Towards a Historical Grammar of Balochi : Studies in
Balochi Historical Phonology and Vocabulary
Agnes Korn

Introduction:

Balochi belongs to the less intensely studied Modern Iranian languages. It has, however,
fascinated those who studied it by its archaic appearance in phonological matters. In
spite of the relatively small number of academic works devoted to Balochi linguistics,
the language is of great importance both for Iranian studies and for historical linguistics.
Balochi is of particular importance for the study of the history of the Iranian languages
since (in contrast to all other modern Iranian languages) it directly reflects the Old
Iranian consonants in all positions of the word: “Von allen Dialekten [i.e. Iranian
languages] hebt sich das Bal¯utsch¯ı durch grosse Ursprünglichkeit glänzend hervor. (…)
Das Bal¯utsch¯ı repräsentirt also in den wichtigsten Punkten des Consonantismus eine
Sprachstufe, die um rund 1500 Jahre hinter der Gegenwart zurückliegt” (GEIGER
1901:417). Although the remarkable archaicity noted by Geiger might be the result of
somewhat more complex processes than hitherto assumed (cf. II 2.1.1, IV), Balochi is
a key witness for the reconstruction of earlier stages of the Iranian languages for which
the evidence is often scarce or difficult to interpret.
Among the contemporary Iranian languages, Balochi occupies an important place due
to the comparatively large area where it is spoken and the number of its speakers (cf.
I 3). A further interesting point is that the Balochi lexicon as well as its historical
phonology reflects the contact with a variety of neighbouring languages. The numerous
loanwords are not only of Persian and (through Persian and, in some cases, Urdu)
Arabic origin, but a number of them also come from Brahui or Indo-Aryan languages.
The latter are supposedly chiefly from Sindhi and Lahnda and, in the recent decades,
Urdu (cf. I 1.2.1, 3.3).
It follows that Balochistan is an interesting field for the study of multilingualism with
a variety of closely related (Persian, Pashto), not so closely related (Indo-Aryan) and
unrelated (Brahui) languages involved. It is also a model case for the study of the
complex relationship between tribal / ethnic and language identity (cf. I 2.2).

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