Ili Turki is an endangered

Turkic language 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 langua ...

spoken primarily in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, of the Karluk branch of Turkic. In 2007, it was reported that there were around 30 families using it in China. Speakers are shifting to Kazakh or Uyghur.

Geographic distribution

Ili Turki is spoken in China's

Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in northern Xinjiang, China. Its capital is Yining, also known as Ghulja or Kulja. Covering an area of 268,591 square kilometres (16.18 per cent of Xinjiang), Ili Prefecture shares ...

along the Ili River and its tributaries and in Yining. There may be some speakers in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

. Ili Turki has no official status in either country.

Classification

Ili Turki appears to belong to the Karluk group of Turkic languages, although it exhibits a number of features that suggest a Kipchak

substratum Substrata, plural of substratum, may refer to: *Earth's substrata, the geologic layering of the Earth *''Hypokeimenon'', sometimes translated as ''substratum'', a concept in metaphysics *Substrata (album), a 1997 ambient music album by Biosphere * ...

. A comparison of Ili Turki's Karluk and Kipchak features is shown below:

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Vocabulary

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ili Turki Language Agglutinative languages Endangered languages of China Languages of Kazakhstan Languages of Xinjiang Karluk languages Endangered Turkic languages Endangered languages of Asia Severely endangered languages