Brahui language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Brahui
بروہی
Spoken in Balochistan
Total speakers 2.2 million (2005 Ethnologue Report)
Language family Dravidian
Writing system Perso-Arabic
Language codes
ISO 639-1 None
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3 brh

Brahui (بروہی) or Brahvi is a language spoken by Brahui people of Pakistan. It is the only Dravidian language autochthonous to a country other than India.

Contents

[edit] Distribution

Brahui is spoken in the southwest region of Pakistan, as well as regions of Afghanistan and Iran which border Pakistan. The 2005 edition of Ethnologue reports that some 2.2 million speakers are in the world and 90% of whom live in Pakistan, where it is mainly spoken in the Kalat region of Balochistan.

[edit] Classification

Brahui belongs, with Kurukh (Oraon) and Malto, to the northern subfamily of the Dravidian family of languages. It has been influenced by the Iranian languages spoken in the area, especially Balochi.[1][page needed]

Brahui is widely suggested to be a remnant of a formerly widespread Dravidian language family that is believed to have been reduced or replaced during the influx of Iranian/Indo-Aryan languages upon their arrival in South Asia. It has been suggested that Brahui might be a remnant of the language spoken in the Indus Valley Civilisation. Conversely, it has been indicated that the Brahuis could only have migrated to Balochistan from central India after 1000. The absence of any older Iranian (Avestan) loanwords in Brahui support this hypothesis. The main Iranian contributor to Brahui vocabulary, Balochi, is a western Iranian language like Kurdish, and moved to the area from the west only around 1000.[2] One scholar places the migration аs late as the 13th or 14th century.[3][page needed]

[edit] Endangerment

According to a 2009 UNESCO report, Brahui is one of the 27 languages of Pakistan which are facing the danger of extinction. They classify it in "unsafe" status, the least endangered level out of the five levels of concern (Unsafe, Definitely Endangered, Severely Endangered, Critically Endangered, and Extinct).[4]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links