Altai languages

Not to be confused with Altaic languages.

Altai
Gorno–Altai
алтайдыҥ тилин, алтай тил
(ethnically defined)
Geographic distribution	Altai Republic, Altai Krai, Kemerovo Oblast
Ethnicity	Altai, including Chelkans, Telengits, Tubalars
Native speakers	125,700 (Total of Southern and Northern Altai speakers)
Linguistic classification	Turkic Common Turkic Siberian Turkic/Kipchak Southern Siberian/Kyrgyz–Kipchak Altai
Subdivisions	Northern Altai Southern Altai
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5	alt
Either: atv – Northern Altai alt – Southern Altai
Glottolog	None alta1276  (code retired)
Map of Altai varieties

Altai (Altay: Алтай тил, romanized: Altay til) is a set of Turkic languages spoken officially in the Altai Republic, Russia. The standard vocabulary is based on the Southern Altai language, though it is also taught to and used by speakers of the Northern Altai language as well. Gorno–Altai refers to a subgroup of languages in the Altai Mountains. The languages were called Oyrot (ойрот) prior to 1948.

Altai is spoken primarily in the Altai Republic. There is a small community of speakers in the neighbouring Altai Krai as well.

Classification

Due to its isolated position in the Altai Mountains and contact with surrounding languages, the exact classification of Altai within the Turkic languages has often been disputed. Because of its geographic proximity to the Shor and Khakas languages, some classifications place it in a Northern Turkic subgroup. Due to certain similarities with Kyrgyz, it has been grouped as the Kyrgyz–Kipchak subgroup with the Kypchak languages which is within the Turkic language family. A classification by Talat Tekin places Southern Altai in its own subgroup within Turkic and groups the Northern Altai dialects with Lower Chulym and the Kondoma dialect of Shor.

Varieties

Though they are traditionally considered one language, Southern Altai is not fully mutually intelligible with the Northern varieties. According to modern classifications—at least since the middle of the 20th century—they are considered to be two separate languages.

Written Altai is based on Southern Altai, and according to Ethnologue is rejected by Northern Altai children. In 2006, a Cyrillic alphabet was created for the Kumandy variety of Northern Altai for use in Altai Krai.

Dmitry speaking Southern Altai.

Dialects are as follows:

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

Closely related to the northern varieties are Kondoma Shor and Lower Chulym, which have -j- for proto-Turkic inter-vocalic *d, unlike Mras Shor and Middle Chulym, which have -z- and are closer to Khakas.

Official status

Alongside Russian, Altai is an official language of the Altai Republic. The official language is based on the Southern Altai language spoken by the group called the Altay-Kiži, however in the few years it has also spread to the Northern Altai Republic.

Linguistic features

The following features refer to the outcome of commonly used Turkic isoglosses in Northern Altai.

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

Phonology

The sounds of the Altai language vary among different dialects.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Altai

	Labial		Alveolar		Palato- alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Nasal		m		n						ŋ
Plosive	p	b	t	d			c	ɟ	k	ɡ
Affricate					tʃ	dʒ
Fricative			s	z	ʃ	ʒ			x	ɣ
Approximant				l				j
Rhotic				ɾ~r

The voiced palatal plosive /ɟ/ varies greatly from dialect to dialect, especially in the initial position, and may be recognized as a voiced affricate /d͡z/. Forms of the word јок "no" include [coq] (Kuu dialect) and [joq] (Kumandy). Even within dialects, this phoneme varies greatly.

Vowels

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

Vowel phonemes of Altai

		Front		Back
		short	long	short	long
Close	unrounded	i	iː	ɯ	ɯː
	rounded	y	yː	u	uː
Open	unrounded	e	eː	a	aː
	rounded	ø	øː	o	oː

Orthography

The language was written with the Latin script from 1928 to 1938, but has used Cyrillic (with the addition of 9 extra letters: Јј [d͡z~ɟ], Ҥҥ [ŋ], Ӧӧ [ø~œ], Ӱӱ [y~ʏ], Ғғ [ʁ], Ққ [q], Һһ [h], Ҹҹ [d͡ʑ], Ii [ɨ̹]) since 1938.

The letter Ÿ is sometimes used instead of Ӱ.

