Kyrgyzstan
54-639: The epic of Jangar or Jangar epic ( Kalmyk : Җаңһр , romanized: Cañhr , [d͡ʒaŋɣər] ; Mongolian : ᠵᠢᠩᠭᠠᠷ , Жангар , romanized : Jangar , [d͡ʒɑŋɢər] ) is a traditional oral epic poem ( tuuli ) of the Mongols . It was long thought to be particular to the Kalmyks , but is now known to also be widely told among the Oirats in Mongolia, China and Russia. The story
108-676: A living language began after the Kalmyk people were deported en masse from their homeland in December 1943, as punishment for limited Kalmyk collaboration with the Nazis . Significant factors contributing to its demise include: (1) the deaths of a substantial percentage of the Kalmyk population from disease and malnutrition, both during their travel and upon their arrival to remote exile settlements in Central Asia , south central Siberia and
162-739: A conference held in Moscow, scientists of the Mongolian group of peoples decided to change the phonetic meaning of the two letters of the Kalmyk script, as well as change the alphabetical order of the letters. In May of the same year, the III Kalmyk Regional Conference on Language and Writing, which was held in Elista , confirmed this decision. The alphabet took the following form: The letter Ь ь , unlike most other Soviet Latinized alphabets, denoted palatalization. In this form,
216-406: A phrase: келҗ бәәнә /kelʲd͡ʑə bæːnæ/ > [kelʲd͡ʑ βæːnæ] "to speak- CV.IPEF to be- prs ". The labial approximant or fricative /w/ can be pronounced as: Word-initial syllable structure is (C)V(C), meaning that in native words no word-initial clusters can occur. For non-initial syllables, however, a syllable-initial cluster of up to four consonants is allowed, meaning the maximal syllable
270-559: A place where they would be no suffering or death. His tribe settles in Bomba and after 10 years of struggle, they manage to build a paradise there. However, one day Tahil Zul Khan goes to check on his horse herd and a blizzard strikes, forcing him to take refuge in a valley. When the blizzard finally waned after several days, he tried to leave, only to be buried by an avalanche. Tangsag Bumva, his son, becomes Khan . Also noted for being kind and wise, he tries to do what his father has done, but
324-409: A red mole and a birthmark on his buttocks. The child was strong and kicked his leather swaddling cloths to pieces, making Urmaa afraid that her son was ill-fated to cause destruction. She begged Ujung Aldar to let the child die, but he appreciated his son's strength and refused. The tribe celebrated the baby's birth together. Ujung Aldar became so preoccupied with his new son that he began to neglect
378-901: A synchronic perspective, Kalmyk is the most prominent variety of Oirat. It is very close to the Oirat dialects found in Mongolia and the People's Republic of China, both phonologically and morphologically . The differences in dialects, however, concern the vocabulary, as the Kalmyk language has been influenced by and has adopted words from the Russian language and various Turkic languages . Two important features that characterise Kalmyk are agglutination and vowel harmony . In an agglutinative language , words are formed by adding affixes to existing words , called stem words or root words. Prefixes , however, are not common in Mongolic. Vowel harmony refers to
432-474: A vowel, either (1) a prothetic /g/ or /ʁ/ is added or (2) a vowel is deleted from the case ending. This is further demonstrated in the table below. The literary tradition of Oirat reaches back to 11th century when the Old Uyghur script was used. The official Kalmyk alphabet, named Clear Script or Todo bichig in Oirat, was created in the 17th century by a Kalmyk Buddhist monk called Zaya Pandita . Like
486-404: A wife, and mentioned a 16-year-old girl named Urmaa in the tribe of Dorj Khan in the south. Ujung Aldar was pleased at the prospect, so Choirom went to Dorj Khan to arrange the match. Dorj Khan was agreeable, so Ujung Aldar Khan went to the south to be married, bring with him betrothal gifts. After drinking 75 cups of liquor and 75 cups of fermented milk with Dorj Khan, Ujung Aldar Khan left
540-500: A word consists of three syllables, second of which has a vowel /a/ or /æ/, and third syllable has a reduced vowel /ə/. Examples include гөрәсн [gøræːsᵊn] " saiga ", туршарт [turʃaːrtə] "during", кезәңк [kezæːŋkə] "a while ago", һазрас [ɢazraːsə] "land- ABL ". The following is an outline of the consonant system of Kalmyk. Note that since virtually all speakers of Kalmyk are bilingual , recent borrowings from Russian do not undergo phonological adaptation and are pronounced according to
