Pakistani Languages (Brahui)

The Brahui (بروہی) or Brahvi is a language spoken by Brahui people. It is the onlyDravidian language exclusively spoken out of India.

Brahui is spoken in the south west region of Pakistan and border regions ofAfghanistan and Iran with Pakistan. The 2005 edition of Ethnologue reports that some 2.2 million orators are in the world and 90% of whom live in only Pakistan, where it is mainly spoken in the Kalat region of Balochistan.

Brahui belongs with Kurukh (Oraon) and Malto to the northern subfamily of the Dravidan family of languages. It has been influenced by the Iranian languagesspoken in the area, especially Balochi.

Brahui is widely suggested to be a remnant of a formerly widespread Dravidian language family that is believed to have been reduced or replaced during the influx of Iranian/Indo-Aryan languages upon their arrival in South Asia. It has been suggested that Brahui might be a remnant of the language spoken in theIndus Valley Civilisation. Conversely, it has been indicated that the Brahuis could only have migrated to Baluchistan from central India after 1000 CE. The absence of any older Iranian (Avestan) loanwords in Brahui support this theory. The main Iranian contribtor to Brahui vocabulary, Balochi, is a western Iranian languagelike Kurdish, and has moved to the area from the west only about 1000 CE. One scholar places the migration only in the 13 or 14th century CE.

According to a recent UNESCO report, Brahvi is one of the 27 languages ofPakistan which are facing the danger of extinction. They classify it in "unsafe" status, the least endangered level out of the five levels of concern (Unsafe, Definitely Endangered, Severely Endangered, Critically Endangered, and Extinct).