| Kyakhta | |
|---|---|
 The Kyakhta bazaar in 1885 | |
| Region | Russian–Chinese border |
| Extinct | early 20th centuryroughly 50 semi speakers |
Pidgin
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | kjac1234 |
| IETF | crp-u-sd-rubu |
Kyakhta Russian–Chinese Pidgin[a] was acontact language (specifically apidgin) used byRussian andChinese traders to communicate during the 18th-early 20th century. The pidgin owes its name to the town ofKyakhta, a Russian town on the border with theQing dynasty's region ofOuter Mongolia, which was the most important border trading point between the two regions for more than a century after its foundation in 1728.[1]
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Labial–velar | Dental/ | Palatal- | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p (pʰ) | k (kʰ) | ||||||
| voiced | b | d | g | q | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ | ||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | s | ʃ | x | χ | |||
| voiced | β | v | z | ʒ | |||||
| Affricative | voiceless | ts | tʃ | ||||||
| voiced | dz | dʒ | |||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɯ | u |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | a |
Due to the absence of consonant clusters in Chinese and their quite frequent occurrence in Russian, the need forepenthesis – adding additional sounds to words – arises to make pronunciation easier. Thus, the following transformations are typical:[3]
| Russian word | Russian pronunciation | Kyakhtian pronunciation | English translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| прошу | [ˈproʂʊ] | [poˈroʂʊ] | (I) ask |
| солнце | [ˈsont͡sɨ] | [ˈsolenɨt͡sɨ] | sun |
| шампанское | [ʂɐmˈpanskəjə] | [ʂɐmˈpanɛsɨkɪ] | sparkling wine |
In a number of words, thestop consonants[d] and[t] and theaffricate[ts] transform to thefricative[z]:
| Russian word | Russian pronunciation | Kyakhtian pronunciation | English translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| спереди | [ˈspʲerʲɪdʲɪ] | [ˈpjerjza] | in front |
| халат | [xɐˈlat] | [xɐˈlaza] | dressing gown |
| поклониться | [pəklɐˈnʲit͡sə] | [pəkələˈniza] | to bow |
Most of the words in the Kyakhta pidgin come from Russian. Many of them, in particular those that do not have consonants clusters, undergo no change; for example,воля ("will"),люди ("people"),мало ("little"),надо ("it is necessary"),рубаха ("shirt"),сюда ("to here"),чужой ("alien"),шуба ("fur coat").
As a rule, pidgins have limited grammar and vocabulary. To compensate for this, words are often borrowed with additional meanings. In Kyakhta pidgin, for instance, the adverbмало, along with the meaning of "little" that it has in Russian, also means "not only";посиди means not only "to seat", but also "to converse". An example of significant difference between the Russian meaning and the meaning in Kyakhta pidgin is the wordмесяца – it means "months" in Russian, but "forever" in the pidgin.
The predominantly colloquial origin of words is very noticeable. Many words are present in exclusively diminutive form:женушеки ("woman") comes from Russianжёнушка, the diminutive form ofжена ("wife");рюмашека ("wine glass") comes from Russianрюмашка, the diminutive form ofрюмка;беленеки ("white") comes from Russianбеленький, the diminutive form ofбелый.
While Russian is clearly the main source of vocabulary, some words are borrowed fromMongolian which was spoken in the same region, such asадали ("exactly"), andбичиху ("to write") fromбичих. Still, the influence of Mongolian is minimal.
The only significant contribution ofMandarin Chinese to the vocabulary is the wordфуза meaning "store, shop" (Mandarin鋪子 (pùzi). Aside from that, Kyakhta pidgin contains several new compounds that could have been inspired by Chinese:
Like most pidgins, Kyakhta pidgin lacks many morphological categories: there are no cases, numbers or gender of nouns.
Russian pidgins in general tend to have clear verb indications. In Kyakhta Pidgin, similarly to other Siberian pidgins, most verbs have ending -j/-i:болей ("to be sick"),выгони ("to turn out"),захорони ("to bury"),гоняй ("to drive"),незнай ("to be unaware"),ругай ("to scold"),сади' ("to seat"). This ending makes verbs similar to the imperative form of Russian verbs: for example,болей is the Russian verbболеть ("to be sick"), but in the imperative mood. We can speculate that such forms prevailed when Russians addressed their interlocutors.
During the late stages of the pidgin, the indicators of verb tenses appear:было indicates the past tense,буду indicates the future tense,еса indicates the present tense; for example,погули было means "to have walked",погули еса means "to be walking",погули буду means "will walk".
An object is identified withза, a preposition from the Russian language that has many semantic properties. It is the only preposition present in the Kyakhta pidgin and it is used in the following way:за наша походи means "come to us" (приходи к нам in proper Russian),за наша фуза means "in our store" (в нашем магазине in proper Russian).
Russian pronouns came into the pidgin in an exclusively possessive form:моя ("I") means "mine" in Russian,твоя ("you") means "yours" in Russian, andево ("he") comes from Russianего, which means "his" in Russian. This feature is shared with the Norwegian-Russian pidginRussenorsk. All declensions of pronouns are formed with the already mentionedза:за-моя,за-твоя,за-ево.[3]
| Russian–Chinese Pidgin[2] | English[2] |
|---|---|
| Xeczu familii chiwo-chiwo kupi-la, kurica jajcy kupi-la, butyka apuskaj-la. Eta mamyka serdica iwo kurica jajcy eta lamaj. Gawari: “Ni-nada butyka pusykaj jajcy, pyrawina pusykaj chachyka”. Xeczu lisa kupi-la, lisa kupi-la, chachyka pusykaj-la, lisa puloba-la. | Xeczu by name bought something, he bought chicken eggs and put them into a bottle. His mother got angry, because all the eggs broke. She said: “You must not put eggs into a bottle; you should have put them into a basket”. Xeczu bought rice, he bought rice and put it into a basket, all the rice got spilled. |