The Dolgan language is a
Turkic language
The Turkic languages are a language family of over 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 Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...
with around 1,000 speakers, spoken in the
Taymyr Peninsula
The Taymyr Peninsula (russian: Таймырский полуостров, Taymyrsky poluostrov) is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administrati ...
in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
.
The speakers are known as the
Dolgans
Dolgans (; Dolgan: , , (Sakha); Yakut: ) are an ethnic group who mostly inhabit Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. They are descended from several groups, particularly Evenks, one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. They adopted a Tur ...
. The word "Dolgan" means 'tribe living on the middle reaches of the river'. This is most likely signifying the geographical location of the Dolgan tribe.
The language is very local and restricted to a certain area and has declined in usage over the years. As of 2010 there are only about 1,050 speakers of the language.
[ The language has expressed a few changes since the beginning of its formation, such as alphabet and phrasing terms. The issue as of recently has become the weak integration of this local language within families with mixed marriages. Instead of speaking either of the parents' local languages, the family incorporates Russian as the more dominant language to ease interfamilial and external communication. This results in children learning the language only slightly or as a second language. Over generations, the language continues to fade.
]
Classification
Dolgan, along with its close relative Sakha (Yakut), belongs to the North Siberian subbranch of the Turkic language
The Turkic languages are a language family of over 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 Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...
family. Like most other Turkic languages, Dolgan has vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
, agglutinative morphology, subject-object-verb word order, and lacks grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
.
Sample comparison with Yakut (in Latin)
Geographical distribution
Official status
Dolgan is established as a dominant language in the Taymyr Peninsula
The Taymyr Peninsula (russian: Таймырский полуостров, Taymyrsky poluostrov) is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administrati ...
.
Dialects/Varieties
Three Dolgan subgroups:
* Western – Yenisei
The Yenisey (russian: Енисе́й, ''Yeniséy''; mn, Горлог мөрөн, ''Gorlog mörön''; Buryat language, Buryat: Горлог мүрэн, ''Gorlog müren''; Tuvan language, Tuvan: Улуг-Хем, ''Uluğ-Hem''; Khakas language, K ...
, Norilsk
Norilsk ( rus, Нори́льск, p=nɐˈrʲilʲsk, ''Norílʹsk'') is a closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk i ...
* Central – Avam
* Eastern – Khatanga
All dialects are understood among each other, despite subtle differences. Yakut is also understood among all since it is so similar.
History
The Dolgan language started out having a Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
in the early 20th century. Over time, the Cyrillic alphabet
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
was implemented instead since it is the same alphabet used by the related language, Yakut. Evenki's influence on Dolgan can explain, in part, why it is considered a separate language from Yakut. Dolgan has made appearances in newspapers, such as the ''Taymyr'', as well as schools starting around the time of the 60s. However, now there are only around 1,050 speakers of the Dolgan language.
Certain words in the language were developed from geographical implications that have been present since the start of the Dolgan language. For instance, the directional terms ''ta¯s'' (1. south 2. east) and ''muora'' (1. north 2. west) are representative of the corresponding landscapes. ''Ta¯s'' is related to the word stone, and the southeast topography of the native region, Taymyr Peninsula
The Taymyr Peninsula (russian: Таймырский полуостров, Taymyrsky poluostrov) is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administrati ...
, is covered by the Putorana Mountains
The Putorana Plateau () or the Putorana Mountains is a mountainous area in the Russian Federation.
It is a large massif or plateau crossed by mountain ranges. The nearest large settlement is Norilsk, where foreign travel is restricted. The cit ...
. Similarly, ''muora'' denotes "sea" where the western zone of Taimyr has access to the sea shore.
However, this is not true for all directional terms, nor all words of the Dolgan language. Southwest, ''uhä'', and northeast, ''allara'', have no significance in geographical terms relative to Taymyr.
Grammar
Morphology
The composition of morphological categories in the noun is: case, number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
, possession
Possession may refer to:
Law
* Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance
* Drug possession, a crime
* Ownership
* ...
, and in the verb is: voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...
, aspect
Aspect or Aspects may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art
* Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company
* Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England
* ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
, mode
Mode ( la, modus meaning "manner, tune, measure, due measure, rhythm, melody") may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* '' MO''D''E (magazine)'', a defunct U.S. women's fashion magazine
* ''Mode'' magazine, a fictional fashion magazine which is ...
, time, person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
and number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
. In contrast in the Yakut language
Yakut , also known as Yakutian, Sakha, Saqa or Saxa ( sah, саха тыла), is a Turkic language spoken by around 450,000 native speakers, primarily the ethnic Yakuts and one of the official languages of Sakha (Yakutia), a federal republic ...
