Telengit

I. Sociolinguistic data

1. Existing alternative names

Telengit til , Altai til . The self-name telenut/telenet goes back to the ancient ethnonym tele , common among the tribes inhabiting the Sayan-Altai.

The scholars of the 19 – early 20 ^th centuries divided the language of the Altai into two groups, the southern and the northern dialects. The southern group includes the Altai (Altai Kizhi) and Teleut dialects. It should be noted that the names Teleut and Telengit are both used in academic literature (both going back to the name telengut , which appeared in the 19th century), therefore, in the dialectal division the Altai language, the name “Telengit” does not appear.

In the academic works of the 19 – early 20 ^th centuries, the speakers of the Telengit dialect were not isolated linguistically, so there was no information about the specifics of their language. Vasily Radlov wrote: “The language of the Altaians and Dvoedans, throughout the entire region of their settlements, is absolutely the same; it is a purely Turkic dialect that has retained many ancient features, which is indisputable evidence that the Altaians had long ago split from the main body of the Turkic tribes dwelling in the south and have lived here in isolation among the Mongols for centuries” (1989: 127). It should be noted that the scholars of the period called Telengits the Altai people living along the river Chuya, and Teles/Tyolyos/Tolos/Tölös - those who lived on Lake Teletskoye and the Cholushman.

In the Soviet period and currently, linguists have distinguished the Telengit dialect, which belongs to the southern group of dialects of the Altai language. In 2000, Telengits were classified as a small-numbered people of the Russian Federation, and Telengit was recognized as an independent language. However, the legislative recognition has not yet changed the prevalent academic attitude towards it being a dialect of the Altai language.

2. General characteristics

2.1. Number of native speakers and the corresponding ethnic group

Number of native speakers: 3712. Number of speakers in ethnic settlements: 3712. Total number (according to the census of 2010): 3712 people.

According to the administrative data for the settlements of the Ulagan and Kosh-Agach districts of the Altai Republic, the number of Telengits is at least 15 thousand people. Many Telengits call themselves Altaians, some prefer “Altaian Telengits”. The residents of the villages of Balykcha 

and Kyoyo of the Ulagan district call themselves Tyolyos, Telengits and Altaians.

2.2. Age of speakers.

Telengit is currently spoken by all generations.

2.3. Sociolinguistic characteristics

2.3.1. General characteristics

Telengit enjoys a high level of vitality, mainly in the sphere of everyday communication. It is preserved very well in everyday speech; all village communication is conducted in it, including children speaking it with each other. Adults also communicate with children in Telengit in a formal setting: in kindergarten and, partly, at school. At festivals and performances, children and teenagers fluently speak and sing in their native language.

At the moment, the situation with the transmission of Telengit between generations seems to be more successful than that with the Altai language itself. Currently, the Altai literary language is fluently spoken by the older generation, but the children, even those who know the language, communicate almost exclusively in Russian. Intergenerational communication is carried out but passively: the older people address the children in Altai, who answer in Russian. The children address the adults in Russian, who answer in Russian, too. This tendency is not observed among Telengits, although recently, in the villages one can hear children speaking in Russian. Previously, Telengit schoolchildren had problems with the Russian language, but now all have a good command of both Russian and ethnic languages.

2.3.2. Level of the threat of extinction

4A Stable: a minority language for which transmission between generations is stable, ensured by a developed language infrastructure.

2.2.3. Use in various fields

2.4. Information about a writing system (if applicable)

Telengit is unwritten. The written medium is the literary Altai. There are many writers, poets, and performers among the Telengits; many fiction books have been published over the last decade, but all of them are written in Altai.

The Altai written language was created by missionaries of the Altai Spiritual Mission in the 1840s on the basis of the Teleut dialect, since representatives of the Teleuts had been the first to convert to Christianity. This language did not gain popularity in Altai and was used mainly for printing church books. Some pieces of secular literature (works by Mikhail Chevalkov) and linguistic treatises appeared, the largest being “Grammar of the Altai Language” (1869), compiled on the basis of the dialects of the Teleuts and Kalmaks (Altaians). It also described some features of the Kondoma and Chernev sub-dialects. Following the formation of the Oirot Autonomous region, the question of the literary language was revised, and instead of the Teleut dialect, which was spoken by an absolute minority of the population of the region, the Altai language of the central regions (Ongudaisky, Shebalinsky, Ust-Kansky), was used as the basis for the literary language as representing the tongue of the majority of population (Baskakov 1947: 223).

