| Pumpokol | |
| States: | Russia |
| Extinct: | 1740 |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | Dené-Yeniseian |
| Fam2: | Yeniseian |
| Fam3: | Pumpokolic[2] |
| Iso3: | xpm |
| Glotto: | pump1237 |
| Glottorefname: | Pumpokol |
| Linglist: | xpm |
| Map: | File:Pumpokol language.png |
| Mapcaption: | The historical, pre-contact range of Pumpokol. |
| Region: | Yenisey |
| Ethnicity: | Pumpokols |
| Nativename: | Gebèng-ai |
Pumpokol (Pumpokol:) is one of the Yeniseian languages, formerly spoken by the Pumpokol people . It has been extinct since the 18th century. It shares many features with the ancient Xiongnu[3] and Jie languages,[4] and according to Alexander Vovin, Edward Vajda, and Étienne de la Vaissière, is closely related to them. It is poorly attested, the only available lexicon amounting to about 65 words, and some of them have been identified as being Yugh, not Pumpokol.
It has traditionally been viewed as being grouped with Arin in an Arin-Pumpokol subfamily of Southern Yeniseian, but Vajda 2024 challenges this, stating that "Arin, Pumpokol and Kott-Assan display no shared innovations to suport them as an opposite "Southern Yeniseian" branch" of Yeniseian, reflecting only their geographical position rather than a genealogical grouping. According to O. Tailleur, it should be considered a dialect of the Ket language, as most materials labeled 'Pumpokol' are in reality of Ketic affiliation, not Pumpokol. Furthermore, the term 'Pumpokol' was originally geographic, referring to the name of a town and a former district (volost),[5] originating from Khanty "grassy village".[6] Pumpokols and Yughs frequently mixed with each other in the Pumpokol volost.
Pumpokol is notable among the Yeniseian languages in that the phoneme /s/ is often replaced by /t/. This idiosyncrasy of Pumpokol seems to be shared with Jie, suggesting that Jie is more closely related to Pumpokol than other Yeniseian languages. For example the Jie word Uncoded languages: kot 'catch' seems to be a cognate with the Ket word qos, having the same sound change.
Moreover, this aforementioned characteristic of Pumpokol has been used by Vajda to demonstrate that Yeniseian-derived hydronyms in northern Mongolia (the southernmost known extent of Yeniseian influence),,,,,, are exclusively Pumpokolic. Since the Jie, as a tribe of the Xiongnu, are likely to have come from the same area, rather than further north, this finding lends credence to the possibility that Jie is a Pumpokolic language.
The reconstructed vowels of Pumpokol are as follows, based off of G. F. Müller's materials:
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i pronounced as /link/ | ɨ pronounced as /link/ | u pronounced as /link/ | |
| Close-mid | e pronounced as /link/ | o pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ pronounced as /link/ | ɔ pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open | a pronounced as /link/ |
According to G. F. Müller's notes, the consonants of Pumpokol are as follows:
| Labial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Laryngeal/Pharyngeal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p pronounced as /link/ | t pronounced as /link/ | (tʼ pronounced as /link/) | k pronounced as /link/ | q pronounced as /link/ | (ʔ pronounced as /link/)1 | ||
| b pronounced as /link/ | d pronounced as /link/ | (dʼ pronounced as /link/) | g pronounced as /link/ (gʼ pronounced as /link/) | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f pronounced as /link/ | s pronounced as /link/ | x pronounced as /link/, xʼ pronounced as /link/ | -h- pronounced as /link/?2 | |||
| voiced | (v pronounced as /link/) | (z pronounced as /link/) | (ž pronounced as /link/) | |||||
| Affricate | (pf pronounced as /link/ pʰ pronounced as /link/) | c pronounced as /link/ | č pronounced as /link/ (dž pronounced as /link/) | |||||
| Nasal | m pronounced as /link/ | n pronounced as /link/ | (nʼ pronounced as /link/) | ŋ pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Lateral | l pronounced as /link/ | (lʼ pronounced as /link/) | ||||||
| Approximant | j pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| Trill | r pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
The phonemes (č), (dʼ), and (dž) are allophones of (č), (k) and (g) are allophones of (k), and (x), (q) and (xʼ) are allophones of (χ). Thus, the phonemes in brackets are not really phonologically relevant.
