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Language and Culture of the Baloch in Turkmenistan

Vyacheslav V. Moshkalo, Dept. of Iranian Languages, Institute of Linguistics,

Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow

Introduction

In the Republic of Turkmenistan a small national minority lives little known to others than a
narrow circle of scientists and specialists. This national minority is the Baloch. The Baloch are a
people which have a strong sense of unity, sharing a common origin, history, language,
traditions and religion. The Baloch of Turkmenistan are a part of this people which was divided
by the peculiar will of history mainly between three countries: Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan.
Outside these countries there are rather small Balochi communities in India, East Africa and
Oman. The Baloch are scattered over a vast territory. The Turkmenian Baloch live in the very
north of this vast territory. Only Baloch in the diaspora, e.g. in Northern Europe live farther to
the north.

The Baloch in Turkmenistan

The first Baloch migrants in Russia appeared in the region of Mari in Turkistan, i.e. in the
territory which nowadays belongs to the Republic of Turkmenistan. The statistical report on
Turkmenistan for 1917 - 1920 mentions 936 Baloch living in the Bayram-Ali district. The
Baloch of Turkmenistan mostly came from Afghanistan, from the Chakhansur district located
in the province of Nimruz, in the Sistan area of Afghanistan. Apart from them there were also a
small group of Baloch who migrated to Turkistan from Iran (from Khurasan). In these
migrations there were also some Brahuis who came together with the Baloch.1
In the 1920s separate groups of the Baloch belonging to different Balochi tribes were united
by Kerim Khan. This Baloch chief was an extraordinary personality. He was a poor shepherd
from the beginning but managed to make a career and to become a famous, even legendary
chief of the Baloch in Turkmenistan. The Baloch of Turkmenistan, united under his power, at
the beginning supported the Soviet power and being very brave warriors, they helped the Soviet
authorities in their struggle against the Basmachis (counterrevolutionary movement in
Turkistan, which lasted actively from 1920 till the mid-30s). At the end of the 20s, because of
disagreement with the Soviet authorities, Kerim Khan together with the majority of his people
left Turkmenistan for Iran or Afghanistan. Nobody knows where he went. I tried to find it out
during my trips to Turkmenistan, but in vain. Kerim Khan's traces should be looked for outside
Turkmenistan, either in Iran or in Afghanistan. It would be very interesting to find out what
happened to him and his people afterwards.

1 See also Axenov's article in the present volume.

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At the present time the Baloch of Turkmenistan live mainly in the districts of Bayram-Ali
and Iolotan of the region of Mari (Mariyskiy velayat). According to the data of the 1959 census
in the USSR, 7 800 Baloch lived in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Turkmenistan, in the valley
of the Murghab river, in the districts of Bayram-Ali, Turkmen-Kala and Iolotan, and 94,9 % of
them considered Balochi to be their mother tongue. In the 1970 census there were 12 600
Baloch in Turkmenistan, and 91,8 % regarded Balochi as their native language. In the 1979
census there were 18 997 Baloch in Turkmenistan, and 18 633 persons (98,1 %) stated that
Balochi was their native language. There are in 1997 probably approximately 38 000 - 40 000
Baloch in Turkmenistan, although some give a higher estimation of around 50 000 or even
more. The very strong loyalty among the Baloch to their mother tongue is quite remarkable,
and can at least to a certain degree be explained by their rural way of life. A thorough
investigation of the socio-economic conditions under which this strong retention of the Balochi
language has been possible would be very interesting to carry out.
The Turkmenian Baloch believe themselves to be a part of the big ethnos. For a long time,
however, they were separated from the other Baloch by the "Iron Curtain", and had practically
no contacts with the Baloch of the other countries. In 1934 the Soviet border with Iran and
Afghanistan was closed and this event became a source of many personal tragedies and
disasters. It was unexpected, and those who were in Iran or Afghanistan making their earnings
or visiting relatives could not return to their families. Thus, parents were separated from
children, brothers from sisters etc. It was impossible for them to unite again. The only reason
for that was the "Iron Curtain" along all the Soviet borders. It was only at the end of the 1980s,
with the beginning of Gorbachov's perestroika and after the disintegration of the USSR that
many Turkmenian Baloch got the opportunity to visit Iran and Afghanistan in order to find their
lost relatives and reunite with them after long years of separation.
The history of the Baloch is the history of constant migrations over vast territories. However,
the lack of a written literary tradition and written sources makes it difficult to study, not the
legendary, but the real history of the Baloch. The Baloch never had an independent state of
their own in the proper sense of the word. The Kalat State could not be considered a truly
independent Baloch state. In spite of the fact that the Kalat State united many Baloch tribes, it
did not exist long and it could not play a prominent part for the Baloch culture nor for the
establishment of a tradition of writing in the Balochi language.
From a political point of view, throughout history the Baloch were generally subdued by the
power of stronger and better organized conquerors, and as usual, they did not pay attention to
the Balochi language and culture. Anyway, in spite of all the complications and peculiarities in
the destiny of the Baloch, they have managed not only to create an enchanting, rich and original
culture, but also from many points of view very interesting and unique literary specimens. To
my profound regret, these have not up till now been described or studied to the extent that they
deserve to be. The masterpieces of the Balochi literature have not to any large extent been
translated into the main world languages.
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From this point of view the Turkmenian Baloch are not an exception. They are even in a
worse position in comparison with the others. Not very much has been done to study their
language and culture, even though some studies on the Balochi language and Balochi culture
were made in Moscow and Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg) during the Soviet period.
When it comes to the oral literature of the Turkmenian Baloch, for example, I. I. Zarubin
collected and published a number of folk tales with translations into Russian.2 It is, however,
striking enough that in the twentieth century not a single book or monograph has been
published in Turkmenistan about the Baloch.
It should be said that the disintegration of the USSR has brought for the Baloch of
Turkmenistan more losses and disillusions than joys and achievements, especially in such fields
as education, culture and science. Moscow was always for the Turkmenian Baloch the force
which helped them to stand against the domination of the Turkmens, and in spite of all the
difficulties, they had some opportunities for education (there were special quotas in different
institutes for the Baloch students) and cultural progress. After the disintegration of the USSR,
Moscow ceased to be the centre for Turkmenistan, and nowadays the Turkmen central
government does little for the national minorities living there.3

