Tuyuhun (), also known as ‘Azha from Tibetan script, is an extinct language once spoken by the Tuyuhun of northern China about 500 AD. The existence of the Tuyuhun, and consequently their language, is first attested in the '' Book of Song'', compiled around 488 AD.

Classification

Alexander Vovin (2015) identifies the extinct Tuyuhun language as a

Para-Mongolic Para-Mongolic is a proposed group of languages that is considered to be an extinct sister branch of the Mongolic languages. Para-Mongolic contains certain historically attested extinct languages, among them Khitan language, Khitan and Tuyuhun lang ...

language, meaning that Tuyuhun is related to the Mongolic languages as a sister clade but is not directly descended from the Proto-Mongolic language. The

Khitan language Khitan or Kitan ( in large Khitan script, large script or in small Khitan script, small, ''Khitai''; , ''Qìdānyǔ''), also known as Liao, is an extinct language once spoken in Northeast Asia by the Khitan people (4th to 13th century CE). It wa ...

is also a

language. Tuyuhun had previously been identified by Paul Pelliot (1921) as a Mongolic language.

Morphology

Tuyuhun suffixes: * *-čin/*-čiñ ��ན་( Old Tibetan *ʧin) ‘having X (possessive)’ * *-yin/*-yiñ ��(northern Early Middle Chinese **yir̃) ‘genitive-attributive suffix’

Vocabulary

Shimunek (2017) reconstructs some Tuyuhun words as: * ‘second person singular pronoun (爾)’: *čʰɪ ��(northern Early Middle Chinese **tśʰɨ); Vovin (2015) reconstructs *čʰo, a 2nd person singular pronoun, equivalent to Mongolic ''či''. The correspondence between /o/ and /i/ is attested between Mongolic and Khitan, cf. Western Middle Mongolic ''taqiya'' vs. Khitan ''t qo.a''.Vovin, Alexander. 2015
Some notes on the Tuyuhun (吐谷渾) language: in the footsteps of Paul Pelliot
In ''Journal of Sino-Western Communications'', Volume 7, Issue 2 (December 2015). * ‘river (川)’: *qɔl ��ལ་( Old Tibetan *kʰol) ~ ��ལ་( Old Tibetan *kol) * ‘militant (武)’: *bu ��( Late Middle Chinese *mbu) * ‘elder brother (兄)’: *aqañ ��干(northern Early Middle Chinese **ɦakar̃) * ‘father (父)’ or ‘great’: *maʁa/*amaʁa ��賀(northern Early Middle Chinese *magɣa) * ‘great’: *maʁa ��་ག( Old Tibetan *maga < Indic) * ‘emperor, king’: *qʰaʁan ��་གན་( Old Tibetan *kʰagan) / **kʰaʁɣar̃ ��寒~ ��汗(northern Early Middle Chinese **kʰaʁɣar̃) * ‘wife (妻) of the khaghan (可汗)’: *qʰaʁʦʊn ��尊(northern Early Middle Chinese **kʰagʦor̃) Vovin (2015) also reconstructs several words using Early Middle Chinese readings of transcribed Tuyuhun lexical items.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuyuhun Language Agglutinative languages Languages of China Medieval languages Extinct languages of Asia Unclassified languages of Asia Tuyuhun Xianbei Mongolic–Khitan languages