Eastern Khanty language

Last updated
Eastern Khanty
Kantyk
Native to Russia
Region Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Ethnicity<1,000 eastern Khanty [1]
Native speakers
(<1,000 cited 1993) [2]
Uralic
Dialects
  • Salym
  • Surgut
  • Vakh-Vasyugan
Cyrillic
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (all Khanty varieties)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
1ok
  kca-eas
Glottolog east2774   Eastern Khanty
ELP
6-Ob Ugric-languages.png
Map of Khanty and Mansi varieties in the early 20th century, with   Eastern Khanty

Eastern Khanty is a Uralic language, frequently considered a dialect of a Khanty language, spoken by about 1,000 people. [2] [3] [4] [5] The majority of these speakers speak the Surgut dialect, as the Vakh-Vasyugan and Salym varieties have been rapidly declining in favor of Russian. [6] The former two have been used as literary languages since the late 20th century, with Surgut being more widely used due to its less isolated location and higher number of speakers. [6]

Contents

Classification

Dialects

Classification of Eastern Khanty dialects: [7]

The Vakh, Vasyugan, Alexandrovo and Yugan (Jugan) dialects have less than 300 speakers in total. [1]

Transitional

The Salym dialect can be classified as transitional between Eastern and Southern (Honti 1998 suggests closer affinity with Eastern, Abondolo 1998 in the same work with Southern). The Atlym and Nizyam dialects also show some Southern features.

Alphabet

Surgut alphabet [9] (ԯ ң typeface)
А аӐ ӑӒ ӓВ вИ иЙ йК кҚ қЛ л
Љ љԮ ԯМ мН нЊ њҢ ңО оӨ ө Ө̆ ө̆
Ӧ ӧП пР рС сТ т Ᲊ ᲊ У уЎ ўӰ ӱ
Ҳ ҳҶ ҷШ шЫ ыЭ эӘ ә

The Khanty letters with a tick or tail at bottom, namely Қ Ԯ Ң Ҳ Ҷ , are sometimes rendered with a diagonal tail, i.e. Ӆ Ӊ, and sometimes with a curved tail, i.e. Ӄ Ӈ Ԓ Ӽ. However, in the case of Surgut such graphic variation needs to be handled by the font, because there are no Unicode characters to hard-code Ҳ or Ҷ with a diagonal tail, and Unicode has refused a request to encode a variant of Ҷ with a curved tail ( Cyrillic capital letter Che with hook.svg Cyrillic small letter Che with hook.svg ), the reasoning being that it would be an allograph rather than a distinct letter. (The same is true of the other curved-tail variants in Unicode; those were encoded by mistake.) [10]

Phonology

Eastern Khanty [ k ] corresponds to [ x ] in the northern and southern languages.

Vakh

Vakh has the richest vowel inventory, with five reduced vowels ø̆ə̆ɑ̆ŏ/ and full /iyɯueøoæɑ/. Some researchers also report ɔ/. [11] [12]

Vakh Khanty consonants [13]
Bilabial Dental Palatal/ized Retroflex Velar
Nasal m n ɳ ŋ
Plosive p t k
Affricate
Fricative s ɣ
Lateral l ɭ
Trill r
Semivowel w j

Surgut

Surgut Khanty has five reduced vowels /æ̆ə̆ɵ̆ʉ̆ɑ̆ŏ/ and full vowels /ieaɒouɯ/. [14]

