The language spoken in and round Kalat, the capital of the Khanate and the meeting-place of Sarawan and Jhalawan, is regarded by most Brahuis as preserving the purest form of their speech, and it is this language which is analysed in the following pages. While passing reference is made to the more important divergencies between the Sarawan and Jhalawan branches of the language, I have not allowed myself to be tempted aside into the interesting bypaths of dialectical variants. I have been content to state what I regard as the standard usage, undeterred by the consciousness that, however clearly defined the rule, exceptions might possible be culled from some dialect or other to confound it. Four years’ residence in Baluchistan has left me free to pursue the study of Brahui independently of the work of my predecessors, and of the authorities quoted at the end of this volume the only one from which I have wittingly derived assistance is Bishop Caldwell’s ‘Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages.’ Here, however, my debt has been great. Although Bishop Caldwell, working on material necessarily very imperfect and often incorrect, accorded Brahui but a cursory examination in his masterly treatise, his lucid analysis of the grammatical system of the Dravidian languages yields an insight into the structure of Brahui which would otherwise be hardly possible.
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