Tuvan | |
---|---|
Тыва дыл Tıva tıl | |
Pronunciation | [tʰɤ̀ʋɐtɤ̀ɫ] |
Native to | Russia, Mongolia, China |
Region | Tuva |
Ethnicity | Tuvans |
Native speakers | 130,000 (2021) |
Cyrillic script | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Russia |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | tyv |
ISO 639-3 | tyv |
Glottolog | tuvi1240 Tuvinian todj1234 Todja |
ELP | Tuva |
Tuha [2] | |
Tuvan is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
People | Tuvan / Tyvans Тывалар Тувинцы |
---|---|
Language | Tuvan / Tyvan Тыва дыл |
Country | Tuva / Tyva Тува Тыва |
Tuvan, [a] sometimes spelt Tyvan, [b] is a Turkic language spoken in the Republic of Tuva in South Central Siberia, Russia. The language has borrowed a certain number of roots from Mongolian, Tibetan and Russian. There are small groups of Tuvans that speak distinct dialects of Tuvan in China and Mongolia.
While this history focuses on mostly the people of Tuva, many linguists argue that language is inevitably intertwined with the socio-historical situation of a language itself. [3] The earliest record of Tuvan is from the early 19th century by Wūlǐyǎsūtái zhìlüè (Chinese :烏里雅蘇台志略), Julius Klaproth 1823, Matthias Castrén 1857, Nikolay Katanov, Vasily Radlov, etc. [4]
The name Tuva goes back as early as the publication of The Secret History of the Mongols . The Tuva (as they refer to themselves) have historically been referred to as Soyons, Soyots or Uriankhais. [5]
Tuvan (also spelled Tyvan) is linguistically classified as a Sayan Turkic language. Its closest relative is the moribund Tofa.
Although Tuvan has more speakers than endangered languages such as Seri in Mexico (est. 1000 speakers) or Nǁng in South Africa (fewer than 10 speakers), still Tuvan is endangered by global dialects around them like Russian or Mandarin. [6]
Tuvan, as spoken in Tuva, is principally divided into four dialect groups; Western, Central, Northeastern, Southeastern.
Other dialects include those spoken by the Dzungar, the Tsengel and the Dukha Tuvans, but currently these uncommon dialects are not comprehensively documented. Different dialects of the language exist across the geographic region in which Tuvan is spoken. K. David Harrison, who completed his dissertation on the Tuvan language in 2001, argues that the divergence of these dialects relates to the nomadic nature of the Tuvan nation. [7]
One subset is the Jungar Tuvan language, originating in the Altai Mountains in the western region of Mongolia. There is no accurate number of Jungar-Tuvan speakers because most currently reside in China, and the Chinese include Tuvan speakers as Mongolians in their census. [5]
Tuvan has 19 native consonant phonemes:
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
Plosive | lenis [c] | p | t | ɡ | |
fortis [c] | pʰ | tʰ | k | ||
Affricate | t͡s [d] | t͡ʃ | |||
Fricative | voiceless | f [d] | s | ʃ | x |
voiced | z | ʒ | |||
Approximant | ʋ | l | j | ||
Flap | ɾ |
Vowels in Tuvan exist in three varieties: long, short, and short with low pitch. Tuvan long vowels have a duration that is at least (and often more than) twice as long as that of short vowels. Contrastive low pitch may occur on short vowels, and when it does, it causes them to increase in duration by at least a half. When using low pitch, Tuvan speakers employ a pitch that is at the very low end of their modal voice pitch. For some speakers, it is even lower and using what is phonetically known as creaky voice. When a vowel in a monosyllabic word has low pitch, speakers apply low pitch only to the first half of that vowel (e.g. [àt] 'horse'). [8] That is followed by a noticeable pitch rise, as the speaker returns to modal pitch in the second half of the vowel.
