Notes on the speech of the Afro-Baloch of the southern coast of Iran

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of the present article is to describe the morphosyntactic properties of Iranian Coastal Balochi as spoken by the Afro-Balochi community. The Afro-Baloch have completely switched to Balochi and there are no traces of African languages in their speech. In comparison with other Balochi dialects of Iran on the one hand and Coastal Balochi dialects of Pakistan on the other, Coastal Balochi as spoken in Iran shows archaic characteristics, particularly in its case system, in the demonstrative pronouns and in the alignment features. This particularly applies to the speech of the Afro-Baloch, who due to persisting social segregation have limited access to education and media.