The Balochi language

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نسخهٔ تاریخ ‏۲۰ سپتامبر ۲۰۰۸، ساعت ۲۰:۱۶ توسط Mostafadaneshvar (بحث | مشارکت‌ها)
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The Balochi language

Balochi is spoken in south-western Pakistan/ south-eastern Iran, southern Afghanistan, the Gulf States

And Turkmenistan. There are also communities of balochi 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 ethic 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, where also e.g. Kurdish and Persian are found.

The main dialect split is that between eastern, southern and western dialects. Eastern balochi 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 in area in Iran and Pakistan (except in the north-east), in Afghanistan and 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 balochi themselves, there 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 shiah Muslim imam and martyr Hussein. Even if these legends must be seriously questioned they may at least carry some truth in them. Most likely the original home of the baloch was somewhere in the central Caspian region, and that they then migrated

South-eastwards under pressure from Turkic people invading the Iranian plateau from central Asia. It is also possible that tribes and groups of various ethnic origins, 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, complied 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 1974, the baloch themselves 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 language. Literary circles were founded and publication of magazines and books in balochi got underway. This use of balochi as written language has mainly been limited to Pakistan, where Quetta and Karachi soon developed into the two main centers of 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 English man 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 not standard written language, and no fixed alphabet. Depending on which dialect is written the number of letters in 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 20th centuries than nowadays. Especially in Punjab and Sind there 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 (gulf states) and Turkmen/Russian (Turkmenistan) this mean that balochi is used only in certain language domains, and by most of its speakers only as a spoken, not as 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 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 other countries where Iranian takes 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 language, e.g. Punjabi, Lahnda and Sindhi in the north-east and east. All these language belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. In the Gulf States balochi stands on contact with Arabic (Semitic) and in East Africa with Bantu languages (e.g. Swahili). In the central parts of Pakistan Balochistan the Dravidian language barhui 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 language of education and/or administration in any of the counties 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 of 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 centers 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 balochi 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, nor 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 M.A. degree at 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 were also a considerable number of neologisms coined during this period for new phenomena in society and to replace loanwords.

by :carina Jahani <seealso> Balochi language