This study focuses on two experiments conducted with Eastern and Western Balochi speakers. In Eastern Balochi, voiceless stops have aspirated features, but in Western Balochi, they are unaspirated. Eighty-four native speakers of both dialects of Balochi participated in this study. Participants of the first experiment produced words of their L1 in a picture naming task, and those of the second experiment read words in English. VOTs of the L1 and L2 voiced stops elicited from recordings of the productions. Results show that speakers of Western Balochi transfer their L1 negative VOTs to L2 English-voiced stops. However, Eastern Balochi speakers produce English-voiced stops with VOTs, significantly different from their L1 VOTs. Though they could not produce English-voiced stops with native-like accuracy, they produced English stops with significantly longer pre-voicing duration than their L1-voiced stops. Therefore, the study concludes that speakers of those languages with stops with negative VOT ranges face more difficulty acquiring L2 voiced stops of short-lag positive VOTs than those learners whose L1 does not have such stops. The speech learning model is used in this study to analyze all results.

English is used as a lingua franca in most parts of the world (Ozaki, 2011). However, problems and issues related to learning English are country specific (Nagamine, 2011), because most of the difficulties in foreign language learning arise from L1 interference (Flege, 1995). Since this study focuses on acoustic analysis of a phonological feature of Pakistan English (PakE), we outline the historical background of the issue very briefly. Pakistan is a linguistically rich country. More than 70 languages are spoken in Pakistan (Rahman, 1996). Saraiki, Balochi, Sindhi, Punjabi and Pashto are the major indigenous languages of the country. More than 90% of the total population speaks these languages. Pakistan came into being in 1947. It inherited English as a language of education, law, the judiciary and media from the British colonial masters. The British rulers also used the English language in India for official correspondence. Therefore, English became a very effective tool and symbol of power in the subcontinent. As a result, people of the subcontinent feel pride in learning English. Although the colonial period has ended and the English rulers have departed to their homeland, English still remains the language of ruling elite in Pakistan and India.