- Daur language
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Daur Spoken in China Region Inner Mongolia, Hailar District; Heilongjiang Province, Qiqihar Prefecture; Xinjiang, Tacheng Prefecture Native speakers 96,085 (1999) Language family Mongolic- Daur
Language codes ISO 639-3 dta This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. The Daur or Dagur language is a Mongolic language primarily spoken by members of the Daur ethnic group.
Contents
Distribution
Daur is a Mongolic language consisting of four dialects: Amur Daur in the vicinity of Heihe, the Nonni Daur on the west side of the Nonni River from south of Qiqihaer up to the Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner, Hailar Daur to the south-east of Hailar and far off in Xinjiang in the vinicity of Tacheng.[1] There is no written standard in use, although a Pinyin-based orthography has been devised; instead the Daur make use of Mongolian or Chinese, as most speakers know these languages as well.[2] During the time of the Qing dynasty, Daur has been written with the Manchu alphabet.[3]
Phonology
Daur phonology is peculiar in that some of its dialects have developed a set of labialized consonants (eg /sʷar/ 'flea' vs. /sar/ 'moon')[4], while it shares palatalized consonants[5] with most Mongolian dialects that have not been developed in the other Mongolic languages. It also has /f/, which is, however, limited to loan words.[6] Word-final short vowels were lost[7] and historically short vowels in non-initial syllables have lost phoneme status.[8] Daur is the only Mongolic language to share this development with Mongolian (i.e. Mongolian proper, Oirat, Buryat). Due to the merger of /ɔ/ and /ʊ/ with /o/ and /u/, vowel harmony was lost.[9]
Daur consonants
Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Voiceless stop p t k Voiced stop b d g Voiceless affricate ch Voiced affricate j Voiceless fricative s sh x Nasal m n, ñ Lateral l Flap or trill r Semivowel w y Grammar
Daur has a pronominal system that distinguishes between first person plural inclusive /bed/ and exclusive /baː/ and, even more archaic, it distinguishes between third person singular /iːn/ and plural /aːn/.[10] While the phoneme /t͡ʃ/ (< *t͡ʃʰ) has been retained, the second person singular pronoun has become /ʃiː/ nevertheless,[11] resembling a more thorough sound change in the Khorchin dialect. The second person plural is retained as /taː/.[11]
Daur Personal Pronouns [12]
Singular Plural Case 1st Person 2nd Person 3rd Person 1st Person (exclusive) 1st Person (inclusive) 2nd Person 3rd Person Nominative bii šii ing biede baa taa aang Genitive minii šinii inii biednii (maanii) taanii aanii Dative namd šamd yamd (ind) biedende maande taande aande Accusative namii šamii yamii biednii (maanii) taanii aanii Ablative namaase šamaase yamaas biedenaas maanaas taanaas aanaas Instrumental namaare šamaare yamaar biedenaar maanaar taanaar aanaar Comitative namtij šamtij yamtij biedentij maantij taantij aantij
The genitive and accusative have fused in some variants, becoming –ji, and the ablative may assume the form of the instrumental case. The old comitative has been lost, while the innovated comitative is the same as in Mongolian.[13] In addition, several other cases have been innovated that are not shared by Mongolian, including a new allative, -maji. [14]Daur has a fairly simple tense-aspect system consisting of the nonpast markers -/bəi/ and (marginally) -/n/ and the past forms -/sən/ and (marginally) /la/ and the non-finite imperfective marker -/d͡ʒa/-. These may be inflected for person. The attributive particle forms are limited to –/ɡʷ/ (< Written Mongolian -γ-a) for imperfective aspect and future tense, -sən (< -γsan) for perfective aspect, -/ɡat͡ʃ/ (<-gči) for habituality (instead of -daγ which used to fulfil this function) and -/mar/ for potential and probable actions. It has acquired a highly complex converbal system containing several innovations. Notably, -mar which is a participle in Mongolian serves as a converb as well.[15]
