Southern Altai

Facts

  • Language: Southern Altai
  • Alternate names: Altai Kalmuck, Oirot, южноалтайский язык, алтай тили, Oyrot, Altai
  • Language code: alt
  • Language family: Turkic, Common Turkic, Kipchak, East Kipchak
  • Dialects: Telengit, Teleut.
  • Number of speakers: <20,000
  • Vulnerability: Threatened
  • Script: Cyrillic script. Mongolian script.

More information:

    Different from Oirat (See: [[Kalmyk-Oirat]]) (Kalmyk-Oirat), a Mongolian language. Traditional religion, Christian.

    The Altay language is divided into two large groups: the southern group consists of the languages of the Altay, Teleuts and Telengits, the northern group of the Kumandin and Chelkan languages. The northern dialects of Altay belong to the eastern branch of the Uighur-Oguz group, the southern dialects to the Kirgiz-Kipchak group. The linguistic differences between the northern and the southern dialectal groups are so big that they seriously hamper mutual comprehension. The northern dialects of Altay are close to the Kondoma dialect of the Shor language. (The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire)