The UN officially recognizes 195 countries as of 2022, but national borders as we know them today paint an overly simplistic picture of the complicated and messy ethnolinguistic makeup of our vast and diverse world. For one thing, several semi-recognized territories around the world have declared themselves sovereign but have not earned recognition from the UN. But there are also a plethora of intranational and transnational territories that don’t even see themselves as countries, even if they boast distinct ethnic groups and languages. One such territory is the South Asian Balochistan.
Balochistan occupies most of southwestern Pakistan, seeping into southern Afghanistan and southeastern Iran. As the name suggests, it’s the home of the Baloch people, who speak their native Balochi language. Balochi is spoken by 8.8 million people, so it’s hardly a small language, but it’s overshadowed by Urdu in Pakistan and Persian in Afghanistan and Iran. This puts Balochi in a precarious position, as Balochi speakers do most of their reading in Urdu or Persian, depending on their country. A further consequence of this disadvantaged position is that not many translation firms are willing to accommodate the language, opting instead for its larger neighbors. But here at TranslationServices.com, we don’t discriminate. We’re proud of our Balochi translation team.
A free quote for our Balochi translation services? Message us, and we’d be happy to provide one!
A quick exploration of the transnational language of Balochi
Thanks to the Balochi diaspora, speakers of the language can be found across Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Turkmenistan, and East Africa, but the vast majority of the language’s speakers are in Pakistan. The language comes from the Indo–European family, making it related to English, but given that it’s part of the Indo–Iranian branch, only a trained linguist could detect the similarities. In all three countries that Balochi is native to, it’s written in a modified version of the Arabic script.
Balochi uses a subject-object-verb word order, which is the most common word order among the world’s languages. An interesting feature that Balochi shares with many of its Indo–Iranian cousins is split ergativity—in most cases, the verb agrees with the subject, as in English, but in the past tense, the verb agrees with the object instead, and the subject takes an oblique marker. While this split ergativity system may sound confusing—and it certainly is for learners—it’s surprisingly common among South Asian languages.
Committed to quality in our Balochi translation services
Many translation companies overlook Balochi, and we’re proud to be filling the gap. But we’re not just haphazardly throwing together a team for Balochi—we’re carefully searching out the best translators from across Balochistan to bring you the highest-quality Balochi translations we can. We wanted to build a team of Balochi translators you can trust with any sort of translation project, whether it’s a business plan, a white paper, a research survey, academic memos, literary works, or digital programs, and that’s why we’ve taken care to seek out Balochi translators with diverse experience behind them.
Some of our translators specialize in translation from Balochi to English. This is ideal for anyone with historical Balochi documents, traditional Balochi literature, or everyday Balochi texts from any field who want to share the content with the world. Since we hire Balochi translators who are also experts in other disciplines, it’s easy for us to handle even technical or esoteric materials.
In the opposite direction, some of our translators specialize in translation from English to Balochi. This works well for organizations who want to truly tailor their message to the Balochi people and capture their hearts, as well as language activists looking to boost literacy in Balochi by translating pedagogical materials or literary and digital content into the language. No matter what you need, we can help.
Our Balochi translators are on standby, waiting to work on your translation project. Message us today to kick things off!