Missionary's Cyrillic alphabet

The first writing system for Altai was invented by missionaries from the Altai Spiritual Mission in the 1840s; it was based on the Cyrillic alphabet and invented for the Teleut dialect and was used mostly for Church publications. The first books were printed in Altai not long thereafter and in 1868, the first Altai alphabet was published. There was no stable form of this alphabet, and it changed from edition-to-edition.

With this in mind, this is an inventory of some of these letters:

Аа	Бб	Гг	Дд	Jj	Ее	Жж	Зз	Ii	Йй
Кк, К̅ к̅	Лл	Мм	Нн	Ҥҥ, Н̄ н̄	Oo	Ӧӧ	Пп	Рр	Сс
Тт	Уу	Ӱӱ	Чч	Шш	Ыы

First Cyrillic alphabet (1922–1928)

After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, publishing books into Altai was resumed in 1921, using a script similar to the Missionary's Alphabet. About this time, many post-revolution letters were adopted to better compose Russian words adopted into the language. As such, it took on this form (non-Russian letters bolded):

Аа	Бб	Вв	Гг	Дд	Јј	Ее	Жж	Зз	Ии
Йй	Кк	Лл	Мм	Нн	Ҥҥ	Оо	Ӧӧ	Пп	Рр
Сс	Тт	Уу	Ӱӱ	Фф	Хх	Цц	Чч	Шш	Щщ
Ъъ	Ыы	Ьь	Ээ	Юю	Яя

Interestingly, in the same space, many considered adapting the old Mongolian script for use in writing Altai.

Latin alphabet (1928–1938)

The Latin alphabet was eventually adopted and was used from 1922 to 1928. The final version of this alphabet was published in 1931, taking this form:

Aa	Bʙ	Cc	Çç	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Ii	Jj
Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	ņ	Oo	Ɵɵ	Pp	Rr	Ss
Şş	Tt	Uu	Vv	Xx	Yy	Zz	Ƶƶ	Ьь

The Latin letters correspond as follows to the modern Cyrillic letters:

Latin (1922–1938)	Modern Cyrillic (after 1944)
C	Ч
Ç	Ј
J	Й
ņ	ҥ
Ɵ	Ӧ
Ş	Ш
Y	Ӱ
Ƶ	Ж
Ь	Ы

Second Cyrillic alphabet (1938–1944)

In 1938, the Central Research Institute of Language and Writing of the Peoples of the USSR began the project of designing a new alphabet for Altai, based on the Cyrillic script. Their new alphabet consisted of all 33 Russian letters, as well as the digraph ⟨Дь дь⟩ and the letter ⟨Ҥҥ⟩, for the phonemes /d͡ʒ/ and /ŋ/ respectively. However, this was later rejected, because it could not accurately represent all of Altai's phonological inventory.

To amend for this, the Institute's first revised alphabet saw the graphemes ⟨Ёё⟩ and ⟨Юю⟩ for Altai's vowels /ø~œ/ and /y/ fall out of use, and the addition of two digraphs and two letters: ⟨Дь дь⟩ for /d͡ʒ/, ⟨Нъ нъ⟩for /ŋ/, ⟨Ӧӧ⟩ for /ø~œ/, and ⟨Ӱӱ⟩ for /y/. In the second revision, however, ⟨Нъ нъ⟩ was replaced with ⟨Ҥҥ⟩. Thus was created:

Аа	Бб	Вв	Гг	Дд	Дь дь	Ее	Ёё	Жж	Зз
Ии	Йй	Кк	Лл	Мм	Нн	Нъ нъ, Ҥҥ	Оо	Ӧӧ	Пп
Рр	Сс	Тт	Уу	Ӱӱ	Фф	Хх	Цц	Чч	Шш
Щщ	Ъъ	Ыы	Ьь	Ээ	Юю	Яя

Altai speakers accepted the first variant, but generally preferred ⟨Н' н'⟩ over ⟨Ҥҥ⟩.

