Dukhan language

Dukhan or Dukha is a nearly extinct Turkic language or dialect variety of Tuvan language spoken by the Dukhan herder people in the Tsagaan-Nuur county of Khövsgöl Province in northern Mongolia. Dukhan belongs to the Taiga subgroup of Sayan Turkic. This language is nearly extinct and is only spoken actively by no more than 40 people. The ISO 639-3 proposal code was dkh, but this proposal was rejected.
It is mostly related to the Soyot language of Buryatia. Also, it is related to the language of Tozhu Tuvans and the Tofa language. Today, it is spoken alongside Mongolian.
Dukhan morphophonemic units are written with capital letters, similar to its sister languages and standard grammars.

Classification

Dukhan is classified in the Taiga Sayan Turkic branch of Siberian Turkic. The Dukhan language is mainly related to an amalgam of dialects from the nomadic people of Outer Mongolia, Russia, and surrounding areas. It is most closely related to Tuvinian.

Geographical distribution

The Dukha language is spoken in Tsagaan-Nuur County, Tsagaanuur is a Sum of Mongolia in the province of Khövsgöl, located in Northern Mongolia.