| Sart Kalmyk | |
|---|---|
| Сарт хальмг келн Sart xalmg keln | |
| Native to | Kyrgyzstan |
| Region | Issyk-Kul |
| Ethnicity | c. 12,000 Sart Kalmyks |
| Native speakers | 200 |
| Language family | Mongolic |
| Official status | |
| Official language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | sart1247 |
| IETF | xal-x-HIS11428 |
Sart Kalmyk (Oirat: Сарт хальмг келн, romanized: Sart xalmg keln) is an endangered and underdocumented Central Mongolic Oirat language variety spoken by the Sart Kalmyks in Ak-Suu District, Issyk-Kul Region, Kyrgyzstan.
History
Sart Kalmyk emerged as a distinct variety after its speakers separated from a larger Oirat-speaking community in today's Xinjiang around 1864 and moved to the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul. Since then, the language has been developing in isolation from other Mongolic varieties and in intense contact with Kyrgyz, a Turkic language. Recent research shows a significant influence of Kyrgyz morphology, phonology and lexicon on Sart Kalmyk.
Language situation
Sart Kalmyk is a severely threatened language. Its domains of use are largely confined to informal communication between the elderly in rural areas. Virtually all speakers are trilingual, having a good command of Kyrgyz and Russian in addition to their ethnic language. Younger members of the ethnic community often speak little to no Sart Kalmyk.
Orthography
Historically, Sart Kalmyk was written with the Clear script and, occasionally, a local version of the Arabic script. Both scripts have fallen out of use by the early 1940s. In 1934, a short-lived Latin alphabet-based orthography was introduced. Today, Sart Kalmyk is seldom used in writing, but when it is written, the Kalmyk version of Cyrillic is employed.
References
- "President of Mongolia received the Kalmyk citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic", President of Mongolia, 2012-04-08, archived from the original on 2016-12-06
- Borlykova, Boskha; Menyaev, Badma (2020), "Morphological peculiarities of the Sart-Kalmyk language", Izvestia VGPU. Filologia (in Russian), 148 (5): 128–134
- Borlykova, Boskha; Menyaev, Badma (2022), "Sart-Kalmyks of Kyrgyzstan: a Brief Ethnographic Essay", Nauchniy Dialog (in Russian), 11 (1): 362–278, doi:10.24224/2227-1295-2022-11-1-362-378, S2CID 246393195
- Tenishev, Edkhyam (1976), "About the Language of Sart Kalmyks of Issyk-Kul" (PDF), Voprosy Jazykoznanija (in Russian), 1: 82–87
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| Contemporary Mongolic |
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| Languages of Kyrgyzstan | |
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