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Altay language
 
 
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Altay is a language of the Turkic
Turkic languages

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea to Siberia and Western China, and are sometimes considered to be part of the proposed Altaic languages....
 group of languages. It is an official language of Altai Republic
Altai Republic

Altai Republic is a federal subjects of Russia of Russia . The direct romanization of Russian of the republic's Russian name is Respublika Altay, and the romanization of the Altay name is Altay Respublika....
, Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
. The language was called Oyrot prior to 1948. There were ca. 67,900 people speaking this language in 2002.

to its isolated position in the Altay Mountains
Altay Mountains

File:2006-07_altaj_belucha.jpgThe Altai Mountains are a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the rivers Irtysh, Ob River and Yenisei have their sources....
 and contact with surrounding languages, the classification of Altay within the Turkic languages has often been disputed.






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Altay is a language of the Turkic
Turkic languages

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea to Siberia and Western China, and are sometimes considered to be part of the proposed Altaic languages....
 group of languages. It is an official language of Altai Republic
Altai Republic

Altai Republic is a federal subjects of Russia of Russia . The direct romanization of Russian of the republic's Russian name is Respublika Altay, and the romanization of the Altay name is Altay Respublika....
, Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
. The language was called Oyrot prior to 1948. There were ca. 67,900 people speaking this language in 2002.

Classification

Due to its isolated position in the Altay Mountains
Altay Mountains

File:2006-07_altaj_belucha.jpgThe Altai Mountains are a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the rivers Irtysh, Ob River and Yenisei have their sources....
 and contact with surrounding languages, the classification of Altay within the Turkic languages has often been disputed. Because of its geographic proximity to the Shor
Shor language

The Shor language is one of the Turkic languages. It is spoken by around 10,000 people in the Kemerovo Oblast in south-central Siberia. Not all ethnic Shors speak Shor, and the language witnessed a decline from the late 1930s to the early 1990s....
 and Khakas language
Khakas language

Khakas is a Turkic languages spoken by the Khakas people, who mainly live in the southern Siberian Khakas Republic, or Khakassia, in Russia. The Khakas number 78,500, of whom 60,168 speak the Khakas language; most people are bilingual in Russian language ....
s, some classifications place it in a Northern Turkic sub-group. Due to certain similarities with Kyrgyz
Kyrgyz language

Kyrgyz or Kirghiz is a Turkic languages and, together with Russian language, an official language of Kyrgyzstan. It is most closely related to Altay language and more distantly so to Kazakh language....
, it has been grouped with the Kypchak languages
Kypchak languages

The Kypchak languages , are a major branch of the Turkic languages spoken by more than 12 million people in an area spanning from Lithuania to China....
. A more recent classification by Talat Tekin places Southern Altay in its own sub-group within Turkic and groups the Northern Altay dialects with Lower Chulym
Chulym

Chulym or Cholym can refer to:*The Chulyms, an ethnic group of Russia.*The Chulym language.*One of the two Chulym Rivers:**Chulym River , in Krasnoyarsk Krai and Tomsk Oblast, tributary of the Ob River....
 and the Kondoma dialect of Shor
Shor language

The Shor language is one of the Turkic languages. It is spoken by around 10,000 people in the Kemerovo Oblast in south-central Siberia. Not all ethnic Shors speak Shor, and the language witnessed a decline from the late 1930s to the early 1990s....
.

Geographical distribution

Altay is spoken primarily in the Altai Republic
Altai Republic

Altai Republic is a federal subjects of Russia of Russia . The direct romanization of Russian of the republic's Russian name is Respublika Altay, and the romanization of the Altay name is Altay Respublika....
 (Southern Altay) and Altai Krai
Altai Krai

Altai Krai is a federal subjects of Russia of Russia in the Siberian Federal District. It borders with, clockwise from the south, Kazakhstan, Novosibirsk Oblast and Kemerovo Oblasts, and the Altai Republic....
 (Northern Altay).

Official status

Along with Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
, Altay is an official language of the Altai Republic. The official language is based on the Southern dialect spoken by the group called the Altay-kiži, however in the few years it has also spread to the Northen Altai Republic.

Dialects

Altay is usually divided into Northern and Southern dialects, which are then further broken down into a number of sub-dialects. The breakdown of these dialects is as follows:

  • Southern Altay
    • Altay proper
      • Mayma
    • Telengit
      • Tölös
      • Chuy
    • Teleut
  • Northern Altay
    • Tuba
    • Kumandy
      • Turachak
      • Solton
      • Starobardinian
    • Chalkan (also called Kuu, Lebedin)


Sounds

The sounds of the Altay language vary from dialect to dialect.

Consonants


The voiced palatal plosive
Voiced palatal plosive

The voiced palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J....
 // varies greatly from dialect to dialect, especially in initial position. Form of the word for "no" - ??? (in standard Altay: //) include // (Kuu dialect) and // (Kumandy). Even within dialects this phoneme varies greatly..

Vowels

There are eight vowels in Altay. These vowels may be long or short.

caption| Vowel phonemes of Altay
Short Long
CloseOpenCloseOpen
FrontUnroundediei?e?
Roundedyøy?ø?
BackUnroundedaa?
Roundeduou?o?


Writing system

The language was written with the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
 from 1928-1938, but has used the Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
 (with the addition of 4 extra letters: ) since 1938.

Morphology and syntax


Pronouns


Altay has six personal pronouns:

Personal pronouns in Standard/Southern dialect
SingularPlural
Altay (transliteration)EnglishAltay (transliteration)English
??? (men)I??? (bis)we
??? (sen)you (singular)???? (sler)you (plural, formal)
?? (ol)he/she/it???? (olor)they


Pronouns in the various dialects vary considerably. For example, the pronouns in the Qumandin dialect follow.

Personal pronouns in Qumandin
SingularPlural
Altay (transliteration)EnglishAltay (transliteration)English
??? (men)I??? (pis)we
??? (sen)you (singular)???? (sner)you (plural, formal)
?? (ol)he/she/it???? (anar)they


Sources


See also

  • Telengits, Teleuts
    Teleuts

    Teleuts are a Turkic peoples people living in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. According to the 2002 census, there were 2650 Teleuts in Russia. Their language is classified as a southern dialect within the group of dialects which is called Altay language....
     (names of related ethnic group
    Ethnic group

    An ethnic group is a group of humans whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or presumed.Ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and the recognition of common culture, linguistic, religion, human behaviour or Race traits, real or presumed, as indic...
    s)
  • Altay Tatars
    Tatars

    Tatars , sometimes spelled Tartars, refers to a Turkic people ethnic group mainly inhabiting Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, and Poland....
  • Turkic peoples
    Turkic peoples

    The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern, central and western Eurasia, and who mostly speak languages belonging to the Turkic languages....
  • Altaic languages
    Altaic languages

    Altaic is a disputed language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic languages, Mongolic languages, Tungusic languages, Korean language, and Japonic languages language families ....


External links