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The Kalmyk language (?????? ????; also known as Kalmuck, Calmouk, Qalmaq, Kalmytskii Jazyk, Khal:mag, Volga Oirat, Weilate, Western Mongol) is the language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 spoken by the Kalmyks, that is, the Oirats
Oirats

Oirat is the common name of several pastoral nomadic tribes of Mongolian origin whose ancestral home is in the Dzungaria and Amdo regions of western Mongolia and also western China....
 of Kalmykia
Kalmykia

The Republic of Kalmykia is a federal subjects of Russia of the Russian Federation . The direct romanization of Russian of the republic's Russian name is Respublika Kalmykiya, and that of the Kalmyk name is Xal'mg Tanghch....
 (Russian Federation). The Kalmyk dialect belongs to the Oirat language
Oirat language

File:Oirat-map-ru.pngOirat is a major dialect of Mongolian, an independent language or a group of languages that includes Kalmyk language in Russia, the Oirat varieties spoken in the People's Republic of China arguably including Alasha dialect and varieties such as Zakhchin and ??ld in the west of the Mongolia....
 within the Mongolic
Mongolic languages

The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in Central Asia. Some linguists propose the grouping of Mongolic with Turkic languages and Tungusic languages as Altaic languages, but this hypothesis is not universally agreed upon....
 language family.

The Kalmyks suffered greatly during the Soviet
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 period. Half of all Kalmyk speakers died during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Bolshevik party assumed power in Saint Petersburg....
.






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The Kalmyk language (?????? ????; also known as Kalmuck, Calmouk, Qalmaq, Kalmytskii Jazyk, Khal:mag, Volga Oirat, Weilate, Western Mongol) is the language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 spoken by the Kalmyks, that is, the Oirats
Oirats

Oirat is the common name of several pastoral nomadic tribes of Mongolian origin whose ancestral home is in the Dzungaria and Amdo regions of western Mongolia and also western China....
 of Kalmykia
Kalmykia

The Republic of Kalmykia is a federal subjects of Russia of the Russian Federation . The direct romanization of Russian of the republic's Russian name is Respublika Kalmykiya, and that of the Kalmyk name is Xal'mg Tanghch....
 (Russian Federation). The Kalmyk dialect belongs to the Oirat language
Oirat language

File:Oirat-map-ru.pngOirat is a major dialect of Mongolian, an independent language or a group of languages that includes Kalmyk language in Russia, the Oirat varieties spoken in the People's Republic of China arguably including Alasha dialect and varieties such as Zakhchin and ??ld in the west of the Mongolia....
 within the Mongolic
Mongolic languages

The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in Central Asia. Some linguists propose the grouping of Mongolic with Turkic languages and Tungusic languages as Altaic languages, but this hypothesis is not universally agreed upon....
 language family.

The Kalmyks suffered greatly during the Soviet
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 period. Half of all Kalmyk speakers died during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Bolshevik party assumed power in Saint Petersburg....
. Stalin
Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953....
's ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing is a euphemism referring to the persecution through imprisonment, expulsion, or killing of members of an ethnic minority by a majority to achieve ethnic homogeneity in majority-controlled territory....
s also significantly reduced the population of the Kalmyk people. Until recently, the Kalmyk population in Russia was at lower levels than it had been in 1913. 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....
 was made the primary official language of Kalmykia, and in 1963 the last Kalmyk language classes were closed and Russian became the language of education for Kalmyk children.

As a result of these policies, many Kalmyks do not speak their ethnic language. Kalmyk linguists, in collaboration with the Kalmyk government, are working to improve this situation. Beginning in 1993, school education in the Kalmyk language was restored.

Writing systems

It has some elements in common with the Uralic
Ugric languages

Ugric or Ugrian languages are a branch of the Finno-Ugric languages language family. The term derives from Yugra.They include three languages: Hungarian language , and the Ob-Ugric languages, Khanty language and Mansi language ....
 and Uyghur
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....
 languages, which reflects its origin from the common language of the Oirats, a union of four Oirat tribes that absorbed some Ugric and Turkic tribes during their expansion westward.

The literary tradition of Oirat reaches back to 11th century when the Uyghur
Uyghur language

Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken by the Uyghur people in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a Central Asian region administered by People's Republic of China....
 script was used. The official Kalmyk alphabet named Todo Bichig
Todo Bichig

The Clear script was created in 1648 by the Oirats Buddhist monk Zaya Pandit to write Mongolian language. It was developed on the basis of the traditional Mongolian script with the goal of bringing the written language closer to the actual pronunciation, and to make it easier to transcribe Tibetan language and Sanskrit....
 (Clear Script) was created in the 17th century by a Kalmyk Buddhist monk called Zaya Pandit
Zaya Pandit

Zaya Pandit or Namkhaijantsan was a Buddhist monk and scholar of Oirats origin who is the most prominent Oirat Buddhist scholar.Zaya Pandit was the fifth son of Babakhan, a minor Khoshut-Oirat prince....
. In 1924 this script was replaced by a Cyrillic script, which was abandoned in 1930 in favor of a Latin script. The Latin script was in turn replaced by another Cyrillic script in 1938. These script reforms effectively disrupted the Oirat literary tradition.

The modified Cyrillic alphabet used for the Kalmyk language is as follows:

CyrillicIPATransliterationCyrillicIPATransliteration
??aa ??o
???ä ??oö
??p,b ??, p
??w,v, w ??r,r
??,,g ??ss
?h gh ??,t
??t,d ??u
??jeye ??uü
??yo ??( f )f
??zh ??x,h
?? dzh, j ??ts
??(d)z ??ch
??ii ??sh
??jy ??shch
??( k ), k ??iy
??,l ??'
??m,m ??ee
??n,n ??yu
?? ng ??jaya


See also

  • Torgut language
    Torgut language

    Torgut is a dialect of the Oirat language spoken in Northern Central China. As such, it is part of the family of Mongolic languages....
  • Languages of the Caucasus
    Languages of the Caucasus

    The languages of the Caucasus are a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea....


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