An Instance of Umlaut in the Historical Studies of Balochi Language (Historical Change of /ū/ into /ī/)

The sounds of languages undergo changes under the effects of certain linguistic factors through the historical changes of languages from one form into another. Studying 100 Balochi—an Iranian language—words, it was found that the vowel /ū/ in Old Iranian has changed into /ī/ in some parts of Iranian Baluchistan including southern and central areas, currently being common in a free variant of two forms as /ū/ and /ī/ in these areas. In addition, investigating the phenomenon in some other Iranian languages from the most eastern (Pamir territory) to the most western (Kurdish and Bakhtiari territories), it was found that this historical change has occurred, and it can be considered a general and widespread phenomenon among Iranian languages. Finally, the study of this phenomenon in the Balochi language can be useful from some aspects such as typology and linguistic description and historical studies of Balochi language and its dialects and accents.