Altay is a language of the Turkic group of languages. It is an official language of Altai Republic, Russia. The language was called Oyrot prior to 1948. There were ca. 67,900 people speaking this language in 2002.

Classification

Due to its isolated position in the Altay Mountains and contact with surrounding languages, the classification of Altay within the Turkic languages has often been disputed. Because of its geographic proximity to the Shor and Khakas languages, some classifications place it in a Northern Turkic sub-group.Due to certain similarities with Kyrgyz, it has been grouped with the Kypchak languages. A more recent classification by Talat Tekin places Southern Altay in its own sub-group within Turkic and groups the Northern Altay dialects with Lower Chulym and the Kondoma dialect of Shor.

Geographical distribution

Altay is spoken primarily in the Altai Republic (Southern Altay) and Altai Krai (Northern Altay).

Official status

Along with Russian, Altay is an official language of the Altai Republic. The official language is based on the Southern dialect spoken by the group called the Altay-kiži, however in the few years it has also spread to the Northern Altai Republic.

Dialects

Altay is usually divided into Northern and Southern dialects, which are then further broken down into a number of sub-dialects. The breakdown of these dialects is as follows:

• Southern Altay
  • Altay proper
    • Mayma
  • Telengit
    • Tölös
    • Chuy
  • Teleut
• Northern Altay
  • Tuba
  • Kumandy
    • Turachak
    • Solton
    • Starobardinian
  • Chalkan (also called Kuu, Lebedin)

Sounds

The sounds of the Altay language vary from dialect to dialect.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Altay

	Bilabial		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar
Plosives
Nasals	m		n						ŋ
Fricatives					s	z			x
Tap
Approximant							j
Lateral approximants					l

The voiced palatal plosive varies greatly from dialect to dialect, especially in initial position. Form of the word јок "no" include (Kuu dialect) and (Kumandy). Even within dialects this phoneme varies greatly..

Vowels

There are eight vowels in Altay. These vowels may be long or short.

Vowel phonemes of Altay

		Short		Long
		Close	Open	Close	Open
Front	Unrounded	i	e	iː	eː
	Rounded	y	ø	yː	øː
Back	Unrounded		a		aː
	Rounded	u	o	uː	oː

Writing system

The language was written with the Latin alphabet from 1928–1938, but has used the Cyrillic alphabet (with the addition of 4 extra letters: ) since 1938.

Morphology and syntax

Pronouns

Altay has six personal pronouns:

Personal pronouns in Standard/Southern dialect

Singular		Plural
Altay (transliteration)	English	Altay (transliteration)	English
мен (men)	I	бис (bis)	we
сен (sen)	you (singular)	слер (sler)	you (plural, formal)
ол (ol)	he/she/it	олор (olor)	they

Pronouns in the various dialects vary considerably. For example, the pronouns in the Qumandin dialect follow.

Personal pronouns in Qumandin

Singular		Plural
Altay (transliteration)	English	Altay (transliteration)	English
мен (men)	I	пис (pis)	we
сен (sen)	you (singular)	снер (sner)	you (plural, formal)
ол (ol)	he/she/it	анар (anar)	they

Sources

See also

• Telengits, Teleuts (names of related ethnic groups)
• Altay Tatars
• Turkic peoples
• Altaic languages

External links

• Ethnologue report for Northern Altai
• Ethnologue report for Southern Altai
• Altaian Alphabet
• Altay phrases ( Archived 2009-10-25)