Salar is aTurkic language spoken by theSalar people, who mainly live in the provinces ofQinghai andGansu inChina; some also live inIli,Xinjiang. It is a primary branch and an eastern outlier of theOghuz branch of Turkic, the other Oghuz languages being spoken mostly in West and Central Asia. The Salar number about 105,000 people, about 70,000[6] (2002) speak the Salar language; under 20,000[6] are monolinguals.
According to Salar tradition and Chinese chronicles, the Salars are the descendants of theSalur tribe, belonging to theOghuz Turk tribe of theWestern Turkic Khaganate. During theTang dynasty, the Salur tribe dwelt within China's borders and since then has lived within the Qinghai-Gansu border region.[7][8] Contemporary Salar has some influence fromMandarin Chinese andAmdo Tibetan.
Due to the ethnonym "Salur", which is also shared bysome modern Turkmen tribes, linguists historically tried to establish a link betweenTurkmen varieties and the Salar language. Some placenames in Uzbekistan include the word Salar. Most modern linguists today classify Salar as an independent primary branch of the Oghuz languages.[9][10]
TheQing Empire deported some Salars who belonged to theJahriyya Sufi order to theIli valley which is in modern-day Xinjiang. Today, a community of about four thousand Salars speaking a distinct dialect of Salar still live in Ili. Salar migrants from Amdo (Qinghai) came to settle the region as religious exiles, migrants, and as soldiers enlisted in the Chinese army to fight rebels in Ili, often following the Hui.[11] The distinctive dialect of the Ili Salar differs from the other Salar dialects because the neighboring Kazakh and Uyghur languages in Ili influenced it.[12] The Ili Salar population numbers around 4,000 people.[13] There have been instances of misunderstanding between speakers of Ili Salar and Qinghai Salar due to the divergence of the dialects.[14] The differences between the two dialect result in a "clearisogloss".[15]
However,Lin Lianyun andHan Jianye divide Salar into two dialects by including Western Salar in the Gaizi dialect: the Gaizi dialect[16] and the Mengda dialect.[17][18] The Gaizi dialect is mainly distributed in Jiezi, Qingshui and Baizhuang inXunhua County, Gandu inHualong County,Dahejia in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture ofGansu Province andYining County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Mengda dialect is distributed around the Mengda area of Xunhua County. The Mengda dialect is b-Salar, while the Gaizi (or Jiezi) dialect is v-Salar. For example; It lives in the Ili and Jiezi as[clarification needed]vol- "to be",ver- "to give",vax- "to look", and in the Mengda dialect asbol- "to be",ber- "to give",bax- "to look". Also, Mengda lost its⟨gh⟩ phoneme, which has developed into the⟨x⟩ phoneme: Gaizideɣ- "to touch", Mengdadex- "to touch"; Gaiziyaʁ- "to rain", Mengdayaχ- "to rain". While the⟨m⟩ phoneme stood in the Gaizi dialect, it turned into the⟨n⟩ sound in the Mengda dialect: Gaiziqamjü "whip", Mengdaqanjü "whip"; Gaizigöm- "to embed", Mengdagön- "to embed".[17]
Tenishev's comparison of Jiezi and Mengda (IPA)[19][20]
Jiezi (Gaizi)
/tʰ/
/v/
/e/
/i/
/ɘ/
/ɨ/
/ø/
Mengda
/ʒʰ/
/p/
/ɑ/
/e/
/ɑ/
/i/
/o/
Although Ili Salar is located far away from other dialects, the dialects of the Salar language are very close to each other. The difference between them is mostly phonological.[17] For example; Ili Salar[21]gölök, Qinghai[17]gölix,gölex "cow".
The ancestor to modern Salar is thought to have diverged first from theProto-Oghuz language, a hypothetical language that all modern Oghuz languages are believed to be descended from. It was brought to the region by a small, nomadic, Muslim community, and received significant influence from other non-Oghuz Turkic languages such asChagatai,[22]Kipchak andthe Karluk languages,[23] along with non-Turkic languages belonging to theSino-Tibetan family.