The acoustic impression is similar to that of a rising tone like the rising pitch contour of the Mandarin second tone, but the Tuvan pitch begins much lower. However, Tuvan is considered a pitch accent language with contrastive low pitch instead of a tonal language. When the low pitch vowel occurs in a multisyllabic word, there is no rising pitch contour or lengthening effect: [àdɯ] 'his/her/its horse'. Such low pitch vowels were previously referred to in the literature as either kargyraa or pharyngealized vowels. Phonetic studies have demonstrated that the defining characteristic of such vowels is low pitch. See Harrison 2001 for a phonetic and acoustic study of Tuvan low pitch vowels.
In her PhD thesis, "Long Vowels in Mongolic Loanwords in Tuvan", Baiarma Khabtagaeva states that the history of long vowels is ambiguous. While the long vowels may originate from Mongolic languages, they could also be of Tuvan origin. In most Mongolic languages, the quality of the long vowel changes depending on the quality of the second vowel in the conjunction. The only exception to this rule is if the conjunction is labial. The ancient Tuvan languages, in contrast, depended upon the first vowel rather than the second to determine the long vowels. [9]
Khabtagaeva divided the transformation of these loanwords into two periods: the early layer and the late layer. The words in the early layer are words in which the Mongolic preserved the conjunction, the VCV conjunction was preserved but the long vowel still developed when it entered the Tuvan language, or the stress is on the last syllable and a long vowel in the loanword replaced a short vowel in the original word. The late layer includes loanwords in which the long vowel does not change when the word entered Tuvan. [9]
Short | Long | Low pitch | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
High | Low | High | Low | High | Low | ||
Front | Unrounded | i | e | iː | eː | ì | è |
Rounded | y | ø | yː | øː | ỳ | ø̀ | |
Back | Unrounded | ɯ | a | ɯː | aː | ɯ̀ | à |
Rounded | u | o | uː | oː | ù | ò |
Vowels may also be nasalized in the environment of nasal consonants, but nasalization is non-contrastive. Most Tuvan vowels in word-initial syllables have a low pitch and do not contrast significantly with short and long vowels. [7]
Tuvan has two systems of vowel harmony that strictly govern the distribution of vowels within words and suffixes. Backness harmony, or what is sometimes called 'palatal' harmony, requires all vowels within a word to be either back or front. Rounding harmony, or what is sometimes called 'labial' harmony, requires a vowel to be rounded if it is a high vowel and appears in a syllable immediately following a rounded vowel. Low rounded vowels [ø][o] are restricted to the first syllable of a word, and a vowel in a non-initial syllable may be rounded only if it meets the conditions of rounding harmony (it must both be a high vowel [y][u] and be preceded by a rounded vowel). See Harrison (2001) for a detailed description of Tuvan vowel harmony systems. [7]
Tuvan builds morphologically complex words by adding suffixes. For example, тевеteve is 'camel', тевелерteveler is 'camels', тевелеримtevelerim is 'my camels', тевелеримденtevelerimden is 'from my camels'.
Tuvan marks nouns with six cases: genitive, accusative, dative, ablative, locative, and allative. The suffixes below are in front vowels, however, except -Je the suffixes follow vowel harmony rules. Each case suffix has a rich variety of uses and meanings, of which only the most basic ones are shown here.
