Pakistan, Baloch scholars adopted the 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.^[33]

In 2002, a conference was held to help standardize the script that would be used for Balochi.^[34]

The following alphabet was used by Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi in his lexicon of Balochi Sayad Ganj (سید گنج) (lit. Sayad's Treasure).^[35][36] Until the creation of the Balochi Standard Alphabet, it was by far the most widely used alphabet for writing Balochi, and is still used very frequently.

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

The Balochi Standard Alphabet, standardized by Balochi Academy Sarbaz, consists of 29 letters.^[37] It is an extension of the Perso-Arabic script and borrows a few glyphs from Urdu. It is also sometimes referred to as Balo-Rabi or Balòrabi. Today, it is the preferred script to use in a professional setting and by educated folk.

The following Latin-based alphabet was adopted by the International Workshop on "Balochi Roman Orthography" (University of Uppsala, Sweden, 28–30 May 2000).^[38]

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)

In 1933, the Soviet Union adopted a Latin-based alphabet for Balochi as follows:

The alphabet was used for several texts, including children's books, newspapers, and ideological works. In 1938, however, the official use of Balochi was discontinued.^[40]

In 1989, Mammad Sherdil, a teacher from the Turkmen SSR, approached Balochi language researcher Sergei Axenov with the idea of creating a Cyrillic-based alphabet for Balochi. Before this, the Cyrillic script was already used for writing Balochi and was used in several publications but the alphabet was not standardized. In 1990, the alphabet was finished. It included the following letters:

The project was approved with some minor changes (қ, ꝑ, and ы were removed due to the rarity of those sounds in Balochi, and о̄ was added). From 1992 to 1993, several primary school textbooks were printed in this script. In the early 2000s, the script fell out of use.^[41]

At Wikimedia Incubator:

• Balochi language test of Wikipedia
• Western Balochi test of Wikipedia
• Southern Balochi test of Wikipedia
• Eastern Balochi test of Wikipedia

Wikivoyage has phrasebook for Balochi.

• Media related to Balochi language at Wikimedia Commons
• Collett, N. A. A grammar, phrase book and vocabulary of Baluchi: (as spoken in the Sultanate of Oman). 2nd ed. [Camberley]: [N.A. Collett], 1986.
• Dames, Mansel Longworth. A sketch of the northern Balochi language, containing a grammar, vocabulary and specimens of the language. Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1881.
• Mumtaz Ahmad. Baluchi glossary: a Baluchi-English glossary: elementary level. Kensington, Md.: Dunwoody Press, 1985.
• EuroBalúči online translation tool Archived 29 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine – translate Balochi words to or from English, Persian, Spanish, Finnish and Swedish
• iJunoon English to Balochi Dictionary Archived 12 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine
• EuroBalúči – Baluchi alphabet, grammar and music
• "Baluchi" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
• Jahani, C. 2019. A Grammar of Modern Standard Balochi