Surgut Khanty consonants [14]
Bilabial Dental /
Alveolar
Palatal/ized Post-
alveolar
Velar Uvular
Nasal m ŋ
Plosive / Affricate p ~ [lower-alpha 1] k [lower-alpha 2] q [lower-alpha 2]
Fricative central s ( ʃ ) [lower-alpha 3] ʁ
lateral ɬ [lower-alpha 4] ɬʲ
Approximant w l j ( ʁ̞ʷ ) [lower-alpha 5]
Trill r
  1. /tʲ/ can be realized as an affricate [tɕ] in the Tremjugan and Agan sub-dialects.
  2. 1 2 The velar/uvular contrast is predictable in inherited vocabulary: [q] appears before back vowels, [k] before front and central vowels. However, in loanwords from Russian, [k] may also be found before back vowels.
  3. The phonemic status of [ʃ] is not clear. It occurs in some words in variation with [s], in others in variation with [tʃ].
  4. In the Pim sub-dialect, /ɬ/ has recently shifted to /t/, a change that has spread from Southern Khanty.
  5. The labialized postvelar approximant [ʁ̞ʷ] occurs in the Tremjugan sub-dialect as an allophone of /w/ between back vowels, for some speakers also word-initially before back vowels. Research from the early 20th century also reported two other labialized phonemes: /kʷ~qʷ/ and /ŋʷ/, but these are no longer distinguished.


Grammar

The Vakh dialect is divergent. It has rigid vowel harmony and a tripartite (ergative–accusative) case system, where the subject of a transitive verb takes the instrumental case suffix -nə-, while the object takes the accusative case suffix. The subject of an intransitive verb, however, is not marked for case and might be said to be absolutive. The transitive verb agrees with the subject, as in nominative–accusative systems.

Vocabulary examples

Numerals

Surgut Khanty numerals
No.Numerals
1əj (attributive), əj-əɬ (non-attributive)
2kȧt (attributive), kȧt-ɣən (non-attributive)
3qoɬəm
4ńəɬə
5wä̌t
6qut
7ɬȧpət
8ńyɬəɣ
9irjeŋ
10jeŋ
11jeŋ ü̆rəkkə əj
12jeŋ ü̆rəkkə kȧt-ɣən
20qos
25qos ü̆rəkkə wä̌t
30qoɬəm jeŋ
31qoɬəm jeŋ əj
40ńəɬ jeŋ
42ńəɬə jeŋ kȧtɣən
80ńyɬ sɔt
100sɔt
255kȧt sɔtɣən wä̌t jeŋ wä̌t
800ńyɬəɣ sɔt
1000ťǒras
30943qoɬəm jeŋ ťŏrȧs irjeŋ sɔt ńəɬə jeŋ qoɬəm

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References

  1. 1 2 Filʹchenko, A. I︠U︡ (2010). Aspect of the grammar of Eastern Khanty. Tomsk: Tomsk State Pedagogical University. ISBN   978-5-89428-315-9.
  2. 1 2 "Endangered languages in Northeast Asia: report". University of Helsinki . 2019-02-11. Archived from the original on February 11, 2019. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
  3. "Вах-васюганский хантыйский язык | Малые языки России". minlang.iling-ran.ru. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  4. "Сургутско-хантыйский язык | Малые языки России". minlang.iling-ran.ru. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  5. "Хантыйский язык" [Khanty language]. Историческая энциклопедия Сибири (in Russian). Новосибирск. 2009.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. 1 2 Salminen, Tapani (2023). "Demography, endangerment, and revitalization". In Abondolo, Daniel Mario; Valijärvi, Riitta-Liisa (eds.). The Uralic languages. Routledge Language Family (2nd ed.). London New York: Routledge. p. 103. ISBN   978-1-138-65084-8.
  7. Honti, László (1981), "Ostjakin kielen itämurteiden luokittelu", Congressus Quintus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum, Turku 20.-27. VIII. 1980, Turku: Suomen kielen seura, pp. 95–100
  8. Abondolo & Valijärvi 2023.
  9. Volkova, Anisʹja Nikolaevna; Solovar, Valentina Nikolaevna (2018). Chantyjsko-russkij tematičeskij slovarʹ: (surgutskij dialekt): bolee 3000 slovХантыйско-русский тематический словарь (сургутский диалект) более 3000 слов. Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatelʹstvo RGPU im. A.I. Gercena. ISBN   978-5-8064-2560-8.
  10. L2/23-015 Comments on CYRILLIC CHE WITH HOOK’s use in Khanty and Tofa (Tofalar) (L2/22-280).
  11. Abondolo 1998, p. 360.
  12. Filchenko 2007.
  13. Honti 1998, p. 338.
  14. 1 2 Csepregi 1998, pp. 12–13.

Sources