Tofa language

language
name=Tofa
nativename=Тоъфа дыл (Tòfa dıl)
familycolor=Altaic
states=Russia
region=Irkutsk
speakers=~30
fam1=Altaic
fam2=Turkic
fam3=Northern
iso2=tyv|iso3=kim

Tofa, also known as Tofalar or Karagas, is one of the Turkic languages. It is a moribund language spoken in Russia's Irkutsk Oblast. Today, it has less than 30 native speakers.

Tofa is most closely related to the Tuvan language and forms a dialect continuum with it, Tuha, and Tsengel Tuvan, which may be dialects of either Tuvan or Tofa. Tofa shares a number of innovations with these languages, including the change *d>z (as in *"adaq" > "azak" "foot") and the development of low tones on historically short vowels (as in *"et" > "èt" "meat, flesh").

Writing System

Tofa, although not widely written, employs a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet:

The additional letters in Tofa are Ғғ (IPA|ɣ), Әә (IPA|æ), Ii (IPA|iː), Ққ (IPA|q), Ңң (IPA|ŋ), Өө (IPA|œ), Үү (IPA|y), Һһ (IPA|h), and Unicode|Ҷҷ (IPA|ʤ). Additionally, the letter ъ is sometimes used after a vowel to mark low tone, as in "эът" "meat".

References

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kim Ethnologue entry for Karagas]
* [http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/dharris2/Anderson&Harrison%202004.pdf 'Natural' and Obsolescent Change in Tofa]