Tofa language
| Tofa | |
|---|---|
| Тоъфа дыл (Tòfa dıl) | |
| Native to | Russia |
| Region | Irkutsk Oblast |
| Ethnicity | Tofalar |
Native speakers | 93 (2010 census)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
kim |
| Glottolog |
kara1462[2] |
Tofa, also known as Tofalar or Karagas, is one of the Turkic languages spoken in Russia's Irkutsk Oblast by the Tofalars. It is a moribund language; in 2010 only 93 people were reported to speak it.[1]
Tofa is most-closely related to the Tuvan language[3] and forms a dialect continuum with it. Tuha, and Tsengel Tuvan 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").
Writing system
Tofa, although not often written, employs a 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 |
Tofa has letters that are not present in the Russian alphabet: Ғғ [ɣ], Әә [æ], Ii [iː], Ққ [q], Ңң [ŋ], Өө [œ], Үү [y], Һһ [h], and Ҷҷ [d͡ʒ]. Additionally, the letter ъ is sometimes used after a vowel to mark low tone, as in эът "meat".
Morphology and syntax
Pronouns
Tofa has six personal pronouns:
| Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tofa (transliteration) | English | Tofa (transliteration) | English |
| мен (men) | I | биъс (bìs) | we |
| сен (sen) | you (singular) | сілер (siler) | you (plural, formal) |
| оң (oŋ) | he/she/it | оларың (olarıŋ) | they |
Tofa also has the pronouns бо "this", тээ "that", кум "who", and чү "what".
References
- 1 2 Население Российской Федерации по владению языками [Population of the Russian Federation by languages used] (XLS) (in Russian).
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Karagas". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Lars Johanson (1998) "The History of Turkic". In Lars Johanson & Éva Ágnes Csató (eds) The Turkic Languages. London, New York: Routledge, 81-125. Classification of Turkic languages at Turkiclanguages.com
External links
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