Tuvan language

Tuvan; Тыва дыл Tyva dyl
Spoken in:	Russia, Mongolia, China
Region:	Tuva
Total speakers:	200,000
Language family:	Altaic (controversial); Turkic; Northeastern (Siberian); Tuvan
Official status
Official language in:	Tuva (federal subject of Russia)
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	tyv
ISO 639-3:	tyv
	Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

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Tuvan (Tuvan: Тыва дыл Tyva dyl), also known as Tuvinian, Tyvan, or Tuvin, is one of the Turkic languages. It is spoken by around 200,000 people in the Republic of Tuva in south-central Siberia in Russia. The language borrows a great number of roots from the Mongolian language and more recently from the Russian language. There are small diaspora groups of Tuvan people that speak distinct dialects of Tuvan in the People's Republic of China and in Mongolia.

[edit] Classification

Tuvan is linguistically classified as a Northeastern or Siberian Turkic language, closely related to several other Siberian Turkic languages including Khakas and Altai languages.

[edit] Dialects

Tuvan, as spoken in Tuva, is divided into four dialect groups. These are Western, Central, Northeastern, and Southeastern.

[edit] Central

The Central dialect forms the basis of the literary language and includes Ovyur and Bii-Khem subdialects.

[edit] Western

The Western dialect can be found spoken mostly around the upper course of the Khemchik river. It is influenced by interaction with the Altai language.

[edit] Northeastern

The Northeastern dialect, also known as the Todzhi dialect, is spoken around the upper course of the Bii-Khem river. The speakers of this dialect utilize nasalization. It contains a large vocabulary related to hunting and reindeer breeding not found in the other dialects.

[edit] Southeastern

The Southeastern dialect shows the most influence from Mongolian.

[edit] Other

Other dialects include the language spoken by the Dzungar Tuvans, the Tsengel Tuvans, and the Dukha, but these are little studied.

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Consonants

Tuvan has 19 native consonant phonemes. Additionally, /f/ and /ʦ/ are found in some Russian loanwords. The distinction between initial bilabial and alveolar stops is based on aspiration for most speakers and voicing for others.

Consonant phonemes of Tuvan
	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Stop	pʰ	p	tʰ	t	ʧ		k	ɡ
Nasal	m		n				ŋ
Fricative			s	z	ʃ	ʒ	x
Tap/Flap			ɾ
Lateral Approximant			l
Approximant	ʋ				j

[edit] Vowels

Vowels in Tuvan exist in three varieties: short, long and short with low pitch. Tuvan long vowels have a duration that is at least (and often more than) twice as long as that of short vowels. Contrastive low pitch may occur on short vowels, and when it does, it causes them to increase in duration by at least one-half. When using low pitch, Tuvan speakers employ a pitch that is at the very low end of their modal voice pitch. For some speakers, it is even lower and using what is phonetically known as creaky voice. When a vowel in a monosyllabic word has low pitch, speakers apply low pitch only to the first half of that vowel (e.g., [àt] 'horse'). This is followed by a noticeable pitch rise, as the speaker returns to modal pitch in the second half of the vowel. The acoustic impression is similar to that of a rising tone (e.g., the rising pitch contour of the Mandarin second tone, although the Tuvan pitch begins much lower.) However, Tuvan is considered a pitch accent language with contrastive low pitch instead of a tonal language. When the low pitch vowel occurs in a multi-syllabic word, there is no rising pitch contour or lengthening effect (e.g., [àdɯ] 'his/her/its horse'). These low pitch vowels were previously referred to in the literature as either kargyraa or pharyngealized vowels. Phonetic studies have demonstrated that the defining characteristic of these vowels is low pitch. See Harrison 2001 for a phonetic and acoustic study of Tuvan low pitch vowels.

Vowel phonemes of Tuvan
		Short		Long		Low Pitch
		High	Low	High	Low	High	Low
Front	Unrounded	i	e	iː	eː	ì	è
Front	Rounded	y	ø	yː	øː	ỳ	ø̀
Back	Unrounded	ɯ	a	ɯː	aː	à	ɯ̀
Back	Rounded	u	o	uː	oː	ù	ò

Vowels may also be nasalized, in the environment of nasal consonants, but nasalization is non-contrastive.

[edit] Vowel Harmony

Tuvan has two systems of vowel harmony which strictly govern the distribution of vowels within words and suffixes. Backness harmony or what is sometimes called 'palatal' harmony requries all vowels within a word to be either back or front. Rounding harmony or what is sometimes called 'labial' harmony requires a vowel to be rounded if it is a high vowel and it appears in a syllable immediately following a rounded vowel. Low rounded vowels [ø] [o] are restricted to the first syllable of a word, and a vowel in a non-initial syllable may only be rounded if it meets the conditions of rounding harmony (it must both be a high vowel [y] [u] and be preceded by a rounded vowel). See Harrison 2001 for a detailed description of Tuvan vowel harmony systems.

[edit] Grammar

[edit] Morphology

Tuvan builds morphologically complex words by adding suffixes. For example [teve] is 'camel', [teve-ler] (hyphens indicate morpheme boundaries) is 'camels', [teve-ler-im] is 'my camels', [teve-ler-im-den] is 'from my camels'.

Tuvan marks nouns with six cases: genitive, accusative, dative, ablative, locative, and allative. Each case suffix has a rich variety of uses and meanings, only the most basic uses and meanings are shown here.