According to 2002 estimates, Salars number about 105,000 people, and about 70,000 of them speak the Salar language. Only under 20,000 Salars are monolingual.[6][needs update]
Salar's phonology has been influenced by Chinese and Tibetan. In addition,/k,q/ and/ɡ,ɢ/ have become separate phonemes due to loanwords, as they have in other Turkic languages.[26]
Salar's vowels are similar to those ofTurkish, with the back vowels/a,ɯ,o,u/ and the corresponding front vowels/e,i,ø,y/.[27] In Ili Salar, the high front vowels i and y, when placed after an initial glide, are spirantized with j transforming into ʝ.[28] Qinghai and Ili Salar have mostly the same consonantal development.[29]
In Qinghai Province, the Salar language has been notably influenced by Chinese and Tibetan.[30] Although of Turkic origin, major linguistic structures have been absorbed from Chinese. Around 20% of the vocabulary is of Chinese origin and another 10% is of Tibetan origin. Yet the official Chinese government policy deliberately covers up these influences in academic and linguistics studies, trying to emphasize the Turkic element and completely ignoring the Chinese superstrate in the Salar language.[31][why?] The Salar language has taken loans and influence from neighboringvarieties of Chinese.[32] Vice versa, the neighboring variants of the Chinese language have also adopted loanwords from the Salar language.[33]
For the verb "to do" Salar uses "ät" (compareTurkishet).[34] For the word "lips" Salar uses "dodax" (compare Turkishdudak).[20] The participlemiš is used by Salar (compare Turkish-mış).[35][36]
Salars mostly use Chinese for writing while using the Salar language for speaking.[37][38][39]
Salar does not have an official script, but it has sometimes been written down using theArabic script.[40] Some Salar call for a Latin script and some Salar who dislike the Pinyin-based Latin script desire to useChinese characters instead.[41] This lack of an official script has led most Salar to use the Chinese writing system.[42] China offered the Salar an official writing system quite similar to theUyghur Yengi Yezik, but it was rejected for similar reasons as Yengi Yezik was rejected in Xinjiang.
Young Salar have also started to use a Salar script based on the orthography for Turkic languages. It is quite popular with Salars for writing Salar on the internet. There are two main variants that are used, TB30 and TB31. The Arabic script is also still popular among the Salar. The Arabic script has a historical precedent among the Salar; centuries-old documents in the Salar language written in the Arabic script have been discovered.[43][better source needed]
William Woodville Rockhill wrote a glossary of Salar in his 1894 bookDiary of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892 using the Latin alphabet based on the Wade–Giles romanization system used for Chinese.[52][53][54]
Aromanization of the Mengda dialect of Salar based onPinyin has been developed, created by a Salar, Ma Quanlin, who lives in Xunhua.[55] Like Pinyin, which is used to romanizeMandarin Chinese, this Salar romanization is divided into categories of consonants and vowels.[56] Letters that occur both in Pinyin and romanization of Mengda Salar share the same sound values.[57]
No equivalent in English. Likecheek, with the lips spread wide withee. Curl the tip of the tongue downwards to stick it at the back of the teeth and strongly aspirate.
Similar to the Englishz in azure andr inreduce, but with the tongue curled upwards, like a cross between English "r" and French "j". InCyrillised Chinese the sound is rendered with the letter "ж".
Approximately as in "office" in British accent; the lips are much more rounded.
e
[ɯ̯ʌ],[ə]
e
a diphthong consisting first of a back, unrounded semivowel (which can be formed by first pronouncing "w" and then spreading the lips without changing the position of the tongue) followed by a vowel similar to English "duh". Many unstressed syllables in Chinese use theschwa[ə] (idea), and this is also written ase.
i
[i]
yi
like English bee.
