Northern Altai language
Northern Altai or Northern Altay is a collective name for several tribal moribund Turkic dialects spoken in the Altai Republic of Russia. Though traditionally considered one language, Southern Altai and the Northern varieties are not fully mutually intelligible. Written Altai is based on Southern Altai, and is rejected by Northern Altai children.
Northern Altai is written in Cyrillic. In 2006, in the Altay kray, an alphabet was created for the Kumandin variety.
Phonology
Northern Altai has 8 vowels, which may be long or short, and 20 consonants, plus marginal consonants that occur only in loan words.Demographics
According to data from the 2002 Russian Census, 65,534 people in Russia stated that they have command of the Altay language. Only around 10% of them speak Northern Altay varieties, while the remaining speak Southern Altay varieties. Furthermore, according to some data, only 2% of Altays fluently speak the Altay language.Varieties
Northern Altay consists of the following varieties:- Kumandin dialect. 1,862 Kumandins claim to know their national language, but 1,044 people were registered as knowing Kumandy. Kumandy has the following three sub-varieties:
- *Turačak
- *Solton
- *Starobardinian
- Chelkan dialect. 466 Chelkans claim to speak their national language, and 539 people in all claim to know Chelkan.
Closely related to the northern varieties of Altay are the of the Shor language and the Lower Chulym dialect of the Chulym language.
Linguistic features
The following features refer to the outcome of commonly used Turkic isoglosses in Northern Altay.- */ag/ — Proto-Turkic */ag/ is found in three variations throughout Northern Altay: /u/, /aw/, /aʁ/
- */eb/ — Proto-Turkic */eb/ is found as either /yj/ or /yg/, depending on the variety
- */VdV/ — With a few lexical exceptions, proto-Turkic intervocalic */d/ results in /j/.