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Balochi

Sistan and Baluchestan, and across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf

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بلۏچی

01The language

Codes
ISO 639-3: bcc, bgn, bgp · macrolanguage bal · Glottocode: sout2642, west2368, east2304 · page code: bal
Family
Indo-European › Classical Indo-European › Indo-Iranian › Iranian-Nuristani › Iranian › Central Iranian PBS › Central Iranian PB › Northwestern Iranian › Balochic › Southern-Western Balochi › Southern Balochi-Koroshi
Script
Arab, right to left
Interface
In preparation
Platform phase
By demand
Technology support
Low resource
Shown with
Vazirmatn

Sources Hammarström, Forkel, Haspelmath and Bank. Glottolog 5.3. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (2025) Verified; ISO 639-3 code tables. SIL International, registration authority. (2025) To verify

02Names and perspectives

Where names, classification or identity are debated, each view is shown with its sources. The platform takes no side.

  • بلۏچی balòci

  • Varieties

    ISO 639-3 treats Balochi as a macrolanguage (bal) with Southern, Western and Eastern Balochi. Balochi in Iran is mostly Southern and Western.

    Sources ISO 639-3 code tables. SIL International, registration authority. (2025) To verify; Jahani and Korn. Balochi. In Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages. (2009) To verify

03Where it is spoken, and by how many

Sistan and Baluchestan, and across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf

Unknown

Speakers: No speaker figure has been verified for this platform yet. It stays unknown until a census or survey figure is checked with its measure, year and source.

04Status

The UNESCO World Atlas of Languages is the United Nations source; its status is shown first and stays to verify until the Atlas can be read. Beside it, the Agglomerated Endangerment Status in Glottolog brings together the Catalogue of Endangered Languages, the UNESCO Atlas and Ethnologue. Ethnologue appears only as a secondary source.

EntryStatusBasisSource
UNESCO World Atlas of LanguagesTo verifyUNESCO. World Atlas of Languages. (2025) To verify
Southern BalochiNot endangered5* (Developing)Eberhard, Simons and Fennig (eds.). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 28th edition. SIL International. (2025) Secondary source via Glottolog
Western BalochiNot endangered5* (Developing)Eberhard, Simons and Fennig (eds.). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 28th edition. SIL International. (2025) Secondary source via Glottolog
Eastern BalochiNot endangered5* (Developing)Eberhard, Simons and Fennig (eds.). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 28th edition. SIL International. (2025) Secondary source via Glottolog

05Legal status

What constitutions say about the language. Quoted from the English translations of the Constitute Project.

06Varieties and dialects

Dialect groups as Glottolog records them. Names stay as published.

Southern Balochi

7 dialects recorded

  • Coastal Balochi
  • Kechi

Western Balochi

11 dialects recorded

  • Lashari
  • Rakhshani
  • Sarawani

Eastern Balochi

6 dialects recorded

  • Bugti
  • Kasrani
  • Leghari
  • Marri
  • Mazari
  • Upper Sindhi Balochi

Sources Hammarström, Forkel, Haspelmath and Bank. Glottolog 5.3. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (2025) Verified

07This language’s pages

  • Writing

    Scripts, the alphabet chart, romanisation, numerals, keyboards and fonts.

  • Linguistics

    Sounds in IPA, pronunciation, grammar and core words compared with neighbouring languages.

  • Learn

    A pathway from first steps to fluency, courses, exams and heritage-language programmes.

  • Resources and preservation

    Dictionaries, corpora, libraries and media; endangerment and documentation; how to contribute.

08Courses

09How to help

  • Native translators: translate the pages into Balochi. This language gets human translation only.
  • Teachers: teach or help write Balochi.
  • Sources: point the research team to openly licensed dictionaries, corpora and recordings. Each enters the sources register for review.
  • Fonts and keyboards: report any letter that does not display or type correctly.

10Sources

  1. Hammarström, Forkel, Haspelmath and Bank. Glottolog 5.3. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 2025

    Verified CC BY 4.0 Classification, dialect groups and the Agglomerated Endangerment Status (AES), read 2026-10-23.

  2. ISO 639-3 code tables. SIL International, registration authority. 2025

    To verify Codes cross-checked through Glottolog records; the code tables themselves were not read.

