Dukhan language explained

Dukha
Also Known As:	Tsaatan
Nativename:	тyъһа тыл Tuha tıl Uncoded languages: tuʰha sös
States:	Mongolia
Region:	Khövsgöl Province
Ethnicity:	Dukha
Speakers:	500
Date:	no date
Familycolor:	Altaic
Fam1:	Turkic
Fam2:	Common Turkic
Fam3:	Siberian Turkic
Fam4:	South Siberian
Fam5:	Sayan Turkic
Fam6:	Taiga Sayan Turkic
Iso3:	dkh
Glotto:	dukh1234
Iso3comment:	(rejected)
Map2:	Lang Status 40-SE.svg

Dukha or Dukhan is an endangered Turkic variety spoken by approximately five hundred people of the Dukhan (a.k.a. Tsaatan) people in the Tsagaan-Nuur county of Khövsgöl Province in northern Mongolia. Dukhan belongs to the Taiga subgroup of Sayan Turkic (which also includes Soyot–Tsaatan and Tofa).^[1] This language is nearly extinct and is only spoken as a second language. The ISO 639-3 proposal (request) code was dkh,^[2] but this proposal was rejected.^[3]

It is mostly related to the Soyot language of Buryatia.^[4] Also, it is related to the language of Tozhu Tuvans and the Tofa language. Today, it is spoken alongside Mongolian.^[5]

Dukhan morphophonemic units are written with capital letters, similar to its sister languages and standard grammars.^[1]

Origin

The Dukha language or Dukhan is an endangered Turkic language. It is spoken by about five hundred people of the Dukhan (also Tsaatan) from Tsagaan-Nuur County, Tsagaannurr (Khövsgöl) Mongolia. Цагааннуур сум) is a Sum (district) of Mongolia in the province of Khövsgöl, located in Northern Mongolia.

Classification of the Turkic languages

Proto-Turkic	Common Turkic	Northeastern Common Turkic (Siberian)	North Siberian		Sakha (Yakut) Dolgan
			South Siberian	Sayan Turkic	Tuvan Tofa Soyot–Tsaatan^[6] Dukhan
				Yenisei Turkic	Khakas Fuyu Kyrgyz Kumandin^[7] ^[8] Northern Altai and dialects such as Chelkan and Tuba^[9] Shor (Saghay Qaca, Qizil) Western Yugur (Western Uyghur, Yellow Uyghur)^[10] ^[11] ^[12] ^[13] ^[14]
				Chulym Turkic	Chulym (Küerik)
				Old Turkic	Orkhon Turkic Old Uyghur

Alexander Vovin (2017) notes that Tofa and other Siberian Turkic languages, especially Sayan Turkic, have Yeniseian loanwords.^[15]

Current situation

Currently, the Dukhan language is mainly related to an amalgam of dialects from the nomadic people of Inner Mongolia, China, Russia, and surrounding areas.

• Buryat is a Mongolic language spoken in Russia (in the Republic of Buryatia), and by smaller populations in Mongolia and China, in the east of Inner Mongolia. It is the language of the Buryats.
• Tuvan (or Tuvine, Tuvinian)^[16] is a language of the Turkic family spoken by nearly 200,000 Tuvans in the Republic of Tuva, Russia. Small groups speak Tuvan in Mongolia and China. Tuvan contains many words borrowed from Mongolian and has been influenced by Russian over the last hundred years.
• Tofalar (or Tofa, Karagas) is a Turkic language spoken in the Ninjnewinsk region of the Irkutsk Oblast in Russia.

Bibliography

• Dolatkhah, Sohrab. 2016. Let's talk qashqay. In: "Let's talk" collection. Paris: The Harmattan.
• Dolatkhah, Sohrab. 2016. The qashqay: Turkic language of Iran. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (online).
• Pierre-François Viguier, Elements of the Turkish language, or analytical tables of the usual Turkish language, with their development, dedicated to the King, under the auspices of M. The Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, Ambassador of His Most Christian Majesty near the Ottoman Gate, by M. Viguier, Prefect Apostolic of the Establishments of the Congregation of the Mission in the Levant, Constantinople, from the Imprimerie du Palais de France, March 1790, in-4 °

References

1. Book: Ragagnin, Elisabetta . Dukhan, a turkic variety of Northern Mongolia: description ana analysis . 2011 . Harrassowitz verlag . 978-3-447-05907-7 . Turcologica . Wiesbaden . 0177-4743.
2. Ted Bergman 2011. Request for New Language Code Element in ISO 639-3
3. http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/cr_files/PastComments/CR_Comments_2011-057.pdf Comments received for ISO 639-3 Change Request 2011-057
4. http://lingsib.iea.ras.ru/en/languages/soiot.shtml Endangered Languages of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia: The Soyot Language
5. Web site: Archived copy . 2014-04-10 . 2013-07-06 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130706075608/http://www.mnh.si.edu/press_office/annual_reports/annualreport2002/3_excel_science.pdf . dead .
6. Web site: The Soyot Language . Rassadin, V.I. . Endangered Languages of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia . . 2021-07-18.
7. Web site: Kumandin . . 2021-07-15.
8. Web site: The Kumandin Language . Bitkeeva, A.N. . Endangered Languages of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia . . 2021-07-16.
9. Web site: Northern Altai . . 2021-07-16.
10. http://www.turkiclanguages.com/www/classification.html Deviating. Probably of South Siberian origin (Johanson 1998)
11. https://books.google.com/books?id=7XuMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA7 Coene 2009
12. https://books.google.com/books?id=FqFMmVbfRfEC&pg=PA75 Coene 2009
13. Book: Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Contributors: Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie. revised. 2010. Elsevier. 1109. 978-0080877754. 24 April 2014.
14. Book: The Mainz Meeting: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, August 3-6, 1994. Turcologica Series. Lars. Johanson. Contributor: Éva Ágnes Csató. 1998. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. 28. 3447038640. 24 April 2014.
15. Vovin, Alexander. 2017. "Some Tofalar Etymologies." In Essays in the history of languages and linguistics: dedicated to Marek Stachowski on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Krakow: Księgarnia Akademicka.
16. Roland Breton, Atlas des langues du monde, Éd. Autrement, 2003