Balti Language Alphabet & Script

Balti is a Tibetic language, a close relative of Tibetan, spoken in the high valleys of Baltistan around K2 and in Ladakh. It has used several writing systems. Baltistan came under the Tibetan Empire in the 8th century, and the Tibetan script was used there, though how far it was used to write Balti itself is debated. After Islam spread through Baltistan in the late Middle Ages, writing moved to the Perso-Arabic script used for Persian, and later for Urdu, and that is how almost all Balti is written today.

CLDR, the Unicode project's language database, keeps no letter list for Balti, and the language has no single official spelling. This page therefore gives common Perso-Arabic letters used in Balti writing, followed by standard Tibetan letters used in Yige revival materials.

The Balti alphabet in Urdu script

Written in Urdu letters, Balti reads right to left and joins its letters the way Urdu does. Beyond the Arabic base it uses Urdu's extra letters: پ p, چ ch, ژ ts and گ g, which came from Persian, and the Urdu retroflex letters ٹ ṭ and ڈ ḍ, pronounced with the tongue curled back, which Balti needs for its own retroflex sounds. ک is the Urdu kāf, ہ the round choṭī he and ی the Urdu ye; ے (baṛī ye) writes e or ai at the end of a word.

Balti also has sounds that Indo-Aryan languages lack but Arabic script handles well: the deep ق q, خ kh and غ gh are everyday Balti consonants rather than marks of borrowed words. Standard Urdu lacks dedicated letters for Balti ts and dz; Balti-specific Perso-Arabic spellings exist, but are not standardised. Several letters that sound alike in Urdu, such as ث س ص for s or ذ ز ض ظ for z, keep their Arabic spelling in loanwords and are rarely needed for native Balti words.

As in Urdu, short vowels are usually left unwritten. When a word has to be spelt out, use َ zabar (a), ِ zer (i), ُ pesh (u), ْ jazm for a consonant with no vowel after it, and ّ tashdīd for a doubled one. Sentences end with the Urdu full stop ۔, and the comma ، and question mark ؟ face right to left.

Balti in Tibetan script (Yige)

The standard Tibetan alphabet has 30 consonant letters, learned in rows of four from ཀ ka, ཁ kha, ག ga, ང nga to ཧ ha and ཨ a; Balti Yige also uses four extra Tibetan letters for Balti sounds. Each letter carries an inherent a; the vowel signs ི i, ུ u, ེ e and ོ o are written above or below it. Letters stack: a subscript ྱ ya, ྲ ra or ླ la joins the letter above it, and the small dot ་, the tsheg, ends every syllable, while །, the shad, ends a phrase. Tibetan is written left to right, the opposite direction to Urdu.

The script suits Balti unusually well. Lhasa Tibetan has long since stopped pronouncing many of the consonant clusters its spelling preserves, and it has tones; Balti has limited lexical pitch contrasts and still pronounces many of those clusters at the start of words, so old Tibetan spellings often match Balti speech closely. Since the late 20th century, Balti writers and cultural groups in Skardu have been teaching Yige again and publishing in it, although Urdu script remains the everyday choice.

How to type the Balti language alphabet

There is no separate Balti keyboard in Windows or macOS; Balti is typed on an Urdu keyboard. Windows: add Urdu under Settings › Time & language › Language & region and switch with Win + Space. Mac: add Urdu in System Settings › Keyboard › Input Sources. Phones: add the Urdu keyboard in Gboard or in the iPhone keyboard settings and switch with the globe key. In Word you can type a code and press Alt + X: 0679 for ٹ, 0688 for ڈ, 06D2 for ے, 06BA for ں.

For Yige, use a Tibetan keyboard: Windows offers a Tibetan (PRC) layout, macOS has Tibetan input sources including a Wylie one that turns Latin spellings into Tibetan letters, and Gboard has Tibetan on phones. Or simply tap any letter on this page to copy it.

Where the Balti language is spoken

CLDR estimates about 540,000 speakers of Balti. Roughly 450,000 live in Pakistan 🇵🇰, in the Baltistan region of Gilgit-Baltistan: around Skardu, Shigar, Khaplu, Kharmang and Roundu, below K2, the Karakoram glaciers and the Deosai plateau. About 90,000 live in India 🇮🇳, in Ladakh, including the villages of the Turtuk area in the Nubra valley and parts of Kargil district, where the closely related Purgi is the main language. Balti speakers also live in Pakistan's big cities.

Baltis are almost all Muslims, Shia, Noorbakhshi and Sunni, so Balti carries many Persian, Arabic and Urdu words, and Urdu is the language of school and government. For the full Urdu and Tibetan alphabets see the Urdu and Tibetan collections; Khowar and Kashmiri are other northern languages of the region with their own pages, and the Pakistan and India collections cover the countries' emoji. Prices in Baltistan are in Pakistani rupees, written Rs or ₨, and in Ladakh in Indian rupees, ₹.