594-665: Is CCCCVC. In some consonant clusters such as /tl tn dn dl/ a sonorant becomes syllabic . These clusters are also nasally released . The reduced vowel /ə/ is regularly preserved and can be a syllable nucleus in the following cases: On the other hand, the vowel /ə/ cannot form syllables on its own if the following is true: Two-syllable words with schwa as a nucleus of the second syllable may undergo metathesis , thus creating an open syllable : Written Oirat oros "Russian" > /orəs/ > /orsə/; ulus "country, people" > /uləs/ > /ulsə/; oyirad "Oirat" > /øːrət/ > /øːrdə/. Kalmyk exhibits non-phonemic stress with
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#1732791907227648-403: Is frequent usage of future participle as a predicate of a sentence to express future tense . There is little to none suppletion (irregular forms) in verbal inflection and noun conjugation Traditionally, Kalmyk cases are said to have three declensions; however, this is mostly due to orthographical peculiarities. Basically, if the word ends in a full vowel and the case ending begins in
702-420: Is recited by singers called Jangarchi ( Kalmyk : Җаңһрч , romanized: Cañhrç , [d͡ʒaŋɣərt͡ʃə] ). The Jangar has approximately 25 or 26 chapters, though certain versions may have more than 100 chapters. The epic begins by recounting the story of Jangar's great-grandfather, Tahil Zul Khan, who is kind and honest. Tahil Zul Khan leads his people to a land called Bomba where he hoped to create
756-592: Is thwarted by years of bad weather that kills half the tribe's livestock. Eventually Tangsag Bumva Khan dies of overwork, and his 12-year-old son Ujung Aldar becomes Khan. Ujung Aldar is Jangar's father. One day Ujung Aldar was participating in a horse race with some other youths for the prize of an iron-gray horse. However, as he rode past a hill, he came to a lake and stopped to watch a pair of swans courting. Fascinated by their love, he watched them until they flew away. Afterwards, he found himself feeling lonely and sad. His advisor, Master Choirom, suggested that he take
810-669: The Autonomous Republic of Kalmykia . The Kalmyk people were permitted to return to the Republic in 1957, 14 years after exile. The Russian language , however, was made the official language of the Republic, and Sovietisation was imposed on the Kalmyk people, leading to drastic cuts in Kalmyk language education. The Cyrillic alphabet became firmly established among the Kalmyks (and other peoples, too). For instance, books, periodicals, newspapers, etc., were published using it. By
864-805: The Kalmyk language (Kalmyk: Хальмг келн , Haľmg keln , IPA: [xalʲˈmək keˈlən] ), is a variety of the Mongolian language , natively spoken by the Kalmyk people of Kalmykia , a federal subject of Russia . In Russia, it is the standard form of the Oirat Mongolian (based on the Torgut dialect ), which belongs to the Mongolic language family . The Kalmyk people of the Northwest Caspian Sea of Russia claim descent from
918-460: The Oirats from Eurasia , who have also historically settled in Mongolia and Northwest China . According to UNESCO , the language is "definitely endangered". According to the Russian census of 2021, there are 110,000 speakers out of an ethnic population consisting of 178,000 people. Kalmyk is now only spoken as a native language by a small minority of the Kalmyk population. Its decline as
972-615: The Soviet Far East ; (2) the wide dispersal of the Kalmyk population; (3) the duration of exile, which ended in 1957; (4) the stigma associated with being accused of treason, and (5) assimilation into the larger, more dominant culture. Collectively, these factors discontinued the intergenerational language transmission. In 1957, the Soviet government reinstated the Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast and later reestablished