  3. Jahani and Korn. Balochi. In Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages. 2009

    To verify

  4. UNESCO. World Atlas of Languages. 2025

    To verify Not reachable when checked on 2026-10-23. Its status for each language is to verify.

  5. Eberhard, Simons and Fennig (eds.). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 28th edition. SIL International. 2025

    Secondary source Cited only as Glottolog reports it (its AES source). Ethnologue itself was not read.

  6. Constitute Project. Constitutions of the world, English translations. 2025

    Verified Articles on official languages, read 2026-10-23.

Cite this page
APA

Iranian Diaspora Cooperation & Development Council. (2026). Balochi. iranians.global. https://iranians.global/language/languages/bal/

Chicago

Iranian Diaspora Cooperation & Development Council. 2026. “Balochi.” iranians.global. https://iranians.global/language/languages/bal/.

BibTeX
@misc{idcdc2026_language_languages_bal,
	author = {{Iranian Diaspora Cooperation \& Development Council}},
	year = {2026},
	note = {Licence: CC BY 4.0},
	title = {Balochi},
	url = {https://iranians.global/language/languages/bal/},
	howpublished = {https://iranians.global/language/languages/bal/},
}

Download .bib

RIS
TY  - ELEC
AU  - Iranian Diaspora Cooperation & Development Council
DA  - 2026///
PY  - 2026
ID  - idcdc2026_language_l
N1  - Licence: CC BY 4.0
TI  - Balochi
UR  - https://iranians.global/language/languages/bal/
ER  -

Download .ris

Licence CC BY 4.0

11Research and sources

Recent and relevant work on this page’s subject, from approved open scholarly sources. Metadata and links only. Titles stay as published. Not yet reviewed.

  1. Balochi Language

    National Cancer Institute · 2020 · Definitions

    OtherOpenAlexCrossrefOpen accessCC-BY

  2. <b>Linguistic Links between Balochi and Urdu Language</b>

    null Farzana Khadarzai, Dr. Kiran Dawood Butt · 2023 · Tashkeel

    ArticleOpenAIRE

  3. The Balochi Language

    Hamid Ali Baloch · 2018 · Unpublished

    DatasetDataCite

  4. Balochi Language to English Translation Dataset

    Muhammad Saqib · 2023 · Kaggle

    DatasetDataCite

  5. The Sulaimani Dialect of the Balochi Language: A Phonological Study

    2023 · Makhz

    ArticleCrossref

  6. Code-Copying in the Balochi Language of Sistan

    Lutz Rzehak · 2011 · Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies

    ArticleDOAJOpen access

  7. LANGUAGE CONTACT IN BALOCHISTAN: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE BALOCHI LANGUAGE

    Hamid Ali Baloch, Balochi Supervisor, Razzaq Abdul et al. · 2018

    ArticleOpenAIRE

  8. The Prediction of Next Word in Balochi Language Using N-gram Model

    Sharan · 2024 · Sukkur IBA Journal of Computing and Mathematical Sciences

    ArticleDOAJOpen access

  9. The Balochi Language and Languages in Iranian Balochistan

    Carina Jahani · 2013 · The Journal of the Middle East and Africa

    ArticleOpenAlexOpenAIRE

  10. Similarities and Unique Homogeneity of Certain Letters of Brahui and Balochi Language

    2024 · Makhz

    ArticleCrossref

  11. Acquiring Persian Object Marking: Balochi Learners of L2 Persian

    Ute Bohnacker, Somayyeh Mohammadi · 2013 · KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

    ArticleOpenAlexOpen accessother-oa

  12. Newspapers as a Tool for Language Revival: The Case of Balochi in Pakistan’s Media Landscape

    Abdul Malik, Syed Muhammad Aziz Ali Naqvi, Furrakh Abbas · 2026 · Research Journal for Social Affairs

    ArticleOpenAIRE

Sources, licences and fetch dates: Crossref (Metadata facts, any use; abstracts may be publisher-owned and are never shown), 2026-10-23; DataCite (CC0 1.0 (DataCite metadata)), 2026-10-23; DOAJ (Metadata CC0 1.0 (DOAJ); articles under their own open licences), 2026-10-23; OpenAIRE (CC BY 4.0 (OpenAIRE Graph)), 2026-10-23; OpenAlex (CC0-1.0 data; metered API (free key)), 2026-10-23.