Tuyuhun language
| Tuyuhun | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Northern China |
?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Tuyuhun (
northern China about 500 AD. The existence of the Tuyuhun, and consequently their language, is first attested in the Book of Song, compiled around 488 AD.[2]
Classification
Para-Mongolic language. Tuyuhun had previously been identified by Paul Pelliot (1921) as a Mongolic language.[4]
Vocabulary
Shimunek (2017) reconstructs some Tuyuhun words as:[5]
- ‘second person singular pronoun (爾)’: *čʰɪ [處] (northern Early Middle Chinese **tśʰɨ); Vovin (2015) reconstructs *čʰo, a 2nd person singular pronoun, equivalent to Mongolic či. The correspondence between /o/ and /i/ is attested between Mongolic and Khitan, cf. Western Middle Mongolic taqiya vs. Khitan t[i].qo.a.[6]
- ‘river (川)’: *qɔl [ལ་] (Old Tibetan *kʰol) ~ [ལ་] (Old Tibetan *kol)
- ‘militant (武)’: *bu [戊] (Late Middle Chinese*mbu)
- ‘elder brother (兄)’: *aqañ [阿干] (northern Early Middle Chinese**ɦakar̃)
- ‘father (父)’ or ‘great’: *maʁa/*amaʁa [莫賀] (northern Early Middle Chinese*magɣa)
- ‘great’: *maʁa [མ་ག] (Old Tibetan *maga < Indic)
- ‘emperor, king’: *qʰaʁan [ཁ་གན་] (Early Middle Chinese**kʰaʁɣar̃)
- ‘wife (妻) of the khaghan (可汗)’: *qʰaʁʦʊn [恪尊] (northern Early Middle Chinese**kʰagʦor̃)
Vovin (2015) also reconstructs several words using
Early Middle Chinese
readings of transcribed Tuyuhun lexical items.
Morphology
Tuyuhun suffixes:[5]
- *-čin/*-čiñ [ན་] (Old Tibetan *ʧin) ‘having X (possessive)’
- *-yin/*-yiñ [寅] (northern Early Middle Chinese**yir̃) ‘genitive-attributive suffix’
References
- ^ Shimunek, Andrew E (2017). Languages of Ancient Southern Mongolia and North China: A Historical-Comparative Study of the Serbi or Xianbei Branch of the Serbi-Mongolic Language Family, with an Analysis of Northeastern Frontier Chinese and Old Tibetan Phonology.
- ^ Vovin, Alexander. 2015.Some notes on the Tuyuhun (吐谷渾) language: in the footsteps of Paul Pelliot
- ^ Vovin, Alexander. 2015. Some notes on the Tuyuhun (吐谷渾) language: in the footsteps of Paul Pelliot. In Journal of Sino-Western Communications, Volume 7, Issue 2 (December 2015).
- ^ Pelliot, Paul. 1921. "Note sur les Tou-yu-houen et les Sou-p'i." T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 20, No. 5 (Dec. 1920 - Dec. 1921), pp.323-331.
- ^ OCLC 993110372.
- ^ Vovin, Alexander. 2015. Some notes on the Tuyuhun (吐谷渾) language: in the footsteps of Paul Pelliot. In Journal of Sino-Western Communications, Volume 7, Issue 2 (December 2015).