Kalmouk

The kalmouk (or kalmyk ; in Russian калмыцкийязык) is a Mongolian language near to the oïrat. Like all the Mongolian languages, it is a agglutinant Langue. The kalmouk is the official language of the Republic of Kalmoukie, pertaining to the Fédération of Russia (: 175000 speakers), and is still of use in certain areas of China (: 140000) and of Mongolia (: 200000).

History

The kalmouk in common has some elements with the Langues ouraliennes and the Ouïghour, being at the origin the common language of the Oïrats, a union of four tribes kalmoukes which assimilated tribes ougriennes and Turkish during their expansion towards the west.

The literary tradition of Kalmouks goes back to the XIe century, whereas the writing Ouïghour was of use. The official alphabet kalmouk, called ( Writing Claire ), was created with the XVIIe century by a Buddhist monk named Zaya Pandit. The kalmouk is written since 1923 in Cyrillic alphabet, in spite of an interruption of 1931 with 1938 during which one used the Latin alphabet.

At the time Soviet, during which Kalmouks suffered from the Russian civil war and the ethnic policy of purification carried out by Stalin, the Russian became the first official language of Kalmoukie. Between 1963 and 1993, teaching in language kalmouke was stopped, which explains why much Kalmouks does not speak any more their original language.

The authorities of Kalmoukie encourage from now on the training of the language; television emits in Russian and kalmouk, in a proportion of approximately 50%-50%.

In China and Mongolia

Alive Kalmouks in the west of the China continue to use the old writing kalmouke. With Ouroumtsi appear some newspapers and reviews in kalmouk, and there exist radio programs and of television in this language.

In Mongolia, the kalmouk did not obtain the statute of Official language and is used only in the everyday life, being supplanted by the Mongolian language and writing .

Characteristics

The kalmouk spoken in Kalmoukie is strongly influenced by the Russian . One preserves documents in this language going up at the XVIIe century. In addition to the tendency to place the verb at the end of the sentence, the kalmouk is characterized by:

differentiation between Vowel S long and short, and the safeguarding of the vocalic Harmony
the existence of 10 Case for the variation of the Name
the absence of the category of the kind
the absence of variation of the Adjectival S
verbal categories of Aspect, voice, mode, time, nobody and number
of the loans to the Greek , the Arab , the Sanskrit, the Sogdien, the Ouïghour and with the Tibetan.

The kalmouk presents some phonetic differences with the Mongolian khalkha:

with the strong Consonne S Occlusives of Mongolian corresponds of the weak consonants in kalmouk
in front of occlusive weak the vowel shortens
the labial vowels are palatalized: U I ö.

Alphabet

Latin alphabet (1930-1938)

Current Cyrillic alphabet

The kalmouk currently uses an adapted version of the Cyrillic alphabet:

See too

the kalmouk on ethnologue.com

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