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Southern Altai | |
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Oirot, Oyrot (before 1948), Altai-Kizhi | |
тÿштÿк алтай тил, tüştük altay til ойрот тил (before 1948) | |
Native to | Russia |
Region | Altai Republic |
Ethnicity | Altai-Kizhi |
Native speakers | 68,700 (2020) [1] |
Dialects | |
Cyrillic | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | alt |
ISO 639-3 | alt |
Glottolog | sout2694 |
ELP | Southern Altai |
Southern Altai | |
Southern Altay is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger [5] |
Southern Altai (also known as Oirot, Oyrot, Altai and Altai proper) is a Turkic language spoken in the Altai Republic, a federal subject of Russia located in Southern Siberia on the border with Mongolia and China. The language has some mutual intelligibility with the Northern Altai language, leading to the two being traditionally considered as a single language. According to modern classifications—at least since the middle of the 20th century—they are considered to be two separate languages. [6]
Written Altai is based on Southern Altai. According to some reports, however, it is rejected by Northern Altai children. Dialects include Altai Proper and Talangit. [7]
Southern Altai is a member of the Turkic language family. Within this family, there have been various attempts to classify Altai, and not all of them agree as to its position as it has a number of ambiguous characteristics. [8] Due to certain similarities with Kyrgyz, some scholars group Altai with the Kyrgyz–Kipchak subgroup of the Kypchak languages. [2] [3] [9]
Southern Altai is primarily spoken in the Altai Republic, where it has official status alongside Russian.
Baskakov identifies three dialects of Southern Altai, some of which have distinctive sub-varieties: [2]
Some sources consider Telengit and Teleut to be distinct languages. [10] [11]
Southern Altai has 8 vowels, which may be long or short, and 20 consonants, plus marginal consonants that occur only in loan words. [12]
Front | Back | |
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High | i y | ɯ u |
Low | e ø | a o |
Labial | Alveolar | Post-alveloar | Velar | Uvular | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | p b | t d | tʃ ɟ | k ɡ | q |
Affricate | ( ts ) | ||||
Fricative | f v | s z | ʃ ʒ | ( x ) ɣ | |
Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
Trill | r | ||||
Approximant | l | j |
Phonemes in parentheses occur only in Russian loanwords.
Southern Altai employs a version of the Cyrillic alphabet with additional characters to represent sounds not found in Russian. [13]
А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Ј ј | Е е |
Ё ё | Ж ж | З з | И и | Й й | К к | Л л |
М м | Н н | Ҥ ҥ | О о | Ӧ ӧ | П п | Р р |
С с | Т т | У у | Ӱ ӱ | Ф ф | Х х | Ц ц |
Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ы ы | Ь ь | Э э |
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum.
Altai is a set of Turkic languages spoken officially in the Altai Republic, Russia. The standard vocabulary is based on the Southern Altai language, though it is also taught to and used by speakers of the Northern Altai language as well. Gorno–Altai refers to a subgroup of languages in the Altai Mountains. The languages were called Oyrot (ойрот) prior to 1948.
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The Kipchak languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family spoken by approximately 30 million people in much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, spanning from Ukraine to China. Some of the most widely spoken languages in this group are Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tatar.
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Chamalal is an Andic language of the Northeast Caucasian language family spoken in southwestern Dagestan, Russia by approximately 5,100 ethnic Chamalals. It has three quite distinct dialects, Gadyri, Gakvari, and Gigatl.
Siberian Tatar is a Turkic language spoken by about 140,000 people in Western Siberia, Russia, primarily in the oblasts of Tyumen, Novosibirsk, Omsk but also in Tomsk and Kemerovo. According to Marcel Erdal, due to its particular characteristics, Siberian Tatar can be considered as a bridge to Siberian Turkic languages.
The Kumandin language is a Turkic language spoken in the Altai Republic in Russia, spoken by the Kumandins, who name themselves "Kumandi-Kiji". It was formerly counted as a dialect of Altai, but it is more modernly seen as a separate language, with differing curricula from it and Chelkan, which also comprises the Northern Altai language.
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Teleut is a moribund Turkic language spoken in the Altai Republic in Russia. It is sometimes considered a dialect of Southern Altai. It was the basis for the Altai literary language before 1917.
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