BALTI (AN ENDANGERED LANGUAGE)

INTRODUCTION

Gilgit-Baltistan has more diversity than people usually think about it. It has ethnic, cultural, religious and
lingual diverse communities peacefully coexisting in the area. Balti language is the lingua franca of
Baltistan region which comprises of four districts (Skardu being the main City) and roughly about
600000- 800000 people.

Balti (‫ )بلتی‬is a language spoken in Baltistan, in the Gilgit Baltistan of Pakistan and adjoining parts of the
disputed territory of Indian-administered Kashmir. ‘Balti’ language belongs to the Sino-tibetan family of
languages, and is the archaic/classical form of standard Tibetan language (Dani, 2003) (Jettmar, 1958).
Balti (Bal), the most westerly of the districts in which the Tibetan language is spoken (Jaschke, 1883).
Due to its ethnic and lingual affinity with Tibet, Baltistan has been named as ‘Little Tibet’ in history
(Vigne, 1842).

However, Tibetan language is spoken throughout the Tibet region along with six provinces in China, its
variants are also spoken in Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim, Laddakh, Kargil, and Baltistan- only region in Pakistan
with Tibetan speaking people.

‘Ayge’ script is the original script for writing Balti, it is beautiful, written from left to right, with 30
consonants and 4 vowels. However, after conversion to Islam as well as breaking of lingual/cultural ties
with Tibet resulted in disappearing of Ayge script from Baltistan and the scripit exchanged with Persion
scripit of writing.

In fact, UNESCO has declared ‘Balti’, the language of people of Gilgit-Baltistan, among the endangered
languages of the world. While, the original script ‘Ayge’ is already abandoned centuries ago within
Baltistan with very few people left behind who could write it.However, the script is alive in all other
Tibetan speaking regions in Countries like China, India, Bhutan, and Nepal.

As the realization of the Balti language is high with the increasing awareness, a new debate has been
started on whether the Balti, a Tibetan language by nature, can be revitalized with its original script of
Ayge or should the on-going efforts to introduce Persian script to be adopted – started with the inflow of
Iranian Muslim preachers in 14th century or balti is to be harmonized with the modern technological
world by accepting the Roman script as writing system.Irrespective of whatever we support it should be
realized that it sole aim is to preserve Balti language with all of its peculiarity in vocabulary, phonetics,
semantic, general applicability as well as cultural relativity for the people of whole Baltistan. This will
determine the suitability and viability of the script and will also help to revitalize and effective
preservation of the Balti as a language itself.

LITERATURE REVIEW

If one considers the number of people who speak Balti, and the size of the geographic area they occupy,
it is surprising that more has not been written about this language. In 1866, H.H.Godwin Austen, the
famous surveyor of the Karakoram mountains, became the first European to publish a vocabulary of
Balti. George Grierson included a somewhat more precise,though small, vocabulary and some notes on
the grammar of both Balti and Purki in Volume III of his Linguistic Survey of India (1908:32-50). T. G.
Bailey added a more detailed grammaticaloutline and vocabulary of Purki in 1915. In 1934, A. F. C. Read
published the most extensive grammar of Balti to date, alongwith a vocabulary of well over 2,000 words.
In Sociolinguistic Surveyof Northern PakistanVolume 2 Peter C. Backstrom and Carla F. Radloff had
discussed the variation of languages of Northern Areas in briefly and so balti in quite detail. Morever,
amoung the locals, Mohammad Yousaf Hussainabadi, in his book Balti Zaban. 1990 discussed all the
aspects of balti language in detail. Other locals and their works are:

· Muhammad Hassan Hasrat, Baltistan Tehzeebo Saqafat

· Muhammad Yousuf Hussainabadi, 'Tareekh-e-Baltistan'. 2003

· Engineer Wazir Qalbi Ali, 'Qadam Qadam Baltistan'. 2006

· "A Short Sketch of Balti English Grammar" by Ghulam Hassan Lobsang, 1995

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

BALTI LANGUAGE

AREAS

At present, the Balti language or dialect is spoken in the whole of Baltistan and it is said that Purki-dialect
of Purig and Suru-Kartse valleys come into the Balti group linguistically. However, at the moment Balti is
spoken by nearly 0.4 million people living in Baltistan and about 0.1 million Baltis who live in different
cities of Pakistan and working abroad.

