Fuyu Kyrgyz language

Fuyu Kyrgyz (Fuyü Gïrgïs, Fu-Yu Kirgiz), also known as Manchurian Kirghiz, is a Turkic language. Despite its name, it is not a variety of Kyrgyz but is closer to Khakas. The people originated in the Yenisei region of Siberia but were relocated into Dzungaria by the Dzungars.[4][5][6]

Fuyu Kyrgyz
Fuyü Gïrgïs
Pronunciation	[qərʁəs]
Native to	China
Region	Heilongjiang
Ethnicity	875 (no date)[1]
Native speakers	(10 cited 1982 census)[1]
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Siberian[2][3] Khakas? Fuyu Kyrgyz
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist List	kjh-fyk
Glottolog	None

In 1761, after the Dzungars were defeated by the Qing, a group of Yenisei Kirghiz were deported (along with some Öelet or Oirat-speaking Dzungars) to the Nonni (Nen) river basin in Manchuria/Northeast China.[7][8] The Kyrgyz in Manchuria became known as the Fuyu Kyrgyz, but many have become merged into the Mongol and Chinese population. Chinese and Oirat replaced Oirat and Kirghiz during Manchukuo as the dual languages of the Nonni-based Kyrgyz.[9]

The Fuyu Kyrgyz language is now spoken in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province, in and around Fuyu County, Qiqihar (300 km northwest of Harbin) by a small number of passive speakers who are classified as Kyrgyz nationality.[10]

Sounds

Although a complete phonemic analysis of Girgis has not been done,[11] Hu and Imart have made numerous observations about the sound system in their tentative description of the language. They describe Girgis as having the short vowels noted as "a, ï, i, o, ö, u, ü" which correspond roughly to IPA [a, ə, ɪ, ɔ, œ, ʊ, ʉ], with minimal rounding and tendency towards centralization.[12] Vowel length is phonemic and occurs as a result of consonant-deletion (Girgis /pʉːn/ vs. Kyrgyz /byɡyn/). Each short vowel has an equivalent long vowel, with the addition of /e/. Girgis displays vowel harmony as well as consonant harmony.[13] The consonant sounds in Girgis, including allophone variants, are [p, b, ɸ, β, t, d, ð, k, q, ɡ, h, ʁ, ɣ, s, ʃ, z, ʒ, dʒ, tʃ, m, n, ŋ, l, r, j]. Girgis does not display a phonemic difference between the stop set /p, t, k/ and /b, d, ɡ/; these stops can also be aspirated to [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] in Chinese loanwords.[14]

Speakers

In 1980, Fuyu Girgis was spoken by a majority of adults in a community of around a hundred homes. However, many adults in the area have switched to speaking a local variety of Mongolian, and children have switched to Chinese as taught in the education system.[15]

See also

• Kyrgyz in China

Notes

1. Khakas at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
2. Keith Brown; Sarah Ogilvie, eds. (2010). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World (revised ed.). Elsevier. p. 1109. ISBN 978-0080877754. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
3. Johanson 1998, p. 83.
4. Tchoroev (Chorotegin) 2003, p. 110.
5. Pozzi & Janhunen & Weiers 2006, p. 113.
6. Giovanni Stary; Alessandra Pozzi; Juha Antero Janhunen; Michael Weiers (2006). Tumen Jalafun Jecen Aku: Manchu Studies in Honour of Giovanni Stary. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 112–. ISBN 978-3-447-05378-5.
7. Juha Janhunen (1996). Manchuria: An Ethnic History. Finno-Ugrian Society. pp. 111–112. ISBN 978-951-9403-84-7.
8. Stephen A. Wurm; Peter Mühlhäusler; Darrell T. Tryon, eds. (11 February 2011). Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. de Gruyter. p. 831. ISBN 9783110819724.
9. Juha Janhunen (1996). Manchuria: An Ethnic History. Finno-Ugrian Society. p. 59. ISBN 978-951-9403-84-7.
10. Hu & Imart 1987, p. 1
11. Hu & Imart 1987, p. 11
12. Hu & Imart 1987, pp. 8–9
13. Hu & Imart 1987, pp. 24–25
14. Hu & Imart 1987, pp. 11–13
15. Hu & Imart 1987, pp. 2–3

References

• Hu, Zhen-hua; Imart, Guy (1987), Fu-Yü Gïrgïs: A tentative description of the easternmost Turkic language, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies
• Li, Yongsŏng; Ölmez, Mehmet; Kim, Juwon (2007), "Some Newly Identified Words in Fuyu Kirghiz (Part 1)", Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher, Neue Folge, 21: 141–169