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The Balochi Language and Languages in Iranian Balochistan

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/21520844.2013.831333

2152-0852

Carina Jahani,

Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

Abstract This article offers a broad introduction to the Balochi language and its dialects, as well as current trends in the official language policy both in Iran and in Pakistan. Other languages spoken in Iranian Balochistan are also presented, and the problems of and prospects for the continuing use of the Balochi language in Iran are discussed. From a historical point of view, Balochi is classified as a Northwestern Iranian language closely related to Kurdish, although it is spoken in the southeastern corner of the Iranian linguistic area. It is difficult to estimate the total number of Balochi speakers, but 10 million may serve as an approximation. The main dialect split is between Western, Southern, and Eastern Balochi. The fact that the Balochi speakers are separated into several countries with various official languages is another cause of dialect differentiation. Along with modernization came a secular education system and a nationalist discourse, first in British India and later in Iran. There is, however, no official use of Balochi as a language of administration or education. This poses a serious threat to the survival of the language beyond one or two more generations. Such a threat is, of course, even more imminent for the languages spoken by smaller communities in southeastern Iran, such as Jadgali, Brahui, Bashkardi, and Koroshi. KEYWORDS: Balochieducationlanguage policyminority languages Notes 1This section is, with some updates, based on Carina Jahani and Agnes Korn, "Balochi," in The Iranian Languages, ed. Gernot Windfuhr (New York: Routledge, 2009), 634–38. 2The official English spelling of the name of this province is "Sistan and Baluchestan." For the sake of consistency, however, the spelling "Balochistan," which reflects the Balochi pronunciation of this name, is used throughout the article (except in direct quotes, of course). 3Some "rejuvenation" of the Balochi language has, however, taken place in East Africa as a result of recent immigration from Balochistan. See Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi, "A Note on the Baloch in East Africa," in Language in Society—Eight Sociolinguistic Essays on Balochi, ed. Carina Jahani (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2000), 93. 4Saleem Ismail (a leading Baloch poet and cultural activist in the United Arab Emirates), personal communication with the author, June 17, 2010. 5See, for example, Serge Axenov, The Balochi Language of Turkmenistan: A Corpus-Based Grammatical Description (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2006), 23–24. 6Carina Jahani, Standardization and Orthography in the Balochi Language (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1989), 91–97. 7SIL International, "Balochi, Eastern," Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bgp (accessed October 16, 2012); idem, "Balochi Southern," Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bcc (accessed October 16, 2012); idem, "Balochi, Western," Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bgn (accessed October 16, 2012). Figures from 1998 or earlier. 8The strict division of Western Iranian languages into a Northwestern and a Southwestern branch has recently been questioned by Ludwig Paul and Agnes Korn. See, for example, Ludwig Paul, "The Position of Balochi among Western Iranian Languages: The Verbal System," in The Baloch and Their Neighbours: Ethnic and Linguistic Contact in Balochistan in Historical and Modern Times, ed. Carina Jahani and Agnes Korn (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2003), 71; Agnes Korn, Towards a Historical Grammar of Balochi (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2005), 329–30. 9M. Longworth Dames, Popular Poetry of the Baloches (London: David Nutt, 1907), 1:1–2. 10See, for example, Brian Spooner, "Baluchistan, I: Geography, History, and Ethnography," in Encyclopædia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater (London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1989), 3:599–600, 606–607; Korn, Towards a Historical Grammar, 43–51. 11See Carina Jahani, "State Control and Its Impact on Language in Balochistan," in The Role of the State in West Asia, ed. Annika Rabo and Bo Utas (Stockholm: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 2005), 159–60. 12This section is, with some updates, based on Jahani, "State Control and Its Impact on Language in Balochistan," 151–63. 13Mohammad Hassan Hosseinbor, Iran and Its Nationalities: The Case of Baluch Nationalism (Karachi: Pakistani Adab Publications, 2000), 150. 14M. Longworth Dames, A Textbook of the Balochi Language (Lahore: Punjab Government Press, 1891), and idem, Popular Poetry of the Baloches. 15Richard Bruce, The Forward Policy (London: Longmans, Green, 1900), 69. 16See, for example, Saba Dashtyari, "Periodicals in Balochi: A Brief Description of Balochi Printed Media," in Jahani and Korn (eds.), The Baloch and Their Neighbours, 321–42. 