Салар тілі: Оғыз тілдерінің шығыс тармағы

Turkic language of the Oghuz sub branch

Salar is a Turkic language spoken by the Salar people, who mainly live in the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu in China; some also live in Ili, Xinjiang. It is a primary branch and an eastern outlier of the Oghuz branch of Turkic, the other Oghuz languages being spoken mostly in Western and Central Asia. The Salar number about 105,000 people, about 70,000 (2002) speak the Salar language; under 20,000 Contemporary Salar has some influence from Chinese and Amdo Tibetan.

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.

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 and 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 and Uyghur languages.

According to 2002 estimates, Salars number about 105,000 people, and about 70,000 of them speak the Salar language. Only under 20,000 Salars are monolingual.

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. For the verb "to do" Salar uses "ät" (compare Turkish et). For the word "lips" Salar uses "dodax" (compare Turkish dudak). The participle miš is used by Salar (compare Turkish mış).

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.

PinyinIPAEnglish approximationExplanationb spit unaspirated p, as in spitp pay strongly aspirated p, as in pitm may as in English mummyf fair as in English fund stop unaspirated t, as in stopt take strongly aspirated t, as in topn nay as in English nitl lay as in English lovel those as in English theg skill unaspirated k, as in skillg̲ no equivalent in English "thicker and deeper" version of gk kay strongly aspirated k, as in killh loch roughly like the Scots ch. English h as in hay or hot is an acceptable approximation. j hatch No equivalent in English. Like q, but unaspirated. Not the s in Asia, despite the common English pronunciation of "Beijing". q cheek No equivalent in English. Like cheek, with the lips spread wide with ee. Curl the tip of the tongue downwards to stick it at the back of the teeth and strongly aspirate. x she No equivalent in English. Like she, with the lips spread and the tip of your tongue curled downwards and stuck to the back of teeth when you say ee. zh junk Rather like ch (a sound between choke, joke, true, and drew, tongue tip curled more upwards). Voiced in a toneless syllable. ch church as in chin, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to nurture in American English, but strongly aspirated. sh shirt as in shoe, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to marsh in American Englishr , ray Similar to the English z in azure and r in reduce, but with the tongue curled upwards, like a cross between English "r" and French "j". In Cyrillised Chinese the sound is rendered with the letter "ж". z reads unaspirated c, similar to something between suds and cats; as in suds in a toneless syllablec hats like the English ts in cats, but strongly aspirated, very similar to the Czech and Polish c. s say as in suny , yea as in yes. Before a u, pronounce it with rounded lips. *w way as in water. *v vitamin as in very.

PinyinIPAForm with zero initialExplanationa a as in "father"o (n/a) Approximately as in "office" in British accent; the lips are much more rounded. e , e a diphthong consisting first of a back, unrounded semivowel (which can be formed by first pronouncing "w" and then spreading the lips without changing the position of the tongue) followed by a vowel similar to English "duh". Many unstressed syllables in Chinese use the schwa (idea), and this is also written as e. i yi like English bee. u wu like English "oo"ai ai like English "eye", but a bit lighterei ei as in "hey"ui wei as u + ei;ao ao approximately as in "cow"; the a is much more audible than the oiu you as i + ouie ye as i + ê; but is very short; e (pronounced like ê) is pronounced longer and carries the main stress (similar to the initial sound ye in yet)an an as in "ban" in British English (a more open fronted a)en en as in "taken"in yin as i + nun yun as ü + n;ang ang as in German Angst (starts with the vowel sound in father and ends in the velar nasal; like song in some dialects of American English)eng englike e in en above but with ng added to it at the backing ying as i + ngong , weng starts with the vowel sound in book and ends with the velar nasal sound in sing; as u + eng in zero initial.

Here is given an excerpt of the "kiš yiγen ġadïn kiš" ("people eating woman") story from Ma Wei, Ma Jianzhong & Kevin Stuart's work The Folklore of China's Islamic Salar Nationality. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Heme kishler hür der, haysiyet ma haklarde adil der, mantik ma vicdan var, kardeshlikden davraneshge.