Chalaji language

Chalaji language
Spoken in	Iran
speaker	42,100 (2000)
Linguistic classification	Altaic languages (existence as a genetic language family disputed) Turkic languages Arghu Chalaj
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	-
ISO 639 -2	tut (other Altaic languages)
ISO 639-3	klj

The Chalaji language , also known as Chalaj or Khalaj ( pers. زبان خلجی; Own names Xələc dili or Qalayce ), is a Turkic language spoken by around 40,000 people in Iran , which forms the Arghu branch of this language family.

Classification and distribution

Many of the 40,000 or so speakers use Persian as a second language. Chalaji is written in the Arabic-Persian script .

The Chalajj differs most from the other "common Turkish" languages. According to Gerhard Doerfer's view, which is widely accepted today , it is the only remaining representative of the Arghu branch of the Turkic languages, which was also isolated early and then appeared in the central Iranian province in the course of the 13th century - surrounded by speakers of Persian. (So ​​it is not closely related to Azerbaijani as it was classified in Ethnologue of 2005. Today this error has been corrected there.)

Today, Khalaj is spoken by around 42,000 people in the Iranian provinces of Qom and Markazi and is one of the most interesting Turkic languages ​​in Iran from a linguistic point of view. The early isolation from other Turkic languages ​​and the strong influence of Persian have on the one hand received archaic features (e.g. a vowel system with three quantities short-medium-long, incomplete shift from / d / to / j / and retention of the initial / h- / and the old Turkish dative suffix / -ka /: chalad. häv.kä - Turkish ev.e - "for the house"), on the other hand led to widespread Iranisms in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon (even with some numerals) .

According to the system

Consonants

Consonants

	labial		Alveolar		Palatal or Postalveolar		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Plosives and Affrikata	​p​	​b​	​t​	​d​	​ʧ​	​ʤ​	​k​	​ɡ​	​q​	​ɢ​
Fricatives	​f​	​v​	​s​	​z​	​ʃ​	​ʒ​	​x​	​ɣ​			​H​
Nasals	​m​		​n​				​ŋ​
Flaps / taps			​ɾ​
Lateral			​l​
Approximants					​j​

Vowels

Due to its early isolation (see above), Chalaji was able to preserve the archaism of the three vowel quantities. Vowels can appear long ((/ q aː n / “blood”)), half length (/ b aˑ ʃ / “head”) and short (/ h a t / “horse”). Furthermore, some vowels are realized as falling diphthongs, as in / quo̯l / "arm, sleeve".

Vowels

	front		back
	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
closed	i	y		u
almost closed
half closed				O
medium
half open		œ
almost open	æ
open	a

grammar

morphology

Nouns

Chalaji has seven cases and, like other Turkic languages, additional affixes that indicate plural or possession. To illustrate this, the basic case endings are listed below:

case	suffix	effect
Nominative	-	"NOUN"
dative	-A, -KA	"The NOMEN"
accusative	-I, -NI	"Das NOMEN" (direct object)
locative	-čA	"In the NOMEN"
ablative	-there	"From the NOMEN"
Instrumental	-lAn, -lA, -nA	"Through the NOMEN"
Equative	-vāra	"Like the NOMEN"

The different appearances of the suffixes are related to the Chalaji vowel harmony and the preceding consonant.

Verbs

Chalajic verbs, like nouns, are inflected using suffixes to indicate diathesis , negation , tense and aspect (linguistics) , with the morphemes following the following order:

Stem + diathesis + negation + tense / aspect + consent

syntax

The Chalaji language uses the so-called subject-object-verb position.

vocabulary

The core lexicon of Chalaji is of Turkish origin, but because of its isolation from the other Turkic languages ​​and certainly not least because many of the speakers speak Persian as a second language, many Persian loanwords can be found in this language. An example would be the numerals for 80 and 90, which are contained in the vocabulary of Turkish origin and as Persian loanwords:

80: /saʲ.san/ (Turkish) vs. /haʃ.taˑd/ (Persian)

90: /toqx.san/ (Turkish) vs. /na.vad/ (Persian)

Azerbaijani has also left its mark on the vocabulary.

literature

• Gerhard Doerfer: Khalaj Materials . Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1971. ISBN 0-87750-150-5
• Gerhard Doerfer: Turkic Languages ​​of Iran. In: Lars Johanson and Éva Á. Csató (Ed.): The Turkic Languages.
  Routledge, London - New York 1998. ISBN 0-415-08200-5 .
• Gerhard Doerfer and Semih Tezcan: Folklore texts of the Chaladsch . Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994. ISBN 3-447-03484-X .
• Gerhard Doerfer: Grammar of Chaladsch , Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988, ISBN 3-447-02865-3
• Gerhard Doerfer: Lexik und Sprachgeographie des Chaladsch , Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1987, ISBN 3-447-02778-9

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Chalajish in Ethnologue
2. ^ Frawley, William J. (2003). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Volume 3. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195139771 .