Khalaj language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Khalaj | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Iran | |
| Region: | Northeast of Arak in Markazi Province of Iran | |
| Total speakers: | 42,107 (2000) | |
| Language family: | Altaic[1] (controversial) Turkic Arghu? Northern? Khalaj |
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | tut | |
| ISO/FDIS 639-3: | klj | |
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Khalaj is a language spoken primarily in Iran and Afghanistan. It belongs to the Turkic family of languages. There were approximately 42,000 speakers of this language as of 2000.
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[edit] Classification
Khalaj has traditionally been classified with Turkoman or Azerbaijani dialects, primarily because of its proximity to those languages. However, features such as preservation of three vowel lengths, preservation of word-initial Proto-Turkic *h, and lack of the sound change *d > y has led to a non-Oghuz classification of Khalaj. An example of these archaisms is present in the word hadaq, which has preserved the initial *h and medial *d. The equivalent form in nearby Oghuz dialects is ayaq. Because of the preservation of these archaic features, some scholars have speculated that the Khalaj are the descendants of the Arghu Turks.
[edit] Geographic Distribution
Khalaj is spoken mainly in Markazi Province in Iran. Doerfer cites the number of speakers as approximately 17,000 in 1968; the Ethnologue reports that the population of speakers grew to 42,107 by 2000.
[edit] Dialects
The main dialects of Khalaj are Northern and Southern. Within these dialect groupings, individual villages and groupings of speakers have distinct speech patterns.
[edit] Sounds
[edit] Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | g | q | ɢ | ||||
| Affricate | ʧ | ʤ | ||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | x | ɣ | h | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||
| Flap/Tap | r | |||||||||||
| Lateral | l | |||||||||||
| Approximant | j | |||||||||||
[edit] Vowels
Vowels in Khalaj occur in three lengths: long (qaːn "blood"), half-long (baˑʃ "head"), and short (hat "horse"). Additionally, some vowels are realized as falling diphthongs, as in quo̯l "arm, sleeve".
[edit] Grammar
[edit] Morphology
[edit] Nouns
Nouns in Khalaj may receive a plural marker or possessive marker. Cases in Khalaj include genitive, accusative, dative, locative, ablative, instrumental, and equative.
Forms of case suffixes change based on vowel harmony and the consonants they follow. Case endings also interact with possessive suffixes. A table of basic case endings is provided below:
| Case | Suffix |
|---|---|
| Nominative | - |
| Dative | -A, -KA |
| Accusative | -I, -NI |
| Locative | -čA |
| Ablative | -dA |
| Instrumental | -lAn, -lA, -nA |
| Equative | -vāra |
[edit] Verbs
Verbs in Khalaj are inflected for voice, tense, aspect, and negation. Verbs consist of long strings of morphemes in the following array:
- Stem + Voice + Negation + Tense/Aspect + Agreement
[edit] Syntax
Khalaj employs Subject Object Verb word order. Adjectives precede nouns.
[edit] Vocabulary
The core of Khalaj vocabulary is Turkic, but many words have been borrowed from Persian. Words from neighboring Turkic dialects, namely, Azerbaijani have also made their way into Khalaj.
[edit] Numbers
Khalaj numbers are Turkic in form, but some speakers replace the forms for "80" and "90" with Persian terms:
- 1 - biː
- 2 - ækki
- 3 - yʃ
- 4 - tœœrt
- 5 - bie̯ʃ
- 6 - alta
- 7 - jætti
- 8 - sækkiz
- 9 - toqquz
- 10 - uo̯n
- 20 - jiirmi
- 30 - hottuz
- 40 - qirq
- 50 - ælli
- 60 - altmiʃ
- 70 - yætmiʃ
- 80 - saʲsan (Turkic), haʃtaˑd (Persian)
- 90 - toqxsan (Turkic), navad (Persian)
- 100 - jyːz
- 1000 - min, miŋk
[edit] Examples
- Excerpt from Dorfer & Tezcan (1994) p. 158-9
| Translation | IPA | |
|---|---|---|
| Once, Mullah Nasreddin had a son. | biː kiniː Mollaː Nasræddiːniːn oɣlu vaːr-arti | |
| He said, "Oh Father, I want a wife." | haydɨ ki "æj baːba, mæn kiʃi ʃæjjorum" | |
| He said, "My dear, we have a cow; take this cow and sell it. Come, with the proceeds, we will buy you a wife! | haydɨ ki "bɒːba bizym biː sɨɣɨrɨmyz vaːr, jetib̥ bo sɨɣɨrɨ saːtɨ, naɣd ʃæji puˑlĩn, jæk biz sæ̃ kiʃi alduq |
[edit] References
- Doerfer, Gerhard (1971). Khalaj Materials. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
- Doerfer, Gerhard (1998). Grammatik des Chaladsch. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
- Doerfer, Gerhard & Tezcan, Semih (1994). Folklore-Texte der Chaladsch. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
- Johanson, Lars & Csató, Éva Ágnes (1998). The Turkic Languages. London: Routledge.
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| West Turkic | |||
| Bolgar | Bolgar* | Chuvash | Hunnic* | Khazar* | ||
| Chagatay | Aini2| Chagatay* | Ili Turki | Lop | Uyghur | Uzbek | ||
| Kypchak | Baraba | Bashkir | Crimean Tatar1 | Cuman* | Karachay-Balkar | Karaim | Karakalpak | Kazakh | Kipchak* | Krymchak | Kumyk | Nogay | Tatar | Urum1 | ||
| Oghuz | Afshar | Azerbaijani | Crimean Tatar1 | Gagauz | Khorasani Turkish | Ottoman Turkish* | Pecheneg* | Qashqai | Salar | Turkish | Turkmen | Urum1 | ||
| East Turkic | |||
| Khalaj | Khalaj | ||
| Kyrgyz-Kypchak | Altay | Kyrgyz | ||
| Uyghur | Chulym | Dolgan | Fuyü Gïrgïs | Khakas | Northern Altay | Shor | Tofa | Tuvan | Western Yugur | Sakha / Yakut | ||
| Old Turkic* | |||
| Notes: 1 Listed in more than one group, 2 Mixed language, * Extinct | |||