1026-1173: The voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ can appear in both front and back vowel words, e.g. һәәвһә /ɣæːwɣæ/ "good" and һалун /ɣalun/ "goose". Nonetheless, all consonants and neutral reduced vowel /ə/ are influenced by harmonic status of a word, at least phonetically. The harmonic vowel pairs are: /a/~/æ/, /o/~/ø/, /u/~/y/, [ i ] ~ [ ɨ ] , the last pair being allophonic . Historical long vowels in non-initial syllables have been reduced to short vowels , while historical short vowels have been reduced to schwa and then, just like in Mongolian , were replaced according to language's phonotactics . For example, Written Oirat ɣarān "hand- P.REFL " became һаран /ɣaran/; ɣarɣaqsan "to get out- CAUS - PC.PST " became һарһсн /ɣarɣsən/. Long vowels and diphthongs in one-syllable words have been also reduced to short vowels: sayin "good" > сән /sæn/. Nevertheless, in inflected forms of such words, short vowels tend to become elongated: сән /sæn/ "good" > сәәг /sæːgə/ "good- ACC ", күн /kyn/ "man"> күүнә /kyːnæ/ "man- GEN ". Despite that, long vowels still may be pronounced in non-initial syllables. This happens if
1080-474: The Khan dead, he decided to take his revenge by attacking some of the invaders as they sat around a fire. He killed one of them, but was soon killed himself. In the mountain cave, the boy sucked the white jade to keep himself from growing hungry or thirsty for a few days. But eventually he began to cry. A man named Mengen Xigxirge was hunting nearby, and he noticed the horse Aranjagaan grazing. Wanting to see what
1134-461: The Oirat literary tradition. The modern Cyrillic alphabet used for the Kalmyk language is as follows: Since the Tatar alphabet is identical to the Kalmyk alphabet (both featuring the same additional letters to the Russian one), Kalmyks using Windows use Tatar keyboard layouts to type Kalmyk. Kalmyk-specific keyboard layouts, however, are available on Android and Linux systems. * Pronounced /je/ at
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#17327919072271188-660: The Old Mongolian script, Todo bichig was written from top to bottom. Written Oirat language contained many words borrowed from the Mongolian language and not used in everyday speech, despite many attempts to bring the written standard and colloquial spoken language closer together. Thus, already at the beginning of the 18th century, two written forms of the Kalmyk language were recorded - “bookish”, used in religious practice and having numerous Mongolian and Tibetan borrowings and preserving archaic language forms, as well as “conversational”, used in private correspondence and reflecting
1242-642: The Orthodox Missionary Society published a number of school books in the Kalmyk language, using Cyrillic script. The first edition of this kind was the "Primer for Kalmyk ulus schools" (1892). The alphabet used in this primer has the following composition: А а, Б б, В в, Г г, Д д, Е е, З з, И и, К к, Л л, М м, Н н, О о, П п, Р р, С с, Т т, У у, Х х, Ц ц, Ч ч, Ш ш, ь, Э э, Ю ю, Я я, Ӓ ӓ , Ā ā , Ǟ ǟ , Ӧ ӧ , Ō ō , Ȫ ȫ , Ӱ ӱ , Ӯ ӯ , Ӱ̄ ӱ̄ , Д ж д ж , Нг нг, І й, і й, Йе йе, Йӧ йӧ, Ӓй ӓй, Ӣ ӣ , Э̄ э̄, Ю̄ ю̄, Я̄ я̄ . In 1902,
1296-694: The Republic of Kalmykia, where it is an official language. A small group of Kalmyk language speakers also live in France and the US, but the use of Kalmyk is in steep decline. In all three locations, the actual number of speakers is unknown. Kalmyk is an endangered language. As of 2012, the Kalmyk community in New Jersey , which arrived in the US in the 1950s, was planning to work with the Enduring Voices project to promote Kalmyk language and culture. From
1350-618: The Torgut, but also on the Derbet dialect. Sometimes in the editions of that time, the letter ң was replaced by ҥ or н̈ , and the letters Е е, Ж ж, Ф Ф, Щ щ were not officially included in the alphabet. September 7, 1926 at a meeting at the Kalmyk pedagogical school in Astrakhan, it was decided to make changes to the alphabet. So, all additional letters were canceled, and instead of them entered D d, V v, H h . In June 1927, this alphabet
1404-405: The affairs of the tribe, particularly the defenses. A Manggus, or devil, called Goljing had long been an enemy of Bomba. Seeing Ujung Aldar's weakness, he attacked with 10,000 warriors on black horses and easily captured Bomba. Ujung Aldar Khan and his wife and son were besieged in their palace. Seeking to save his son's life, Ujung Aldar put a piece of white jade in his son's mouth, placed him on
