Tofa language
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Tofa Тоъфа дыл (Tòfa dıl) |
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Spoken in: | Russia | |
Region: | Irkutsk | |
Total speakers: | ~30 | |
Language family: | Altaic Turkic Northern Tofa |
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Language codes | ||
ISO 639-1: | none | |
ISO 639-2: | tyv | |
ISO 639-3: | kim | |
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. |
Tofa, also known as Tofalar or Karagas, is one of the Turkic languages. It is a moribund language spoken in Russia's Irkutsk Oblast. Today, it has less than 30 native speakers.
Tofa is most closely related to the Tuvan language and forms a dialect continuum with it, Tuha, and Tsengel Tuvan, which may be dialects of either Tuvan or Tofa. Tofa shares a number of innovations with these languages, including the change *d>z (as in *adaq > azak "foot") and the development of low tones on historically short vowels (as in *et > èt "meat, flesh").
[edit] Writing System
Tofa, although not widely written, employs a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet:
А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Ғ ғ | Д д | Е е | Ә ә |
Ё ё | Ж ж | З з | И и | I i | Й й | К к | Қ қ |
Л л | М м | Н н | Ң ң | О о | Ө ө | П п | Р р |
С с | Т т | У у | Ү ү | Ф ф | Х х | Һ һ | Ц ц |
Ч ч | Ҷ ҷ | Ш ш | Щ щ | ъ | Ы ы | ь | Э э |
Ю ю | Я я |
The additional letters in Tofa are Ғғ (ɣ), Әә (æ), Ii (iː), Ққ (q), Ңң (ŋ), Өө (œ), Үү (y), Һһ (h), and Ҷҷ (ʤ). Additionally, the letter ъ is sometimes used after a vowel to mark low tone, as in эът "meat".
[edit] References
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