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Rakhshani(Balochi:رخشانی) also termed Western Balochi is a Balochi dialect.[1] The dialect has several important subdialects and spoken predominantly in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan[2] and Turkmenistan. The Ethnologue website has classified the dialect under the western Balochi.[3]
Dialects
Elfenbein divides the Rakhshani dialect into three categories:[1][4]
Kalati (areas between Las Bela in the north of Karachi to Mastung in the south of Quetta Chaghi and Kharan (northern areas of Balochistan, Pakistan, including Noshki, Dalbandin, Kharan, and Kalat).
Panjguri(southern and southwestern areas of Afghanistan, mainly the areas around the Helmand River).
Sarhaddi (an area that extends from the east to Dalbandin in Pakistan and from the northeast to Chahar Burjak in Afghanistan, and includes Merv in the Republic of Turkmenistan and Sistan in Iran, with Nosratabad in Balochistan, Iran, forming its southernmost part).
Phonology
Western Balochi has 21 consonant phonemes and 6 vowel phonemes.
Rakhshani Consonants
Consonant vowels
p, t, t̥, č, k, b, d, d̥, ǰ, g, (ƒ), s, š, (x), h, z, ž, (ġ), m, n, r, r̥, l, w, y
long vowels
aː, iː, uː
Short vowel
a, e, o
Compound vowel
ı͂ , o͂, u͂
Vowles
three short and five long vowels for the Rakhshani dialect as ə, y, w, a, i, u, e, o (adapted: a, i, u, aː, iː, uː eː, oː). nasalized ones a͂, e͂ , ı͂ , o͂, u͂, “of which only a͂, e͂ are common in the Rakhshani dia-lects.[5][6]
Consonants
The consonants /p/, /t/, /t̥/, /č/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /d̥/, /ǰ/, /g/, /(ƒ)/, /s/, /š/, /(x)/, /h/, /z/, /ž/, /(ġ)/, /m/, /n/, /r/, /r̥/, /l/, /w/ and /y/ are articulated as alveolar in Western Balochi. The plosives /t/ and /d/ are dental in both dialects. The symbol ń is used to denote nasalization of the preceding vowel.[7]
In Western Balochi dialects the stress is on the last syllable of the word as a rule. The pronominal suffixes and the present copula, which are enclitic except for the individuation marker -e.[8]
The negative prefix na- and the prohibitive prefix ma- attract the stress. Verb forms with the prefix b(i) likewise have the stress on the first syllable thus on the first syllable of the stem if the vowel of the prefix is omitted, see and the nominal part of complex predicates takes the phrase stress. Inflected forms of the interrogative pronouns ce 'what' are stressed on the first syllable, however. There are also a few adverbs that are stressed on the first syllable.
Grammar
In the Rakhshani dialect, the infinitive noun is often formed from the past participle and ends in -tin. The active adjective, the future passive adjective (= imperative adjective) and the active noun are formed by adding the suffixes ān-, -agī(g) and -ōk to the present participle, respectively, and the passive adjective is formed by adding the suffix -a(g) to the past participle.[9][10]
In some dialects of Balochi spoken in Western Balochistan the construction employs the verb twánag (past stem twánt) ‘to be able to’ + present-future subjunctive forms of the main verb. Twánag ‘to be able to’ is conjugated as a transitive verb.[7]
Western Balochi dialects are moving from a split ergative toward a nominative - accusative ( NOM- ACC ) system.[11]
One of the sub-dialects of Rakhshani is the Sarhaddi(Balochi:سرحدی) dialect,[9][6][12] which is more influenced by the Persian language and in which words, compounds and even grammatical structures of the Persian language are more commonly seen; that is, words from Modern Persian have been used after phonetic changes, as well as a number of Persian grammatical structures in this dialect. For example, words from Persian that end in "unvoiced ha" are considered after converting "e" to "g" and "e" is converted to "g" and used in the Sarhaddi. Sarhaddi includes infinitive, adverbial (subject noun and object noun) and infinitive noun, all of which are made from the verb stem and certain suffixes.[13][14]
Northern Rakhshani
Northern Rakhshani has similarities with Sarhaddi , and Turkmen Rakhshani(Baloch of Turkmenistan) also originated from Balochi Rakhshani.[12] The difference between Northern Rakhshani and Sarhaddi is that: In the past tense, the letter "g" has been removed from Northern Rakhshani, but it is still present in Sarhaddi.[15]
Some verb constituents have gradually been eliminated from this dialect, but traces of them still exist. The third-person singular indefinite pronoun (or pronoun suffix) is often used with transitive verbs, and sometimes without transitive verbs.
^Jahani, Korn, Carina, Agnes (2022). The Baloch and their Neighbours, Ethnic and Linguistic Contact in Balochistan in Historical and Modern Time. Cambridge University. ISBN3-89500-366-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