17The Khanate of Kalat was founded in 1666. It remained independent until British interference in 1839 but was again independent between August 11, 1947, and March 27, 1948. 18I witnessed this very clearly at a Balochi conference in Quetta in 1994, at which one of the speakers "proved" that Balochi and Brahui were "sister languages" by quoting a number of words that are identical in these two languages and accused enemies of the Balochi–Brahui cause for the classification of the one as an Iranian language and the other as a Dravidian language. 19Shahrzad Mojab and Amir Hassanpour, "The Politics of Nationality and Ethnic Diversity," in Iran after the Revolution, ed. Saeed Rahnema and Sohrab Behdad (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1995), 231–32. 20Hamid Algar, Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1980), 34. 21Tim Farrell, "Mother Tongue Education and the Health and Survival of the Balochi Language," in Jahani (ed.), Language in Society, 20. 22Moosa Mahmoodzahi, "Linguistic Contact in Iranian Balochistan in Historical and Modern Times," in Jahani and Korn (eds.), The Baloch and Their Neighbours, 149–52. 23Farideh Okati (Ph.D. student from Zahedan in the Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University), personal communication with the author, April 15, 2010. 24SIL International, "Languages of Iran," Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IR (accessed October 16, 2012). 25See Behrooz Barjasteh Delforooz, "A Sociolinguistic Survey among the Jadgal in Iranian Balochistan," in The Baloch and Others: Linguistic, Historical and Socio-political Perspectives on Pluralism in Balochistan, eds. Carina Jahani, Agnes Korn, and Paul Titus (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2008), 23–43. 26Serge Axenov's material consists of a text corpus in Jadgali. It is still awaiting publication. 27SIL International, "Jadgali," Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=jdg (accessed October 16, 2012). 28Delforooz, "A Sociolinguistic Survey," 34–35. 29Abdolhossein Yadegari, "Pluralism and Change in Iranian Balochistan," in Jahani, Korn, and Titus (eds.), The Baloch and Others, 249. 30Delforooz, "A Sociolinguistic Survey," 25. 31Cf. Josef Elfenbein, "Brahui," Encyclopædia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/brahui. There is no report of Brahui speakers in Iran in this article (accessed October 16, 2012). 32Yadegari, "Pluralism and Change," 250. 33Ibid. 34SIL International, "Brahui," Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=brh (accessed October 16, 2012). 35Prods Oktor Skjærvø, "Baškardi," Encyclopædia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/baskardi-basakerdi-collective-designation-for-numerous-dialects-spoken-in-southeastern-iran-from-bandar-e-abbas-eastwar (accessed October 16, 2012). 36SIL International, "Bashkardi," Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bsg (accessed October 16, 2012). Figure from 2000. According to Behrooz Barjasteh Delforooz (personal communication with the author, October 19, 2012), the number of Bashkardi speakers is at least around 17,000. 37Ilya Gershevitch, "Travels in Bashkardia," Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 46, no. 3 (1959), 213–25. 38See Prods Oktor Skjærvø, "Languages of Southeast Iran," in Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. Rüdiger Schmitt (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1989), 369. 39ibid. 40SIL International, "Bashkardi." 41Ilya Gershevitch, "The Crushing of the Third Singular Present," in Philologica Iranica, ed. Nicholas Sims-Williams (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1985), 225. See also SIL International, "Bashkardi." 42Gerardo Barbera, "Linguistic Documentation of Garuwi," Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, http://www.hrelp.org/grants/projects/index.php?lang=151 (accessed October 16, 2012). 43SIL International, "Koroshi," Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ktl (accessed October 16, 2012). 44For more information on the Korosh and their language, see Maryam Nourzaei and others, Koroshi: A Corpus-Based Grammatical Description (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, forthcoming). 45See, for example, Korn, Towards a Historical Grammar of Balochi, 330. 46Ahmad Reza Taheri, "The Balochi in Post Islamic Revolution Iran: A Political Study" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pune), 138, http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/3809 (accessed October 16, 2012). Additional informationNotes on contributorsCarina Jahani CARINA JAHANI has been the chair and professor of Iranian studies in the Department of Linguistics and Philology at Uppsala University, Sweden, since 2005. Her main fields of research are the Balochi language and its literature, New Persian, and the minority language situation in Iran. She expresses sincere thanks to Agnes Korn and Christian Rammer of Frankfurt am Main for allowing her to republish the map accompanying this article, as well as to Aziz Dadiar and Behrooz Barjasteh Delforooz for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article.