Jahani Carina. A Grammar of Modern Standard Balochi

Uppsala Universitet, 2019. — 295 p. — (Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 36).Balochi is an Iranian language spoken in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, the Gulf States (particularly Oman and the United Arab Emirates), Turkmenistan, India, and East Africa. Informal estimates suggest that no less than 10 million people speak the language. It can be divided into three main dialect blocks, Western, Southern and Eastern Balochi. Ever since the mid-20th century, there have been attempts to create a unified orthography for Balochi. The development of written Balochi has mainly taken place in Pakistan, where there have been advocates of both the Arabic and Latin scripts. Most literature, of course, has been written in Arabic script, but even here diverging systems have been used. This book aims to be a milestone in Balochi’s development from a conglomeration of dialects to a standardized language with clear rules for grammar, script and spelling in formal writing.