Balti | |
---|---|
Balti Bhotia | |
སྦལ་ཏི་སྐད། | |
Native to | Pakistan, India |
Region | Baltistan and small pockets in Ladakh, Karachi, Rawalpindi/Islamabad and Lahore |
Ethnicity | Baltipa |
Native speakers | c.484,000 in Pakistan (2018)[1][2] |
Tibetan script, Nastaliq script | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | sit |
ISO 639-3 | bft |
ELP | Balti |
Balti (སྦལ་ཏི་སྐད།) or Bhotia is Tibetic language spoken in the Baltistan region of Gilgit Baltistan northeastern Pakistan and a few neighboring villages of the disputed territory of Indian-administered Kashmir.[3] The language is an archaic dialect of the Tibetan language, but many of the consonants of Classical Tibetan that are silent in most modern Tibetan dialects are pronounced in Balti.[4]