Altai ( alt, Алтай тил, Altay til) is a set of
Turkic languages, spoken officially in the
Altai Republic
The Altai Republic (; russian: Респу́блика Алта́й, Respublika Altay, ; Altai: , ''Altay Respublika''), also known as Gorno-Altai Republic, and colloquially, and primarily referred to in Russian to distinguish from the neighbour ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
. The standard vocabulary is based on the
Southern Altai language
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 ...
, though it's also taught to and used by speakers of the
Northern Altai language
Northern Altai or Northern Altay is the several tribal Turkic dialects spoken in the Altai Republic of Russia. Though traditionally considered one language, Southern Altai and the Northern varieties are not fully mutually intelligible. Writte ...
as well. Gorno–Altai refers to a subgroup of languages in the
Altai Mountains
The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The massif merges with the ...
. The languages were called Oyrot (ойрот) prior to 1948.
Altai is spoken primarily in the
Altai Republic
The Altai Republic (; russian: Респу́блика Алта́й, Respublika Altay, ; Altai: , ''Altay Respublika''), also known as Gorno-Altai Republic, and colloquially, and primarily referred to in Russian to distinguish from the neighbour ...
. There is a small community of speakers in the neighbouring
Altai Krai
Altai Krai (russian: Алта́йский край, r=Altaysky kray, p=ɐlˈtajskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject of Russia (a krai). It borders clockwise from the west, Kazakhstan (East Kazakhstan Region and Pavlodar Region), Novosibirsk and Kem ...
as well.
Classification
Due to its isolated position in the Altai Mountains and contact with surrounding languages, the classification of Altai within the Turkic languages has often been disputed. Because of its geographic proximity to the
Shor and
Khakas languages, some classifications place it in a Northern Turkic subgroup.
Due to certain similarities with
Kyrgyz Kyrgyz, Kirghiz or Kyrgyzstani may refer to:
* Someone or something related to Kyrgyzstan
*Kyrgyz people
*Kyrgyz national games
*Kyrgyz language
*Kyrgyz culture
*Kyrgyz cuisine
*Yenisei Kirghiz
*The Fuyü Gïrgïs language in Northeastern China
...
, it has been grouped as the Kyrgyz–Kipchak subgroup with the
Kypchak languages which is within the Turkic language family.
A classification by
Talat Tekin
Talat or Talaat may refer to:
People
* Talat (given name), includes Tallat
*Mehmet Ali Talat
Mehmet Ali Talat (born 6 July 1952) is a Turkish Cypriot politician who served as the president of Northern Cyprus from 2005 to 2010. Talat was the l ...
places Southern Altai in its own subgroup within Turkic and groups the Northern Altai dialects with Lower
Chulym and the Kondoma dialect of
Shor.
Official status
Alongside
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
* Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...
, Altai is an official language of the
Altai Republic
The Altai Republic (; russian: Респу́блика Алта́й, Respublika Altay, ; Altai: , ''Altay Respublika''), also known as Gorno-Altai Republic, and colloquially, and primarily referred to in Russian to distinguish from the neighbour ...
. The official language is based on the
Southern Altai language
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 ...
spoken by the group called the Altay-Kiži, however in the few years it has also spread to the Northern Altai Republic.
Varieties
Though they are traditionally considered one language,
Southern Altai is not fully mutually intelligible with the
Northern
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a r ...
varieties. According to modern classifications—at least since the middle of the 20th century—they are considered to be two separate languages.
Written Altai is based on Southern Altai, and according to ''Ethnologue'' is rejected by Northern Altai children. In 2006, a Cyrillic alphabet was created for the Kumandy variety of Northern Altai for use in
Altai Krai
Altai Krai (russian: Алта́йский край, r=Altaysky kray, p=ɐlˈtajskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject of Russia (a krai). It borders clockwise from the west, Kazakhstan (East Kazakhstan Region and Pavlodar Region), Novosibirsk and Kem ...
.
Dialects are as follows:
*
Southern Altai
**Altai proper
***Mayma
**
Telengit
***Tölös
***Chuy
**
Teleut
*
Northern Altai
Northern Altai or Northern Altay is the several tribal Turkic dialects spoken in the Altai Republic of Russia. Though traditionally considered one language, Southern Altai and the Northern varieties are not fully mutually intelligible. Writte ...
**
Tuba
**
Kumandy
***Turachak
***Solton
***Starobardinian
**
Chalkan (also called Kuu, Lebedin)
Closely related to the northern varieties are
Kondoma Shor
The Shor language (endonym: шор тили, тадар тили) is a Turkic language spoken by about 2,800 people in a region called Mountain Shoriya, in the Kemerovo Province in Southwest Siberia, although the entire Shor population in this a ...
and
Lower Chulym
Chulym (in Chulym: Ось тили, ''Ös tili''; Russian: Чулымский язык), also known as Chulim, Chulym-Turkic (not to be confused with the Turkic Siberian Tatar language), is the language of the Chulyms. The names which the people ...
, which have -j- for
proto-Turkic inter-vocalic *d, unlike
Mras Shor
The Shor language (endonym: шор тили, тадар тили) is a Turkic language spoken by about 2,800 people in a region called Mountain Shoriya, in the Kemerovo Province in Southwest Siberia, although the entire Shor population in this a ...
and
Middle Chulym, which have -z- and are closer to
Khakas.
