| Kyakhta | |
| Region: | Russian–Chinese border |
| Extinct: | early 20th century |
| Familycolor: | Pidgin |
| Iso3: | none |
| Glotto: | kjac1234 |
| Glottorefname: | Chinese Pidgin Russian |
| Ietf: | crp-u-sd-rubu |
| Imagealt: | Several shops and people standing on the street |
Kyakhta Russian–Chinese Pidgin was a contact language (specifically a pidgin) used by Russian and Chinese traders to communicate during the 18th-early 20th century. The pidgin owes its name to the town of Kyakhta, a Russian town on the border with the Qing Empire's Outer Mongolia, which was the most important border trading point between the two regions for more than a century after its foundation in 1728.[1]
Due to the absence of consonant clusters in Chinese and their quite frequent occurrence in Russian, the need for epenthesis – adding additional sounds to words – arises to make pronunciation easier. Thus, the following transformations are typical:[2]
| Russian word | Russian pronunciation | Kyakhtian pronunciation | English translation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| прошу | pronounced as /ru/ | pronounced as /ru/ | (I) ask | |
| солнце | pronounced as /ru/ | pronounced as /ru/ | sun | |
| шампанское | pronounced as /ru/ | pronounced as /ru/ | sparkling wine |
| Russian word | Russian pronunciation | Kyakhtian pronunciation | English translation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| спереди | pronounced as /ru/ | pronounced as /ru/ | in front | |
| халат | pronounced as /ru/ | pronounced as /ru/ | dressing gown | |
| поклониться | pronounced as /ru/ | pronounced as /ru/ | to bow |
Most of the words in the Kyakhta pidgin come from Russian. Many of them, in particular those that do not have consonants clusters, undergo no change; for example, воля ("will"), люди ("people"), мало ("little"), надо ("it is necessary"), рубаха ("shirt"), сюда ("to here"), чужой ("alien"), шуба ("fur coat").
As a rule, pidgins have limited grammar and vocabulary. To compensate for this, words are often borrowed with additional meanings. In Kyakhta pidgin, for instance, the adverb мало, along with the meaning of "little" that it has in Russian, also means "not only"; посиди means not only "to seat", but also "to converse". An example of significant difference between the Russian meaning and the meaning in Kyakhta pidgin is the word Creoles and pidgins: месяца – it means "months" in Russian, but "forever" in the pidgin.
The predominantly colloquial origin of words is very noticeable. Many words are present in exclusively diminutive form: Creoles and pidgins: женушеки ("woman") comes from Russian Russian: женушка, the diminutive form of жена ("wife"); Creoles and pidgins: рюмашека ("wine glass") comes from Russian рюмашка, the diminutive form of рюмка; Creoles and pidgins: беленеки ("white") comes from Russian беленький, the diminutive form of белый.
While Russian is clearly the main source of vocabulary, some words are borrowed from Mongolian which was spoken in the same region, such as Creoles and pidgins: адали ("exactly"), and Creoles and pidgins: бичиху ("to write"). Still, the influence of Mongolian is minimal.
The only significant contribution of Mandarin Chinese to the vocabulary is the word Creoles and pidgins: фуза meaning "store, shop" (Mandarin). Aside from that, Kyakhta pidgin contains several new compounds that could have been inspired by Chinese:
Like most pidgins, Kyakhta pidgin lacks many morphological categories: there are no cases, numbers or gender of nouns.
Russian pidgins in general tend to have clear verb indications. In Kyakhta Pidgin, similarly to other Siberian pidgins, most verbs have ending -j/-i: Creoles and pidgins: болей ("to be sick"), Creoles and pidgins: выгони ("to turn out"), Creoles and pidgins: захорони ("to bury"), Creoles and pidgins: гоняй ("to drive"), Creoles and pidgins: незнай ("to be unaware"), Creoles and pidgins: ругай ("to scold"), Creoles and pidgins: сади' ("to seat"). This ending makes verbs similar to the imperative form of Russian verbs: for example, Creoles and pidgins: болей is the Russian verb болеть ("to be sick"), but in the imperative mood. We can speculate that such forms prevailed when Russians addressed their interlocutors.
During the late stages of the pidgin, the indicators of verb tenses appear: Creoles and pidgins: было indicates the past tense, Creoles and pidgins: буду indicates the future tense, Creoles and pidgins: еса indicates the present tense; for example, Creoles and pidgins: погули было means "to have walked", Creoles and pidgins: погули еса means "to be walking", Creoles and pidgins: погули буду means "will walk".
An object is identified with Creoles and pidgins: за, a preposition from the Russian language that has many semantic properties. It is the only preposition present in the Kyakhta pidgin and it is used in the following way: Creoles and pidgins: за наша походи means "come to us" (приходи к нам in proper Russian), Creoles and pidgins: за наша фуза means "in our store" (в нашем магазине in proper Russian).
Russian pronouns came into the pidgin in an exclusively possessive form: Creoles and pidgins: моя ("I") means "mine" in Russian, Creoles and pidgins: твоя ("you") means "yours" in Russian, and Creoles and pidgins: ево ("he") comes from Russian Creoles and pidgins: его, which means "his" in Russian. This feature is shared with the Norwegian-Russian pidgin Russenorsk. All declensions of pronouns are formed with the already mentioned Creoles and pidgins: за: Creoles and pidgins: за-моя, Creoles and pidgins: за-твоя, Creoles and pidgins: за-ево.