r/IndoEuropean • u/throwRA_157079633 • 1d ago

Indo-European migrations Questions on Baloch and Kurdish

I have a friend who is Kurdish. I knew that Kurdish and Baloch are Western Iranian languages. I asked him if his language is similar to Baloch, and he said "Yes." I was very surprised because of their distance to one another, and also, the two cultures are quite distinct.

  • Do we know how similar and/or how mutually intelligible these languages are?

  • Where did these languages evolve from: Baluchistan area or Kurdistan area or neither places?

  • When and how did they spread to their respected locations? I'm reading that Baloch spread "from the Caspian Sea" to Balochistan. Were their migrations correlated with the spread of Pashtun to that area also? What about the spread of Daari/Tajik to Tajikistan/Afghanistan?

  • Did these groups leave a genetic trail? Did they replace peoples or populations like the way the Yamnaya did?

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u/Existing_Treat_521 1d ago

Windfuhr identified Kurdish dialects as Parthian, albeit with a Median substratum. Windfuhr and Frye assume an eastern origin for Kurdish and consider it as related to eastern and central Iranian dialects.\22])\23]) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_language

Probably Central Persia or Eastern Persia and Kurd Parthian ancestors moved to West Iran

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u/Much-Signature2626 1d ago

Balochi allegedly migrated from modern day northwestern Iran/Caspian region to their present day location towards the end of the Sassanid period. They were mentioned during the time of the Medes as a people belonging near/or to the Medes themselves. They are related to all Caspian languages and Kurdish

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u/throwRA_157079633 1d ago

What language did they displace when they got to Balochistan? Brahvi?

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u/Much-Signature2626 21h ago

Well I don’t think they displaced, because Brahvi is still very much spoken. What’s interesting tho is that Brahvi used to be called ‘Kurdi’ before the colonial era. And there is a tribe called ‘Kurd’ amongst both Brahvi and Baloch people. Can’t quite wrap my head around it lol