Teleut language

Teleut is a moribund Turkic language spoken in the Altai Republic in Russia and Canada. It is sometimes considered a dialect of Southern Altai, but also as its own language. Since 2000, the Russian government has officially recognized it as a distinct language. It was the basis for the Altai literary language before 1917.

Classification

The language is classed in the Kipchak languages by Novgorodov et al. It is considered to be a dialect of Southern Altai, with the Telengit dialect or language and the literary form of Altai.

Phonology

Teleut has 8 vowels:

	Front	Back
High
Low

Orthography

In the 1840s, missionaries devised various alphabets to write Teleut to create Church materials for the Teleuts.
A compilation of the orthographies is listed below:
The current orthography of Teleut is as follows: