Official status

Alongside Russian, Altai is an official language of the Altai Republic. The official language is based on the Southern Altai language spoken by the group called the Altay-Kiži, however in the few years it has also spread to the Northern Altai Republic.

Varieties

Though they are traditionally considered one language, Southern Altai is not fully mutually intelligible with the Northern varieties. According to modern classifications—at least since the middle of the 20th century—they are considered to be two separate languages.^[8]

Written Altai is based on Southern Altai, and according to Ethnologue is rejected by Northern Altai children. In 2006, a Cyrillic alphabet was created for the Kumandy variety of Northern Altai for use in Altai Krai.^[9]

Dialects are as follows:^[3]

• Southern Altai
  • Altai proper
    • Mayma
  • Telengit
    • Tölös
    • Chuy
  • Teleut
• Northern Altai
  • Tuba
  • Kumandy
    • Turachak
    • Solton
    • Starobardinian
  • Chalkan (also called Kuu, Lebedin)

Closely related to the northern varieties are Kondoma Shor and Lower Chulym, which have -j- for proto-Turkic inter-vocalic *d, unlike Mras Shor and Middle Chulym, which have -z- and are closer to Khakas.

Missionary's Cyrillic alphabet

The first writing system for Altai was invented by missionaries from the Altai Spiritual Mission in the 1840s; it was based on the Cyrillic alphabet and invented for the Teleut dialect and was used mostly for Church publications.^[10] The first books were printed in Altai not long thereafter and in 1868, the first Altaic Alphabet was published. There was no stable form of this alphabet, and it changed from edition-to-edition.

With this in mind, this is an inventory of some of these letters:

First Cyrillic alphabet (1922–1928)

After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, publishing books into Altai was resumed in 1921,^[11] using a script similar to the Missionary's Alphabet. About this time, many post-revolution letters were adopted to better compose Russian words adopted into the language. As such, it took on this form (non-Russian letters emboldened):

Interestingly, in the same space, many considered adapting the old Mongolian Script for use in writing Altai.^[12]

Latin alphabet (1928–1938)

The Latin Alphabet was eventually adopted and was used from 1922–1928. The final version of this alphabet was published in 1931, taking this form:^[13]

The Latin letters correspond as follows to the modern Cyrillic letters:^[14]

Second Cyrillic alphabet (1938–1944)

In 1938, the Central Research Institute of Language and Writing of the Peoples of the USSR began the project of designing a new alphabet for Altai, based on the Cyrillic script. Their new alphabet consisted of all 33 Russian letters, as well as the digraph 〈Дь дь〉 and the letter 〈Ҥҥ〉, for the phonemes /d͡ʒ/ and /ŋ/ respectively. However, this was later rejected, because it could not accurately represent all of Altai's phonological inventory.

To amend for this, the Institute's first revised alphabet saw the graphemes〈Ёё〉 and 〈Юю〉 for Altai's vowels /ø~œ/ and /y/ fall out of use, and the addition of two digraphs and two letters: 〈Дь дь〉 for /d͡ʒ/, 〈Нъ нъ〉for /ŋ/, 〈Ӧӧ〉 for /ø~œ/, and 〈Ӱӱ〉 for /y/. In the second revision, however, 〈Нъ нъ〉 was replaced with 〈Ҥҥ〉. Thus was born:

Altai speakers accepted the first variant, but generally preferred 〈Н' н'〉 over 〈Ҥҥ〉.

Modern Standard Altai alphabet

Their second Cyrillic alphabet had many shortcomings, thus begging for a reform, which was carried out in 1944. The usage of 〈Ёё〉 and 〈Юю〉 /ø~œ/ and /y/ was dropped entirely, being replaced by the adoption of the Institute's second revision's usages of 〈Ӧӧ〉, and 〈Ӱӱ〉, for native words. 〈Дь дь〉 was dropped in favour of 〈Јј〉; for 〈Н' н'〉, they finally accepted 〈Ҥҥ〉.

The letters 〈Ёё〉, 〈Юю〉, and 〈Яя〉 are still used, though they are reserved for only non-native, Russian loan-words. So, in modern Standard Altai, the equivalent sounds are written: 〈йа〉, 〈йо〉 and 〈йу〉, for native words. So, words that were written: кая and коён, are now written as: кайа and койон.

Modern Southern Altai Cyrillic with Names

Consonants

The voiced palatal plosive /ɟ/ varies greatly from dialect to dialect, especially in the initial position, and may be recognized as a voiced affricate /d͡z/. Forms of the word јок "no" include [coq] (Kuu dialect) and [joq] (Kumandy). Even within dialects, this phoneme varies greatly.^[18][19][20]

Vowels

There are eight vowels in Altai. These vowels may be long or short.

Pronouns

Altai has six personal pronouns:

The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart.

Pronouns in the various dialects vary considerably. For example, the pronouns in the Qumandin dialect follow.^[21]