Teve	[teve]	Nominative case	'camel' (no suffix)
Teve + /-NIŋ/	[teveniŋ]	Genitive case	'of the camel' (the [ŋ] phonetic symbol is pronounced as English 'ng' in 'sing')
Teve + /-NI/	[teveni]	Accusative case	'the camel' (definite meaning, direct object of verb, as in "I saw THE camel.")
Teve + /-KA/	[tevege]	Dative case	'for the camel' or 'at the camel' (in the past tense)
Teve + /-DAn/	[teveden]	Ablative case	'from the camel' or 'than a/the camel' (as in "taller than a/the camel")
Teve + /-DA/	[tevede]	Locative case	'at the camel' or 'in the camel' (also used to show possession in some contexts)
Teve + /-Je/	[teveʒe]	Allative case	'to(wards) the camel' (the [ʒ] phonetic symbol is pronounced as the 's' in English 'pleasure')
Teve + /-DIvA/	[tevedive]	Allative case	'to(wards) the camel' (this is an obsolete or dialectical version of this case)

Verbs in Tuvan take a number of endings to mark tense, mood, and aspect. Auxiliary verbs are also used to modify the verb. For a detailed scholarly study of auxiliary verbs in Tuvan and related languages, see Anderson 2004.

[edit] Syntax

Tuvan employs SOV word order. For example [teve sigen tʃipken] (camel hay eat-PAST) "The camel ate the hay"

[edit] Vocabulary

Tuvan vocabulary is largely Turkic in origin but marked by a large number of Mongolian loanwords. The language has also borrowed several Mongolian suffixes. In addition, there exist Ketic and Samoyedic substrata.

[edit] Writing system

[edit] Latin-based

The original Tuvan writing system was a Latin-based alphabet devised in 1930 by a Tuvan Buddhist monk, Mongush Lopsang-Chinmit. Prior to it, all writing was in the Mongolian language. A few books and newspapers, including primers intended to teach adults to read, were printed using this writing system. Lopsang-Chinmit was later executed in Stalinist purges on December 31, 1941.^[1]

A B C D E F G Ƣ I J K L M N Ņ O Ɵ P R S Ş T U V X Y Z Ƶ Ь

a в c d e f g ƣ i j k l m n ņ o ө p r s ş t u v x y z ƶ ь

Example: Pirgi tьвa dьldьņ yƶykteri (бирги тыва дылдың үжүктери) - First Tuvan language alphabet

By September 1943, this Latin-based alphabet was replaced by a Cyrillic-based one, which is still in use to the present day. In the post-Soviet era, Tuvan and other scholars have taken a renewed interest in the history of Tuvan letters.

[edit] Cyrillic-based

The current Tuvan alphabet is modified version of the Russian alphabet, with three additional letters: ң (Latin "ng" or International Phonetic Alphabet [ŋ]), Өө (Latin "ö", IPA: [ø]), Үү (Latin "ü", IPA [y]). The sequence of the alphabet follows Russian exactly, with ң located after Russian Н, Ө after О, and Ү after У.

А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З И Й К Л М Н Ң О Ө П Р С Т У Ү Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я

а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н ң о ө п р с т у ү ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

The letters Е and Э are used in a special way. Э is used for the short /e/ sound at the beginning of words while Е is used for the same sound in the middle and at the end of words. Е is used at the beginning of words, mostly of Russian origin, to reflect the standard Russian pronunciation of that letter, /je/. Additionally, ЭЭ is used in the middle and at the end of words for the long /e/ sound.

[edit] Transliteration

There is no official transliteration standard for transforming the Cyrillic-based Tuvan alphabet into Latin. Common schemes in use by various media sources rely upon international standards for transliterating other Cyrillic languages such as Russian while scholars of Turkology generally rely upon common Turkic-styled spelling.

[edit] Notes

^ Mänchen-Helfen, Otto (1992). Journey to Tuva. Los Angeles: Ethnographics Press University of Southern California, 133n. ISBN 187898604X.

[edit] References

Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2004). Auxiliary Verb Constructions in Altai-Sayan Turkic. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. ISBN 3447046368
Anderson, Gregory D. S.; Harrison, K. David (1999). Tyvan, Languages of the World/Materials 257. Lincom Europa. ISBN 3-89586-529-X.
Harrison, K. David. (2001). "Topics in the Phonology and Morphology of Tuvan," Doctoral Dissertation, Yale University. (OCLC catalog #51541112)
Harrison, K. David. (2005). "A Tuvan hero tale, with commentary, morphemic analysis and translation". Journal of the American Oriental Society 125(1)1-30. ISSN 0003-0279
Krueger, John R. (1977). in John R. Krueger: Tuvan Manual, Editor Emeritus: Thomas A. Sebeok, Uralic and Altaic Series Volume 126, Indiana University Publications. ISBN 0877502145.
Mänchen-Helfen, Otto [1931] (1992). Journey to Tuva, translated by Alan Leighton, Los Angeles: Ethnographic Press University of Southern California. ISBN 1-878986-04-X.
Mawkanuli, Talant. 1999. "The phonology and morphology of Jungar Tuva," Indiana University PhD dissertation.
Taube, Erika. (1978). Tuwinische Volksmärchen. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. LCCN: 83-853915
Taube, Erika. (1994). Skazki i predaniia altaiskikh tuvintsev. Moskva : Vostochnaia literatura. ISBN 5020172367

[edit] External links

[0] Mänchen-Helfen, Otto (1992). Journey to Tuva. Los Angeles: Ethnographics Press University of Southern California, 133n. ISBN 187898604X.

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