Selected Pumpokol words are presented here, sourced from Werner 2005.[7]
| Word | Meaning | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ab | father | ||
| am | mother | ||
| ak | to lie down | ||
| hóxon | forest, tree | ||
| oksɨ | tree | ||
| efig | leaf | glossed as 'leaves' | |
| eg | egg | cf. Ket | |
| fala | son | ||
| falla | boy, son | ||
| hixem | Sun | ||
| xaj | mountain | ||
| xečet | growth | ||
| kus | horse | ||
| libit bojarget | love | literally 'he loves me', cf. Yugh id. | |
| meža | measure | Russian loan | |
| píkola | daughter, girl | Kott | |
| hukút | house, village | Ket, Yugh |
| Pumpokol words in Pallas 1789[8] | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russian gloss | бог | небо | вечер | лес | дерево | земля | поле | снег | вода | дух | вино | |
| English translation | God | sky, heaven | evening | forest | tree | earth | field | snow | water | spirit | wine | |
| Pumpokol translation | еч | еч | бичиди, бись | акь | оксы | бинг | ембагь | тыгь, бечь | уль | бей | бино | |
An example of a gerund - 'work'
An example of an adjective - 'healthy'
An example of a third-person pronoun - 'they'
| 1 | pronounced as /xúta/ | ху́та | |
| 2 | pronounced as /hínɛaŋ/ ~ pronounced as /hínɛa/ | нинеангь | |
| 3 | pronounced as /dóŋa/ | донга | |
| 4 | pronounced as /ciaŋ/ | ци́ангь | |
| 5 | pronounced as /héjlaŋ/ | Хе́илангь | |
| 6 | pronounced as /aɡɡiaŋ/ ~ pronounced as /áɡiang/ | Аггьянгь | |
| 7 | pronounced as /ónʼaŋ/ | Оньянгь | |
| 8 | pronounced as /hinbasiaŋ/ | Г̧инба́ссїангь | |
| 9 | pronounced as /xúta-xamóssa-xaíaŋ/ | Ху́та-ямосса-хайянгь | |
| 10 | pronounced as /xaiáŋ/ (pronounced as /xajáŋ/) | Хайянгь | |
| 11 | pronounced as /xúta/-iga-pronounced as /xaiáŋ/ | ||
| 12 | pronounced as /hínɛa/-pronounced as /xaiáŋ/ | ||
| 20 | pronounced as /hédiaŋ/ | ||
| 30 | pronounced as /doŋbaksɨn/ | ||
| 40 | pronounced as /situdi/ | ||
| 50 | pronounced as /xeiltudi/ | ||
| 60 | pronounced as /altudi/ | ||
| 70 | pronounced as /óntudi/ | ||
| 80 | pronounced as /hinbassitudi/ | ||
| 90 | pronounced as /xatósaxa/ | ||
| 100 | pronounced as /útamsa/ | Утамса | |
| 200 | pronounced as /hin-útamsa/ | ||
| 300 | pronounced as /doŋ-útamsa/ | ||
| 400 | pronounced as /ci-útamsa/ | ||
| 500 | pronounced as /xeil-útamsa/ | ||
| 600 | pronounced as /ag-útamsa/ | ||
| 700 | pronounced as /on-útamsa/ | ||
| 800 | pronounced as /hintassi-útamsa/ | ||
| 900 | pronounced as /xatóssa-xága-útamsa/ | ||
| 1000 | pronounced as /xa-útamsa/ | Ха-утамса |