Buryat language

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Buryat
буряад хэлэн
Spoken in Buryat Republic, northern Mongolia, northwestern the People's Republic of China, Ust-Orda Buryatia, Aga Buryatia
Total speakers 400,000
Language family Altaic[1] (controversial)
Language codes
ISO 639-1 None
ISO 639-2 bua
ISO 639-3 variously:
bua – Buryat (generic)
bxu – China Buriat
bxm – Mongolia Buriat
bxr – Russia Buriat

Buryat (or Buriat) is a Mongolic variety spoken by the Buryats that is usually classified as a language. The majority of Buryat speakers live in Russia along the northern border of Mongolia and speak Russia Buriat. There are also smaller, more distinct, communities in both Mongolia and the People's Republic of China that speak Mongolia Buriat and China Buriat, respectively. Russia Buriat, or Buryat kheleng, is an official language in the Buryat Republic, Ust-Orda Buryatia and Aga Buryatia of Russia. Of the three, only Russia Buriat has a written literature, written in a Cyrillic orthography. The most obvious differences between the three varieties are the donor languages of their borrowed vocabulary and the sociolinguistic contexts in which they are used.[2]

Contents

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Stress

Lexical stress (word accent) falls on the rightmost heavy nonfinal syllable. Otherwise, it falls on the word-final heavy syllable. If there are no heavy syllables, then the leftmost syllable is stressed. Heavy syllables without primary stress receive secondary stress (Walker 1997):

ˌHˈHL [ˌøːɡˈʃøːxe] "to act encouragingly"
LˌHˈHL [naˌmaːˈtuːlxa] "to cause to be covered with leaves"
ˌHLˌHˈHL [ˌbuːzaˌnuːˈdiːje] "steamed dumplings (accusative)"
ˌHˈHLLL [ˌtaːˈruːlaɡdaxa] "to be adapted to"
ˈHˌH [ˈboːˌsoː] "bet"
LˈHˌH [daˈlaiˌɡaːr] "by sea"
LˈHLˌH [xuˈdaːlinɡˌdaː] "to the husband's parents"
LˌHˈHˌH [daˌlaiˈɡaːˌraː] "by one's own sea"
ˌHLˈHˌH [ˌxyːxenˈɡeːˌreː] "by one's own girl"
LˈH [xaˈdaːr] "through the mountain"
ˈLL [ˈxada] "mountain"[3]

Secondary stress may also occur on word-initial light syllables without primary stress, but further research is required.

Buryat has the same stress pattern as Khalkha Mongolian.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ethnologue.com: Altaic
  2. ^ Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  3. ^ Walker 1997: 27-28
  • Poppe, Nicholas. (1960). Buriat grammar. Uralic and Altaic series (No. 2). Bloomington: Indiana University.
  • Walker, Rachel. (1997). Mongolian stress, licensing, and factorial typology. (Online on the Rutgers Optimality Archive website: roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?id=184.)

[edit] External links