Root | Allomorphs | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
When after: | voiceless | nasals | voiced/vowel | After -л |
Nominative | -∅ | |||
Genitive (-NIŋ) | -тиң (-tiŋ) | -ниң (-niŋ)) | -диң (-diŋ) | |
Accusative (-NI) | -ти (-ti) | -ни (-ni) | -ди (-di) | |
Dative (-KA) | -ке (-ke) | -ге (-ge) | ||
Locative (-DA) | -те (-te) | -де (-de) | ||
Ablative (-DAn) | -тен (-ten) | -ден (-den) | ||
Allative I (-Je) | -че (-če) | -же (-že) | ||
Allative II (-DIvA) [10] | -тиве (-tive) | -диве (-dive) | ||
Plural | ||||
Nominative (-LAr) | -тер (-ter) | -нер (-ner) | -лер (-ler) | -дер (-der) |
Oblique cases: by adding voiced variant into the plural suffix (-лерниң, -лерге, ...) |
Case | Form | Meaning |
---|---|---|
Nominative | теве (teve) | "camel" |
Genitive | тевениң (teveniŋ) | "of the camel" |
Accusative | тевени (teveni) | "the camel" (definite direct object of verb) |
Dative | тевеге (tevege) | "for the camel" or "at the camel" (in the past tense) |
Locative | теведе (tevede) | "at the camel" or "in the camel" |
Ablative | теведен (teveden) | "from the camel" or "than a/the camel" |
Allative I | тевеже (teveže) | "to(wards) the camel" |
Allative II | теведиве (tevedive) |
Verbs in Tuvan take a number of endings to mark tense, mood, and aspect. Auxiliary verbs are also used to modify the verb. For a detailed scholarly study of auxiliary verbs in Tuvan and related languages, see Anderson 2004.
Tuvan employs SOV word order. For example, теве сиген чипкен (camel hay eat-PAST) "The camel ate the hay."
Tuvan vocabulary is mostly Turkic in origin but marked by a large number of Mongolian loanwords. The language has also borrowed several Mongolian suffixes. In addition, there exist Ketic and Samoyedic substrata.[ citation needed ] A Tuvan talking dictionary is produced by the Living Tongues Institute. [11]
In contrast with most Turkic languages, which have many Arabic and Persian loanwords that even cover some basic concepts, these loanwords are very few, if any, in Tuvan, as Tuvans never adopted Islam like most Turkic peoples.
The current Tuvan alphabet is a modified version of the Russian alphabet, with three additional letters: Ңң (Latin "ng" or International Phonetic Alphabet [ŋ]), Өө (Latin "ö", [ø]), Үү (Latin "ü", IPA [y]). The sequence of the alphabet follows Russian, but with Ң located after Russian Н, Ө after О, and Ү after У.
А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Е е | Ё ё | Ж ж |
З з | И и | Й й | К к | Л л | М м | Н н | Ң ң |
О о | Ө ө | П п | Р р | С с | Т т | У у | Ү ү |
Ф ф | Х х | Ц ц | Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ы ы |
Ь ь | Э э | Ю ю | Я я |
The letters Е and Э are used in a special way. Э is used for the short /e/ sound at the beginning of words while Е is used for the same sound in the middle and at the end of words. Е is used at the beginning of words, mostly of Russian origin, to reflect the standard Russian pronunciation of that letter, /je/. Additionally, ЭЭ is used in the middle and at the end of words for the long /e/ sound.
The letter ъ is used to indicate pitch accent, as in эът èt 'meat'.
In the past, approximately from 17th and 18th centuries till the 30s of the 20th century Tuvans used the traditional Mongolian script as their written language. By the late 1920s less than 1.5% of the total Tuvan population was literate in the traditional Mongolian script. Mongolian literacy was mainly possessed by the feudal nobility and officials. The absolute majority of Tuvans (with the exception of residents of some areas of the south-eastern part of Tuva, where Tuvan-Mongolian bilingualism has been preserved to this day) did not know the Mongolian language, and had long spoken only their native language. [12]
In 1926, the government of the Tuvan People's Republic asked Soviet scientists to develop a native Tuvan script. The first draft of a Tuvan alphabet based on Cyrillic was compiled by Roman Buzykaev (1875-1939) and B. Bryukhanov (Sotpa) in 1927. This alphabet contained the letters Аа, Бб, Вв, Гг, Дд, Ёё, Жж, Ӝӝ, Зз, Ии, Йй, Кк, Лл, Мм, Нн, Ҥҥ, Оо, Ӧӧ, Пп, Рр, Сс, Тт, Уу, Ӱӱ, Хх, Чч, Шш, Ыы. The first Tuvan primer was published using this alphabet, but this project was not developed further.
