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Darkhad (also "Darkhat") is a dialect in-between Central Mongolian and Oirat still variously seen as closer to Oirat or as a dialect of
Khalkha Mongolian The Khalkha dialect ( mn, Халх аялгуу / / , ) is a dialect of central Mongolic widely spoken in Mongolia. According to some classifications, the Khalkha dialect includes Southern Mongolian varieties such as ''Shiliin gol'', ''Ulaanch ...
with some Oirat features. However, it seems to have substantially assimilated to the Khalkha dialect since it first was described by Sanžeev, and some classificational differences seem to be due to what historical (or even ideal) state got classified. ''
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...
'' reports a population of without providing a date. Speakers live mainly in the west of
Lake Khövsgöl Lake Khövsgöl is the largest freshwater lake in Mongolia by volume and second largest by area. It is located near the northern border of Mongolia, about 200 km (124 mi) west of the southern end of Lake Baikal. It is nicknamed the "Younger si ...
in the sums
Bayanzürkh Bayanzürkh (, ''rich heart'') is one of nine Düüregs (districts) of the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. It is subdivided into 20 Khoroos (subdistricts). It is the largest district in the capital and lies in the southeast of the city. It was ...
, Ulaan-Uul and Rinchinlkhümbe in the Khövsgöl Province of
Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million ...
.


Phonetics and phonology

In contrast to Oirat, it has and and a
diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
ized equivalent of *ai. However,
monophthong A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
ized
reflexes In biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action and nearly instantaneous response to a stimulus. Reflexes are found with varying levels of complexity in organisms with a nervous system. A reflex occurs ...
of *ai can be encountered and more so in older language material, so it can be assumed that due to Khalkha influence. Somewhat similar developments can be observed for other vowels, but as at least and can get palatalized, it is problematic whether palatalized consonants or fronted vowels have to be considered as
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s. It patterns with the Oirat dialects of the Mongolian state in that it retains *ŋn and sometimes has *b > . It doesn't have the Khalkh and in non-first
syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...
s, as these
merged Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
with and .


Verbal system

Person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
s as in Oirat or Buryat are getting lost, but used to be present. There are both voluntatives (irrespective of number) in –ja/-ji as in Khalkha and –su for first person singular as in Oirat and Buryat, e.g. ‘let’s burn it’ and 'I shall enter', but the latter form is rare. The benedictive –kti is actively used as holds for Buryat, e.g. ‘Please, come with us’. Next to the normal concessive in –g/-k ‘s/he may’, there is also a concessive - that marks an order to a third person. The other, fairly unremarkable modal verbal
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
es are the imperative, prescriptive, optative and dubitative. The inventory of indicative finite verbal suffixes contains the usual reflexes of Written Mongolian ⟨-nam⟩, ⟨-luγ-a⟩, ⟨-ǰuqui⟩ and ⟨-ba⟩, the last one being rare as usual. There is a fifth suffix, (possibly from ⟨-ǰu orkiǰuqui⟩), probably expressing some kind of perfect aspect meaning, that is peculiar to Darkhad, e.g. ‘has sent’. The
participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
s are the same as in Common Mongolic. However, a thorough analysis of the function of these items in contrast to each other has not been conducted. The
converb In theoretical linguistics, a converb (abbreviated ) is a nonfinite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination: notions like 'when', 'because', 'after' and 'while'. Other terms that have been used to refer to converbs include ''adver ...
s are not very particular, but the earliest texts of Darkhad still have a conditional (as in Buryat and
Middle Mongolian Middle Mongol or Middle Mongolian, was a Mongolic koiné language spoken in the Mongol Empire. Originating from Genghis Khan's home region of Northeastern Mongolia, it diversified into several Mongolic languages after the collapse of the empire ...
) next to . Furthermore, it used to be possible to negative them with reflexes of ⟨ügei⟩ as in Buryat. Instead of ⟨-maγča⟩ ‘as soon as’, ⟨-nsar⟩ is used.


Nominal system

The
case system A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nom ...
is the same as in Khalkha, and Oirat
plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...
s like –mud are absent. The
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...
s are the same as Khalkha, but a paradigm of the first person plural exclusive without
nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...
is attested for the old stages of Darkhat (as would hold for KhalkhaPoppe 1951: 71 in the 1930s and still holds for Oirat).


See also

*
Darkhads The Darkhad, Darqads,. Dalhut, or Darhut ( Mongolian for "Untouchables", "Protected Ones", or "Workmen of Darkhan"; Chinese: 达尔扈特, pinyin: Dá'ěrhùtè) are a subgroup of Mongol people living mainly in northern Mongolia, in the Bayanz� ...


References


Citations


Bibliography

* Gáspár, Csaba. 2006. ''Darkhat''. München: Lincom. * Poppe, Nicholas. 1951. ''Khalkha-mongolische Grammatik''. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. * Rinchen, Byambyn (ed.) 1979. ''Mongol ard ulsyn ugsaatny sudlal helnij shinjleliin atlas''. Ulaanbaatar: ŠUA. * Sanjaa, J. and D. Tuyaa. 2001. Darhad ayalguuny urt egshgiig avialbaryn tövshind sudalsan n’. In: ''Mongol hel shinjlel 4'': 33-50. * Sanžeev, G. D. 1931. ''Darhatskij govor i fol’klor''. Leningrad. * Svantesson, Jan-Olof, Anna Tsendina, Anastasia Karlsson, Vivan Franzén. 2005. ''The Phonology of Mongolian''. New York: Oxford University Press. * Tuyaa, D. and D. Tuul. 2008. ''Darhad aman ayalguuny tovch tol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulaanbaatar hevlel. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Darkhad Dialect Languages of Mongolia Khövsgöl Province Mongolic languages