Khamnigan is a Mongolic language spoken east of

Lake Baikal Lake Baikal (, russian: Oзеро Байкал, Ozero Baykal ); mn, Байгал нуур, Baigal nuur) is a rift lake in Russia. It is situated in southern Siberia, between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the ...

. The Khamnigan people, called the ''Horse Tungus'' or ''Steppe Tungus'', are natively bilingual, speaking both a Mongolic and a Tungusic language, which are inherited from their mixed ancestry. This bilingualism appears to be several centuries old. Their Tungusic language is Evenki (''Khamnigan'' is the Mongol name for the Evenki), while Khamnigan Mongol is a distinct Mongolic language, not a dialect of Mongol or Buryat as traditionally classified in Mongolia or Russia. Mongol is the dominant language; the two dialects of Evenki are only used by part of the population, and then at home. The language has declined in Russia, with few speakers left, but both Khamnigan Mongol and Evenki bilingualism remain vigorous in China. Khamnigan Evenki, though not a distinct language from other Evenki, is heavily influenced by Mongol, especially in vocabulary. Khamnigan Mongol, on the other hand, is the most conservative Mongolic language, little different from Middle Mongolian, though the system of

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...

has been disrupted. There is little influence from Evenki: although Khamnigan Evenki has a grammatical plural, for example, Khamnigan Mongol does not. Khamnigan in Mongolia has strongly assimilated to Khalkha Mongolian, and even though some Buryat-like and idiosyncratic features are to be found (e.g. the very particular mood system lacking in Khamnigan in China), it overall resembles a dialect of Khalkha, and it has lost its particular Tungusic lexicon.cf. Yu, Wonsoo. 2011. A Study of the Mongol Khamnigan spoken in Northeastern Mongolia. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.

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Summary of Khamnigan
in the ''

World Atlas of Language Structures The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural ( phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-R ...

'' {{Languages of China Central Mongolic languages Mongolic languages Languages of China Languages of Russia Languages of Mongolia Mixed languages

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