Central Eurasian Language Grammars project/organising

<accesscontrol>CELG</accesscontrol> This page is here for organising thoughts for the Central Eurasian Language Grammars project.

Language Organisation

Languages are broken down by what volume they should occur in, and then genetic affiliation. Ideas for contributors are included with each language, as well as some info from UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

Medium Density languages

• Turkic
  • Kyrgyz
    • Who: Jonathan
  • Kazakh
    • Who—last resort: Jonathan
  • Qaraqalpaq
  • Uzbek
  • Uyghur
    • Who (ideas): Arienne Dwyer (recommended by Mahire Yakup (recommended by Eric Schluessel)), [recommendations by Eric: "Reyhangul Abliz (Professor at Xinjiang Agricultural University, co-author of Uyghur: A manual for conversation and De Jong's grammar) rayhan10@hotmail.com, tell her I sent you; Abdurishit Yakup (in Germany, wrote an excellent grammar of Turpan Uyghur); Mahire Yakup (at University of Kansas, teaches Uyghur at SWSEEL, PhD student); Frederick de Jong (very, very senior professor at Utrecht, produced the above-mentioned learner's grammar of Uyghur with Reyhangul and others), frederick.dejong@let.uu.nl, again, tell him I sent you..."]
  • Tatar
  • Bashqort
    • UNESCO: unsafe, 1,379,727 speakers (2002 census)
  • Chuvash
    • UNESCO: unsafe, 1,325,382 speakers (2002 census)
  • Tuvan
    • Who (ideas): Greg Anderson and/or David Harrison
  • Sakha
    • Who (ideas): Nyurguyana Petrova (petrova3@buffalo.edu, native speaker and linguistics student, friend of / recommended by Chris Straughn (U Chicago))
  • Turkmen
  • Azeri
  • Turkish
    • Who (ideas): Kornfilt?
  • Unsure: Qırımtatar

• Mongolic
  • Khalkha
    • Who: Andrew

• IE
  • Tajik

Low-density

There should be some better way to distinguish low-density and moribund languages...

• Turkic
  • Tuvan
    • UNESCO: unsafe, 242,754 speakers (2002 census of the Russian Federation; much smaller numbers of speakers in China and Mongolia)
  • Southern Altay (Altay, Teleut (Telengut), Telengit) (Teleut on lingsib.iea.ras.ru)
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 50,000 speakers (estimate based on the 2002 census of the Russian Federation; 65,534 speakers of Altay languages collectively, which may be a slightly inflated figure)
  • Khakas (Kacha, Sagay, Kyzyl, Koibal, Beltir, Shor)
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 52,217 speakers (2002 census)
  • Noghay
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 90,020 speakers (2002 census; perhaps slightly inflated)
  • Kumyk
    • UNESCO: unsafe, 458,121 speakers (2002 census)
  • Dolgan
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 4,865 speakers (2002 census)
  • Sakha
    • UNESCO: unsafe, 456,288 speakers (2002 census)
  • Ossetic
    • UNESCO: unsafe, 550,000 speakers (estimate based on the 493,610 speakers reported in the 2002 census of the Russian Federation; also spoken in South Ossetia)
  • Karachay-Balkar
    • UNESCO: unsafe, 302,748 speakers (2002 census)

• Mongolic
  • Oyrat
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 280,000 speakers (estimate based on Birtalan 2003: approximately 150,000 speakers in Mongolia and less than 130,000 in northern Sinkiang, which represent the numerically most significant groups)
  • Buryat (Cis-Baikal)
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 50,000 speakers (estimate based on various sources covering both China and Mongolia; according to Skribnik 2003: 102 there are at least 100,000 ethnic Buryat in the region, but “the general trend is that Buryat is being abandoned in favour of more dominant languages”)
  • Buryat (Trans-Baikal)
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 300,000 speakers (estimate for Trans-Baikal Buryat based on the 2002 census: 368,807 speakers of Buryat altogether, which includes a number of Mongolian speakers; cf. Buryat (Cis-Baikal) and Buryat (Manchuria))
  • Kalmyk
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 153,602 speakers (2002 census)

• IE
  • Yaghnobi
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 20,000 speakers (The estimate is based on 2001 official census)

• Other
  • Dungan
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 41,000 speakers (2001 census)

Moribund

These are *really* moribund or maybe recently dead languages. Maybe better to call them Critical or something?

• Turkic
  • Fu-yü Ğırgıs
  • Khotong
  • Middle Chulym
  • Ili Turk
    • UNESCO: severely endangered, 120 speakers (1980 R. F. Hahn for the Ethnologue)
  • Dukha
    • UNESCO: severely endangered, 200 speakers (compromise figure based on various sources)
  • Northern Altay (Tuba, Qumandı, Chalkan (Kuu))
    • UNESCO: severely endangered, speaker data unavailable (not know exactly, but in the range of a few thousand; the 2002 census figures for Tuba [436], Kumandy [1044] and Chalkan [539] are presumably too low, because some speakers may have registered as (Southern) Altay speakers)
  • Shor
    • UNESCO: severly endangered, 6,210 speakers (2002 census)
  • Tofa/Karagas
    • UNESCO: critically endangered, 40 speakers (specialist estimate; the census figure 378 is inflated)
  • Soyot (Soyot on lingsib.iea.ras.ru)
    • UNESCO: extinct, 0 seakers (became extinct in the second half of the twentieth century)
  • Chulym (Chulym on lingsib.iea.ras.ru)
    • UNESCO: critically endangered, 35 speakers (specialist estimate)
  • Karagash (a "Tatar"/"Noghay" dialect)
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 7,000 speakers (current estimate; not listed separately in the census)
  • "Yurt Tatar"
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 12,000 speakers (2005 Арсланов)
  • Alabugat Tatar ("outlying dialect of Nogay")
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 422 speakers (1987 figure in Арсланов 1988)
  • Urum
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, data unavailable
  • Trukhmen ("Caucasian Turkmen")
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 10,000 speakers (estimate based on the 2002 census)
  • Kamas Turk (an extinct outlying dialect of Khakas spoken by the last speakers of Kamas (Samoyed))
    • UNESCO: extinct, 0 speakers (recently extinct)

• Mongolic
  • Khövsgöl Uryangkhay
    • UNESCO: critically endangered, 10 speakers (specialist estimate)
  • Khamnigan Mongol
    • UNESCO: definitely endangered, 2,000 speakers (2003 Janhunen estimate)

• Tungusic
  • Ongkor Solon
    • UNESCO: extinct, 0 speakers (the last fluent speaker died in the 1990s; there may still be a few people who know some isolated phrases or words)
  • Evenki
    • UNESCO: severely endangered, 7,584 speakers (2002 census of the Russian Federation for Evenki; cf. Evenki (Northern Siberia) and Evenki (Sakhalin); possibly also a small number of speakers in Mongolia)

• Uralic
  • Kamas/Koibal (Samoyedic)
    • UNESCO: extinct, 0 speakers (the last speaker, Klavdia Plotnikova, died in 1989)

• IE
  • Yazgulami
    • UNESCO: severely endangered, 6,000 speakers (Official statistics, 2003)
  • Ishkashimi
    • UNESCO: severely endangered, 1,000 speakers (Approximate estimate, 2006)

Extinct / Historic

Most of these won't be able to have full grammars written on them, and many won't be able to have more than "present level of knowledge about the language" written. Maybe this volume should be of a slightly different nature.

• Turkic
  • Orkhon/Yenisei
  • Old Kirgiz?
  • Old Uyghur
  • Karakhanid
  • Bulgar
  • Khazar
  • Cuman
  • Chaghatay
  • Old Tatar