Shor language
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The Shor language (
endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
: шор тили, тадар тили) is a
Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...
spoken by about 2,800 people in a region called Mountain Shoriya, in the Kemerovo Province in Southwest
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
, although the entire Shor population in this area is over 12000 people. Presently, not all ethnic Shors speak Shor and the language suffered a decline from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. During this period the Shor language was neither written nor taught in schools. However, since the 1980s and 1990s there has been a Shor language revival. The language is now taught at the
Novokuznetsk Novokuznetsk ( rus, Новокузнецк, p=nəvəkʊzˈnʲɛt͡sk; literally: "new smith's", cjs, Аба-тура, ''Aba-tura'') is a city in Kemerovo Oblast (Kuzbass) in south-western Siberia, Russia. It is the second largest city in the obla ...
branch of the
Kemerovo State University The Kemerovo State University (russian: Ке́меровский госуда́рственный университе́т) (KemSU) was established in 1973 as a successor to Kemerovo Pedagogical Institute. It is a leading educational and scienti ...
. Like other
Siberian Turkic languages The Siberian Turkic or Northeastern Common Turkic languages, are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family. The following table is based upon the classification scheme presented by Lars Johanson (1998). Classification Alexander Vovin (2017) n ...
, Shor has borrowed many roots from Mongolian, as well as words from
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
. The two main dialects are Mrassu and Kondoma, named after the rivers in whose valleys they are spoken. From the point of view of classification of Turkic languages, these dialects belong to different branches of Turkic: According to the reflexes of the Proto-Turkic (PT) intervocalic -d- in modern languages (compare PT *adak, in modern Turkic languages meaning 'foot' or 'leg'), the Mrassu dialect is a -z- variety: azaq, the Kondoma dialect is a -y- variety: ayaq. This feature normally distinguishes different branches of Turkic which means that the Shor language has formed from different Turkic sources. Each Shor dialect has subdialectal varieties. The Upper-Mrassu and the Upper-Kondoma varieties have developed numerous close features in the course of close contacts between their speakers in the upper reaches of the Kondoma and Mrassu rivers. The Mrassu dialect served as a basis for literary Shor language both in the 1930s and in the 1980s when the written form of the Shor language was revitalized after a break (of almost 50 years) in its written history. However, the Kondoma dialect norms are also largely accepted. Shor was first written with a
Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...
alphabet introduced by
Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
in the middle of the 19th century. After a number of changes, the modern Shor alphabet is written in another modified Cyrillic alphabet. In 2005, to highlight the endangered status of the language, Gennady Kostochakov published a book of poems in Shor, entitled "I am the Last Shor Poet". In 2017, a Shor translation of ''
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a ...
'' by Liubovʹ Arbaçakova was published.


Morphology and syntax


Pronouns

Shor has seven personal pronouns:


Phonology


Vowels


Consonants


Writing system


History

Before the 19th century the Shor language had remained unwritten; in the 1870s Orthodox missionaries made the first effort to create a Cyrillic Shor alphabet. In spite of all the efforts by the missionaries, the percentage of literacy among the native population increased very slowly — by the beginning of the 20th century they constituted only about 1% of the Shors. The Shor written language had its 'golden age' in the 1920s. In 1927, a second attempt was made to create a Shor alphabet based on Cyrillic. In 1932-1933, Fedor Cispijakov wrote and published a new primer based on the Latin alphabet. This however considerably complicated the process of learning; thus in 1938, the same author together with Georgij Babuskin created a new variant of the primer based on the Cyrillic alphabet, of which several editions have been published since then.


Missionary alphabet

The first book written in the Shor language was published in 1885. It used a modified
Russian alphabet The Russian alphabet (russian: ру́сский алфави́т, russkiy alfavit, , label=none, or russian: ру́сская а́збука, russkaya azbuka, label=none, more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. I ...
(excluding Ё ё, Ф ф, Щ щ, and Ѣ ѣ) with additional letters Ј ј, Ҥ ҥ, Ӧ ӧ, and Ӱ ӱ. In 1927 an official alphabet was adopted, being the Russian alphabet (excluding Ё ё and ъ) with additional letters Ј ј, Ҥ ҥ, Ӧ ӧ, and Ӱ ӱ.


Latin alphabet

A Latin alphabet for the Shor language was introduced in 1930: A a, B в, C c, D d, Ə ə, F f, G g, Ƣ ƣ, I i, J j, K k, Q q, M m, N n, Ꞑ ꞑ, O o, Ө ө, P p, R r, S s, T t, U u, V v, Ş ş, Z z, Ƶ ƶ, L l, Ь ь, Y y, Į į. The order of the letters was later changed to correspond with alphabets for other languages in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, the letter Ә ә was replaced with E e, and the letter Į į was dropped.


Modern alphabet

In 1938 the Latin alphabet was replaced with a Cyrillic one. It used the Russian alphabet with additional letters Ӧ ӧ, Ӱ ӱ, and Нъ нъ. After reforms in 1980 it reached its present form: А а, Б б, В в, Г г, Ғ ғ, Д д, Е е, Ё ё, Ж ж, З з, И и, Й й, К к, Қ қ, Л л, М м, Н н, Ң ң, О о, Ӧ ӧ, П п, Р р, С с, Т т, У у, Ӱ ӱ, Ф ф, Х х, Ц ц, Ч ч, Ш ш, Щ щ, Ъ ъ, Ы ы, Ь ь, Э э, Ю ю, Я я.


Comparison of Shor alphabets


References


Further reading

* Roos, Marti, Hans Nugteren, and Zinaida Waibel. Khakas and Shor proverbs and proverbial sayings. ''Exploring the Eastern Frontiers of Turkic'', ed. by Marcel Erdal and Irina Nevskaya, pp. 60 (2006): 157-192. (Turcologica 60.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. * Донидзе Г. И. Шорский язык / Языки мира. Тюркские языки. — М., 1997.


External links


Endangered Languages of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia: The Shor language

The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire: The Shors


{{DEFAULTSORT:Shor Language Agglutinative languages Siberian Turkic languages Languages of Russia Turkic languages