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Language Lineage

South Siberian Turkic

The Turkic languages of the Sayan–Altai uplands, held together as much by long contact as by shared innovations. Within the group the treatment of Proto-Turkic `*d` divides them: the Sayan languages keep it (Tuvan *adak* 'foot'), while the Khakas group turns it into *z* (*azax*).

c. 1st millennium CE – presentThe Sayan and Altai uplands and the upper Yenisei: Tuva, Khakassia, the northern Altai Republic, Mountain Shoria, and parts of Irkutsk and Tomsk regions in Russia, with outliers in western Mongolia and northern China
On this page
  1. Between the Sayan and the Altai
  2. Tuvan and the Small Languages
  3. Where it's spoken
  4. Turning points
  5. Contested classifications

01

Between the Sayan and the Altai

The South Siberian Turkic languages are spoken in the mountains and river valleys where Russia meets Mongolia: Tuvan in Tuva, Tofa on the northern slopes of the Eastern Sayan, Khakas in the Minusinsk basin of the Yenisei, Shor in the forests of Mountain Shoria, Chulym along a tributary of the Ob, and the northern varieties of Altai. Most classifications split them into a Sayan group (Tuvan, Tofa) and a Yenisei group (Khakas, Shor, Chulym, Northern Altai). Southern Altai, spoken in the same republic as Northern Altai, is usually placed with Kyrgyz in Kipchak instead.

This is one of the oldest Turkic-speaking regions. Runic inscriptions from the upper Yenisei, many of them funerary stones, are among the earliest Turkic texts, and the Yenisei Kyrgyz who ruled here destroyed the Uyghur khaganate in 840. Over the following millennium Turkic spread through the taiga at the expense of other languages: many Khakas, Shor, Tofa and Chulym speakers descend from speakers of Samoyedic and Yeniseian languages who shifted to Turkic, some as late as the 19th century.

The group is partly defined by geography. Its members differ in basic sound changes, and even the two main Shor dialects fall on opposite sides of the *d boundary: Mrassu Shor says azaq 'foot', Kondoma Shor ayaq. Johanson and others join these languages with Sakha in a wider Siberian branch, but how far any of these groupings reflect common descent rather than centuries of contact is still debated.

02

Tuvan and the Small Languages

The languages of the group are in very different situations. Tuvan is the strongest. In 2021 about 250,000 people in Russia reported speaking it, most of them in Tuva, where Tuvans are a large majority and the language is used at home, in schools and in the media. Tuva was nominally independent as the Tuvan People's Republic from 1921 until it joined the Soviet Union in 1944, and Tuvan was written first in a Latin alphabet and then in Cyrillic. Smaller Tuvan-speaking communities live across the border in western Mongolia and in Xinjiang.

Tuvan is known for its vowels. Besides short and long vowels it has short vowels said with a low, often creaky pitch, so that at 'name' is distinct from àt (written аът) 'horse'. The contrast is linked to the old Proto-Turkic distinction of vowel length.

The others are much weaker. Khakas had about 29,000 speakers in 2021, out of some 60,000 ethnic Khakas, and is little passed on to children. Shor has a few thousand speakers, and Tofa and Chulym only a few dozen elderly ones each. Much of what is known of the smallest languages comes from documentation since the 1990s, including work on Tofa and Middle Chulym by K. David Harrison and Gregory Anderson.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Russiac. 290,000
  2. Chinaa few thousand (Tuvan in Xinjiang)
  3. Mongoliaa few thousand (Tuvan and Dukha)

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Writingc. 8th – 10th century CEContested

    The Yenisei inscriptions

    Short runic inscriptions, mostly epitaphs, are carved on stones in the upper Yenisei basin in what is now Tuva and Khakassia, usually linked to the Yenisei Kyrgyz. Their dating, and how their language relates to the modern South Siberian languages, are debated.

    Sources (2)
    • Kormušin, Igor' V. 1997. Tjurkskie enisejskie epitafii: teksty i issledovanija. Moscow: Nauka.
    • Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató, eds. 2022. The Turkic Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
  2. Sound lawUndated; after the Old Turkic periodContested

    *d becomes z

    *d → z (*adaq → Khakas azax 'foot')

    In Khakas, Mrassu Shor and Middle Chulym, Proto-Turkic *d between vowels and at the end of words becomes z: *adaq 'foot' is Khakas azax, where the Sayan languages keep d (Tuvan adak) and most other Turkic languages have y (Turkish ayak). It is the classic criterion for dividing the South Siberian languages, but when it happened is unknown.

    Compare with other weakening and voicing across families →

    Sources (2)
    • Menges, Karl H. 1995. The Turkic Languages and Peoples: An Introduction to Turkic Studies, 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
    • Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató, eds. 2022. The Turkic Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
  3. Contactc. 17th – 19th century CE

    Shift from Samoyedic and Yeniseian

    Speakers of Samoyedic languages such as Kamassian and Mator, and of Yeniseian languages such as Kott and Arin, gradually shift to Turkic (or to Russian). Kott was recorded in the 1840s, not long before it ceased to be spoken. These groups leave traces in the vocabulary and place names of the region.

    Sources (1)
    • Vajda, Edward J. 2001. Yeniseian Peoples and Languages: A History of Yeniseian Studies with an Annotated Bibliography and a Source Guide. Richmond: Curzon.
  4. Writing1930 – 1940s

    Tuvan alphabets

    The Tuvan People's Republic introduces a Latin-based alphabet for Tuvan in 1930, replacing Mongolian as the written language. It is replaced by Cyrillic in the early 1940s, shortly before Tuva joins the Soviet Union in 1944.

    Sources (1)
    • Anderson, Gregory D. S. & K. David Harrison. 1999. Tyvan. Munich: Lincom Europa.

Outside the tree

Contested classifications

These disagreements may never be settled. Each position is given with its grounds, and no side is declared correct.

  • Widely accepted

    South Siberian Turkic as a single genealogical branch

    Evidence for

    Standard classifications, including Johanson's and Glottolog's, recognise a South Siberian group with Sayan and Yenisei subgroups. Its members share a number of sound changes and much vocabulary, and Johanson joins it with Sakha–Dolgan in a wider Northeastern (Siberian) branch.

    Evidence against

    The group's members differ in diagnostic sound changes such as the reflex of *d, which even splits the two main Shor dialects, and many shared features could come from centuries of contact and a common substrate of Samoyedic and Yeniseian speakers. Its boundaries are also unstable: Southern Altai is usually placed in Kipchak, Kyrgyz has Siberian features, and West Yugur in China may be of South Siberian origin. Glottolog does not group Sakha with it.

    Sources (2)