Khoton is an extinct dialect of the

Uyghur language Uyghur or Uighur (; , , or , , ), formerly known as Turki or Eastern Turki, is a Turkic languages, Turkic language with 8 to 13 million speakers (), spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western ...

in the Karluk group of

Turkic languages 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 ...

Khotons The Khoton or Qotung people are a Mongolian-speaking ethnic group in (Outer) Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Most Mongolian Khotons live in Uvs Province in western Mongolia. In China, the Khotons (often called Qotungs) live in Inner Mongolia, con ...

use the Oirat dialect of

Mongolic languages The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in North Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this languag ...

in daily life.

Classification

Khoton is classified as

Uyghur Uyghur may refer to: * Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia (West China) ** Uyghur language, a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs *** Old Uyghur language, a different Turkic language spoken in the Uyghur K ...

by various researchers (,

Alexander Samoylovich Alexander Nikolaevich Samoylovich (; 29 December 1880 – 13 February 1938) was a Russian Orientalist- Turkologist who served as a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1929), Rector of the Leningrad Oriental Institute (1922–1925), academic s ...

, Nikolay Baskakov), an Uzbek dialect by

Ármin Vámbéry Ármin Vámbéry (born Hermann Wamberger; 19 March 183215 September 1913), also known as Arminius Vámbéry, was a Hungarian Turkologist and traveller. Early life Vámbéry was born in 1832 in the Hungarian city of Szentgyörgy within the ...

, a Kyrgyz dialect by

Grigory Potanin Grigory Nikolayevich Potanin (; 4 October 1835 – 6 June 1920) was a Russian botanist, ethnographer, and natural historian. He was an explorer of Inner Asia and was the first to catalogue many of the area's native plants. Potanin was also an ...

and Sergey Malov.

Mixed nature

According to Nikolay Baskakov, Khoton language has ''q'' as in ' ('firepit') which has

Old Uyghur Old Uyghur () was a Turkic language spoken in Qocho from the 9th–14th centuries as well as in Gansu. History Old Uyghur evolved from Old Turkic, a Siberian Turkic language, after the Uyghur Khaganate broke up and remnants of it migrated ...

characteristics, ' ('camel') which has Kyrgyz characteristics as in '; ' ('mouth') which has Southern Altai characteristics and ''q'': ' (‘arm’) from Turkmen.

Bibliography

* * *

References

{{Turkic languages, state=expanded Uyghur language Extinct languages of Asia