One of the many draft scripts based on Latin, Cyrillic, and Mongolian scripts was Mongolian script developed by Nikolaus Poppe to suit the Tuvan language. [13]
The Latin-based alphabet for Tuvan was devised in 1930 by a Tuvan Buddhist monk, Mongush Lopsang-Chinmit (a.k.a. Lubsan Zhigmed). This project was proposed based on the German alphabet, albeit with a modified letter order. In this proposed system, all vowels were placed first (10 letters), followed by consonants (18 letters). This order is characteristic of the classical Mongolian script. Moreover, the pronunciation of several letters underwent significant alteration. [14] [15]
A few books and newspapers, including primers intended to teach adults to read, were printed using this writing system. Lopsang-Chinmit was later executed in Stalinist purges on 31 December 1941. [16]
In the USSR, Aleksandr Palmbach, Yevgeny Polivanov, and Nicholas Poppe were engaged in the development of the Tuvan Latinized alphabet. These researchers utilized the so-called New Turkic Alphabet as a foundation for their work. New Turkic Alphabet was designed with the intention of facilitating unification of writing systems among all Turkic peoples. In early 1930, the Tuvan alphabet was finalized and officially introduced on June 28, 1930, by a decree of the TPR government. The approved Tuvan alphabet was as follows:
A a | B ʙ | C c | D d | E e | F f | G g | Ƣ ƣ |
H h | I i | J j | Ɉ ɉ | K k | L l | M m | N n |
Ꞑ ꞑ | O o | Ө ө | P p | R r | S s | Ş ş | T t |
U u | V v | X x | Y y | Z z | Ƶ ƶ | Ь ь |
The letter Ɉ ɉ was excluded from the alphabet in 1931.
Latin | Pirgi tьʙa tьldьꞑ yƶykteri | PYGY TELEGEJNIꞐ PROLETARLARЬ POLGAŞ TARLATKAN ARATTARЬ KATTЬƵЬꞐAR! |
---|---|---|
Cyrillic | Бирги тыва дылдың үжүктери | Бүгү телегейниң пролетарлары болгаш дарлаткан араттары каттыжыңар! |
Common Turkic alphabet | Pirgi tıva tıldıñ üjükteri | Pügü telegeyniñ proletarları polgaş tarlatkan arattarı kattıjıñar! |
English | First Tuvan language alphabet | All the world's workers and oppressed peoples, unite! |
By September 1943, this Latin-based alphabet was replaced by a Cyrillic-based one, which is still in use to the present day. In the post-Soviet era, Tuvan and other scholars have taken a renewed interest in the history of Tuvan letters.
For bibliographic purposes, transliteration of Tuvan generally follows the guidelines described in the ALA-LC Romanization tables for non-Slavic languages in Cyrillic script. [17] Linguistic descriptions often employ the IPA or Turcological standards for transliteration. [18]
Tuvans in China, who live mostly in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, are included under the Mongol nationality. [19] Some Tuvans reportedly live at Kanas Lake in the northwestern part of Xinjiang, where they are not officially recognized, and are counted as a part of the local Oirat Mongol community that is counted under the general PRC official ethnic label of "Mongol". Oirat and Tuvan children attend schools in which they use Chakhar Mongolian [20] and Mandarin Standard Chinese, native languages of neither group.
Turkish is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and one of two official languages of Cyprus. Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Greece, other parts of Europe, the South Caucasus, and some parts of Central Asia, Iraq, and Syria. Turkish is the 18th most spoken language in the world.
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.
Kazakh is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official language of Kazakhstan, and has official status in the Altai Republic of Russia. It is also a significant minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China, and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of western Mongolia. The language is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs throughout the former Soviet Union, Germany, and Turkey.
Uzbek is a Karluk Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official and national language of Uzbekistan and formally succeeded Chagatai, an earlier Karluk language also known as Turki, as the literary language of Uzbekistan in the 1920s.
