Oirat language

Oirat
ᡆᡕᡅᠷᠠᡑ ᡘᡄᠯᡄᠨ Oyirad kelen ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ ᠬᠡᠯᠡᠨ ᠦ ᠣᠶᠢᠷᠠᠳ ᠠᠶᠠᠯᠭᠤ Mongγol kelen-ü Oyirad ayalγu
Spoken in	People's Republic of China, Mongolia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan[1]
Region	Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Kalmykia, Khovd, Uvs,[2] Bayan-Ölgii[3]
Ethnicity	Oirats
Native speakers	500,000  (date missing)
Language family	Mongolic Mongolian Oirat
Writing system	Clear script (China: unofficial), Mongolian script (Mongolia: unofficial, China: official), Cyrillic (Russia: official, Mongolia: official)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	xal
ISO 639-3	either: xal – Oirat xwo – Written Oirat
Linguasphere	part of 44-BAA-b

A map showing the distribution of Oirat outside of Kalmykia. Varieties in dispute have not been included^[4]

Oirat (Clear script: ᡆᡕᡅᠷᠠᡑ ᡘᡄᠯᡄᠨ^[5] Oyirad kelen; Kalmyk: Өөрд, Öörd; Khalkha-Mongolian: Ойрад, Oirad) belongs to the group of Mongolic languages. Scholars differ as to whether Oirat is a distinct language^[6] or a major dialect of the Mongolian language.^[7] Oirat speaking areas are scattered across the far west of the Mongolian state,^[8] the northwest of People's Republic of China (mainly in Xinjiang),^[8] and Russia's Caspian coast, where its major variety is Kalmyk.^[9] In all three nations, Oirat has become variously endangered or even obsolescent as a direct result of government actions or as a consequence of social and economic policies. Its most widespread dialect, which is spoken in all of these nations, is Torgut.^[1][8] The term Oirat or, more precisely, Written Oirat is sometimes also used to refer to the language of historical documents written in the Clear script.^[10]

In Mongolia, there are seven historical Oirat dialects, each corresponding to a different tribe:^[11]

1. Dörbet is spoken in half of the sums of Uvs Province and in Dörgön, Khovd Province
2. Bayat in the sums of Malchin, Khyargas, Tes and Züüngovi, Uvs
3. Torgut in Bulgan sum, Khovd
4. Uriankhai in the sums of Duut and Mönkhkhairkhan, Khovd and in the sums of Altai, Buyant and Bulgan, Bayan-Ölgii Province
5. Ööld in Erdenebüren, Khovd
6. Zakhchin in the sums of Mankhan, Altai, Üyench, Zereg and Möst, Khovd
7. Khoton in Tarialan, Uvs.

There are some varieties that are difficult to classify. The Alasha dialect in Alxa League in South Mongolia originally belonged to Oirat^[12] and has been classified as such by some because of its phonology.^[1] But it has been classified by others as Mongolian proper because of its morphology.^[13] The Darkhad dialect in Mongolia's Khövsgöl Province has variously been classified as Oirat, Mongolian proper, or (less often) Buryat.^[14]

Oirat is everywhere an endangered language variety. In Russia, the killing of a large fraction of the Kalmyk population and the destruction of their society as consequences of the Kalmyk deportations of 1943, along with the subsequent imposition among them of Russian as the sole official language have rendered the language obsolescent: it is almost exclusively old people that have a fluent command of Kalmyk.^[15] In China, while Oirat is still quite widely used in its traditional ranges and there are many monolingual speakers,^[16] a combination of government policies and social realities has created an environment deleterious to the use of this language: the Chinese authorities' adoption of Southern Mongolian as the normative Mongolian language,^[17] new educational policies which have led to the virtual elimination of Mongolian schools in Xinjiang (there are just two left), policies aiming to curtail nomadism, and the limited occupational prospects in Chinese society for graduates of Mongolian schools.^[18] As for Mongolia, the predominance of the Khalkha dialect is bringing about the Khalkhaization of all other varieties of Mongolian.^[19]

Numerals

	English	Classical Mongolian	Oirat
1	One	Nigen	Nige(n)
2	Two	Qoyar	Khoyor
3	Three	Ghurban	Ghurba(n)
4	Four	Dorben	Dorbo(n)
5	Five	Tabun	Tabu(n)
6	Six	Jirghughan	Zurghaa(n)
7	Seven	Dologhan	Doloo(n)
8	Eight	Naiman	Nayima(n)
9	Nine	Yisun	Yesu(n)
10	Ten	Arban	Arba(n)

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Svantesson et al. 2005: 148
2. ^ Svantesson et al. 2005: 141
3. ^ Coloo 1988: 1
4. ^ cp. the distribution given by Svantesson et al. 2005: 141
5. ^ Rendered in Menksoft code as   /  
6. ^ Birtalan 2003. Note that she is not altogether clear about that matter as she writes: "For the present purpose, Spoken Oirat, from which Kalmuck is excluded, may therefore be treated as a more or less uniform language." (212). See also Sanžeev 1953
7. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005
8. ^ ^{a b c} Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 396-398
9. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005, Bläsing 2003: 229
10. ^ Birtalan 2003: 210-211
11. ^ Coloo 1988: 1-6
12. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 265-266
13. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 190-191
14. ^ See literature given in Sanžaa and Tujaa 2001: 33-34
15. ^ Bitkeeva 2007; for details see Bitkeeva 2006
16. ^ Bitkeeva 2007
17. ^ Sečenbaγatur et al. 2005: 179
18. ^ Indjieva 2009: 59-65
19. ^ Coloo 1988: III-IV

Bibliography

• Birtalan, Ágnes (2003): Oirat. In: Janhunen (ed.) 2003: 210-228.
• Bitkeeva, Aisa (2006): Kalmyckij yazyk v sovremennom mire. Moskva: NAUKA.
• Bitkeeva, Aisa (2007): Ethnic Language Identity and the Present Day Oirad-Kalmyks. Altai Hakpo, 17: 139-154.
• Bläsing, Uwe (2003): Kalmuck. In: Janhunen (ed.) 2003: 229-247.
• Coloo, Ž. (1988): BNMAU dah’ mongol helnij nutgijn ajalguuny tol’ bichig: ojrd ajalguu. Ulaanbaatar: ŠUA.
• Indjieva, Elena (2009): Oirat Tobi: Intonational structure of the Oirat language. University of Hawaii. Dissertation.
• Janhunen, Juha (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge.
• Sanžeev, G. D. (1953): Sravnitel’naja grammatika mongol’skih jazykov. Mosvka: Akademija nauk SSSR.
• Sečenbaγatur, Qasgerel, Tuyaγ-a, B. ǰirannige, U Ying ǰe (2005): Mongγul kelen-ü nutuγ-un ayalγun-u sinǰilel-ün uduridqal. Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a.
• Svantesson, Jan-Olof, Anna Tsendina, Anastasia Karlsson, Vivan Franzén (2005): The Phonology of Mongolian. New York: Oxford University Press.