Torgut, also spelled Torghud, is a dialect of the
Oirat language
Oirat (Clear script: , , ; Kalmyk: , ; Khalkha Mongolian: , ) is a Mongolic language spoken by the descendants of Oirat Mongols, now forming parts of Mongols in China, Kalmyks in Russia and Mongolians. Largely mutually intelligible to other co ...
spoken in
Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
, in western
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
and in eastern
Kalmykia
he official languages of the Republic of Kalmykia are the Kalmyk and Russian languages./ref>
, official_lang_list= Kalmyk
, official_lang_ref=Steppe Code (Constitution) of the Republic of Kalmykia, Article 17: he official languages of the ...
(where it was the basis for
Kalmyk, the literary
standard language
A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes ...
of that region). Thus, it has more speakers than any other variety of Oirat. It is better researched than any other Oirat variety spoken in China.
Distribution
The Torgut dialect is spoken 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 ...
in Eastern Kalmykia, in
Bulgan sum in
Khovd Province
Khovd ( mn, Ховд, Howd, ) is one of the 21 aimags (provinces) of Mongolia, located in the west of the country. Its capital is also named Khovd.
The Khovd province is approximately 1,580 km from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital. It take ...
in Mongolia and in the
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
autonomous region of Xinjiang, mainly in three separate areas in its north-western part. Sečenbaγatur et al. give an exhaustive list of the areas of Xinjiang where Oirat (in many cases Torgut) is spoken that also includes some places in north-eastern Xinjiang: the autonomous prefectures of
Bayangol and
Bortala, the counties
Hoboksar and
Dörbiljin and the city of
Wusu
UsuThe official spelling according to , (Beijing, ''SinoMaps Press'' 1997); as the official romanized name and transliterated from Mongolian, also known as Wusu, is a county-level city with more than 100,000 residents in Xinjiang, China. It i ...
in
Tacheng Prefecture
Tacheng Prefecture is located in Northern Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. It has an area of and a population of 935,600 (2017). It is a part of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. The prefecture level city of Karamay forms a separate enclav ...
, the counties Küriye,
Tekes and
Nilka in the
Ili Prefecture
Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture ( kk, Іле Қазақ автономиялық облысы) (also as Yili) is an autonomous prefecture for Kazakh people in Northern Xinjiang, China, one of five autonomous prefectures in Xinjiang. Yining Cit ...
, the prefectures
Altay,
Hamil and
Changji and Xinjiang's capital city,
Ürümqi
Ürümqi ( ; also spelled Ürümchi or without umlauts), formerly known as Dihua (also spelled Tihwa), is the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the far northwest of the People's Republic of China. Ürümqi developed its ...
. To some degree, this distribution can be associated with the history of the
Torgut
The Torghut ( Mongolian: Торгууд, , Torguud), , "Guardsman" are one of the four major subgroups of the Four Oirats. The Torghut nobles traced its descent to the Keraite ruler Tooril; also many Torghuts descended from the Keraites.
Hist ...
tribe, one of the four crucial members of the clan federation "Dörben
Oirat".
Grammar
Phonology
Torgut has the
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s that may be
short or long. When appearing in the first
syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
of a word, these vowels determine the
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 ...
class, e.g.
Written Mongolian ''talbiγun'',
Khalkha-Mongolian.
, , and in a non-initial syllable are neutral vowels. /oː/, and /eː/ never appear in any but the first syllable of a word.
/ɢ/ can also have an allophone of
Nominal system
Most of the
plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
forms of Torgut are common Mongolian, ''-mu:d'' is normal Oirat, but ''-sud'' seems to be somewhat peculiar. The
case system is standard Oirat which differs from Mongolian in lacking an
allative
In grammar, the allative case (; abbreviated ; from Latin ''allāt-'', ''afferre'' "to bring to") is a type of locative grammatical case. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages that do not make finer ...
and retaining the old
comitative
In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...
case, that is, it is rather conservative. In contrast to
Middle Mongolian
Middle Mongol or Middle Mongolian, was a Mongolic koiné language spoken in the Mongol Empire. Originating from Genghis Khan's home region of Northeastern Mongolia, it diversified into several Mongolic languages after the collapse of the empire ...
and
Southern Mongolian
Southern Mongolian or Inner Mongolian ( ') is a proposed major dialect group within the taxonomy of the Mongolian language.
