Eastern Yugur language

Eastern Yugur is a Mongolic language spoken within the Yugur nationality. The other language spoken within the same community^{[according to whom?]} is Western Yughur, which is a Turkic language. The terms may also indicate the speakers of these languages, which are both unwritten.^[2] Traditionally, both languages are indicated by the term Yellow Uygur, from the autonym of the Yugur. Eastern Yugur speakers are said to have passive bilingualism with Inner Mongolian, the standard spoken in China.^[3]

Eastern Yugur
Native to	China
Region	Gansu
Ethnicity	6,000 Yugur (2000)[1]
Native speakers	4,000 (2007)[1]
Language family	Mongolic Southern Mongolic Eastern Yugur
Language codes
ISO 639-3	yuy
Glottolog	east2337
ELP	East Yugur
Eastern Yugur is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Eastern Yugur is a threatened language with an aging population of fluent speakers.^[4][5] Language contact with neighbouring languages, particularly Chinese, has noticeably affected the language competency of younger speakers.^[5] Some younger speakers have also begun to lose their ability to distinguish between different phonetic shades within the language, indicating declining language competency.^[6]

Grigory Potanin recorded a glossary of Salar, Western Yugur, and Eastern Yugur in his 1893 book written in Russian, The Tangut-Tibetan Borderlands of China and Central Mongolia.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
			plain	lateral
Stop	voiceless	p	t			k	q
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ			kʰ	qʰ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s		t͡ʃ
	aspirated		t͡sʰ		t͡ʃʰ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ɬ	ʃ		χ	h
	voiced	β				ɣ	ʁ
Nasal	voiced	m	n			ŋ
	voiceless		n̥
Trill			r
Approximant				l	j

The phonemes /ç, çʰ, ɕ, ɕʰ, ʂ, ʑ/ appear exclusively in Chinese loanwords.^[2]

Vowels^[13]

	Front		Central	Back
High	i	y	ʉ	u
Mid	e	ø	ə	o ɔ
Low				ɑ

Vowel length is also distributed.