Source: WikipediaHuman races throughout history have interacted with each other via languages. In fact, language is the tool with which human cultures and civilizations are assimilated and integrated. Languages, being the primary mode of interaction, can provide philologists with insight into the mode of life of ancient civilizations. While other civilizations like the Indus Valley civilization or the Gandhara civilization are important, the people of modern-day Balochistan have a rich historical root dating back to the Mehrgarh civilization, making the languages spoken in Balochistan an important subject for philologists.
Balochistan is largely a multilingual society, which means that those whose principal language is Balochi can also speak subsidiary languages like Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki, etc. The linguistic landscape of Balochistan is classified into four primary languages: Balochi, Brahui, Pashto, and Dari. Amongst these languages, the Balochi language holds prime importance as it has its roots in those Indo-European languages from which Persian and Kurdish languages originated. Owing to its closeness to the Persian language, philologists find it difficult to classify Balochi as a separate language. Therefore, linguists like Grierson have classified Balochi as the Persian branch of the Aryan subfamily of Indo-European languages.
On the other hand, the Brahui language comes from the Dravidian family of languages, which are spoken primarily in southern India. However, events like trading and migration brought these Dravidian languages to other parts of the world, which is why we find Brahui to be the second most common language in Balochistan. Approx. 1,580,000 Brahui speakers reside in Balochistan and Sindh, while a large number also reside in Afghanistan and the Sistan region of Iran.
Pushto is the third most important language spoken, mainly in the northern belt of Balochistan. Linguists have classified it as the south-eastern Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. The old Pashto has a stark resemblance to Persian and the old languages of Northern India, to some extent. It was the Maurya Dynasty during which Pashto saw its convergence to the Indian languages. Historians also state that the dialect of an Iranian nomadic tribe named Saka was almost like Pashto, and both languages shared many features of the ancient languages of the Aryans. It is, however, important to note that modern Pashto has borrowed words from various languages, including Arabic, modern Persian, Prakrit, Sindhi, and Balochi.
Finally, Dari is the fourth language, which completes the linguistic canvas of Balochistan. Etymologically, the word Dari is derived from the Persian words Dar, meaning gate, or Darbar, meaning court. Dari was not only the language of courts during the Sassanid period but was spoken widely in Khurasan (Iran) as well. In Balochistan, Dari, also called Farsi, was spoken in the minority because Persian was the official language of Western Balochistan and was rarely used in the rest of Balochistan during the colonial era.
After the merger of Balochistan with Pakistan, Balochi was given the status of an official language and Urdu the national language, which made Dari/Farsi the language of those Baloch tribes that settled closer to the Iranian border.
