Balochi

About Balochi

Balochi is the language of the Baloch people, spoken as a first language by about 7.6 million people across Balochistan, a region divided between southwestern Pakistan, southeastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. There are also communities in Oman and the Gulf states. It belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family.

Balochi is usually written right to left in an Arabic-based script, and a Latin spelling is also used. Its dialects differ a good deal between east and west, so the same word may be spelled differently from guide to guide.

FamilyIndo-European, Northwestern Iranian
Native speakersabout 7.6 million (2007)
Where spokenPakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Oman
ScriptArabic-based alphabet, also Latin letters
Codebal (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Nationalencyklopedin (2007), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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