| Torgut | |
|---|---|
| Native to | People's Republic of China,Mongolia,Russia |
| Region | Xinjiang,Khovd, easternKalmykia |
Native speakers | (270,000, incl. all Kalmyk in Russia, cited 1987–2002)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | torg1245 |
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Torgut (Oirat:Торһд,romanized: Torhd,[torˈɣət]), also spelledTorghud, is a dialect of theOirat language spoken inXinjiang, in westernMongolia and in easternKalmykia (where it was the basis forKalmyk, the literarystandard language of that region[2]). Thus, it has more speakers than any other variety of Oirat.[3] It is better researched than any other Oirat variety spoken in China.[4]
The Torgut dialect is spoken inRussia in Eastern Kalmykia,[5] inBulgan sum inKhovd Province in Mongolia[6] and in theChinese autonomous region of Xinjiang, mainly in three separate areas in its north-western part.[7] Sečenbaγatur et al. give an exhaustive list of the areas of Xinjiang where Oirat (in many cases Torgut) is spoken that also includes some places in north-eastern Xinjiang: the autonomous prefectures ofBayangol andBortala, the countiesHoboksar andDörbiljin and the city ofWusu inTacheng Prefecture, the counties Küriye,Tekes andNilka in theIli Prefecture, the prefecturesAltay,Hamil andChangji and Xinjiang's capital city,Ürümqi.[8] To some degree, this distribution can be associated with the history of theTorgut tribe, one of the four crucial members of the clan federation "DörbenOirat".[9]
Torgut has thevowelphonemes that may beshort or long.[10] When appearing in the firstsyllable of a word, these vowels determine thevowel harmony class, e.g.Written Mongoliantalbiγun,Khalkha-Mongolian[clarification needed]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||
| High | iiː | yyː | uuː | |
| Mid | eeː | ɵɵː | ooː | |
| Low | ææː | aaː | ||
/i/,/iː/, and/æː/ in a non-initial syllable are neutral vowels./oː/,/ɵː/ and/eː/ never appear in any but the first syllable of a word.[12]
| Labial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Dorsal | Uvular | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | pal. | |||||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | nʲ | ŋ | |||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | ||||
| voiced | b | d | g | ɢ | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless | ts | tʃ | |||||
| voiced | dʒ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ʃ | x | ||||
| voiced | z | (ɣ) | ||||||
| Rhotic | r | |||||||
| Approximant | w | l | lʲ | j | ||||
/ɢ/ can also have an allophone of[ɣ].
Most of theplural forms of Torgut are common Mongolian,-mu:d is normal Oirat,[15] but-sud[16] seems to be somewhat peculiar. Thecase system is standard Oirat which differs from Mongolian in lacking anallative and retaining the oldcomitative case, that is, it is rather conservative. In contrast toMiddle Mongolian andSouthern Mongolian and in agreement withKhalkha, theaccusative case always has-g, not-i.[17] The reflexive-possessive retains-n, thus-aan.[18]
The pronominal forms are not substantially different from Khalkha. Thefirst person singularpronounstem isnam- ~nan-, next to the standard Mongolian first person plural there is also a variant inma-, namelymadan,madnu:s (bothnominative), and the third person singular accusative is peculiar in that it is based on the regular stemyy/n- (proximal, distal istyy/n-), thus inflecting asyyg compared to Written Mongolian⟨egün-i⟩, Standard Khalkha⟨üünijg⟩.[19]
The old voluntative-su: ~-s is retained in Oirat, while the new voluntative-ja (at least in Xinjiang Torgut) rather tends to indicate a pluralsubject.[20] Like in all Oirat varieties, theconverb-xla:[21] is quite common. As is common to all Oirat dialects except forAlasha,participles andfinite verbalsuffixes caninflect for first and second person and fornumber; in case it is present, theseinflections follow amodal particle.[22] Else, the formal inventory is what would be expected from a Mongolian variety, though it is not clear to what degree the functions are the same.
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