Brahui

Brahui, also spelled Brahvi, refers to both the Brahui ethnic group and their language, spoken primarily in the province of Balochistan, Pakistan. The Brahui people live mainly in central and southern Balochistan, with smaller communities in southern Afghanistan and Iran; population estimates place the community in the low millions. The group is culturally distinct from neighboring Baloch and Sindhi communities, though long-standing contact is common.

Brahui is a Dravidian language, forming a distinct branch of the Dravidian family. It is not mutually intelligible with surrounding Indo-Iranian languages such as Balochi or Sindhi. The language has borrowed vocabulary from Balochi, Sindhi, and Urdu through sustained contact, while retaining core Dravidian grammar with an agglutinative structure and a subject–object–verb order.

In Pakistan, Brahui is commonly written in a Perso-Arabic script adapted for Brahui; there are also academic transcriptions using the Latin alphabet. The language is spoken across regional dialects, with variation in pronunciation and lexicon between areas.

As a minority language, Brahui faces pressures from dominant languages such as Urdu and Balochi. Efforts to preserve and promote Brahui include literature, radio and media programs, and linguistic research, with some educational use in certain districts. The Brahui community maintains distinct cultural traditions, including folklore, music, and dress.