Orthography
The language was written with the
Latin script from 1928–1938, but has used
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = Gr ...
(with the addition of 9 extra letters: Јј
͡z~ɟ Ҥҥ
� Ӧӧ
�~œ Ӱӱ
~ʏ Ғғ
� Ққ
Һһ
Ҹҹ
͡ʑ Ii
�̹ since 1938.
The letter Ÿ is sometimes used instead of Ӱ.
Missionary's Cyrillic alphabet
The first writing system for Altai was invented by missionaries from the Altai Spiritual Mission in the 1840s; it was based on the Cyrillic alphabet and invented for the Teleut dialect and was used mostly for Church publications. The first books were printed in Altai not long thereafter and in 1868, the first Altaic Alphabet was published. There was no stable form of this alphabet, and it changed from edition-to-edition.
With this in mind, this is an inventory of some of these letters:
First Cyrillic alphabet (1922–1928)
After the Bolshevic Revolution in 1917, publishing books into Altai was resumed in 1921, using a script similar to the Missionary's Alphabet. About this time, many post-revolution letters were adopted to better compose Russian words adopted into the language. As such, it took on this form (non-Russian letters emboldened):
Interestingly, in the same space, many considered adapting the old
Mongolian Script for use in writing Altai.
Latin alphabet (1928–1938)
The Latin Alphabet was eventually adopted and was used from 1922–1928. The final version of this alphabet was published in 1931, taking this form:
The Latin letters correspond as follows to the modern Cyrillic letters:
Second Cyrillic alphabet (1938–1944)
In 1938, the ''Central Research Institute of Language and Writing of the Peoples of the USSR'' began the project of designing a new alphabet for Altai, based on the Cyrillic script. Their new alphabet consisted of all 33 Russian letters, as well as the digraph 〈Дь дь〉 and the letter 〈Ҥҥ〉, for the phonemes /d͡ʒ/ and /ŋ/ respectively. However, this was later rejected, because it could not accurately represent all of Altai's phonological inventory.
To amend for this, the Institute's first revised alphabet saw the graphemes〈Ёё〉 and 〈Юю〉 for Altai's vowels /ø~œ/ and /y/ fall out of use, and the addition of two digraphs and two letters: 〈Дь дь〉 for /d͡ʒ/, 〈Нъ нъ〉for /ŋ/, 〈Ӧӧ〉 for /ø~œ/, and 〈Ӱӱ〉 for /y/. In the second revision, however, 〈Нъ нъ〉 was replaced with 〈Ҥҥ〉. Thus was born:
Altai speakers accepted the first variant, but generally preferred 〈Н' н'〉 over 〈Ҥҥ〉.
Modern Standard Altai alphabet
Their second Cyrillic alphabet had many shortcomings, thus begging for a reform, which was carried out in 1944. The usage of 〈Ёё〉 and 〈Юю〉 /ø~œ/ and /y/ was dropped entirely, being replaced by the adoption of the Institute's second revision's usages of 〈Ӧӧ〉, and 〈Ӱӱ〉, for native words. 〈Дь дь〉 was dropped in favour of 〈Јј〉; for 〈Н' н'〉, they finally accepted 〈Ҥҥ〉.
The letters 〈Ёё〉, 〈Юю〉, and 〈Яя〉 are still used, though they are reserved for only non-native, Russian loan-words. So, in modern Standard Altai, the equivalent sounds are written: 〈йа〉, 〈йо〉 and 〈йу〉, for native words. So, words that were written: ''кая'' and ''коён'', are now written as: ''кайа'' and ''койон.''
Linguistic features
The following features refer to the outcome of commonly used Turkic
isoglosses in Northern Altai.
* */ag/ — Proto-Turkic */ag/ is found in three variations throughout Northern Altai: /u/, /aw/, /aʁ/.
* */eb/ — Proto-Turkic */eb/ is found as either /yj/ or /yg/, depending on the variety.
* */VdV/ — With a few lexical exceptions (likely borrowings), proto-Turkic intervocalic */d/ results in /j/.
Phonology
The sounds of the Altai language vary among different dialects.
Consonants
The
voiced palatal plosive
The voiced palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a barred dotless that was initially created by turning the type for a l ...
varies greatly from dialect to dialect, especially in the initial position, and may be recognized as a voiced affricate . Forms of the word ''јок'' "no" include (Kuu dialect) and (Kumandy). Even within dialects, this phoneme varies greatly.
Vowels
There are eight vowels in Altai. These vowels may be long or short.
Morphology and syntax
Pronouns
Altai has six personal pronouns:
The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart.
Pronouns in the various dialects vary considerably. For example, the pronouns in the Qumandin dialect follow.
See also
*
Telengits
Telengits or Telengut are a Turkic ethnic group primarily found in the Altai Republic, Russia. Telengits mainly live in a territory of Kosh-Agach District of the Altai Republic. They are part of a larger cultural group of Southern Altaians. ...
,
Teleuts (names of related
ethnic groups)
*
Turkic peoples
References
External links
Altai Alphabet2009-10-25)
Russian–Altai Online Dictionary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Altay Language
Agglutinative languages
Siberian Turkic languages
Languages of Russia
Languages of China
Altai Mountains
Altai culture
Languages written in Cyrillic script