, the partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
is used in the possessive declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ar ...
to address the accusative case
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
, and joint case serves to structure two similar parts of a sentence. In conjugation of a verb in the common form of -''ааччы'', the paradigm
In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field.
Etymology
''Paradigm'' comes f ...
s of Dolgan inclination were preserved with the word ''баар''.
Phonology
Vowels
Consonants
Dolgan has the following phonetic characteristics:
* Diphthongisation
In historical linguistics, vowel breaking, vowel fracture, or diphthongization is the sound change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong.
Types
Vowel breaking may be unconditioned or conditioned. It may be triggered by the presence of ...
of the Turkish medium vowels , e, öin the root syllable
* Labial and palatal vowel harmony in the native words
* Transition of the initial Turkish c- into h- , loss of the uvular x, ҕ: Yakut ; ''саха'' ~ Dolgan ''hака'' (self)
Vocabulary
*Much of the old Yakut Language
Yakut , also known as Yakutian, Sakha, Saqa or Saxa ( sah, саха тыла), is a Turkic language spoken by around 450,000 native speakers, primarily the ethnic Yakuts and one of the official languages of Sakha (Yakutia), a federal republic ...
was lost.
* Lack of modern political and scientific terminology.
* Change in the meaning of words under the influence of the Turkish semantic system.
* Extensive borrowing from the Russian language.
Writing system
Over time, the language itself has changed and adapted. Even during the time period when it had a Cyrillic alphabet, it changed over the years. The first version of alphabet of the language had the following appearance: А а, Б б, В в, Г г, Д д, Дь дь, Е е, Ё ё, Ж ж, З з, И и, Иэ иэ, Й й, К к, Л л, М м, Н н, Ӈ ӈ, Нь нь, О о, Ө ө, П п, Р р, С с, Т т, У у, Уо уо, Ү ү, Үө үө, Ф ф, Х х, Һ һ, Ц ц, Ч ч, Ш ш, Щ щ, Ъ ъ, Ы ы, Ыа ыа, Ь ь, Э э, Ю ю, Я я.[''Аксенова О. Е.']
Бэсэлээ буквалар
— Красноярск: Красноярское кн. изд-во, 1990. — 16 с.
The current Dolgan alphabet is still Cyrillic and looks as follows:
Examples (with phonetics)
Hello : Дорообо oroːbo
Mountain : Кайа aja
Mother : Иньэ nˈe
I love you : Мин энигин таптыыбын in eniɡin taptɯɯbɯn
Birthday : Төрөөбүт күн ørøøbyt kyn
Day after tomorrow : Өйүүн jyyn
Dog : Ыт t
See also
* Dolgans
Dolgans (; Dolgan: , , (Sakha); Yakut: ) are an ethnic group who mostly inhabit Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. They are descended from several groups, particularly Evenks, one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. They adopted a Tur ...
References
Bibliography
* Ager, Simon. (2011). Dolgan. ''Omniglot.'' Retrieved from http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ dolgan.htm.
* Dolgikh, B. O. (1963). Proiskhozhdenie Dolgan (Origin of the Dolgan). ''Trudy Instituta'', Etnografii AN SSSR 84:92-141.
* Grachyova, Galina. (1990). Dolgan. In Collis, Dirmid R. F. (ed.), Arctic Languages: An Awakening, 112-114.
* Grenoble, Lenore A. and Lindsay J. Whaley. (2006). ''Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*
* Lewis, E. Glyn. (1971). Migration and Language in the USSR. ''The International Migration Review: The Impact of Migration on Language Maintenance and Language Shift, 5(2),'' 147-179''. ''
* Li, Yong-Sŏng. (2011). A study of Dolgan. (Altaic language series, 05.) Seoul: ''Seoul National University Pres''s.
*
*
*
* Marten, H.F., Rießler, M., Saarikivi, J., Toivanen, R. (2015). ''Cultural and Linguistic Minorities in the Russian Federation and the European Union: Comparative Studies on Equality and Diversity.'' Switzerland: Springer.
* Minahan, James B. (2014). Dolgan in ''Ethnic Groups of North, East, and Central Asia: An Encyclopedia.'' (63-67). Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC.
* Vahtre, Lauri. (1991). The Dolgans. ''The Red Book.'' Retrieved from https://www.eki.ee/books/ redbook/dolgans.shtml.
Further reading
* Stachowski, M.: ''Dolganischer Wortschatz'', Kraków 1993 (+ ''Dolganischer Wortschatz. Supplementband'', Kraków 1998).
* Stachowski, M.: ''Dolganische Wortbildung'', Kraków 1997.
{{Languages of Russia
Agglutinative languages
Taymyr Autonomous Okrug
Krasnoyarsk Krai
Languages of Russia
Siberian Turkic languages
Subject–object–verb languages
Dolgans
Turkic languages