Brahui

The Brahui are a tribal people of central Balochistan whose language, Brahui (Brahvi), is the only Dravidian language spoken in South-West Asia, about 1,400 km from its nearest relatives Kurukh and Malto in eastern India. Whether they are a relic population from before the Indo-Iranian arrival or migrants from central India within the last thousand years is debated; the absence of Old Iranian loanwords in Brahui favours a late arrival. Their 27 or so tribes fall into the Sarawan, Jhalawan and Kalat groupings and include the Mengal, Raisani, Bangulzai, Bizenjo, Kurd, Muhammad Shahi and Rakhshani. The Brahui khans of Kalat ruled the Khanate of Kalat (1666-1955), which united Baloch and Brahui tribes. Brahui and Baloch are closely intertwined: many Brahui speak Balochi, identify as Baloch, and only a minority of members of Brahui tribes still speak Brahui as their first language. Pakistan's 2023 census counted about 2.78 million Brahui speakers.

Traditional Brahui life is pastoral and transhumant: families wintered in the warm Kachhi plain and summered in the highlands around Kalat and Mastung, living in black goat-hair tents, and many are now settled farmers and townspeople. Tribal sardars, jirgas and the honour code shared with the Baloch govern disputes, hospitality and protection of guests. Marriages are mostly within the tribe, often between cousins, arranged by families with bride-wealth. Brahui oral literature, poetry and music, sung with the dambura and sorud, overlap with Balochi traditions, and women produce embroidered dresses like those of Baloch women. Most Brahui are multilingual in Brahui, Balochi and the national language (Urdu, Pashto/Dari or Persian).

Brahui are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school. Popular religion centres on saints' shrines, pirs and Sufi lineages, with amulets and vows to saints for healing and fertility; Deobandi madrasas have strengthened scriptural Islam in recent decades. Religious identity is inseparable from tribal and Baloch-Brahui identity.

The Brahui New Testament was completed between 1998 and 2023, with earlier portions published from 1905 to 1978; the JESUS film and Global Recordings Network audio exist in Brahui. Outreach has been mainly in Pakistan (Quetta and Kalat), where small numbers of Brahui believers are reported. In Afghanistan and Iran there is no known work among Brahuis, and in Iran most Brahuis speak Balochi rather than Brahui.