The Kūrd are a Brahui tribe of

Balochistan Balochistan ( ; bal, بلۏچستان; also romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastl ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. They belong to the

Sarawan Sarawan (Balochi: سراوان) was a division of the former princely state of Kalat in Baluchistan, Pakistan, with an area . To the north were Quetta, Pishin, Bolan Pass and Sibi District. On the south was the division of Jhalawan. The ma ...

group and speak the Dravidian

Brahui language Brahui (; brh, , links=no; also known as Brahvi or Brohi) is a Dravidian language spoken by some of the Brahui people. The language is spoken primarily in the central part of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan, with smaller communities of s ...

.. Not all Brahui tribes speak Brahui. Josef Elfenbein contends that they are among the first Brahui-speakers to have come in contact with outsiders in the former

Khanate of Kalat The Khanate of Kalat ( bal, کلاتءِ ھانات) was a Baloch Khanate that existed from 1512 to 1955 in the centre of the modern-day province of Balochistan, Pakistan. Its rulers were Brahui speakers. Prior to that they were subjects of ...

, as they appear in a certain oral tradition of the

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

-speaking Dehwars of

Mastung District Mastung District ( bal, مستونگ; ur, ) is a district located in the northwest of Balochistan province, Pakistan. Prior to its creation as a separate district in 1991, Mastung was part of Kalat District. Administration The district cons ...

, where they are known as ''Kūrdgalla'' 'Kurd-people'. This term is likely to have been the source of Kūrdgāl, the name by which the Kūrd are known to the

Baloch Baloch, also spelled Baloch, Beluch and in other ways, may refer to: * Baloch people, an ethnic group of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan * Baluch, a small itinerant community of Afghanistan * Balouch, Azad Kashmir, a town in Pakistan * Baloch (s ...

and the

Jats The Jat people ((), ()) are a traditionally agricultural community in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralism, pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval time ...

, among whom it has been reinterpreted as meaning "speaker of ''Kūrd''. A proposed connection with the

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Ir ...

of Western Asia has been dismissed by Elfenbein as

folk etymology Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...

that is implausible on account of the different vowels (long ''ū'' for the Brahui tribe vs. short ''u'' for the other).

References

Bibliography

* * {{Brahui tribes Brahui tribes