1458-703: The agreement between the vowels in the root of a word and the vowels in the word's suffix or suffixes. Other features include the absence of grammatical gender . It has some elements in common with the Uralic and Uyghur languages, which reflects its origin from the common language of the Oirats, a union of four Oirat tribes that absorbed some Ugric and Turkic tribes during their expansion westward. Similar to Middle Mongol and Written Oirat , Kalmyk exhibits tongue-root vowel harmony . Unlike Middle Mongol , however, consonants are not restricted by harmony . For instance,
1512-679: The alphabet existed until 1938. There is no romanization standard for Kalmyk, but a modified version of either the BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian or the Common Turkic Alphabet is used in practice. In the second half of the 1930s, the USSR began the process of translating scripts into Cyrillic. The Latin script was in turn replaced by another Cyrillic script in 1938. Initially, the Kalmyk Cyrillic alphabet included all
1566-571: The animals living nearby came to see what the noise was. He befriended them and they fed him and taught him their skills. She-wolves suckled him, and deer brought him fruit. He learned to roar from a tiger, to hunt from an eagle, and to run from an antelope. Jangar lived in the wild for two years, soon attaining the age of three. One day an old man appeared while Jangar was sitting under a tree. The man told him about what had happened to his parents and trained him in martial arts and magic. But no sooner had Jangar learned these things than he woke up—it
1620-465: The changes taking place in the language . Todo bichig, also called “zayapandit script” after its creator, existed among the Kalmyks until 1924 with minor changes. Oirats of China use it to the present. In 1924 this script was replaced by an adaptation of the Cyrillic script , which was abandoned in 1930 in favour of a Latin script . At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries,
1674-456: The couple could not produce a child. They tried various kinds of medicine, but nothing worked. At last, Master Choirom suggested that they talk to a herdsman who had 19 children. They called the herdsman in and he explained his secret: when the horses began to rut, he and his wife would watch them mate, then go mate themselves. Promising to reward the herder if the trick worked, Ujung Aldar Khan agreed to try it. The couple secretly stole out to
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1728-479: The crystal palace by the sea where his enemy dwelt. He snuck inside and found everyone drunk. Taking hold of the intoxicated Shar Durdeng, Jangar threw him off his throne, and proceeded to break ribs and spinal bones until Shar Durdeng agreed to leave Bomba in peace and pay taxes and tribute. The first chapter of the Epic of Jangar ends by noting that by the age of five, Jangar had defeated five Mangguses and quintupled
1782-470: The horse Aranjagaan, and sent his servant Menhbayar to take the child to safety. He also gave the servant the Aram spear, a weapon that had been passed down for generations. Then Ujang Aldar fought the invaders until he and his wife were cut down. The servant took the child to Big Black Mountain and hid him in a cave, then walked back to the palace to see what had happened. Discovering everything destroyed and
1836-539: The horse was doing there, he went closer, and heard the baby crying. He followed the noise and discovered the cave. At first Mengen Xigxirge wanted to adopt the boy, so he decided to give him the name "Jangar." The boy immediately agreed that this should be his name and declared that he would become master of the world. This frightened Mengen Xigxirge, who was worried that Jangar might dispossess his own son, Hongor. So he decided to leave Jangar there with some food and water and left. Jangar went outside and roared, and all
1890-523: The last syllable (even if it ends in schwa ) being stressed. Like other Mongolic languages , Kalmyk is an agglutinative , suffixing, and a genderless language. Some aspects of its syntax have been influenced by Russian ; for example, relative clauses , traditionally characterized by left-branching and employing a converbial form of a verb (similarly to Japanese ), now often use Russian relative pronoun который and thus exhibit right-branching. Other noticeable feature possibly influenced by Russian
1944-413: The late 1970s, the Russian language became the primary language of instruction in all schools in the Republic. During the period of Perestroika , Kalmyk linguists, in collaboration with the Kalmyk government, planned and tried to implement the revival of the Kalmyk language. This revival was seen as an integral part of the reassertion of Kalmyk culture. In an important symbolic gesture, the Kalmyk language
