The language is revitalizing in primary schools.[1] In 2002, V. I. Rassadin published a Soyot–Buryat–Russian dictionary.[1][5] In 2020, he published a children's picture dictionary in the Soyot language, along with Russian, Mongolian, and English translations.[6]
Classification
Soyot belongs to the Turkic family of languages. Within this family, it is placed in the Sayan Turkic branch. According to some researchers, the Sayan Turkic branch has five languages:[7][8]
Soyot has no official recognition in any of the countries where it is spoken. Until 1993, they were counted as part of the Buryat nationality in Russia. At this point, they were acknowledged as a separate nationality by the People's Khural of the Republic of Buryatia. After applying to the Russian Duma for official recognition, they were acknowledged as an ethnic minority in 2001. Most Soyots in Russia live in Buryatia's Okinsky District.[11]
Phonology
Rassadin reports that the Soyot and Tsaatan dialects, have very similar phonological systems.[11] Information here is from Soyot.
Vowels may be short, long, or short pharyngealized, e.g. /ɯt/ "send", /ɯˁt/ "dog", /ɯːt/ "sound, voice".
Soyot exhibits vowel harmony, that is, words containing front vowels take only suffixes containing front vowels, whereas words with back vowels take only suffixes with back vowels.
Writing system
Soyot is not commonly written. Rassadin employs a Cyrillic-based writing system to represent Soyot in his dictionaries and grammars. Certain letters are only found in Russian loanwords.[which?]
Nouns have singular and plural forms. The plural is formed with the suffix /-LAr/, which has six possible surface variations depending on vowel harmony and the preceding sound.
Soyot plural forms
Front vowel
Back vowel
Nasal consonant
-nær: hem-nær "rivers"
-nar: oyɯn-nar "games"
Voiceless consonant
-tær: eʃ-tær "friends"
-tar: baˁʃ-tar "heads"
Vowel or voiced consonant
-lær: øɣ-lær "houses"
-lar: barva-lar "saddle bags"
Possession is indicated by adding a suffix to the possessed noun, e.g. ava-m "my mother", ava-ŋ "your mother". The possessive suffixes vary based on vowel harmony and whether the word they are attached to ends in a vowel or a consonant:
Soyot possessive markers
Singular
Plural
1st person
-(I)m
-(I)vIs
2nd person
-(I)ŋ
-(I)ŋAr
3rd person
-(s)I
-(s)I
Case is indicated by adding suffixes after the plural and possessive markers, if they are present. There are seven cases in Soyot . The nominative case is not marked. The six cases that are indicated by suffixes are shown below. These vary based on vowel harmony and the final sound of the word they are attached to.
Certain adjectives may be intensified via reduplication. The involves taking the first syllable plus /p/ and adding it to the front of the word, e.g. qap-qara "very black", sap-sarɯɣ "very yellow". Other adjectives are intensified using the adverb tuŋ "very", e.g. tuŋ ulɯɣ "very big".
^Ragagnin, Elisabetta (2012). "Duhalari 'Kayip Olmayan' Türkofon Bi̇r Halk" [The Dukhas of Mongolia a 'Not Lost' Turcophone People]. Tehlikedeki Diller Dergisi / Journal of Endangered Languages. 1 (1): 85–101. Retrieved 2 January 2021. ...Dukhan language, it belongs to the taiga subgroup of Sayan Turkic, which itself is a member of the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages. The other Taiga Sayan Turkic languages are Tofan, which is spoken in the Irkutsk Oblast', with varieties spoken in the Toja and Tere-Khöl regions of the Tuvan republic, and the Soyot language spoken in the Oka region of the Buryat republic.
^de Mol-van Valen, Tessa (2017). A Comparative Study on The Sayan Languages (Turkic; Russia and Mongolia) (Research Master thesis). Leiden University. hdl:1887/52611.
^"Sayan". glottolog.org. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
^Ragagnin, Elisabetta (2011). Dukhan, a Turkic Variety of Northern Mongolia: Description and Analysis. Wiesbaden, Germany. ISBN978-3-447-19067-1. OCLC900888155.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ abRassadin, V. I.; Рассадин, В. И. (2010). Soyotica. Béla Kempf. Szeged: University of Szeged, Dept. of Altaic Studies. ISBN978-963-306-027-8. OCLC760289448.
