Dagur language

The Dagur, Daghur, Dahur, or Daur language, is a Mongolic language, as well as a distinct branch of the Mongolic language family,^[3] and is primarily spoken by members of the Dagur ethnic group.

There is no written standard in use, although a Pinyin-based orthography has been devised; instead the Dagur make use of Mongolian or Chinese, as most speakers know these languages as well.^[4] During the time of the Qing dynasty, Dagur was written with the Manchu alphabet.^[5]

Distribution

Dagur is a Mongolic language consisting of five dialects:^[6]

• Amur Dagur in the vicinity of Heihe (original homeland). About 400 people.
• Nonni Dagur on the west side of the Nonni River from south of Qiqihar up to Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner. Speakers of Nonni Dagur are usually grouped into the following 4 dialects:
  • Morin Daba Dagur, in Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner (Moli Daba) of Hulun Buir League, Inner Mongolia
  • Butha (Buteha) (Northern)^[7] Dagur, immediately south of Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner
  • Tsitsikar (Southern)^[7] Dagur, in Tsitsikar (Qiqihar) City and surrounding areas
  • Mergen Dagur or Nenjiang Dagur, in Nenjiang County (formerly Mergen County) of Heilongjiang Province
• Hailar Dagur to the south-east of Hailar in Ewenki Autonomous Banner
• Sinkiang Dagur in Xinjiang in the vicinity of Tacheng

Phonology

Dagur phonology is peculiar in that some of its dialects have developed a set of labialized consonants (e.g. /sʷar/ 'flea' vs. /sar/ 'moon'),^[8] while it shares palatalized consonants^[9] with most Mongolian dialects that have not been developed in the other Mongolic languages. It also has /f/, which is, however, limited to loan words.^[10] Word-final short vowels were lost^[11] and historically short vowels in non-initial syllables have lost phoneme status.^[12] Dagur is the only Mongolic language to share this development with Mongolian (i.e. Mongolian proper, Oirat, Buryat). Due to the merger of /ɔ/ and /ʊ/ with /o/ and /u/, vowel harmony was lost.^[13] According to Tsumagari (2003), vowel harmony is still a productive synchronic phonotactic aspect of Dagur in which initial syllable long vowels are divided into "masculine" (back), "feminine" (front), and neutral groups. Likewise, suffixal long vowels must agree in harmonic group with the root.

Vowels

Dagur vowels (Chuluu 1994)

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː			u	uː
Mid	e	eː	ə	əː	ɔ	ɔː
Open					a	aː

Consonants

Writing system

Grammar

Dagur has a pronominal system that distinguishes between first person plural inclusive /bed/ and exclusive /baː/ and, even more archaic, it distinguishes between third person singular /iːn/ and plural /aːn/.^[14] While the phoneme /t͡ʃ/ (< *t͡ʃʰ) has been retained, the second person singular pronoun has become /ʃiː/ nevertheless,^[15] resembling a more thorough sound change in Khorchin Mongolian. The second person plural is retained as /taː/.^[15] The genitive and accusative have fused in some variants, becoming –ji, and the ablative may assume the form of the instrumental case. The old comitative has been lost, while the innovated comitative is the same as in Mongolian.^[16] In addition, several other cases have been innovated that are not shared by Mongolian, including a new allative, -maji.^[17]

Dagur has a fairly simple tense-aspect system consisting of the nonpast markers -/bəi/ and (marginally) -/n/ and the past forms -/sən/ and (marginally) /la/ and the non-finite imperfective marker -/d͡ʒa/-. These may be inflected for person. The attributive particle forms are limited to –/ɡʷ/ (< Written Mongolian -γ-a) for imperfective aspect and future tense, -sən (< -γsan) for perfective aspect, -/ɡat͡ʃ/ (< -gči) for habituality (instead of -daγ which used to fulfil this function) and -/mar/ for potential and probable actions. It has acquired a highly complex converbal system containing several innovations. Notably, -mar which is a participle in Mongolian serves as a converb as well.^[18]

Grammatical case suffix table

^[19]

Personal Reflexive Relationship Suffix Table

Table of Imperative Verb Suffixes

Table of Declarative Verb Suffixes

Table of pronouns verb suffix

Present future tensse

Past tense

Table of adverb suffix

^[20]

Table of personal pronouns

Lexicon

It is estimated that out of Dagur's entire language vocabulary, over half is Mongolic in origin.^[22] Additionally, while Dagur has over 50% common Mongolic vocabulary, it has borrowed 5^[23] to 10% of its words from Chinese, as well as 10% of its words from Manchu, and a small number vocabulary borrowed from Evenki^[24] and Russian – leaving about 20% vocabulary that is specific to Dagur only.^[25]

Middle Mongol words

Dagur retains quite a few archaic Mongolic words, and although they are not commonly found in the modern Mongolic languages, they do appear in Middle Mongol sources, like the Hua-Yi yiyu and the ‘Secret History’. These words include:^[26]

• tergul ~ terwul (тэргул ~ тервул) ‘road’ (in Mongol *jam)
• najir (нажийр) ‘summer’ (Mongol *jun)
• xeky (хэкый) ‘head’ (Mongol *tologai)
• sorby (сорбый) ‘staff’ (Mongol *tayag)
• kasoo (касоо) ‘iron’
• saur (саур) ‘spade’
• ogw (огв) ‘brain’
• basert (басерть) ‘kidney’
• twalcig (твалциг) ‘knee’
• kataa (катаа) ‘salt’
• warkel (варкэль) ‘clothes’
• el- (эл-) ‘to say’ (cf. Mongol *kele-)

Numerals

All basic numerals are of Mongolic origin.

References

Bibliography

• Chuluu, Üjiyediin (1994), Introduction, Grammar, and Sample Sentences for Dagur, Sino-Platonic Papers, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp056_dagur_language.pdf 
• Engkebatu (2001): Cing ulus-un üy-e-dü dagur kele-ber bicigdegsen jokiyal-ud-un sudulul. Kökeqota: Öbür monggol-un yeke surgaguli-yin keblel-ün qoriy-a.
• Namcarai; Qaserdeni (1983), Daγur kele ba mongγul kelen-ü qaričaγulul, Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a, OCLC 45024952 
• Oyunčimeg, ed. (2004), Mongγul sudulul-un nebterkei toli, Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a, ISBN 978-7-204-07745-8, OCLC 67279589 
• Sengge (2004): Daγur kele. In: Oyunčimeg 2004: 616-617.
• Sengge (2004a): Daγur kelen-ü abiy-a. In: Oyunčimeg 2004: 618.
• Sengge (2004b): Daγur kelen-ü üges. In: Oyunčimeg 2004: 619.
• Sengge (2004c): Daγur kelen-ü kele ǰüi. In: Oyunčimeg 2004: 618-622.
• Tsumagari, Toshiro (2003): Dagur. In: Janhunen, Juha (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge: 129-153.
• Yu, Wonsoo, Jae-il Kwon, Moon-Jeong Choi, Yong-kwon Shin, Borjigin Bayarmend, Luvsandorj[in] Bold (2008): A study of the Tacheng dialect of the Dagur language. Seoul: Seoul National University Press

External links

• Unicode Manchu/Sibe/Dagur Fonts and Keyboards
• Learning Dagur (in Chinese)

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