1998-406: The letters of the Russian alphabet, as well as Ä ä, Гъ гъ, Дж дж, Нъ нъ, Ö ö, Ӱ ӱ . In 1941, the alphabet was reformed again - the outline of additional letters was changed. However, due to the deportation of the Kalmyks that followed soon, the transition to a new version of the alphabet was carried out only after their rehabilitation - in the late 1950s. These script reforms effectively disrupted
2052-407: The long vowels was supposed to put a line (macron), but in practice this was not done. Also, despite the absence of an approved project, the letter ъ was used to designate unclear vowels. From January 1926, the newspaper «Ulan Halmg» ( ru ) began to be printed on this alphabet. The basis of the emerging Kalmyk literary language was the Torgut dialect, but later the norm began to focus not only on
2106-531: The majority of the votes had declared obsolete writing - it was noted that it was difficult for writing and learning, lack of fonts, the inability to use on the telegraph, and so on. In this regard, it was decided to translate Kalmyk language into Cyrillic script. On January 12, the alphabet was adopted, consisting of the following letters: А а, Б б, В в, Г г, Д д, Е е, Ж ж, З з, И и, К к, Л л, М м, Н н, О о, П п, Р р, С с, Т т, У у, Ф ф, Х х, Ц ц, Ч ч, Ш ш, Щ щ, Ы ы, Э э, Ю ю, Я я, Ь ь, Й й, ä , ö , ӱ , ң , ӝ . Above
2160-479: The mountain where Altan Gheej's palace was located. Nearby was a herd of 80,000 iron-grey horses. Jangar reasoned that if Altan Gheej knew the future, then he must know that Jangar had come to attack him on that day. So instead of attacking, he decided to drive away the horses instead. Altan Gheej, however, had known that Jangar would drive off his horses and that the horses would eventually return, so he stayed at his palace instead of pursuing. It wasn't until Jangar
2214-474: The palace and called back all the people who had fled after the invasion. He became Khan and Bomba flourished again. Meanwhile, another ruler named Shar Durdeng began raiding the outskirts of Bomba for livestock, women and children. Jangar was upset, and the three-year-old Khan took up his spear and rode alone to face his new enemy. To reach Shar Durdeng's palace, Jangar had to fight for seven months and 19 days. He overthrew four strongholds, and finally reached
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2268-472: The party and went to the tent where his bride Urmaa was. In accordance with custom, the other members of Urmaa's family playfully tried to stop him, and he had to force, argue, and persuade his way through to the bride's yurt. At last he managed to break through and go in and get his wife. He put her on his great red stallion, Aranjagaan , and they galloped to the bridal yurt. Afterwards they returned to Bomba together. Two years later, it became apparent that
2322-529: The rules of Russian phonology , including those of vowel reduction and stress . Orthographic voiced stops d, g are devoiced: келәд /kelæt/ "to speak- CV.ANT ", бөлг /bølək/ "chapter". Devoicing also occurs whenever there is a two-consonant cluster with one consonant being voiceless : /bolʃko/ "may not", таңһч /taŋxt͡ɕə/ "republic". Consonant clusters exhibit other types of assimilation: The voiced bilabial stop /b/, being only restricted to word-initial position, may be pronounced as [ β ] in
2376-697: The size of the Bomba's territory. Besides being a hunter, Mengen Xigxirge was also a wrestler. He had once successfully wrestled and pinned a bull. Hearing of Jangar's success, Mengen Xigxirge was sorry that he left the boy alone on the mountain unharmed. He invited Jangar to come wrestle with him, and Jangar agreed. The shared a meal of mare's milk and lamb, then began to wrestle. The match lasted for several days, but finally Mengen Xigxirge prevailed. Having Jangar at his mercy, he determined to kill him and summoned men with swords. But Mengen Xigxirge's son Hongor grabbed hold of Jangar and pleaded his father not to harm him. Mengen Xigxirge tried to drive his son off, but
2430-399: The steppe and hid behind a large rock so that they could watch a stallion and mare mate. Afterwards, they returned to their palace and tried for a child. The trick worked, and several months later it became apparent that Urmaa was pregnant. Ujung Aldar Khan sent the herdsman 100 cows as a reward. Urmaa was pregnant for 10 months, but could not give birth. When she finally did give birth, it
