     Pakistan Index  The final major ethnic group in Pakistan is
the Baloch. A comparatively small group, the Baloch, like the
Pakhtuns, are a tribal population whose original territory
extends beyond the national borders. Over 70 percent of the
Baloch live in Pakistan, with the remainder in Iran and
Afghanistan. The Baloch trace their roots to tribes migrating
eastward from around Aleppo, in Syria, before the Christian era.
Sometime between the sixth century and the fourteenth century,
they migrated to the region of present-day Balochistan.  Baloch
speak Balochi, part of the Iranian group of Indo- European
languages. Linguistic evidence indicates the origin of Balochi
to be in the pre-Christian Medean or Parthian civilizations. The
modern form has incorporated elements from Persian, Sindhi,
Arabic, and a number of other languages. Beginning in the early
nineteenth century, Baloch intellectuals used Persian and Urdu
scripts to transcribe Balochi into written form. Since
Pakistan's independence and with the ri