Balti Language: Basics for Visitors

Balti is the main language of Skardu and the rest of Baltistan, and it is not related to Urdu or to the other languages heard elsewhere in Pakistan. It is a Tibetic language, a close relative of Ladakhi and a more distant one of modern Tibetan, with roughly 425,000 speakers in Pakistan according to a 2018 estimate cited by Wikipedia. Hearing it spoken is one of the clearer signs that Baltistan has a history of its own.

This guide covers where Balti is spoken, where it came from, how it is written, a table of everyday words and whether a visitor needs any of it.

Where Balti comes from

Balti belongs to the Tibetic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Nearly every other language of northern Pakistan, including Shina, Khowar and Pashto, is Indo-Aryan or Iranian, so Balti has little in common with its neighbours beyond borrowed words.

The reason is historical. Tibetans conquered Baltistan in the eighth century, and Wikipedia dates the use of Tibetan script here from 727 AD. The language took root and then developed largely on its own, cut off from Tibet by geography and, after the Baltis converted to Islam, by religion as well.

That isolation preserved things. Linguists note that Balti keeps many sounds of Old Tibetan that have been lost in Standard Tibetan, the kind spoken in Lhasa. Where Standard Tibetan developed a complex system of tones, Balti has only a simple pitch accent, and only in words of more than one syllable. A Balti speaker and a Lhasa Tibetan speaker would not follow each other easily, but Balti and Ladakhi remain close.

Where you will hear it, and the four dialects

Balti is spoken across Baltistan: Skardu, Shigar, Kharmang, Ghanche and Roundu. Across the Line of Control it is spoken around Kargil and in the Nubra valley of Ladakh, in villages such as Turtuk. There are also Balti communities in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and other Pakistani cities.

There are four dialects, and speakers of each understand the others:

• Western, in Skardu, Shigar and Roundu
• Central, in the Khaplu valley
• Eastern, in Chorbat and Nubra
• Southern, in upper Kharmang and Kargil

The differences are small. Wikipedia gives the examples below, and you may notice them if you travel from Skardu to Khaplu.

Shina is also spoken in parts of Roundu, towards Gilgit, and Burushaski and Wakhi are heard further north in Hunza, Nagar and Gojal. None of them can be understood by a Balti speaker without learning them. Our guides to the Shina language and the Burushaski language cover those.

Script: from Yige to Perso-Arabic

Balti was first written in a version of the Tibetan script, known locally as Yige. Wikipedia's account is that this lasted from the eighth century until the last quarter of the fourteenth, when the Baltis converted to Islam and gradually switched to the Perso-Arabic script used for Persian and, later, Urdu.

The fit was imperfect. The Perso-Arabic alphabet had no letters for seven Balti sounds. In 1985 the Balti scholar Yusuf Hussain Abadi added seven letters to the Perso-Arabic script and four to the Tibetan script so that either could write Balti fully. He later published a Balti translation of the Quran in the adapted Perso-Arabic script.

Since then there has been a small revival of interest in Yige among scholars and cultural groups, and it now turns up on signboards, cultural centres and craft products around Skardu and Khaplu, mostly as a marker of identity. In September 2006 the working group behind the ISO and Unicode character standards agreed to add two of Abadi's Tibetan letters so that Balti in Yige could be typed on computers. Everyday writing, schoolbooks and shop signs remain in Perso-Arabic script, or simply in Urdu.

Useful Balti words

The words below are from the vocabulary table in Wikipedia's article on Balti, which is the only source we were able to check them against.

The third column matters. Like other Tibetic languages, Balti has a separate set of honorific words used when speaking to or about elders and respected people, so the word a host uses to invite a guest to eat is not the one used with a child. If you learn one thing, learn that "Kacho" is the respectful word for an elder brother, where "Kaka" is the plain one.

Pronunciation varies between valleys, and spelling in the Latin alphabet is not standardised, so treat these as a rough guide. We could not verify greetings and phrases such as "thank you" in a reliable published source, so we have left them out; ask your guide or host to teach you theirs, which will be right for that valley.

Do you need to speak Balti as a visitor?

No. Urdu is understood everywhere, and English is spoken by guides, hotel staff and many shopkeepers in Skardu and the main tourist areas. You can travel through Baltistan comfortably without a word of Balti.

A handful of Balti words still goes down well, especially in villages off the main road in Shigar, Khaplu and Hushe. It also helps to know that Balti is its own language when you look at a map: place names around Skardu, Shigar and Khaplu often do not resemble anything from further south, because they are not Urdu.

Balti beyond conversation

Balti has an oral literature that includes the Epic of King Gesar, the long heroic story told across Tibet, Ladakh and Mongolia. Written Balti literature is almost all poetry and has borrowed heavily from Persian verse forms.

The language is under pressure. Since 1948 a large number of Urdu and English words have entered everyday speech, and Balti has no native terms for many modern things. The language sits at the centre of a wider Balti identity that also includes distinct food, architecture and festivals, covered in our Balti culture guide and our Balti food guide. Our Skardu guide has more on visiting the region.

Frequently asked questions