Chelkan (also Chalkan, Chalqandu) is a
Turkic language
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 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 West Asia. The Turkic langua ...
spoken in the
Altai Republic
The Altai Republic, also known as the Gorno-Altai Republic, is a republic of Russia located in southern Siberia. The republic borders Kemerovo Oblast to the north, Khakassia to the northeast, Tuva to the east, Altai Krai to the west, as well ...
in
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
by 648
Chelkans.
The Chelkans
The Chelkans are sometimes called "Lebeds" (, ), of the name of the
river
A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...
which runs through the Altai Republic, or Qu'Kiji. In the
2002 Russian census, their population rose to 855 people.
Classification
Chelkan is classified in the
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). All languages of the branch combined have ...
. It is considered to be a dialect of
Northern Altai. The Chelkan, aside from knowing Chelkan, can also understand
Tubalar and
Kumandin, which comprise the Northern Altai language.
Phonology
Consonants
The word-final guttural phonemes of Chelkan are more stable then in literary Altai, for example Chelkan versus literary 'mountain'.
Vowels
Chelkan has vowel harmony.
Orthography
In 2008, an alphabet was created for the Chelkan language. However, only one textbook has been published, "" (Animals and Birds of Primeval Taiga), in 2004.
In 2017-18, the alphabet was modified with the addition of the letter
Њ њ.
Notes and references
Sources
* (ru) Баскаков, Н.A., ''Диалект чернёвых татар (туба-кижи)'', Северные диалекты алтаиского (ойротского) языка, 2 volumes, Moscou, Nauka, 1965–1966.
External links
* , which is incorrect about Northern Altai dialects, for which it gives names of southern dialects as alternative names.
Siberian Turkic languages
Indigenous languages of Siberia
{{Turk-lang-stub