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Balti

بلتی

Balti is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Pakistan and India, by about 290 thousand people.

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Balti · 34.4°N 77.3°E

Balti (Perso-Arabic script: بلتی, Tibetan: སྦལ་ཏི།, Wylie: sbal ti) is a Tibetic language natively spoken by the ethnic Balti people in the Baltistan region of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, Nubra Valley of the Leh district and the Kargil district of Ladakh, India. The language differs from Standard Tibetan; many sounds of Old Tibetan that were lost in Standard Tibetan are retained in the Balti language. It also has a simple pitch accent system only in multi-syllabic words while Standard Tibetan has a complex and distinct pitch system that includes tone contour. Due to effects of dominant languages in Pakistani media like Urdu, Punjabi and English and religious impact of Arabic and Persian languages, Balti, like other regional languages of Pakistan, is continuously expanding its vocabulary base with loanwords.

From Wikipedia · Balti language · CC BY-SA 4.0

Words in Balti

MeaningWordRomanization
personmi*
namemiNtax*
eyemik*
earsna*
nosesnamsul*
toothso*
tongueLCe*
handlakthil*
bloodkhrak*
boneruspa*
skinbakspa*
kneebuma*
breastbraN*
liverChinma*
waterཆུchu
fireme*
sun5ima*
starskarma*
stonerdoa*
mountainbrak*
treestakZi*
leafloNa*
nightchan*
dogkhi*
fish5ya*
louseSik*
oneCik*
two5is*
INa*
youkhyaN*

* in the simplified ASJP transcription

Most similar languages

Vocabulary

Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.

Nearby languages

Elsewhere

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Glottolog · balt1258 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · bft