Salar language

Classification

Due to the ethnonym "Salur", which is also shared by some modern Turkmen tribes, linguists historically tried to establish a link between Turkmen 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.

Dialects

The Qing dynasty deported some Salars that belonged to the Jahriyya Sufi order to the Ili valley in modern-day Xinjiang. Today a community of about 4,000 Salars speaking a distinct dialect of Salar still live in Ili. Salar migrants from Amdo, Qinghai, came to settle in the region as religious exiles, migrants, and as soldiers enlisted in the Chinese army to fight rebels in Ili, often following the Hui. The distinctive dialect of the Ili Salar differs from the other Salar dialects because the neighboring Kazakh and Uyghur languages in Ili influenced it. The Ili Salar population numbers around 4,000 people. There have been instances of misunderstanding between speakers of Ili Salar and Qinghai Salar due to the divergence of the dialects. The differences between the two dialect result in a "clear isogloss".

However, Lin Lianyun and Han Jianye divide Salar into two dialects by including Western Salar in the Gaizi dialect: the Gaizi dialect and the Mengda dialect. The Gaizi dialect is mainly distributed in Jiezi, Qingshui and Baizhuang in Xunhua County, Gandu in Hualong County, Dahejia in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture of Gansu Province and Yining 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 vol- 'to be', ver- 'to give', vax- 'to look', and in the Mengda dialect as bol- 'to be', ber- 'to give', bax- 'to look'. Also, Mengda lost its phoneme, which has developed into the phoneme: Gaizi değ- 'to touch', Mengda dex- 'to touch'; Gaizi yağ- 'to rain', Mengda yax- 'to rain'. While the phoneme stood in the Gaizi dialect, it turned into the sound in the Mengda dialect: Gaizi qamcü 'whip', Mengda qancü 'whip'; Gaizi göm- "to embed", Mengda gön- 'to embed'.

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. For example; Ili Salar gölök, Qinghai gölix, gölex "cow".

History

Origins and development

The ancestor to modern Salar is thought to have diverged first from the Proto-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 as Chagatai, Kipchak and the Karluk languages, along with non-Turkic languages belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family.

After the Jahriyya revolt, some Salars were deported to the Ili valley and established a new community in the region. This led to the divergence of a distinctive dialect called Ili Salar influenced by the neighboring Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uyghur languages.

Current situation

According to 2002 estimates, Salars number about 105,000, and about 70,000 of them speak Salar. Less than 20,000 Salars are monolingual.

The Salar language is the official language in all Salar autonomous areas. Such autonomous areas are the Xunhua Salar Autonomous County and the Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County. In Qinghai Province, most Salar people speak both Qinghai Mandarin and Salar. Rural Salars can speak Salar more fluently while urban Salars often assimilate more into the Chinese-speaking Hui Muslim population.

Phonology

Salar's phonology has been influenced by Chinese and Tibetan. In addition, and have become separate phonemes due to loanwords, as they have in other Turkic languages.

Salar's vowels are similar to those of Turkish, with the back vowels and the corresponding front vowels . In Ili Salar, the high front vowels i and y, when placed after an initial glide, are spirantized with j transforming into ʝ. Qinghai and Ili Salar have mostly the same consonantal development.

Vocabulary

In Qinghai Province, the Salar language has been notably influenced by Chinese and Tibetan. 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. The Salar language has taken loans and influence from neighboring varieties of Chinese. Vice versa, the neighboring variants of the Chinese language have also adopted loanwords from the Salar language.

The verb 'to do' is ät in Salar (cf. Turkish et). The word 'lips' is dodax in Salar (cf. Turkish dudak). The participle -miş is used by Salar (cf. Turkish -mış).

Writing system

Salars mostly use Chinese for writing while using the Salar language for speaking.

Salar does not have an official script, but it has sometimes been written down using the Arabic script. Some Salar call for a Latin script and some Salar who dislike the Pinyin-based Latin script desire to use Chinese characters instead. This lack of an official script has led most Salar to use the Chinese writing system. China offered the Salar an official writing system quite similar to the Uyghur New Script, 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.

