Teleut language

Teleut is a moribund^[2] Turkic language spoken in the Altai Republic in Russia. It is sometimes considered a dialect of Southern Altai, but also as its own language.^[3] Since 2000, the Russian government has officially recognized it as a distinct language.^[4] It was the basis for the Altai literary language before 1917.

Teleut
Телеңет тили
Native to	Russia
Region	Kemerovo Oblast
Ethnicity	Teleuts
Native speakers	1,570 (2020)[1]
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Kipchak Southern Altai Teleut
Dialects	Kalmak? Bachat Tomsk
Writing system	Cyrillic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	tele1258
A map of the Altai languages, including Teleut (in pink).

Classification

The language is classed in the Kipchak languages by Novgorodov et al (2018).^[5] It is considered to be a dialect of Southern Altai, with the Telengit dialect or language and the literary form of Altai.

Phonology

Teleut has 8 vowels:

Teleut vowels^[6]

	Front	Back
High	i   y	ɯ   u
Low	e   ø	a   o

Orthography

In the 1840s, missionaries devised various alphabets to write Teleut to create Church materials for the Teleuts.

A compilation of the orthographies is listed below:

Аа	Бб	Гг	Дд	Jj	Ее	Жж	Зз	Ii
Йй	Кк, К̅ к̅	Лл	Мм	Нн	Ҥҥ, Н̄ н̄	Oo	Ӧӧ	Пп
Рр	Сс	Тт	Уу	Ӱӱ	Чч	Шш	Ыы

The current orthography of Teleut is as follows:^[7]

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Ғ ғ	Д д	Ј ј	Е е	Ё ё
Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к	Қ қ	Л л	М м	Н н
Ң ң	О о	Ӧ ӧ	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	У у	Ӱ ӱ
Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	ъ	ь	Ы ы
Э э	Ю ю	Я я