Article

Name: Altai language and Altai dialects in materials collected by V. V. Radlov

Authors: A. A. Ozonova, A. R. Tazranova, N. N. Fedina

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract: The very first publications in Altai language appeared in the middle of the 19th century; those were Altai translations of Christian literature, as well as written records of the speech made by missionaries of the Altai Christian mission. The missionaries adapted the Russian writing system to the needs of the Altai language and used it to record the Altai vocabulary and folklore texts and to publish textbooks. The books were published in Saint Petersburg (Synodal Typography), Kazan, Tomsk, and Biysk. The exact number of these pre-Revolution books and manuscripts remains unknown, as they have not been catalogized or studied by linguists. In the middle of the 19th century, the first scientific records of Altai texts were made by a prominent turcologist V. V. Radlov (Radloff Friedrich Wilhelm). The object of our research is the fundamental work of V. V. Radlov Samples of Folk Literature of Turkic Peoples Living in Southern Siberian and Dzungar Steppe introducing a large volume of rich and varied linguistic materials into scientific circulation. The paper describes some ern Altai language and its dialects, as well as with modern Bachat Teleut language. It is shown that in these texts, the nominal predicate is formed by personal-predicative affixes of the 1st type. Such formation is preserved in the Bachat Teleut language, as well as in Kumandy and Chalkan dialects (though not in a regular manner). The verbal predicates receive personal-predicative affixes of the 2nd type, excluding only the present-future tense form with =ar, which is formed by affixes of the 1st and 2nd types. The meaning of present tense of the given moment is expressed by the synthetic form with =at, as well as the analytic form with =p d’at=, which is represented by the contracted form with =(p)t’a/=t’it in modern Bachat Teleut language and modern Altai dialects (except literary Altai language). The 2nd form of the present durative action with =adïrï is found in V. V. Radlov’s texts in combination with various auxiliary verbs as elements of biverbal constructions, and in modern Altai language, it combines only with two verbs of motions. In V. V. Radlov’s texts, we observe an ancient form of the 2nd person singular imperative with =ɣïn, which is only preserved in the Kyrgyz language (among all modern Turkic languages). In modern Altai and its dialects, as well as in Bachat Teleut language, the null form is used for the 2nd person singular imperative. The functioning of some auxiliary verbs and the possibilities of their combination with verbs of various lexical-semantic groups in contrast with similar verbs in the modern Altai language is analyzed. The Russian loan-words found in V. V. Radlov’s texts are shown.

Keywords: Altai language, Bachat Teleut language, dialects, texts, V. V. Radlov, affixes, grammar

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