Northern Altai language

Northern Altai
Spoken in	Russia
Region	Altai Mountains
Native speakers	<5,000  (date missing)
Language family	Turkic Siberian Turkic Altai Northern Altai
Language codes
ISO 639-3	atv

Northern Altai or Northern Altay is one of two Turkic languages spoken in the Altay Republic of Russia on the border of Mongolia, the People's Republic of China, and Kazakhstan. Though traditionally considered one language, Southern Altai is not fully mutually intelligible with the Northern varieties. Written Altai is based on Southern Altai, and is rejected by Northern Altai children.^[1]

Northern Altay is written in Cyrillic. In 2006, in the Altay kray, an alphabet was created for the Kumandy variety.^[2]

Demographics

According to data from the 2002 Russian Census, 65534 people in Russia stated that they have command of the Altay language.^[3] 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.^[4]

Varieties

Northern Altay consists of the following varieties:

• Kumandy (also Qubandy/Quwandy). 1862 Kumandys claim to know their national language,^[5] but 1044 people were registered as knowing Kumandy.^[6]
• Chalkan (also Kuu/Quu, Chalkandu/Shalkanduu, Lebedin). 466 Chalkans claim to speak their national language, and 539 people in all claim to know Chalkan.
• Tuba (also Tubalar). 408 Tubalars claim to know their national language, and 436 people in all reported knowing Tuba.

Also closely related to the northern varieties of Altay are Kondom Shor and Lower Chulym (which have -j- for proto-Turkic inter-vocalic *d), unlike Mras Shor and Middle Chulym (which have -z- for proto-Turkic inter-vocalic *d) and are closer to Khakas.

Linguistic features

The following features refer to the outcome of commonly used Turkic isoglosses in Northern Altay.^[7][8][9]

• */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/.

Notes

1. ^ Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
2. ^ В Алтайском крае издана азбука кумандинского языка. 2006
3. ^ Всероссийская перепись населения 2002 года. Том 13. «Коренные малочисленные народы Российской Федерации»
4. ^ Энциклопедия «Кругосвет»
5. ^ Russian census figures
6. ^ Russian census figures
7. ^ Баскаков, Николай Александрович (1966). Диалект Черневых Татар (Туба-Кижи): грамматический очерк и словарь.. Москва: Наука. 
8. ^ Баскаков, Николай Александрович (1972). Диалект Кумандинцев (Куманды-Кижи): грамматический очерк, тексты, переводы и словарь.. Москва: Наука. 
9. ^ Баскаков, Николай Александрович (1985). Диалект Лебединских Татар-Чалканцев (Куу-Кижи). Москва: Наука. 

References

• Ethnologue entry for Northern Altai

External links