VOCABULARY

The Balti language shares up to 90% of the vocabulary with the neighboring Ladakhi, as well as with
Amdo and Kham dialect of North Eastern Tibet. However, they have adopted words from Arabic and
Persian with the process of Islamization.

EVOLUTION

Since Pakistan gained control of the region in 1948, Urdu words have been introduced into local dialects
and languages, including Balti. In modern times, Balti has no native names or vocabulary for dozens of
newly invented and introduced things; instead, Urdu and English words are being used in Balti.

The Balti language has kept many honorific words like all the Tibetan dialects and many other languages.
Below are a few examples:
Ordinary Balti Honorific Ladakhi Meaning

Ata Baba Aba Father

Ano/Amo Zizi Ama Mother

Kaka Kacho Acho Brother (elder)

Bustring Zung Nama Wife

Ashe Ashcho Singmo Sister (elder)

Zo bjes Zo Eat

Thung bjes Thung Drink

Ong Shokhs Yong Come

Zer Kasal-byung Zer Speak/Say

Khyang Yang/Yari-phyaqpo Khyorang You

LITERATURE

Though Balti has remained under adverse conditions, it has proved to be a very fertile language capable
of creating several genres of folk and classical literature. We do not find any prose except proverbs (in
hundreds) and some epics and sagas appear in oral literature such as the Epic of King Gesar, and the
stories of rgya lu cho lo bzang and rgya lu sras bu. All other literature is in verse. Balti literature has
adopted numerous Persian styles of verse and vocables which amplify the beauty and melody of its
poetry.

Nearly all the languages and dialects of the mountain region in the north of Pakistan such as Pashto,
Khowar and Shina are Indo-Aryan or Iranic languages, but Balti is one of the Sino-Tibetan languages. As
such, it has nothing in common with neighboring languages except some loanwords absorbed as a result
of linguistic contact. Balti and Ladakhi are closely related.

The major issue facing the development of Balti literature is its centuries-long isolation from Tibet, owing
to political divisions and strong religious differences and even from its immediate neighbor Ladakh for
the last 50 years. Separated from its linguistic kin, Balti is under pressure from more dominant languages
such as Urdu. This is compounded by the lack of a suitable means of transcribing the language following
the abandonment of its original Tibetan script. The Baltis do not have the awareness to revive their
original script and there is no institution that could restore it and persuade the people to use it again.
Even if the script is revived, it would need modification to express certain Urdu phonemes that occur in
common loanwords within Balti.

Example of poetry:
Youq fangsay thalang paqzi na mandoq na mabour na

Na drolbi laming yani si soq fangse chi thobtook

(Nasir Karimi)

The Balti Literature may be categorised as under:

Rgya-glu: This can be categorised as a classical one in the folk-verses for its meaning or deepness. It
contains romantic songs, elegies, advice, complaints, historical events, and the like.

Rtse-glu:This is a light type of poetry sung while dancing. In this kind of song, different topics and events
of life, families and their social or cultural conditions, jokes, and the like are the subject matter.

Bar-glu: Also called Deewan, this can be described as the medieval stage between the Rgya-glu and the
modern poetry (glu). This type of poetry also involves romantic and other general experiences.

Glu: This can be described as the mGul-glu as it has only romantic feelings and flavour.

Hamd: This is the form of verses in praise of God.

Qaseeda: These are verses in praise of Muhammad and the twelve Imams, their family members
according to Shia Islam.

Marsia: Versed elegy commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (the grandson of Muhammad ,
the 3rd Imam) in Karbala, other Imams, and the like.

Noha: These are versed elegies sung with rhythm while the (Shiaite) mourners beat their chests. This
category is also attributed to the martyrs of Karbala and other family members of Muhammad.

Bahr-e-Taweel: These verses are in long metre and consist of several stanzas of 9 to 14 lines. In this
poetry, generally, the mortality of life and other similar topics are explored in a mystic way.

Goshwara: This is similar to the Persian or Urdu "Masnavi" Narrative couplets. Usually the dignity and
illustrious personalities and deeds of Muhammad and the Imams are narrated.

SCRIPIT

Though Ayge is the genuine and alive script outside Baltistan and can suitably be used for Balti.There are
two other existing writing systems which can be used as a replacement to Ayge, i.e. Persian and Roman
script.