In 2016, Nadezhda Almadakova’s monograph “the Telengit language: essays on comparative phonetics and morphology” was published. The author focused on the description of the phonetics of the Telengit-Teles dialect of the Telengit language and proposed an 

alphabet for the Ulagan dialect with the additional graphemes ӷ, ӓ, қ, ғ, ԥ, representing the specific Telengit sounds. But this alphabet is not used by the Telengits, as they all prefer the alphabet of the literary Altai.

3. Geographical characteristics

3.1. Constituent entities of the Russian Federation with ethnic communities

The Altai Republic (Ulagansky and Kosh-Agachsky districts)

3.2. Total number of native settlements

22

3.3. List of main native settlements (according to the census of 2010).

Telengits live in 9 settlements of the Kosh-Agachsky district of the Altai Republic (Kokorya, Telengit-Sortogoy, Kosh-Agach, Ortolyk, Mukhor-Tarkhata, Beltir, Chagan-Uzun, Kurai, Dzhazator) and in 13 settlements of the Ulagansky district of the Altai Republic (Saratan, Ulagan, Chibit, Chibilya, Balyktyyul, Kara-Kudyur, Pasparta, Cholushman, Koo, Yazula, Kok-Pash, Bele, Aktash).

4. Historical dynamics

According to the official data for the settlements of the Ulagansky and Kosh-Agachsky districts, the number of Telengits is at least 15 thousand (see the table in section 3.3). They all speak Telengit. Among the Telengits of the Ulagansky region, bilingualism 

(Russian-Telengit) is common, and the Telengits of the Kosh-Agachsky region can speak three languages (Telengit-Russian-Kazakh).

In Soviet and Russian ethnographic literature, Telengits were considered a subethnic group within the Altaians and counted as the Altaians in the censuses of 1959, 1979, 1989.

II. Linguistic data.

1. Position in the genealogy of the world's languages.

Altai macrofamily > Turkic family > Altai group > Southern Altai subgroup

Telengit is considered one of the southern dialects of the Altai language. Southern and northern dialects of Altai (according to the researchers of the 19–20th centuries) belong to different groups: the dialects of the Chern Tatars (Tubalars), Kumandins and Lebedin Chalkans make up the northern group, Altai (Altai-Kizhi), Teleut and Telengit - the southern. According to the classification of Nikolai Baskakov, the southern dialects of Altai are part of the Kyrgyz-Kypchak subgroup of the Kipchak group of the Eastern Hunnic branch of Turkic languages, the Northern one belonging to the Khakass subgroup of the Uyghur-Oghuz group of the same branch.

2. Dialectal situation

According to the classification of Nikolai Baskakov, the Telengit dialect is divided into two sub-dialects: 1) Telengit-Teles (Tölös) sub-dialect, whose speakers live along the rivers Cholushman, Bashkus and the southern shore of Lake Teletskoye (self-name Telengit and Teles ( Tölös ), Russian name Teles ( Tölös ); area - Ulagansky destrict), and 2) Chuy sub-dialect, whose speakers live along the Chuy River (self-name Chuy-Kizhi, Russian names: Chuytsy, Chuy Kalmyks, Dvoedantsy; area - Kosh-Agachsky district) (Baskakov, 1966: 506; Dialects 2010: 89–90). These sub-dialects are also called Ulagan and Kosh-Agach , respectively.

Nadezhda Almadakova identifies the following six sub-dialects for the Ulagan dialect: 1) Balyktyyul, represented by the language of the inhabitants of the villages of Balyktyyul, Pasparta; 2) Kara-Kudyur, which is common in the village of Kara-Kudyur; 3) Chibilya, spoken in the village of Chibilya; 4) Saratan-Yazula, spoken in the villages of Saratan and Yazula; 5) Cholushman, localized in the villages of Kӧӧ and Balykcha; 6) Chibit, the language of the inhabitants of the village of Chibit.

Ayona Tazranova divides the Saratan-Yazula sub-dialect into Saratan and Yazula. The Cholushman sub-dialect stands out from the rest, having common phonetic features with Tubalar, the result of linguistic contact with this people.