Attempts at developing the Balochi language in Turkmenistan

The first alphabet used by the Turkmenian Baloch was based on the Roman script. An attempt
to turn Balochi into a written language was made in the 1930s. A few books and a newspaper in
Roman script were published in Mari and Ashkhabad. There was a mother tongue education
programme for the Turkmenian Baloch. But after switching to Cyrillic script for minor
languages of Turkistan, due to lack of special national policy towards the minorities, financial
problems and the switch of education at all levels to Russian and Turkmen etc., Balochi was not
further developed as a written language. During my trips to Turkmenistan I met several old men
who could still use that Balochi Roman script of the 30s.
Fifty years later, at the end of the 1980s, an enthusiast for his mother tongue, a modest
school teacher named Mammad Sherdil, together with his friends worked out an alphabet for
Balochi based upon Cyrillic script. They managed to publish several text books in Balochi for
primary schools and obtain the permission from the authorities to start an experiment with
mother tongue education in one or two schools. Besides that, Mammad Sherdil and Saidquli
Mammadnur initiated the publishing of one full page in Balochi twice a week in the Turkmenian
newspaper of the district called Taze durmush (New Life).4
These attempts coincide with the period of "perestroika" and disintegration of the USSR. An
independent Republic of Turkmenistan has since then appeared on the political scene. Thereby

2 Zarubin, Beludžkie skazki, I-II, see bibliography.

3 Apart from the Baloch there are e.g. about 100 000 Kurds in Turkmenistan.
4 See Axenov's article in the present volume for more details.
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a new life began also for the Turkmenian Baloch. But this new life is characterized by neglect of
the Baloch and their cultural life. It should be mentioned that the Baloch in Turkmenistan never
have had any political, social, or even cultural organizations which could defend their rights and
draw the attention of the authorities to their needs.
It seems that the Turkmenian Baloch are in great need of help from international
organizations and cooperation with Balochi scientific and cultural organizations in other
countries. Nowadays, as far as I know, there are no relations either on state level or on the level
of organizations. I know only of one incident in the past when there was an attempt at
establishing relations between the Turkmenian Baloch and the Baloch of Pakistan. In the mid
1980s the Union of the Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign
Countries invited the Balochistan Provincial Assembly speaker Mīr Muhammad Akram Baloch
to Moscow. The USSR - Pakistan Friendship Society organized a trip to Turkmenistan for him.
In Ashkhabad he met Baloch students and took part in one of their traditional gatherings. In
addition, he visited the town of Tejen, where only few Baloch families live nowadays. He was,
however, unable to visit the Mari region where practically all the Turkmenian Baloch are
concentrated. After that there were no contacts on such a high level. Mīr Muhammad Akram
Baloch's notes about this trip were published in one of Māhtāk baločī's editions.5

