Tuyuhun language
| Tuyuhun | |
|---|---|
| ‘Azha | |
| Native to | Tuyuhun |
| Region | Northern China |
| Ethnicity | Tuyuhun |
| Era | 5th century |
Serbi–Mongolic?
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Tuyuhun(Chinese:Thổ Cốc Hồn), also known as‘AzhafromTibetan script,[1]is anextinct languageonce spoken by theTuyuhunofnorthern Chinaabout 500 AD. The existence of the Tuyuhun, and consequently their language, is first attested in theBook of Song,compiled around 488 AD.[2]
Classification
[edit]Alexander Vovin(2015) identifies the extinct Tuyuhun language as aPara-Mongoliclanguage, meaning that Tuyuhun is related to theMongolic languagesas asister cladebut is not directly descended from theProto-Mongolic language.[3]TheKhitan languageis also aPara-Mongoliclanguage. Tuyuhun had previously been identified byPaul Pelliot(1921) as a Mongolic language.[4]
Vocabulary
[edit]Shimunek (2017) reconstructs some Tuyuhun words as:[5]
- ‘second person singular pronoun ( ngươi )’:*čʰɪ[ chỗ ] (northernEarly Middle Chinese**tśʰɨ); Vovin (2015) reconstructs*čʰo,a 2nd person singular pronoun, equivalent to Mongolicči.The correspondence between /o/ and /i/ is attested between Mongolic and Khitan, cf. WesternMiddle Mongolictaqiyavs. Khitant[i].qo.a.[6]
- ‘river ( xuyên )’:*qɔl[ལ་] (Old Tibetan*kʰol) ~ [ལ་] (Old Tibetan*kol)
- ‘militant ( võ )’:*bu[ mậu ] (Late Middle Chinese*mbu)
- ‘elder brother ( huynh )’:*aqañ[ a làm ] (northernEarly Middle Chinese**ɦakar̃)
- ‘father ( phụ )’ or ‘great’:*maʁa/*amaʁa[ mạc hạ ] (northernEarly Middle Chinese*magɣa)
- ‘great’:*maʁa[མ་ག] (Old Tibetan*maga < Indic)
- ‘emperor, king’:*qʰaʁan[ཁ་གན་] (Old Tibetan*kʰagan) /**kʰaʁɣar̃[ nhưng hàn ] ~ [ Khả Hãn ] (northernEarly Middle Chinese**kʰaʁɣar̃)
- ‘wife ( thê ) of the khaghan ( Khả Hãn )’:*qʰaʁʦʊn[ khác tôn ] (northernEarly Middle Chinese**kʰagʦor̃)
Vovin (2015) also reconstructs several words usingEarly Middle Chinesereadings of transcribed Tuyuhun lexical items.
Morphology
[edit]Tuyuhun suffixes:[5]
- *-čin/*-čiñ[ན་] (Old Tibetan*ʧin) ‘having X (possessive)’
- *-yin/*-yiñ[ dần ] (northernEarly Middle Chinese**yir̃) ‘genitive-attributive suffix’
References
[edit]- ^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.doi:10.2307/j.ctvckq4f7.
- ^Vovin, Alexander. 2015.Some notes on the Tuyuhun ( Thổ Cốc Hồn ) language: in the footsteps of Paul Pelliot
- ^Vovin, Alexander. 2015.Some notes on the Tuyuhun ( Thổ Cốc Hồn ) language: in the footsteps of Paul Pelliot.InJournal 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.
- ^abShimunek, Andrew (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.Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.ISBN978-3-447-10855-3.OCLC993110372.
- ^Vovin, Alexander. 2015.Some notes on the Tuyuhun ( Thổ Cốc Hồn ) language: in the footsteps of Paul Pelliot.InJournal of Sino-Western Communications,Volume 7, Issue 2 (December 2015).