The sub-dialects of the Ulagansky and Kosh-Agachsky districts are mutually intelligible, although there are certain phonetic and lexical significant differences. These differences can be explained by the contacts of the Ulagan Telengits with the Tubalars, the Ulagan and Kosh-Agach Telengits with the Tuvans, and the Kosh-Agach Telengits with the Kazakhs.

3. Brief history of academic research of the language

Telengit has yet to be comprehensively described; it is the least studied language compared to the other languages of the Altai group. The first scholarly mention of the language of the “Chulyshman Teleuts” appeared in the “Grammar of the Altai language,” compiled by the Altai Mission in 1869. Some information can be found in the ethnographic works of Vasily Verbitsky (1886) and Vasily Radlov (1887). Section 3 of Grigory Potanin’s “Essays on North-Western Mongolia” (1883) contains thematic groups of words collected from the ethnic groups of the Mountain Altai Turki: the Altaians from the left bank of the Katun, the Telengits from the Chuy and the Teles from the Bashkaus and Chulyshman rivers.

During the Soviet period, few works about Telengit were published. There were some articles by Nadezhda Kuchigasheva and Georgy Babushkin (1961, 1966), describing phonetics, vowel harmony, noun declension, and touching on some lexical and semantic topics. In 2006, “Dictionary of the dialects of the Kosh-Agachsky and Ulagansky regions” was compiled, containing the vocabulary of the Telengit dialect of various thematic groups.

Recently, the description of the Telengit language has been mainly carried out by the native Telengit scholars: Ulagan is studied by Nadezhda Almadakova and Arunai Tazranova; Chuy by Aina Darydzhy (Bidinova). They have written a number of articles and monographs on phonetics, morphology and vocabulary of these dialects. The phonetics of the Ulagan dialect is studied in the experimental phonetic laboratory at the Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk (Iraida Selyutina and Albina Dobrinina 2017, 2018). The works of Natalya Kondratyeva “Cattle spells of the Telengits” (1996) and Kuzelesh Yadanova “Non-fairytale prose of the Telengits” (2006) are dedicated to the study of Telengit folklore. The toponymy of the Kosh-Agachsky and Ulagansky districts is reflected in the works of Klarissa Samtakova (2008) and Nadezhda Sanina (2012). The history of Telengits is described in “Put’ Telengitov” (Yntaev, Yadagaev 2015).

4. Language characteristics from a typological and areal perspective

Telengit exhibits fundamental features similar to all the Turkic languages of southern Siberia, not particularly standing out against their background. 

Lexically, these languages have fewer Iranian and Arabic borrowings, and more Mongolian words than the Turkic languages of other regions. The morphology of the Turkic languages is characterized by a consistent agglutination: all affixes appear only in the post-root position, in descending order of lexicality and increasing order of grammaticality, for example, et-kӓn-im-dӓng 'because of what I did' ( to do , past tense; my , ablative). In the syntax, the dependent words are consistently located to the left of the principal ones.

The neutral word order in a simple sentence assumes the verb to be in the final position, and the subject in the initial: Ozogy ulus et-ti tun-de kainad-ar ‘People used to cook meat at night' ( former , people; meat , accusative; night , locative; cook , past tense). Telengit exhibits a case system typical of the Turkic languages of southern Siberia: the presence of an accusative case to mark a (usually animated or possessive) direct object; a genitive case, expressing belonging; multifunctionality of the dative and ablative cases; relatively small proportion of locative cases (with an abundance of locative postpositions).

The verbal system has a large number of participial forms, which are widely used not only in the attributive function, but also in the role of finite and dependent predicates. Analytical constructions with participial forms are often grammatized in the Turkic languages of Siberia, forming indicators of aspect, tense and modality. A significant grammatical category of the Telengit language, as in all Turkic languages, is the category of possession, which operates both within the noun and the verb. In a noun, the possessive affixes denote the person and number of the owner of a given object or attribute: bala-m ‘child-mine’, ada-ng ‘father-yours’; ail-y ‘house-his’; bal-dar-us 'child, plural; ours' (= ‘our children’), etc. In verbs with participial indicators, these affixes agree the verb with the subject in person and number: Sening oora-an-yng-ang ( -gan-yng-nang ) 'Because you got sick' ( get sick , past tense, yours , ablative case).