Northern Altai language

Northern Altai or Northern Altay is the several tribal Turkic dialects spoken in the Altai Republic of Russia.[2] Though traditionally considered one language, Southern Altai and the Northern varieties are not fully mutually intelligible. Written Altai is based on Southern Altai, and is rejected by Northern Altai children.[1]

Northern Altai
тÿндÿк алтай тили, tündük altay tili
Native toRussia
RegionAltai Republic
Altai Krai
Native speakers
57,000 including Southern Altai speakers (2010)[1]
Turkic
Dialects
  • Kumandy
  • Chelkan
  • Tubalar?
Cyrillic
Language codes
ISO 639-3atv
Glottolognort2686
ELPNorthern Altai
Map showing the locations of the Northern and Southern Altai varieties in Russia
Map showing the locations of the Northern and Southern Altai varieties in Russia

Northern Altai is written in Cyrillic. In 2006, in the Altay kray, an alphabet was created for the Kumandin variety.[3]

Phonology

Northern Altai has 8 vowels, which may be long or short, and 20 consonants, plus marginal consonants that occur only in loan words.[4]

Vowels
Northern Altai vowels
Front Back
High i   y ɯ   u
Low e   ø a   o

Consonants
Northern Altai consonants
Labial Alveolar Post-alveloar Velar Uvular
Plosive p   b t   d c   dʒ k   ɡ q
Affricate ts[lower-alpha 1]
Fricative f   v s   z ʃ   ʒ x[lower-alpha 1]   ɣ
Nasal m n ŋ
Trill r
Approximant l j
  1. Phoneme occurs only in Russian loanwords.

Demographics

According to data from the 2002 Russian Census, 65,534 people in Russia stated that they have command of the Altay language.[5] Only around 10% of them speak Northern Altay varieties, while the remaining speak Southern Altay varieties. Furthermore, according to some data, only 2% of Altays fluently speak the Altay language.[6]

Varieties

Northern Altay consists of the following varieties:

  • Kumandy dialect (also Qubandy/Quwandy). 1,862 Kumandins claim to know their national language,[7] but 1,044 people were registered as knowing Kumandy.[8] Kumandy has the following three sub-varieties:[9]
    • Turačak
    • Solton
    • Starobardinian
  • Chelkan dialect (also Kuu/Quu, Chalkandu/Shalkanduu, Lebedin). 466 Chelkans claim to speak their national language, and 539 people in all claim to know Chelkan.

The Tubalar language (also known as Tuba language), is also often ascribed to belong to the Northern Altai group, but its relation to other languages is dubious and it may belong to Kipchak languages.[10] 408 Tubalars claim to know their national language, and 436 people in all reported knowing Tuba.

Closely related to the northern varieties of Altay are the Kondoma dialect of the Shor language and the Lower Chulym dialect of the Chulym language.[10]

Linguistic features

The following features refer to the outcome of commonly used Turkic isoglosses in Northern Altay.[11][12][13]

  • */ag/ — Proto-Turkic */ag/ is found in three variations throughout Northern Altay: /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/.

References
  1. Northern Altai at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) closed access
  2. "Northern Altai". ELP Endangered Languages Project. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  3. В Алтайском крае издана азбука кумандинского языка. 2006
  4. Baskakov, N.A. (1997). "Altaysky yazyk" Алтайский язык [Altai language]. In Institut Jazykoznanija (ed.). Tyurkskie yazyki Языки мира: тюркские языки [Languages of the world: Turkic languages]. Jazyki mira / Rossijskaja Akademija Nauk, Institut Jazykoznanija. [Glav. red. koll.: V. N. Jarceva (otv. red.) ...] Biškek: Kyrgyzstan. ISBN 978-5-655-01214-1. OCLC 42579926.
  5. Всероссийская перепись населения 2002 года. Том 13. «Коренные малочисленные народы Российской Федерации»
  6. Энциклопедия «Кругосвет»
  7. Russian census figures
  8. Russian census figures
  9. BASKAKOV, N. A. (1958). "LA CLASSIFICATION DES DIALECTES DE LA LANGUE TURQUE D'ALTAÏ". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 8 (1): 9–15. ISSN 0001-6446. JSTOR 23682215.
  10. Tubalarskie ėti︠u︡dy. Tatevosov, S. G. (Sergeĭ Georgievich), Татевосов, С. Г. (Сергей Георгиевич), Moskovskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ universitet im. M.V. Lomonosova. Filologicheskiĭ fakulʹtet., Московский государственный университет им. М.В. Ломоносова. Филологический факультет. Moskva: IMLI RAN. 2009. ISBN 9785920803504. OCLC 613983309.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  11. Baskakov, Nikolay Aleksandrovich (1966). Диалект Черневых Татар (Туба-Кижи): грамматический очерк и словарь. Moscow: Наука.
  12. Baskakov, Nikolay Aleksandrovich (1972). Диалект Кумандинцев (Куманды-Кижи): грамматический очерк, тексты, переводы и словарь. Москва: Наука.
  13. Baskakov, Nikolay Aleksandrovich (1985). Диалект Лебединских Татар-Чалканцев (Куу-Кижи). Москва: Наука.
  • "Кумандинский язык". Малые языки России (in Russian). Retrieved 2022-05-31. Page about the Kumandy variety with maps and grammatical information.
  • "Челканский язык". Малые языки России (in Russian). Retrieved 2022-05-31. Page about the Chelkan variety with maps and grammatical information.
  • "Тубаларский". Малые языки России (in Russian). Retrieved 2022-05-31. Page about the Tubalar variety with maps and grammatical information.
Northern Altai language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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