Balochi is spoken in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, the Arab Gulf States, Turkmenistan and East Africa. It is classified as a member of the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family which includes Kurdish, Persian (Farsi), Pashto, Dari, Tajik, Ossetian. Balochi is closely related to Kurdish and Persian.

  There are two main dialects: Eastern and Western. It is difficult to estimate the total number of Balochi speakers, but there are probably around 12 million, most of whom speak Western Balochi, which is also the dialect that has been most widely used in Balochi literature. Within the Western dialect are two further dialects, Rakhshani (in the northern areas) and Makrani (in the south). The areas where Eastern Balochi dialects are spoken (the north-eastern areas of Pakistani Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh) are in many ways less cdeveloped, espeically when it comes to education, than other parts of Balochistan, which accounts for why it is little used in the written form.

Balochi was used only as an oral language until the post-colonial period. Before that it was generally regarded as a dialect of Persian and there was no tradition of using it in writing. Although some works in Balochi had appeared before then, the Balochi literary movement got fully under way only after the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

The status of Balochi in Pakistan

The Constitution of Pakistan (1973), states that "any section of citizens having a disticnt language, script or culture shall have the rifht to preserve and promote the same and, subject to law, establish institutions for that purpose", and "a Provincial Assembly may by law prescribe measures for the teaching, promotion and use of a provincial language in addition to the national language".

In 1989, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto gave permission for the use of local languages (Balochi, Pushto, Brahui) in primary education in Balochistan, however there have been several problems associated with this program of mother-tongue education, namely: other language groups also seeking to have their language taught; the lack of teachers who are capable of implementing the program; and the fact that many parents want their children to learn Urdu and English, not a language that will be of little use outside of the immediate community. There is a Balochi Studies section at the Balochistan University in Quetta which teaches and researches the Balochi language and literature. In addition there is a Balochi Academy, also located in Quetta, which both publishes literary works in Balochi and supports the work of literary organisations. The Academy receives limited government funding. There are several Balochi language publications in Pakistan, the two most prominent being Balochi (published in the provincial capital, Quetta) and Labzank (published in Karachi).

The problems of language policy in Pakistan are described by a Baloch student:

"Go and visit all the schools in Lyari [an area of Karachi inhabited by many Baloch] and give a language test to the children. You will find that they cannot speak good Urdu or good English. It is due to their mother tongue. If you get education in your mother tongue, you can understand everything. If you don't, you cannot understand anything." (Titus, 1996)

The status of Balochi in Iran

According to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1980), "the official language and script of Iran, the lingua franca of its people, is Persian... The use of regional and national languages in the press and mass media, however, as well as for teaching in schools the literatures written in them, is not permitted..

At present there are no publications in the Balochi language. A number of magazines emerged after the Islamic revolution in 1979, but were closed down soon after, due to pressure from the authorities. There is no provision to teach Balochi literature in the schools of Iranian Balochistan. Radio Zahedan used to broadcast a daily Balochi language program from the capital of Sistan-va-Balochistan province, Zahedan.

Many Baloch in Iran are concerned about the strong Persian influence on Balochi, as all education takes place in Persian/Farsi.

Standardisation and orthography of Balochi

There is no standard orthography for the Balochi language, and there is much debate among Baloch intellectuals about the creation of a standard literary language. Balochi is currently written in the Arabic/Urdu script in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, although many scholars outside of Balochistan use Roman script.

Those in favour of the Roman script point to several facts in its support: the Roman script more accurately represents the sounds of Balochi; there does not currently exist a universally-accepted orghography in the Arabic script; the Roman script is more useful in the modern world and is more widely used than the Arabic; the Roman script is easier to learn.

Balochi is spoken in several different countries (Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and the Arab Gulf States). It neither enjoys official status nor is used in the education system of any of these countries. For both these reasons, creating and enforcing a single standard language for all Baloch is problematic.

The media makes an important contribution to the standardisation of a language. In the case of Balochi, radio at least has played an important role in increasing the ease of understanding between the various dialects. (for more information on the role of radio in the development of Balochi, see below).

Those Baloch involved in literary activities are keen to create one standard literary language, and there has been much discussion in literary circles on which dialect, or dialects, should constitute the basis for such a standard language. There has also been much debate over which script should be used for Balochi. Balochi writers use the Arabic/Persian script, which is advocated by many for historical, political and religious reasons. However, among those writers there is no final agreement on several orthographic points, in particular the representation of letters and sounds that are not able to be represented by the Arabic/Persian script. For this reason, others have advocated changing to the Roman script. Although many academics in Europe use the Roman script in their work on Balochi, most Baloch involved in literary activities feel it is impossible to change the orthography at present because neighbouring languages use the Arabic script, and because of the lack of authority to enforce any such reform.