Roman alphabets, though in common use with new technology but it does not fulfill the basic criterion
of cultural relevance.Adopting roman kills the first aim of ‘preservation’ and it would be more
‘assimilation’ rather than ‘preservation’. Secondly, it falls short of semantic and phonetic criteria for
Tibetan languages.However, we can account for Persian script because it has been in used for a more
than half a century. As stated earlier, after the conversion to Islam of the Balti communities, the ayge was
abandoned and Persian was used throughout the ages up to till now, like the most part of subcontinent
during medieval period. More or less seven hundred years have been spent for developing Persian
writing system as a script for Balti language but because of the inconsistencies that existed in
representation of the Balti sounds with Persian alphabets as well as lack of capacity of the Persian script
to produce Balti sounds resulted in utter failure in spite of the fact that Persian has been adopted and
new alphabet was added to remove the inconsistencies that existed.

This is because the very basic contradiction is in the roots of the language. Balti has its roots in Tibetan
not in any Aryan language, which is considered more consistent with the Persian writing system. Having
Tibetan roots means words and syllables with very different sounds contradictory to the Aryan
Languages.

As a result, so many people came up their own versions of their own scripts to accommodate and to
make it more consistent with the Balti language and all these efforts but utterly failed. Moreover, the
devising new alphabets for Balti created more confusion than clarity for Balti speaking people.

For example, Yousuf Hussainabadi, the renowned historian and intellectual of Skardu has devised a script
system derived from Persian script and written a translation of Quran in Balti with the same script.
However, it failed to gain currency because of incorrigible discrepancies inherent in the very basic
alphabets that were inherent to Persian script and to its derivatives.

1. ‫ ض‬،‫ ذ‬،‫ ظ‬،‫ ز‬is not distinguishable in Balti/Tibetan as they are all sounds similar. In the same manner,
‫ ے‬،‫ ی‬and ‫ ص‬،‫ س‬،‫ث‬، and ‫ ت‬،‫ط‬، and ‫ ہ‬،‫ھ‬، are all sounded same in Balti and there is no distinguishable
differences among them so, to import them for Balti language is more confusing to native speakers.

2. Balti lacks many alphabets, like ‫‌غ‬،‫ق‬،‫ڑ‬،‫خ‬

‍ ،‫ ڈ‬،‫ ٹ‬،‫ ف‬،‫ ث‬،‫ڈ‬، and there is no word in actual Balti
vocabulary (those very few words which includes some of these alphabets are mispronunciations of
actual Balti words e.g. ‫ قار‬in Balti means woolen fleece, but its actual pronounciation is བལ་དཀར or Balkar –
refer to Monlam & Jaschke dictionaries-which is corrupted to sound ‘Q’ instead of ‘K’).

3. Specially created alphabets in Persian for balti has also huge disparities which are inherent and
incorrigible because of ;

a. When someone devises new alphabets based on phonetics of a language, then he must have chosen a
standard dialect acceptable to all the other speakers with variant dialects for the same language. Balti
has dialects as well, which are widespread and it is very difficult and even not pragmatic to set a
standard and devise a new words for it and falsify all others.

b. This difference among dialects has compelled the Persian script followers to devise new alphabets
which have very limited usage (mostly devised to use for single or couple of words) which is in fact
complete unrealistic approach. Take the example of Hussainabadi’s ‘ ‫ ’ج‬with three extra dots making it
comparable to English ‘Che’ as in ‘Che-mical’- a new letter to pronounce ‘Che-mog’ meaning ‘ant’ in Balti
. Hussainabadi has devised this word for this word has no any utility in whole Balti vocabulary other than
this single world – simply illogical and impractical.

4. The adoption for foreign script has the most terrible impact on existing vocabulary, syntax, semantic
along with impact on phonetics. There are many words that were actually ‘assimilated’ from Persian
along with its script. For example, ‘wakh’ is a common word used by Balti people for ‘time’ without
realization that it is corrupted form of ‘waqt’ in Urdu/Persian. Thus, accepting foreign script introduces
foreign vocabulary with it and the genuine words, phrases, and overall shape and structure gets affected.
It is due to this fact that most of the baltis are using Balti in their daily life without knowing the actual
semantic or the meaning of words. This may sound surprising but this is a tragic reality.

For example,

i. ‘lam-thag’ is used for distance but very rarely people know that ‘lam’ mean way or road, and ‘thag’
mean distance,

ii. ‘skra-ghar’ a compound word used for ‘hair turned white of aging’ but actually very few people know
that ‘skra’= hair, ‘ghar’ is actually ‘kar’ meaning ‘white’ and there are much more example to give. These
corruptions (phonetics) and literal meanings (semantics) have been mainly due to following a foreign
script system which has led to broken ties of a word with its literal meanings.