Notes on the Balochi dialect spoken in Turkmenistan

The Baloch of Turkmenistan speak a dialect of the Balochi language which is very close to the
dialect of the Afghan Balochi. The dialect of the Turkmenian Baloch belongs to the Western
Group of Balochi dialects, to the Rakhshānī dialects. The dialect of the Turkmenian Baloch
possesses a number of phonetical and grammatical characteristics, which are specific to this
dialect. Professor Ivan I. Zarubin was the first scientist who paid attention to these
characteristics. Zarubin was a pioneer of Balochi studies in Russia. In Turkmenistan he selected
a group of young talented people and took them to Petersburg to be educated there.
There are no aspirated plosives at all in this dialect. There are no fricatives /θ/ and /δ/ either.
The fricatives /f/, /γ/ and /x/ are to be found only in late loanwords. The pharyngeal fricative /h/
is never pronounced, e.g. Asan (Hasan).
The indicative mood of the verb in Balochi has got a rich system of tense forms which are
united by a common modal meaning (i.e. a real action in the present, past or future), and are
opposed to each other on the one hand by aspect and temporal meaning and on the other hand
by person and singular/plural forms. The number of these tense forms are different in the
different dialects of Balochi. The simplest system of the tenses (with less number of innovated
forms) is presented in the dialect of the Baloch of Turkmenistan. There are only five tense
forms to be found in this dialect:

5 Note also that there are several articles on the Baloch in Turkmenistan in the May 1957 issue of Māhtāk baločī.
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1) Present-future tense (man kār-a kanīn 'I work', man-a raīn 'I go')
2) Preterite (simple past) (man kār kurtun 'I worked', man šutun 'I went')
3) Past continuous (man kār-a kurtun 'I was working', man-a šutun 'I was going')
4) Present perfect (man kār kurtá un 'I have worked', man šutá un 'I have gone')
5) Past perfect (man kār kurt-átun 'I had worked', man šut-átun 'I had gone')

There is another indicative tense system in most other Balochi dialects, where there are no
preterite versus past continuous forms. On the other hand continuous forms are formed with
auxiliary verbs, e.g. man rawagā-y-un 'I am going' and man rawagā-y-atun 'I was going'
(Rakhshānī Balochi).6 However, also in the dialect of Zahidan, Iran, this preterite - past
continuous distinction is retained.7
Temporal meaning of the verbal forms is closely connected with aspect, or manner, of the
verbal action. In general, judging by the material I have studied, the tendency to further
distinctions of aspectual and temporal relation in the indicative is very characteristic to Balochi
dialects, especially by means of new descriptive forms such as the present continuous and past
continuous tense forms in Rakhshānī dialects. This process has progressed more in Rakhshānī
than in any other Balochi dialect group. This may be one of the reasons why Rakhshānī is of
increasing importance as a literary vehicle nowadays and why it also potentially could develop
into a standard literary language of the Baloch in the future.
The great importance of a standard literary language cannot be underestimated for the
Baloch. The need of a universally accepted standard to be employed by all Baloch is urgently
felt. The Baloch intelligentsia, intellectuals and literary men are indeed concentrating more and
more effort on this important problem.
In the dialect of the Turkmenian Baloch there is a special inclusive pronoun māšmā 'we and
you'.8 It is declined in the following way:

Nominative: māšmā
Genitive: māšmay
Accusative/dative: māšmārā

A three case system governs the declension of nouns and pronouns in this dialect. The oblique
case which is usual for the agent in the ergative construction is not used in the Turkmenian
Balochi dialect, because there is no ergative construction left there. Past transitive verbs are
constructed actively: man trā dīstun 'I saw you', brās-ī sarā čandent 'his brother nodded his

6 For a thorough description of the tense forms occurring in a variety of Rakhshānī spoken in Pakistan, see Barker-
Mengal, vol. I.
7 Information obtained from Carina Jahani.
8 Also found in other Northern Rakhshānī dialects.
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head', murād watī kitābā pa ammā wānt-ī 'Murad read his book to us', dušman āī dast-u-
pādānā baštant 'the enemies tied his hands and feet' etc.
The ergative construction has been eliminated from the dialect, but there are still traces of it.
The enclitic pronoun (or suffixed pronoun) of the 3rd person singular -¬ is very often used with
transitive (and even sometimes with intransitive) verbs: gušt-ī 'he/she said', kurt-ī 'he/she did'
šut-ī 'he/she went', jist-ī 'he/she ran away', zarbīk hamā dawle ki mās-ī gušt kurt-ī 'Zarbik did
the way her mother told her' etc. It should be pointed out that enclitic (suffixed) pronouns are
not commonly used in the dialect of Turkmenian Balochi as in most Balochi dialects. (Cf.
Persian where they are very common.)
The vocabulary of the Turkmenian Balochi dialect has not been studied properly up till now.
But it is indisputable that the main Balochi lexicon is of Iranian origin, as in all Balochi dialects.
Certainly there are a large number of loanwords. The largest number of loanwords definitely
come from Persian and Arabic (through Persian). The Baloch of Turkmenistan also borrowed
some words form Russian and Turkmen during the Soviet period of their history. It is difficult
to estimate the number of loanwords, because up till now there is no comprehensive Balochi
dictionary. However, based on Zarubin's collection of Balochi folk tales, Josef Elfenbein
compiled A Vocabulary of Marw Baluchi, where he also gives etymological information for
most of the entries.