Grigory Potanin used the Cyrillic alphabet to record a glossary of Salar, Western Yugur language and Eastern Yugur language in his 1893 Russian language book The Tangut-Tibetan Borderlands of China and Central Mongolia with assistance from Vasily Radlov.

William Woodville Rockhill wrote a glossary of Salar in his 1894 book Diary 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.

TB30

Aa Bb Cc Çç Dd Ee Ff Gg

Ğğ Hh İi Iı Kk Ll Mm Nn Ññ

Oo Öö Pp Qq Rr Ss Şş Tt

Uu Üü Yy Vv Zz

Pinyin-based Latin alphabet

A romanization of the Mengda dialect of Salar based on Pinyin has been developed, created by a Salar, Ma Quanlin, who lives in Xunhua. Like Pinyin, which is used to romanize Mandarin Chinese, this Salar romanization is divided into categories of consonants and vowels. Letters that occur both in Pinyin and romanization of Mengda Salar share the same sound values.

Consonants

Vowels

Sample texts

Here is given an excerpt of the "kiş yiğen ğadın kiş" ('man-eating woman') story from Ma Wei, Ma Jianzhong & Kevin Stuart's work The Folklore of China's Islamic Salar Nationality. aña kiciçiq anor vara bir gunor ninaçuq anasini parlıcani ziden yanba(r) yarım yoldı ulır qari ğadınkışor uçiramiş qari ğadınkişçiq daş işdende zoğziba(r) bu ninaçiq yana varcani añnişmiş e qari nina sen eyiñ bir kişçuğıñ munda natburi dimiş|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.

Heme kişler hür der, haysiyet ma haklarde adil der, mantik ma vicdan var, kardeşlikden davraneşge.

Notes

Sources

• Hahn, R. F. 1988. Notes on the Origin and Development of the Salar Language, Acta Orientalia Hungarica XLII (2–3), 235–237.
• Dwyer, A. 1996. Salar Phonology. Unpublished dissertation University of Washington.
• Dwyer, A. M. 1998. The Turkic strata of Salar: An Oghuz in Chaghatay clothes? Turkic Languages 2, 49–83.