I am not making a case for Ayge because it is the genuine script for Balti. Adopting foreign well
developed writing system have advantages as well that these system will be easily available in all new
technologies and will be easy to used with.

But these benefits are so little when we take the damage caused to Balti language into account. Even,
adopting Ayge has the same benefits as it has been used in Tibet (China) and other regions and is
available in all technologies, and all platforms for phones, computers and other devices.

Ayge has the consistency, harmony and coherence with the Balti language and some even argue that
Balti is more appropriate more than mainland Tibetan itself. In such a case, abandoning Ayge would be
suicidal and adopting foreign writing systems would be ‘assimilating’ not ‘preserving’ the Balti language.
After all, we have a script of our own which we do not cherish.

Recently, a number of Balti scholars and social activists have attempted to promote the use of the
Tibetan Balti or "Yige" alphabet with the aim of helping to preserve indigenous Balti and Ladakhi culture
and ethnic identity. Following a request from this community, the September 2006 Tokyo meeting of
ISO/IEC 10646 WG2 agreed to encode two characters which are invented by Yousaf Hussain Abadi
(U+0F6B TIBETAN LETTER KKA and TIBETAN U+0F6C LETTER RRA) in the ISO 10646 and Unicode
standards in order to support rendering Urdu loanwords present in modern Balti using the Yige alphabet.

Additional Balti Yige Letter Romanization IPA

ཫ q /q/

ཬ ɽ /ɽ/
ཁ༹ x /χ/

ག༹ ɣ /ʁ/

ATTITUDES TOWARD OTHER LANGUAGES

The Balti people seem to have positive attitudes to all languages, including those of neighboring
language groups, and especially to Urdu. All of the questionnaire respondents statedthat they thought
Urdu was an easy language to speak. Most people considered Urdu to be better than their own language
forliterature, because of the greater opportunities for advancementand learning which it provides, and
because it is a much morewidely used language.

CONCLUSION

Although Balti is probably still spoken in much the sameway as it has been for hundreds of years, and
seems to have been less affected by Urdu and other neighboring tongues than most Pakistani languages,
some changes are occurring. More people are learning and using Urdu, and as they do so they are
adopting some of the Urdu words into their Balti speech. Up to now these trends have not reached
major proportions. As more of the population becomes educated, however, borrowing of Urdu words
into everyday Balti speech will undoubtedly accelerate.Although the Balti people take pride in their
language andappreciate its purity, most do not seem concerned about these changes. As one man said
stolidly, “Some mixing (of languages)is inevitable. But we should try to use and promote our language in
its pure form. The main problem with balti language facing is its script. So the need is to establish
institutions and centers for learning its original scrpit, that is Aige, because it is the best scripit form to
promote and preserve balti literatue and history.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Balti language is spoken in Gilgit Baltistan, Ladakh, Kargil, and Nepal. The population which speaks Balti is
approximately four lac. The language is being neglected, and the government sponsorship is lacking.

The old alphabet is not in use. Now it is written in Arabic script. The original language is being distorted
by using English, and Urdu words. The role of social media is very little and is not as it should be. The
script writing has been disposed off, and all programmes are in oral discussion. Unnecessary use of
English and Urdu words have defaced the original language.

I request the writers, poets, and the educationist to come forward to rescue the Balti language and
unitedly fight for its existance.

REFRENCES

· Backstrom, Peter C. Languages of Northern Areas (Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan,

2), 1992. 417 pp. ISBN 969-8023-12-7.

· Muhammad Yousuf Hussainabadi, 'Baltistan per aik Nazar'. 1984.

· Hussainabadi, Mohamad Yusuf. Balti Zaban. 1990.

· Muhammad Hassan Hasrat, Baltistan Tehzeebo Saqafat.

· Muhammad Yousuf Hussainabadi, 'Tareekh-e-Baltistan'. 2003.

· Engineer Wazir Qalbi Ali, 'Qadam Qadam Baltistan'. 2006.

· "A Short Sketch of Balti English Grammar" by Ghulam Hassan Lobsang, 1995.

· Blog "We Have A Language And A Script" by Abdul Hameed, May 11, 2018.