Kyrgyz is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. Kyrgyz is the official language of Kyrgyzstan and a significant minority language in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. There is a very high level of mutual intelligibility between Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Altay. A dialect of Kyrgyz known as Pamiri Kyrgyz is spoken in north-eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Kyrgyz is also spoken by many ethnic Kyrgyz through the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Turkey, parts of northern Pakistan, and Russia.
Mongolian is the principal language of the Mongolic language family that originated in the Mongolian Plateau. It is spoken by ethnic Mongols and other closely related Mongolic peoples who are native to modern Mongolia and surrounding parts of East and North Asia. Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia and a recognized language of Xinjiang and Qinghai.
The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongol residents of Inner Mongolia, with an estimated 5.7+ million speakers.
Tatar is a Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan, as well as Siberia and Crimea.
Uyghur or Uighur is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8–13 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Apart from Xinjiang, significant communities of Uyghur speakers are also located in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur is an official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; it is widely used in both social and official spheres, as well as in print, television, and radio. Other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang also use Uyghur as a common language.
The Tuvans or Tyvans are a Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Siberia that live in Tuva, Mongolia, and China. They speak the Tuvan language, a Siberian Turkic language. In Mongolia, they are regarded as one of the Uriankhai peoples.
Kalmyk Oirat, commonly known as the Kalmyk language, is a variety of the Oirat language, natively spoken by the Kalmyk people of Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia. In Russia, it is the standard form of the Oirat language, which belongs to the Mongolic language family. The Kalmyk people of the Northwest Caspian Sea of Russia claim descent from the Oirats from Eurasia, who have also historically settled in Mongolia and Northwest China. According to UNESCO, the language is "definitely endangered". According to the Russian census of 2021, there are 110,000 speakers out of an ethnic population consisting of 178,000 people.
The Santa language, also known as Dongxiang, is a Mongolic language spoken by the Dongxiang people in Northwest China.
Buryat or Buriat, known in foreign sources as the Bargu-Buryat dialect of Mongolian, and in pre-1956 Soviet sources as Buryat-Mongolian, is a variety of the Mongolic languages spoken by the Buryats and Bargas that is classified either as a language or major dialect group of Mongolian.
Tofa, also known as Tofalar or Karagas, is a moribund Turkic language spoken in Russia's Irkutsk Oblast by the Tofalars. Recent estimates for speakers run from 67 people to fewer than 40.
The Mongolian Latin script was officially adopted in Mongolia in 1931. In 1939, a second version of the Latin alphabet was introduced but not widely used, and was replaced by the Cyrillic script in 1941.
The Dagur, Daghur, Dahur, or Daur language, is a Mongolic language, as well as a distinct branch of the Mongolic language family, and is primarily spoken by members of the Daur ethnic group.
Chakhar is a variety of Mongolian spoken in the central region of Inner Mongolia. It is phonologically close to Khalkha and is the basis for the standard pronunciation of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia.
Yakut, also known as Yakutian, Sakha, Saqa or Saxa, is a Turkic language belonging to Siberian Turkic branch and spoken by around 450,000 native speakers, primarily the ethnic Yakuts and one of the official languages of Sakha (Yakutia), a federal republic in the Russian Federation.
Dukha or Dukhan is a nearly extinct Turkic language or dialect variety of Tuvan language spoken by the Dukhan herder people in the Tsagaan-Nuur county of Khövsgöl Province in northern Mongolia. Dukhan belongs to the Taiga subgroup of Sayan Turkic. This language is nearly extinct and is only spoken as a second language. The ISO 639-3 proposal (request) code was dkh
, but this proposal was rejected.
Soyot is an extinct and revitalizing Turkic language of the Siberian Sayan branch similar to the Dukhan language and closely related to the Tofa language. Two dialects/languages are spoken in Russia and Mongolia: Soyot in the Okinsky District of the Republic of Buryatia (Russia) and Tsaatan in the Darkhad valley of Mongolia.