Overview
It is assumed by most Inner Mongolia linguists and would be on the same level as the other three major dialect gro ...
and in agreement with
Khalkha
The Khalkha (Mongolian script, Mongolian: mn, Халх, Halh, , zh, 喀爾喀) have been the largest subgroup of Mongols, Mongol people in modern Mongolia since the 15th century. The Khalkha, together with Chahars, Ordos Mongols, Ordos and Tum ...
, 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 ...
always has ''-g'', not ''-i''. The reflexive-possessive retains ''-n'', thus ''-aan''.
The pronominal forms are not substantially different from Khalkha. The
first person singular pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...
stem is ''nam-'' ~ ''nan-'', next to the standard Mongolian first person plural there is also a variant in ''ma-'', namely ''madan'', ''madnu:s'' (both
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
), and the third person singular accusative is peculiar in that it is based on the regular stem ''yy/n-'' (proximal, distal is ''tyy/n-''), thus inflecting as ''yyg'' compared to Written Mongolian , Standard Khalkha .
Verbal system
The old voluntative ''-su:'' ~ ''-s'' is retained in Oirat, while the new voluntative ''-ja'' (at least in Xinjiang Torgut) rather tends to indicate a plural
subject. Like in all Oirat varieties, the
converb
In theoretical linguistics, a converb (abbreviated ) is a nonfinite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination: notions like 'when', 'because', 'after' and 'while'. Other terms that have been used to refer to converbs include ''adver ...
''-xla:'' is quite common. As is common to all Oirat dialects except for
Alasha,
participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
s and
finite verb
Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past participle of to put an end to, bound, limit) is the form "to which number and person appertain", in other words, those inflected for number and person. Verbs were originally said to be ''fin ...
al
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
es can
inflect
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and def ...
for first and second person and for
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 case it is present, these
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...
s follow a
modal particle In linguistics, modal particles are always uninflected words, and are a type of grammatical particle. They are used to indicate how the speaker thinks that the content of the sentence relates to the participants' common knowledge or add mood to t ...
.
[Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 423-424] Else, the formal inventory is what would be expected from a Mongolian variety, though it is not clear to what degree the functions are the same.
References
Literature
* Birtalan, Ágnes (2003): Oirat. In: Janhunen 2003: 210-228.
* Bläsing, Uwe (2003): Kalmuck. In: Janhunen 2003: 229-247.
* Bulaγ-a (2005): ''Oyirad ayalγu-yin sudulul''. Ürümči: Sinǰiyang-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a.
* Coloo, Ž. (1965): ''Zahčny aman ajalguu''. Ulaanbaatar: ŠUA.
* Coloo, Ž. (1988): ''BNMAU dah’ mongol helnij nutgijn ajalguuny tol’ bichig: ojrd ajalguu''. Ulaanbaatar: ŠUA.
*
Janhunen, Juha (ed.) (2003): ''The Mongolic languages''. London: Routledge.
* Sečenbaγatur, Qasgerel, Tuyaγ-a, B. ǰirannige, U Ying ǰe (2005): ''Mongγul kelen-ü nutuγ-un ayalγun-u sinǰilel-ün uduridqal''. Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a.
* Svantesson, Jan-Olof, Anna Tsendina, Anastasia Karlsson, Vivan Franzén (2005): ''The Phonology of Mongolian''. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Ubushaev, N.N. (1979). ''Fonetika torgutskogo govora kalmytskogo yazyka''. Elista: Kalmyk book publishing house.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torgut Oirat
Agglutinative languages
Central Mongolic languages