Mator language

Mator or Motor is an extinct Uralic language belonging to the group of Samoyedic languages, extinct since around 1839. It was spoken in the northern region of the Sayan Mountains in Siberia, close to the Mongolian north border. The speakers of Mator, Matorians or Mators [ru], lived in a wide area from the eastern parts of the Minusinsk District (okrug) along the Yenisei River to the region of Lake Baikal. Three dialects of Mator were recorded: Mator proper as well as Taygi and Karagas (occasionally portrayed as separate languages, but their differences are few). Mator was influenced by Mongolic, Tungusic and Turkic languages before it went extinct, and may have even been possibly influenced by the Iranic languages.^{[3][page needed]} It went extinct as a result of the Mator people shifting linguistically to the related Kamas language or nearby Altaic-sprachbund languages, like Buryat, Soyot, Khakas, Evenki and Tatar.^[4]

A map of Siberian peoples in the 16th century with the Mators in

  orange

, near the bottom-center of the map.

Not to be confused with Karagas, an alternate name of the Tofa language.

Mator
Motor, Mator-Taigi-Karagas
Native to	Russia
Region	northern Sayan Mountains
Ethnicity	Mators [ru], possibly also Soyots, Karagas
Extinct	1839
Language family	Uralic Samoyedic Mator
Dialects	Mator Taygi Karagas Soyot
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: mtm – Mator ymt – Mator-Taygi-Karagas (deprecated)
Linguist List	mtm
	ymt
Glottolog	mato1250 nucl1288
Traditional distribution of the extinct Sayan Samoyedic languages including Mator[1][2]

Today the term "Mator people" is simply a name of a seok of the Koibal, one of the five territorial sub-division groups of the Khakas. (Note that the name "Koibal" likewise derives from the related Samoyedic Koibal language).

Mator has been frequently grouped together with Selkup and Kamassian as "South Samoyedic". This is however a grouping by geographical area, and not considered to constitute an actual sub-branch of the Samoyedic languages.

Phonology

Consonants

Mator consonants^[5]

		Bilabial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	(p)	t	t͡ʃ	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	(d)	(d͡ʒ)	(ɡ)
Fricative	voiceless		s	(ʃ)	h
	voiced		(z)	(ʒ)
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Rhotic			r
Approximant	central			j
	lateral		l

Vowels

Mator vowels^[5]

		Front		Central	Back
		unrounded	rounded
Close	short	i	y	(ɨ)	u
	long	iː	yː	(ɨː)?	uː
Mid	short	e	ø	ə	o
	long	eː	øː?	əː	oː
Open	short	æ		a
	long	æː		aː
Reduced		e̽

Lexicon

Below are some Mator words from Helimski 1997.^{[3][page needed]}

• kälä 'fish'
• mondoh 'root'
• sörüh 'rain'
• kaduh 'storm'
• baada 'word'
• kaasa 'human'
• ämdä 'horn'
• täjbä 'nail'
• täär 'divide, share'
• köhö 'winter'
• öröh 'autumn'
• teite 'four'
• mən 'me, I'
• tən 'you'
• ter 'hair'
• ajba 'head'
• siime 'eye'