References

References

1. (2010). "Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World". Elsevier.
2. Olson, James Stuart. (1998). "An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of China". Greenwood Publishing Group.
3. Roos, Marti. (1998). "The Mainz Meeting: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, August 3–6, 1994". Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.
4. Martí, Fèlix. (2005). "Words and worlds: world languages review". Multilingual Matters.
5. '''Ethnologue.com''' :[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=slr report for language code:slr]
6. (2006). "Exploring the Eastern Frontiers of Turkic". Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.
7. (2007–2014). "China's Minority Peoples - The Salars". Cultural China.
8. Erdal, Marcel. (2015). "Ana Oğuzca Ve Selçuklu Oğuzcasi". 5. Uluslararası Türkiyat Araştırmaları Sempozyumu Bildirileri..
9. "Glottolog 4.4 - Salar".
10. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
11. (2010). "Turcology in Mainz". Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.
12. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
13. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
14. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
15. "Salar: Jiezi dil".
16. 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
17. Kaşgarli, Raile ABDULVAHİT. (2018-04-29). "SALAR TÜRKÇESİNDEKİ ÇİNCE UNSURLAR". Littera Turca Journal of Turkish Language and Literature.
18. Tenishev, Edhem (1976), in Stroj salárskovo jazyká [Grammar of Salar], Moscow: Nauka, p. 250
19. Yakup, Abdurishid. (2002). "An Ili Salar Vocabulary: Introduction and a Provisional Salar-English Lexicon". University of Tokyo.
20. (1998). "Turkic Languages, Volumes 1–2". Harrassowitz Verlag.
21. (1998). "The Turkic Languages". Taylor & Francis.
22. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
23. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
24. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
25. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
26. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
27. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
28. (2000). "Evidentials: Turkic, Iranian and Neighbouring Languages". Walter de Gruyter.
29. William Safran. (1998). "Nationalism and ethnoregional identities in China". Psychology Press.
30. Raymond Hickey. (2010). "The Handbook of Language Contact". John Wiley and Sons.
31. Raymond Hickey. (2010). "The Handbook of Language Contact". John Wiley and Sons.
32. (2010). "The Handbook of Language Contact". John Wiley & Sons.
33. Lin, Lianyun. (1985). "撒拉语简志". 民族出版社.
34. (2000). "Studies on Turkish and Turkic Languages: Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Turkish Linguistics, Lincoln College, Oxford, August 12–14, 1998". Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.
35. Hahn, Reinhard F.. (1988). "Notes on the Origin and Development of the Salar Language". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae.
36. Guo, Rongxing. (2012). "Understanding the Chinese Economies". Academic Press.
37. (2007–2014). "The Salar Nationality". Cultural China.
38. (2007–2014). "China's Minority Peoples – The Salars". Cultural China.
39. (1988). "Encyclopedia of Asian history". Scribner.
40. Safran. (1998). "Nationalism and Ethnoregional Identities in China". Frank Cass.
41. Evans, Thammy. (2006). "Great Wall of China: Beijing & Northern China". Bradt Travel Guides.
42. {{Harvcoltxt. Dwyer. 2007
43. Potanin, Grigory Nikolayevich (Григорий Николаевич Потанин). (1893). "Tangutsko-Tibetskaya okraina Kitaya i Tsentralnaya Mongoliya: puteshestvie G.N. Potanina 1884–1886". Typ. A. S. Suvoryna.
44. Potanin, Grigory Nikolayevich (Григорий Николаевич Потанин). (1893). "Tangutsko-Tibetskaya okraina Kitaya i Tsentralnaya Mongoliya: puteshestvie G.N. Potanina 1884–1886". Typ. A. S. Suvoryna.
45. Potanin, Grigory Nikolayevich (Григорий Николаевич Потанин). (1893). "Tangutsko-Tibetskaya okraina Kitaya i Tsentralnaya Mongoliya: puteshestvie G.N. Potanina 1884–1886". Typ. A. S. Suvoryna.
46. "Yugurology".
47. Potanin, Grigory Nikolayevich (Григорий Николаевич Потанин). (1893). "Tangutsko-Tibetskaya okraina Kitaya i Tsentralnaya Mongoliya: puteshestvie G.N. Potanina 1884–1886". Typ. A. S. Suvoryna.
48. Potanin, Grigory Nikolayevich (Григорий Николаевич Потанин). (1893). "Tangutsko-Tibetskaya okraina Kitaya i Tsentralnaya Mongoliya: puteshestvie G.N. Potanina 1884–1886". Typ. A. S. Suvoryna.
49. Potanin, Grigory Nikolayevich (Григорий Николаевич Потанин). (1893). "Tangutsko-Tibetskaya okraina Kitaya i Tsentralnaya Mongoliya: puteshestvie G.N. Potanina 1884–1886". Typ. A. S. Suvoryna.
50. Poppe, Nicholas. (1953). "Remarks on the Salar Language". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.
51. Poppe, Nicholas. (1953). "Remarks on the Salar Language". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.
52. William Woodville Rockhill. (1894). "Diary of a Journey Through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892". Smithsonian Institution.
53. Rockhill, W. W.. (1892). "[Letter from W. W. Rockhill]". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
54. (1993). "Salar Language Materials". Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania.
55. (1993). "Salar Language Materials". Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania.
56. (1993). "Salar Language Materials". Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania.
57. (2001). "The Folklore of China's Islamic Salar Nationality". E. Mellen Press.
58. (2013). "Shared Grammaticalization: With Special Focus on the Transeurasian Languages". John Benjamins.
59. "OHCHR {{!}} Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Salar".
60. (2000). "Evidentials: Turkic, Iranian and Neighbouring Languages". Mouton de Gruyter.
61. Yakup, Abdurishid. (2005). "The Turfan Dialect of Uyghur". Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.