Lexicon
Daur has 50% common Mongolic vocabulary, while it has borrowed 5[16] to 10% of its words from Chinese, 10% of its words from Manchu and also some vocabulary from Evenki and Russian – leaving about 20% vocabulary that is specific to Daur only.[17]
Numerals
English Classical Mongolian Daur 1 One Nigen Nyk 2 Two Qoyar Xoyir 3 Three Ghurban Gwarbyn 4 Four Dorben Durbun 5 Five Tabun Taawyn 6 Six Jirghughan Jirgoo 7 Seven Dologhan Doloo 8 Eight Naiman Naimyn 9 Nine Yisun Isyn 10 Ten Arban Xarbyn Notes
- ^ Tsumagari 2003: 129, Sengge 2004: 616
- ^ Tsumagari 2003: 129
- ^ Engkebatu 2001
- ^ Chuluu 1994: 5, but for example not the Tacheng dialect, see Yu et al. 2008: 25-26
- ^ Sengge 2004a, Tsumagari 2003: 133
- ^ Namcarai and Qaserdeni 1983: 66-67, cp. Tsumagari 2003: 131
- ^ Tsumagari 2003: 131
- ^ cp. Namcarai and Qaserdeni 1983: 84
- ^ Tsumagari 2003: 131 basically in agreement with Sengge 2004a; in contrast, Namcarai and Qaserdeni 1983: 37 give a pretty standard Mongolian vowel harmony system with the pharyngeal vowels /ɑ/, /ɔ/, /ʊ/ contrasting with the non-pharyngeal vowels /ə/, /o/, /u/, while /i/ is neutral.
- ^ Namcarai and Qaserdeni 1983: 211-126, cp. Tsumagari 2003: 141
- ^ a b Sengge 2004c: 621
- ^ Personal pronouns from Chapter Six (Dagur), p. 141 by Toshiro Tsumagari in The Mongolic Languages, editted by Juha Janhunen, 2003
- ^ Namcarai and Qaserdeni 1983: 110-121, Sengge 619-620
- ^ Sengge 2004c: 620
- ^ Tsumagari 2003: 144-148 supplemented with Sengge 2004c. The exact form of the plosive in -/ɡat͡ʃ/ is unclear as these two sources and Namcarai and Qaserdeni 1983 give different phones.
- ^ Sengge 2004b
- ^ Tsumagari 2003: 151-152
Bibliography
- Ethnologue entry for Daur
- Chuluu, Üjiyediin (1994), Introduction, Grammar, and Sample Sentences for Dagur, Sino-Platonic Papers, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp056_dagur_language.pdf
- Engkebatu (2001): Cing ulus-un üy-e-dü dagur kele-ber bicigdegsen jokiyal-ud-un sudulul. Kökeqota: Öbür monggol-un yeke surgaguli-yin keblel-ün qoriy-a.
- Namcarai; Qaserdeni (1983), Daγur kele ba mongγul kelen-ü qaričaγulul, Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a, OCLC 45024952
- Oyunčimeg, ed. (2004), Mongγul sudulul-un nebterkei toli, Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a, ISBN 9787204077458, OCLC 67279589
- Sengge (2004): Daγur kele. In: Oyunčimeg 2004: 616-617.
- Sengge (2004a): Daγur kelen-ü abiy-a. In: Oyunčimeg 2004: 618.
- Sengge (2004b): Daγur kelen-ü üges. In: Oyunčimeg 2004: 619.
- Sengge (2004c): Daγur kelen-ü kele ǰüi. In: Oyunčimeg 2004: 618-622.
- Tsumagari, Toshiro (2003): Dagur. In: Janhunen, Juha (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge: 129-153.
- Yu, Wonsoo, Jae-il Kwon, Moon-Jeong Choi, Yong-kwon Shin, Borjigin Bayarmend, Luvsandorj[iin] Bold (2008): A study of the Tacheng dialect of the Dagur language. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.
External links
Categories:- Agglutinative languages
- Mongolic languages
- Languages of China
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