Two Brahui Texts With Glossary and Grammatical Analysis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to make the reader practically familiar with the Brahui language which is spoken as a minority language by the Brahui people, mostly in some parts of the Iranian Provice of Sistan and Baluchestan. To achieve this goal, first, present a brief sketch of the Brahui ethnography, the origin of their language, and the Brahui language including phonology, lexicon, dialects, and its verb system is given. Second, two texts in Brahui are interlinearized, one of which is already transcribed in Latin. The other one, which was originally written in Brahui based on the Arabic alphabet, is transcribed in the Latin-based modified alphabet. Some sentences from the beginning and the end of the first text, and the second text have completely been interlinearized. In the glossary, which consists of all the words used in both texts, grammatical information such as nominal declension, according to the eleven Brahui case system, and verb inflections, based on tense, aspect, mood, and affirmative/negative is clearly explained in full details. In the end, the reader will have an overall view of the language that makes him able to continue his/her study and increase his/her knowledge about Brahui.