Soyot (or Soyot–Tsaatan) is an extinct and revitalizing

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 ...

of the

Siberian Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states si ...

Sayan branch similar to the Dukhan language and closely related to the

Tofa language Tofa (Tofa: Тоъфа дыл ''Tòfa dıl''), also known as Tofalar or Karagas, is a Turkic language spoken in Russia's Irkutsk Oblast by the Tofalars, an indigenous people of the region. Tofa forms a dialect continuum with the closely related ...

. Two dialects/languages are spoken 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 ...

and

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

: Soyot in the Okinsky District of the Republic of

Buryatia Buryatia, officially the Republic of Buryatia, is a republic of Russia located in the Russian Far East. Formerly part of the Siberian Federal District, it has been administered as part of the Far Eastern Federal District since 2018. To its nort ...

(Russia) and Tsaatan (

Uriankhai Uriankhai is a term of address applied by the Mongols to a group of forest peoples of the North, who include the Turkic-speaking Tuvans and Yakuts, while sometimes it is also applied to the Mongolian-speaking Altai Uriankhai. The Uria ...

Uyghur) in the Darkhad valley of Mongolia. The language is revitalizing in primary schools. In 2002, V. I. Rassadin published a Soyot–Buryat–Russian dictionary. In 2020, he published a children's picture dictionary in the Soyot language, along with Russian, Mongolian, and English translations.

Classification

Soyot belongs to the Turkic family of languages. Within this family, it is placed in the Sayan Turkic branch. According to some researchers, the Sayan Turkic branch has five languages: *Sayan Turkic ** Tuvan (ISO 639:tyv) ** Tofa (ISO 639:kim) **Soyot **

Dukhan Dukhan () is a city in the western municipality of Al-Shahaniya, Qatar. It is approximately west of the capital, Doha. Dukhan is administered by Qatar's state oil agency QatarEnergy and is the site of the first oil discovery in Qatar. It was pr ...

(~~ISO 639:dkh~~, rejected) **Tuba (extinct, not to be confused with the Tubalar dialect of

Northern Altai language Northern Altai or Northern Altay is a collective name for several tribal moribund Turkic dialects spoken in the Altai Republic of Russia. Though traditionally considered one language, Southern Altai and the Northern varieties are not fully mut ...

) According to Glottolog, Soyot is a dialect of the Taiga Sayan Turkic language: *Sayan **Taiga Sayan Turkic *** Dukha ***Soyot ***Todja *** Tofa ***Tuha ** Tuvinian Ragagnin similarly divides the Sayan languages into two branches: Steppe and Taiga, but makes certain distinctions not made by Glottlog: *Sayan Turkic **Taiga Sayan Turkic ***Dukha ***Tofa ***Toju ***Tuvan dialects of Tere-Khöl ***Soyot **Steppe Sayan Turkic ***Standard Tuvan ***Altay-Sayan varieties of China and Mongolia ***Tuha

Geographic distribution

Soyot has no official recognition in any of the countries where it is spoken. Until 1993, they were counted as part of the Buryat nationality in Russia. At this point, they were acknowledged as a separate nationality by the People's Khural of the Republic of Buryatia. After applying to the Russian Duma for official recognition, they were acknowledged as an ethnic minority in 2001. Most Soyots in Russia live in

's Okinsky District.

Phonology

Rassadin reports that the Soyot and Tsaatan dialects, have very similar phonological systems. Information here is from Soyot.

Consonants

Vowels

Vowels may be short, long, or short

pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicate ...

, e.g. /ɯt/ "send", /ɯˁt/ "dog", /ɯːt/ "sound, voice". Soyot exhibits

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

, that is, words containing front vowels take only suffixes containing front vowels, whereas words with back vowels take only suffixes with back vowels.

Writing system

Soyot is not commonly written. Rassadin employs a

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 ...

-based writing system to represent Soyot in his dictionaries and grammars. Certain letters are only found in Russian loanwords.

Grammar

Nouns

Nouns have singular and

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

forms. The plural is formed with the suffix /-LAr/, which has six possible surface variations depending on vowel harmony and the preceding sound. Possession is indicated by adding a suffix to the possessed noun, e.g. ''ava-m'' "my mother", ''ava-ŋ'' "your mother". The possessive suffixes vary based on vowel harmony and whether the word they are attached to ends in a vowel or a consonant:

Case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

is indicated by adding suffixes after the plural and possessive markers, if they are present. There are seven cases in Soyot . The

nominative case In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants ...

is not marked. The six cases that are indicated by suffixes are shown below. These vary based on vowel harmony and the final sound of the word they are attached to.

Adjectives

Certain adjectives may be intensified via

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...

. The involves taking the first syllable plus /p/ and adding it to the front of the word, e.g. ''qap-qara'' "very black", ''sap-sarɯɣ'' "very yellow". Other adjectives are intensified using the adverb ''tuŋ'' "very", e.g. ''tuŋ ulɯɣ'' "very big".

Numerals

Soyot employs a base-10 counting system. Complex numerals are created much as in English, e.g. ''yʃ mɯŋ tos t͡ʃys tos on tos'' "three thousand nine hundred ninety-nine".

Ordinal numeral In linguistics, ordinal numerals or ordinal number words are words representing position or rank in a sequential order; the order may be of size, importance, chronology, and so on (e.g., "third", "tertiary"). They differ from cardinal numerals ...

s are formed by adding the word ''duɣaːr'' to the cardinal numeral, e.g. ''iˁhi duɣaːr'' "second".

Notes

References

External links

Turkic Database: Soyot
{{Turkic languages Siberian Turkic languages Endangered Turkic languages Languages of Russia Languages of Mongolia Turkic languages