Sart Kalmyk (Oirat: Сарт хальмг келн, romanized: Sart xalmg keln) is an endangered and underdocumented Central Mongolic Oirat language variety spoken by the Sart Kalmyks in Ak-Suu District, Issyk-Kul Region, Kyrgyzstan.
| Sart Kalmyk | |
|---|---|
| Сарт хальмг келн Sart xalmg keln | |
| Native to | Kyrgyzstan |
| Region | Issyk-Kul |
| Ethnicity | ~12,000 Sart Kalmyks[1] |
| Official status | |
Official language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | sart1247 |
History
editSart Kalmyk emerged as a distinct variety after its speakers separated from a larger Oirat-speaking community in today's Xinjiang around 1864 and moved to the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul. Since then, the language has been developing in isolation from other Mongolic varieties and in intense contact with Kyrgyz, a Turkic language. Recent research shows a significant influence of Kyrgyz morphology, phonology and lexicon on Sart Kalmyk.[2]
Language situation
editSart Kalmyk is a severely threatened language. Its domains of use are largely confined to informal communication between the elderly in rural areas. Virtually all speakers are trilingual, having a good command of Kyrgyz and Russian in addition to their ethnic language. Younger members of the ethnic community often speak little to no Sart Kalmyk.[3]
Script
editHistorically, Sart Kalmyk was written with the Clear script and, occasionally, a local version of the Arabic script. Both scripts have fallen out of use by the early 1940s. In 1934, a short-lived Latin alphabet-based orthography was introduced. Today, Sart Kalmyk is seldom used in writing, but when it is written, the Kalmyk version of Cyrillic is employed.[4]
References
edit- ^ "President of Mongolia received the Kalmyk citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic", President of Mongolia, 2012-04-08, archived from the original on 2016-12-06
- ^ Borlykova, Boskha; Menyaev, Badma (2020), "Morphological peculiarities of the Sart-Kalmyk language", Izvestia VGPU. Filologia (in Russian), 148 (5): 128–134
- ^ Borlykova, Boskha; Menyaev, Badma (2022), "Sart-Kalmyks of Kyrgyzstan: a Brief Ethnographic Essay", Nauchniy Dialog (in Russian), 11 (1): 362–278, doi:10.24224/2227-1295-2022-11-1-362-378, S2CID 246393195
- ^ Tenishev, Edkhyam (1976), "About the Language of Sart Kalmyks of Issyk-Kul" (PDF), Voprosy Jazykoznanija (in Russian), 1: 82–87