2484-437: The “Primer for Kalmyks” was released, where a different version of the alphabet was used: А а, Б б, Г г, Д д, З з, И и, Й й, К к, Л л, М м, Н н, О о, Р р, С с, Т т, У у, Х х, Ц ц, Ч ч, Ш ш, ь, Э э, Ӓ ӓ, Ā ā, Ǟ ǟ, Ӧ ӧ, Ō ō, Ȫ ȫ, Ӱ ӱ, Ӯ ӯ, Ӱ̄ ӱ̄, Дж дж, Ҥ ҥ, Ӣ ӣ, Э̄ э̄ . At the same time, the letter of the clear script continued to be used. On January 6, 1924, a meeting of the Kalmyk public was held in Astrakhan. At this meeting,
2538-503: Was about to leave his territory a month later that he finally pursued. As Jangar was crossing a river, Altan Gheej took aim with his bow and fired a poison arrow at Jangar. The missile struck and Jangar felt dizzy. He put the piece of jade in his mouth. Aranjagaan, realizing what had happened, took Jangar to safety. Altan Gheej collected his horses and drove them back home. In 2014, the Jangar Culture and Art Palace (江格尔文化艺术宫)
2592-571: Was declared an official language of the Republic, giving it equal status with the Russian language with respect to official governmental use and language education. During the production of the film Return of the Jedi , sound designer Rafe Mercieca—with his life-time partner Ben Curtis—based the language of the Ewoks on Kalmyk after hearing it spoken in a documentary and being impressed with its phonology. The majority of Kalmyk language speakers live in
2646-427: Was introduced into official use, but much of the literature and press was still published in the alphabet of 1924. On February 5–8, 1928, a regular meeting on Kalmyk writing was held, at which the alphabet was reformed again. The letters D d, V v, H h were canceled, and the letter Ә ә was entered to indicate unclear vowels. It was decided to denote the long vowels by doubling the corresponding letters. This alphabet
2700-460: Was morning, and it had all been a dream. Nonetheless, he felt strong, and discovered that he could uproot a tree and smash a camel-sized rock with it. He mounted Aranjagaan and went home to kill Goljing. Three-year-old Jangar fought his way to Goljing's palace, destroying three strongholds on the way, and thrust his spear into the Manggus' chest, killing him. Then Jangar climbed up on the roof of
2754-600: Was opened in the Hoboksar Mongol Autonomous County , in Xinjiang (China), which is traditionally considered the place of origin of the epic. In 2016, a Chinese computer-animated film titled Hero Jianger ( Chinese : 英雄江格尔 ) was released exclusively on the streaming platform iQIYI . Kalmyk language Kalmyk Oirat (Kalmyk: Хальмг Өөрдин келн , Haľmg Öördin keln , IPA: [xalʲˈmək øːrˈdin keˈlən] ), commonly known as
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#17327919072272808-509: Was to a strange red mass. Ujung Aldar ordered a servant to throw it out, but then a voice cried from within, "I'm suffocating! Let me out of here!" They tried to cut the red mass open with a sword, but the sword merely chipped. Master Choirom came and recommended that they use Sword given by the Jade Emperor, and with this sword they were able to cut the red mass and free the large baby boy within. The baby's skin had auspicious markings:
2862-469: Was unable to do so; finally he succumbed and agreed to save Jangar on one condition: that he fight Altan Gheej, a man who could see 99 years into the future and 99 years into the past. Altan Gheej had fought Jangar's father long ago and almost destroyed him. Mengen Xigxirge hoped that the contest would prove to be Jangar's undoing. Jangar, riding Aranjagaan and carrying the Aram spear, went to attack Altan Gheej. Riding for three months, he finally arrived at
2916-718: Was used until 1930. In the late 1920s, the process of romanization of writing began in the USSR. In the course of this process in January 1930, the IX Kalmyk Regional Congress of Soviets legalized the new Latinized alphabet of the Kalmyk language. Its actual use began in newspapers from the end of September of the same year. In this alphabet, the letters were arranged in the following order: A a, B b, C c, Ç ç, D d, E e, Ә ә, G g, H h, I i, j, K k, L l, M m, N n, ꞑ, O o, Ө ө, P p, R r, S s, Ş ş, F f, Y y, Z z, Ƶ ƶ, U u, T t, V v, X x, ь . On January 10–17, 1931, at
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