u
[u]
wu
like English "oo"
ai
[aɪ̯]
ai
like English "eye", but a bit lighter
ei
[eɪ̯]
ei
as in "hey"
ui
[u̯eɪ̯]
wei
asu +ei;
ao
[ɑʊ̯]
ao
approximately as in "cow"; thea is much more audible than theo
iu
[i̯ɤʊ̯]
you
asi +ou
ie
[i̯ɛ]
ye
asi +ê; but is very short;e (pronounced likeê) is pronounced longer and carries the main stress (similar to the initial soundye inyet)
an
[an]
an
as in "ban" in British English (a more open fronteda)
en
[ən]
en
as in "taken"
in
[in]
yin
asi +n
un
[yn]
yun
asü +n;
ang
[ɑŋ]
ang
as in GermanAngst (starts with the vowel sound in father and ends in thevelar nasal; like song in some dialects of American English)
eng
[əŋ]
eng
likee inen above but with ng added to it at the back
ing
[iŋ]
ying
asi +ng
ong
[ʊŋ],[u̯əŋ]
weng
starts with the vowel sound in book and ends with the velar nasal sound in sing; asu +eng in zero initial.
Here is given an excerpt of the "kiš yiγen ġadïn kiš" ("people-eating woman") story from Ma Wei, Ma Jianzhong & Kevin Stuart's workThe Folklore of China's Islamic Salar Nationality.[58][59]
oholdï bir ninor vumiš aŋa kiǰičix anor vara bir gunor ninačux anasini parlïǰani ziden yanbar(r) yarïm yoldï ulïr xari ġadïnkïšor učiramiš xari ġadïnkiščix daš išdende zoğziba(r) bu ninačix yana varǰani aŋnišmiš e xari nina sen eyiŋ bir kiščuγïŋ munda natburi dimiš
Long ago there was a granny. She had a little daughter. One day, the granny came back from the market with her daughter. Halfway they run into an old woman. The old woman was sitting on a stone. This granny came towards her and struck up a conversation: "Hey old granny, what are you doing here, one person all by yourself ”, she said.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[60]
Heme kishler hür der, haysiyet ma haklarde adil der, mantik ma vicdan var, kardeshlikden davraneshge.
^Roos, Marti (1998)."Preaspiration in Western Yugur monosyllables". In Johanson, Lars (ed.).The Mainz Meeting: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, August 3–6, 1994. Turcologica Series. Contributor Éva Ágnes Csató. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 28.ISBN978-3447038645. Retrieved24 April 2014.
^Boeschoten, Hendrik; Rentzsch, Julian, eds. (2010).Turcology in Mainz. Vol. 82 of Turcologica Series. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 279.ISBN978-3447061131. Retrieved1 April 2013.
^abcd马伟 (Ma Wei); 朝克 (Chao Ke) (2016), in 濒危语言——撒拉语研究 [Endangered Languages - Salar Language Studies], 青海 (Qinghai): 国家社会科学基金项目 (National Social Science Foundation Project), pp. 86-95, 263
^Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva, eds. (1998).The Turkic Languages. Vol. 60 of Turcologica Series (illustrated, reprint ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 400.ISBN978-0415082006. Retrieved24 April 2014.
^Rockhill, W. W. (1892). "[Letter from W. W. Rockhill]".Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland:598–602.JSTOR25197112.
^Ma, Quanlin; Ma, Wanxiang; Ma, Zhicheng (1993). Stuart, Kevin (ed.).Salar Language Materials(PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 43. Philadelphia, PA: Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania. p. 3. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2012.
^Ma, Quanlin; Ma, Wanxiang; Ma, Zhicheng (1993). Stuart, Kevin (ed.).Salar Language Materials(PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 43. Philadelphia, PA: Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania. p. 3. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2012.
^Ma, Quanlin; Ma, Wanxiang; Ma, Zhicheng (1993). Stuart, Kevin (ed.).Salar Language Materials(PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 43. Philadelphia, PA: Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania. p. 3. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2012.
^Ma, Wei; Ma, Jianzhong; Stuart, Kevin (2001).The Folklore of China's Islamic Salar Nationality. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press.OCLC606504539.
^Robbeets, Martin; Cuyckens, Hubert, eds. (2013).Shared Grammaticalization: With Special Focus on the Transeurasian Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 248–249.ISBN978-90-272-0599-5.OCLC875771914.