While there a strongly felt need to create a standard literary language with a fixed orthography, and to be able to introduce the teaching of Balochi into the primary education in Pakistani Balochistan, there is also the danger that the standardisation will proceed too quickly. Many people feel that each writer has the rifght to use his or her own dialect when writing, and that a standard literary language will develop naturally as the written form of Balochi is used more and more.

References:

Jahani, C.,"Language standardisation and orthography in Balochi" in Newsletter of Baluchistan Studies (No. 5, Fall 1988)

Slimbach, Richard "Ethnic Binds and Pedagogies of Resistance: Baloch nationalism and educational innovation in Karachi", Marginality and Modernity: Ethnicity and Change in Post-Colonial Balochistan, Titus, Paul (ed.), Oxford University Press (1996





The first radio broadcasts in Baluchi

Broadcasts in Baluchi were introduced on 25th December, 1949 by Radio Pakistan with a 45 minute daily programme on a 10 kilowatt short wave transmitter from its Karachi station, which was also established soon after Pakistan gained its independence in 1947.

The programme consisted mainly of a news bulletin, talks, features and folk music. It served as a great boon to the Baluchi language and the development of its literature and music. The Baluchi broadcasts helped generate great interest and enthusiasm amongst the poorly educated but spirited Baluch population of Karachi. They started up new literary societies and held regular meetings and sessions. The broadcasts also prompted the publication of the first regular monthly Baluchi magazine Oman, edited by Maulana Khair Mohammad Nadvi. It was first published in Karachi in 1951.

The programme proved a great challenge and a novel experience for the broadcasters responsible for the translation of the news bulletins from English. They were obliged to come up with a workable script that could be easily read by them at broadcast time. A group of students from the Karachi colleges formed the pioneer talent recruited to translate and read the news and plan the other programme contents.

Another problem was finding musicians and folk singers. Fortunately, these were available among the Baluchi speaking population of Karachi, mainly immigrants from Iranian Baluchistan, the coastal areas and other parts of the former Kalat state. The quest for musicians, both vocalists and instrumentalists, led to a large number of hitherto unknown artists being discovered and launched. These people, who had never seen a radio station before and had no knowledge of what was expected of them, were auditioned by a committee and booked to perform "live" in the days that followed. These were artists who could sing classical lyrics, verses from folk tales, war ballads and other epic poetry, which had been learnt from the classics and handed down from generation to generation. A large number of singers of ghazals and compositions of modern day poets were also included in the programmes.

Both the broadcast material and the recording facilities were inadequate in those days. Since tape recording had not been introduced, Radio Pakistan had its own disc-cutting machines set up in the studios, where recordings were made for the purpose of building up a library.

As time passed, it also became possible to introduce variety into the programme contents. A vast treasure of folklore in the form of romantic ballads were broadcast as musical items, features and plays. In the field of the spoken word a variety of new formats such as musical features, full length radio plays, short stories and stories for children were regularly broadcast, in addition to talks on cultural and literary topics, tales from Islamic history, skits on topics of interest to women, eg child care and miscellaneous pastimes, were regular items.

The broadcasts in Baluchi from Radio Pakistan in Karachi were suspended when another radio station began broadcasting from Quetta on 17th October 1956.

Reference: Baloch, B A, "The beginning of radio broadcasting in Baluchi: a brief report" in Newsletter of Baluchistan Studies (No. 2, Spring 1985) Naples, Italy.

Mother Tongue Education and the Health and Survival of the Balochi Language

TIM FARRELL

Summer Institute of Linguistics, High Wycombe, UK

Introduction

Of the estimated 6,500 languages in the world today it is reckoned that the majority will cease to exist within fifty years or so. In the history of the world, languages have always come and gone, but in the present time there are some factors which have never existed previously, and which threaten many of the world's languages in a way they have never been threatened before.

The first is that, with the growing world population and with ever increasing mobility, there are getting to be very few people who have had no contact with speakers of other languages, and the vast majority of people have regular contact with speakers of other languages.

The second is that the spread and use of electronic media and communications is growing exponentially. At times it appears that Balochi, spoken largely by semi-nomadic shepherds or rural farmers and fishermen in the huge open expanses of Balochistan would be unaffected by the developments in urban business and leisure communications. But it is salutary to note that among the Baloch in Lyari within a single generation storytelling has been replaced by radio, then by television, then video, then satellite as a means of family entertainment. This has occurred among a community without extensive economic resources. The development and electrification of population centres in Balochistan, such as Gwadar, Turbat, Panjgur etc. means that this process is rapidly extending throughout the Balochi language area.

It is hard to predict the future, but one scenario would be that this explosion of the mass media, coupled with national language education, would relegate Balochi to being spoken only in the sparsely populated rural areas, and in cities and towns only at home by the older members of the family.