Аа	Бб	Вв	Гг	Дд	Дь дь	Ее	Ёё	Жж	Зз
Ии	Йй	Кк	Лл	Мм	Нн	Н' н'	Оо	Ӧӧ	Пп
Рр	Сс	Тт	Уу	Фф	Хх	Цц	Чч	Шш	Щщ
Ъъ	Ыы	Ьь	Ээ	Юю	Яя

Modern Standard Altai alphabet

Their second Cyrillic alphabet had many shortcomings, thus begging for a reform, which was carried out in 1944. The usage of ⟨Ёё⟩ and ⟨Юю⟩ /ø~œ/ and /y/ was dropped entirely, being replaced by the adoption of the Institute's second revision's usages of ⟨Ӧӧ⟩, and ⟨Ӱӱ⟩, for native words. ⟨Дь дь⟩ was dropped in favour of ⟨Јј⟩; for ⟨Н' н'⟩, they finally accepted ⟨Ҥҥ⟩.

The letters ⟨Ёё⟩, ⟨Юю⟩, and ⟨Яя⟩ are still used, though they are reserved for only non-native, Russian loan-words. So, in modern Standard Altai, the equivalent sounds are written as ⟨йа⟩, ⟨йо⟩ and ⟨йу⟩, for native words. So, words that were written as кая 'cliff, rock' and коён 'hare' are now written as кайа and койон respectively.

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Ј ј	Е е	Ё ё
Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н
Ҥ ҥ	О о	Ӧ ӧ	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	У у
Ӱ ӱ	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ
Ы ы	Ь ь	Э э	Ю ю	Я я

Morphology and syntax

Pronouns

Altai has six personal pronouns:

Personal pronouns in Standard/Southern dialect

	Singular	Plural
1st person	мен men мен men I	бис bis бис bis we
2nd person	сен sen сен sen you (singular)	слер sler слер sler you (plural, formal)
3rd person	ол ol ол ol he/she/it	олор olor олор olor they

The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart.

Declension of pronouns in Standard/Southern dialect

Nom	мен	сен	ол	бис	слер	олор
Acc	мени	сени	оны	бисти	слерди	олорды
Gen	мениҥ	сениҥ	оныҥ	бистиҥ	слердиҥ	олордыҥ
Dat	меге	сеге	ого	биске	слерге	олорго
Loc	менде	сенде	ондо	бисте	слерде	олордо
Abl	менеҥ	сенеҥ	оноҥ	бистеҥ	слердеҥ	олордоҥ
Inst	мениле	сениле	оныла	бисле	слерле	олорло

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

Personal pronouns in Qumandin

	Singular	Plural
1st person	мен men мен men I	пис pis пис pis we
2nd person	сен sen сен sen you (singular)	снер sner снер sner you (plural, formal)
3rd person	ол ol ол ol he/she/it	анар anar анар anar they

Sample text

Latin script version (with Common Turkic alphabet)

Bible in Altai language

1. Îsus Xristosıñ ada öbökölöri, ol David le Avrâmnıñ kaldıgı
2. Avrâmnañ İsâk tûlgan, İsâktañ İakov tûlgan, İakovtoñ İuda la onıñ karındaştarı tûlgan
3. İudanıñ üyi bolgon Famar'dañ Fares le Zara tûlgan, Yesromoñ Aram tûlgan
4. Aramnañ Aminadav tûlgan, Aminadavtañ Nâsson tûlgan, Nassonnoñ Salmon tûlgan,
5. Salmonnıñ üyineñ, Rahavtañ, Vôz tûlgan, Vôztıñ emêni Ruf'tañ Ovid tulgan, Ovidteñ İessey tûlgan,
6. İesseydeñ David-kân tûlgan, David-kânnañ Solomon tûlgan, Solomonnıñ enezi deze Uriyanıñ başkıdagı üyi bolgon
7. Solomonnıñ Rovoam tûlgan, Rovoamnañ Aviya tûlgan, Aviyadañ Asaf tûlgan
8. Asaftañ İosafat tûlgan, İosafattan İoram tûlgan, İoramnañ Oziya tûlgan
9. Oziyadañ İoafam tûlgan, İoafamnañ Ahaz tûlgan, Ahaztañ Yezekiya tûlgan
10. Yezekiyadan Manassiya tûlgan, Manassiyadañ Amon tûlgan, Amonnoñ İosiya tûlgan

See also

• Telengits, Teleuts (related ethnic groups)
• Turkic peoples

External links

• Altai Alphabet
• Altai phrases (Archived 2009-10-25)
• Russian–Altai Online Dictionary