Tofa language

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Tofa
Тоъфа дыл (Tòfa dıl)
Spoken in: Russia 
Region: Irkutsk
Total speakers: ~30
Language family: Altaic
 Turkic
  Northern
   Tofa
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: tyv
ISO 639-3: kim

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 (), 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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