Tofa (Tofa: Тоъфа дыл ''Tòfa dıl''), also known as Tofalar or Karagas, 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 Russia's

Irkutsk Oblast Irkutsk Oblast (; ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara River, Angara, Lena River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers. The administrative center is ...

by the Tofalars, an indigenous people of the region. Tofa forms a dialect continuum with the closely related

Tuvan language Tuvan, also spelt Tyvan, is a Turkic language spoken in the Republic of Tuva in South Central Siberia, Russia. There are small groups of Tuvans that speak distinct dialects of Tuvan in China and Mongolia. History The earliest record ...

, and shares many features with Tuvan. Tofa is a critically endangered language, as classified by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, and recent estimates for speakers run from 67 to fewer than 40 individuals. Only 3 people can speak it fluently.

Classification

Tofa is most closely related to the

Lars Johanson (1998) "The History of Turkic". In Lars Johanson & Éva Ágnes Csató (eds) ''The Turkic Languages''. London, New York: Routledge, 81-125
Classification of Turkic languages at Turkiclanguages.com
/ref> and forms a dialect continuum with it. Tuha and Tsengel Tuvan may be dialects of either Tuvan or Tofa. Tofa shares a number of features with these languages, including the preservation of *d as /d/ (as in ''hodan'' "hare" - compare Uzbek ''quyon'') and the development of low tones on historically short vowels (as in *''et'' > ''èt'' "meat, flesh").

Alexander Vovin Alexander Vladimirovich Vovin (; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. He wa ...

(2017) notes that Tofa and other Siberian Turkic languages, especially Sayan Turkic, have Yeniseian loanwords.

Geographic and demographic distribution

The Tofa, who are also known as the Tofalar or Karagas, are an

indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

living in southwestern

, in Russia. The region they inhabit is informally known as Tofalariya. They are traditionally a nomadic reindeer-herding people, living on or near the Eastern Sayan mountain range. However, reindeer herding has greatly declined since the 20th century, with only one Tofa family continuing the practice .Donahoe, Brian Robert (2004) ''A line in the Sayans: History and divergent perceptions of property among the Tozhu and Tofa of South Siberia''. Doctoral Thesis. Indiana University. Recognized by the former USSR in 1926 as one of the " Small Numbered Minorities of the North," (Russian: ''коренные малочисленные народы Севера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока)'' the Tofa have special legal status and receive economic support from Russia. The Tofa population is around 750 people; around 5% of the population spoke Tofa as a first language in 2002, (although that number has likely declined since then, due to the age of the speakers). Although the population of Tofalaria appears to be growing, the number of ethnic Tofalar seems to be in decline.

Effects of language contact

Language contact—mainly with Russian speakers—has been extensive since 1926, when the Tofa officially received their "Small Numbered Minorities of the North" status from the USSR (Russian: ''коренные малочисленные народы Севера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока)'' and underwent significant cultural, social, and economic changes. Most notably, this traditionally nomadic, reindeer-herding people have since become sedentary and reindeer herding has all but vanished among the Tofa. In addition to visiting tax collectors and tourists, many other Russians have come to the Sayan mountain range to live. Russian migration and intermarriage also has had an effect, according to a citation by Donahoe: "In 1931, of a total population in Tofalaria of 551, approximately 420 (76%) were Tofa, and the remaining 131 (24%) were non-Tofa, predominantly Russian (Mel'nikova 1994:36 and 231). By 1970, the population in Tofalaria had increased to 1368, of whom 498 (36%) were Tofa, and 809 (59%) were Russian (Sherkhunaev 1975:23)."(p. 159) There were approximately 40 speakers of various fluency levels by 2002, and this number has likely continued to decrease in the intervening time.

Phonology

Vowels

The following table lists the vowels of Tofa. The data was taken from Ilgın and Rassadin. Rassadin also indicates that Tofa has a short []. All vowels except [] can be Pharyngealization, pharyngealized []. According to Rassadin pharyngealization is realized as creaky voice []; Harrison and Anderson represent this feature as low tone.

Consonants

The following table lists the consonants of Tofa. The data was taken from Ilgın and Rassadin.

Vowel harmony

Many dialects of Tofa exhibit vowel harmony, although this harmony seems to be linked to fluency: as one decreases, so does the other. Tofa vowel harmony is progressive and based on two features: backness and rounding, and this occurs both root-internal and in affixes. Enclitics do not appear to trigger backness harmony, and rounding harmony in Tofa has been undergoing changes, and may apply inconsistently. In some cases this may be due to opaque rules resulting in an apparent "disharmony", especially among speakers of the younger generation. The complications surrounding Tofa vowel harmony may also be due to fluctuations from language endangerment. In general, Russian loanwords do not appear to conform to vowel harmony. Given the increasing quantity of these loanwords, leveling may also be a factor in the inconsistent application of vowel harmony.

Writing system

Tofa, although not often written, 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 ...

alphabet: Tofa has letters that are not present in the Russian alphabet: Ғғ , Әә , Ii , Ққ , Ңң , Өө , Үү , Һһ , and Ҷҷ . Additionally, the letter ъ is sometimes used after a vowel to mark pharyngealization � as in эът �ɛˤt̪"meat". An earlier version of the alphabet from 1988 looks like this:

Morphology and syntax

Tofa is an

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglu ...

language with a few auxiliary verbs. The bare stem of a verb is only used in the singular imperative; other categories are marked by suffixation, including the singular imperative negative. The Tofa suffix /''--sig''/ is an especially unusual derivational suffix in that it attaches to any noun to add the meaning 'smelling of + OUN or 'smelling like + OUN. Grammatical number in Tofa includes singular, plural, dual inclusive ('you and me'), and plural inclusive, tense includes the present and past, and aspect includes the perfective and imperfective. Historically suffixes conformed to Tofa vowel harmony rules, but that appears to be changing. Some example sentences are included below to illustrate suffixation: Plural Perfective Singular Imperative Singular Imperative Negative

Pronouns

Tofa has six personal pronouns: Tofa also has the pronouns бо "this", тээ "that", кум "who", and чү "what".

Vocabulary

Tofa words are very similar to many other Turkic Languages, but not more than Tuvan. English and Russian are provided for reference.