Sart Kalmyk () is an endangered and underdocumented Central Mongolic Oirat language variety spoken by the

Sart Kalmyks The Sart Kalmyks are an ethnic group of the Oirats, who live in Issyk Kul Province, Kyrgyzstan. Their population is estimated to be 12,000. They are descendants of the Ööled tribes, who moved to the territory of the Russian Empire after the f ...

Ak-Suu District Ak-Suu () is a district of Isxsyk-Kul Region in eastern Kyrgyzstan. The administrative center lies at the village Teploklyuchenka. Its area is , and its resident population was 69,439 in 2021. Geography Located in Kyrgyzstan's eastern corner, th ...

Issyk-Kul Region Issyk-Kul (, ) is one of the regions of Kyrgyzstan. Its capital is Karakol. It is surrounded by Almaty Region, Kazakhstan to the north, Chüy Region to the west, Naryn Region to the southwest, and Xinjiang, China to the southeast. It takes ...

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...

History

Sart Kalmyk emerged as a distinct variety after its speakers separated from a larger Oirat-speaking community in today's

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

around

1864 Events January * January 13 – American songwriter Stephen Foster ("Oh! Susanna", "Old Folks at Home") dies aged 37 in New York City, leaving a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His parlor song "Beautiful Dream ...

and moved to the shores of

Lake Issyk-Kul Issyk-Kul () or Ysyk-Köl (, ; ) is an endorheic saline lake in the western Tianshan Mountains in eastern Kyrgyzstan, just south of a dividing range separating Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan. It is the eighth-deepest lake in the world, the eleve ...

. Since then, the language has been developing in isolation from other Mongolic varieties and in intense contact with Kyrgyz, 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 ...

. Recent research shows a significant influence of Kyrgyz morphology, phonology and lexicon on Sart Kalmyk.

Language situation

Sart Kalmyk is a severely threatened language. Its domains of use are largely confined to informal communication between the elderly in rural areas. Virtually all speakers are trilingual, having a good command of Kyrgyz and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

in addition to their ethnic language. Younger members of the ethnic community often speak little to no Sart Kalmyk.

Orthography

Historically, Sart Kalmyk was written with the Clear script and, occasionally, a local version of the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

. Both scripts have fallen out of use by the early

1940s File:1940s decade montage.png, Above title bar: events during World War II (1939–1945): From left to right: Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching Omaha Beach on Normandy landings, D-Day; Adolf Hitler visits Paris, soon after the Battle of ...

. In

1934 Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake, Nepal–Bihar earthquake strik ...

, a short-lived

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

-based orthography was introduced. Today, Sart Kalmyk is rarely used in writing, but when it is written, the Kalmyk version of

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

is employed.

References

{{Languages of Kyrgyzstan Languages of Kyrgyzstan Oirat language Oirats