Altay is a language of the
TurkicThe Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken by some...
group of languages. It is an official language of
Altai RepublicAltai Republic is a federal subject of Russia . The direct romanization of the republic's Russian name is Respublika Altay, and the romanization of the Altay name is Altay Respublika...
,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. 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 MountainsThe Altai Mountains are a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their sources. The Altai Mountains are known as the Turkic peoples' birthplace...
and contact with surrounding languages, the classification of Altay within the Turkic languages has often been disputed. Because of its geographic proximity to the
ShorThe 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 thirties to the early nineties. However, the dissolution of the Soviet Union...
and
Khakas languageKhakas is a Turkic language 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...
s, some classifications place it in a Northern Turkic sub-group.
Due to certain similarities with
KyrgyzKyrgyz or Kirghiz is a Turkic language and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan...
, it has been grouped with the
Kypchak languagesThe Kypchak languages , are a major branch of the Turkic language family spoken by more than 12 million people in an area spanning from Lithuania to China.-Linguistic features:...
. 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
ChulymChulym , also known as Chulim, Chulym-Turkic, Küerik, Chulym Tatar or Melets Tatar is the language of the Chulyms. The name the people use to refer to themselves, and also to their language, is Ös, literally ‘self’ or ‘own’...
and the Kondoma dialect of
ShorThe 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 thirties to the early nineties. However, the dissolution of the Soviet Union...
.
Geographical distribution
Altay is spoken primarily in the
Altai RepublicAltai Republic is a federal subject of Russia . The direct romanization of the republic's Russian name is Respublika Altay, and the romanization of the Altay name is Altay Respublika...
(Southern Altay) and
Altai KraiAltai Krai is a federal subject of Russia in the Siberian Federal District. It borders with, clockwise from the south, Kazakhstan, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo Oblasts, and the Altai Republic...
(Northern Altay).
Official status
Along with
RussianRussian 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 Northern 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
- Telengit
- Teleut
- Northern Altay
- Tuba
- Kumandy
- Turachak
- Solton
- Starobardinian
- Chalkan (also called Kuu, Lebedin)
Consonants
caption | Consonant phonemes of Altay
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Bilabial |
DentalIn linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages...
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AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
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Palatal |
VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
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| Plosives |
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| Nasals A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
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m |
n |
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ŋ |
| Fricatives |
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s |
z |
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| x |
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TapIn phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
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| Approximant |
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j |
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Lateral
approximants |
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l |
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The
voiced palatal plosiveThe voiced palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken 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
јок "no" 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 |
| Close |
Open |
Close |
Open |
| Front |
Unrounded |
i |
e |
iː |
eː |
| Rounded |
y |
ø |
yː |
øː |
| Back |
Unrounded |
| a |
| aː |
| Rounded |
u |
o |
uː |
oː |
Writing system
The language was written with the
Latin alphabetThe 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 Cumaean alphabet, and was initially developed by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language.During the...
from 1928–1938, but has used the
Cyrillic alphabetThe Cyrillic script writing system isan alphabet developed in the First Bulgarian Empire, and used in the Slavic national languages of Russian, Bulgarian, Belarusian, Rusyn, Serbian, Macedonian, and Ukrainian, and in the non-Slavic languages of Moldovan, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Tuvan, and...
(with the addition of 4 extra letters: ) since 1938.
Pronouns
Altay has six personal pronouns:
Personal pronouns in Standard/Southern dialect
| Singular |
Plural |
| Altay (transliteration) |
English |
Altay (transliteration) |
English |
| мен (men) |
I |
бис (bis) |
we |
| сен (sen) |
you (singular) |
слер (sler) |
you (plural, formal) |
| ол (ol) |
he/she/it |
олор (olor) |
they |
Pronouns in the various dialects vary considerably. For example, the pronouns in the Qumandin dialect follow.
Personal pronouns in Qumandin
| Singular |
Plural |
| Altay (transliteration) |
English |
Altay (transliteration) |
English |
| мен (men) |
I |
пис (pis) |
we |
| сен (sen) |
you (singular) |
снер (sner) |
you (plural, formal) |
| ол (ol) |
he/she/it |
анар (anar) |
they |
See also
- Telengits, Teleuts
Teleuts are a Turkic people 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 groupAn 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 researcher Seng Yang in the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and the recognition of common cultural,...
s)
- Altay Tatars
- Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern, central and western Eurasia. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
- Altaic languages
Altaic is a language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic language families . These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
External links