Daur language

The Daur /ˈdaʊər/^[3] or Daghur language is a Mongolic language primarily spoken by members of the Daur ethnic group.

Distribution

Daur is a Mongolic language consisting of four dialects: Amur Daur in the vicinity of Heihe, the Nonni Daur on the west side of the Nonni River from south of Qiqihaer up to the Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner, Hailar Daur to the south-east of Hailar and far off in Xinjiang in the vicinity of Tacheng.^[4] There is no written standard in use, although a Pinyin-based orthography has been devised; instead the Daur make use of Mongolian or Chinese, as most speakers know these languages as well.^[5] During the time of the Qing dynasty, Daur has been written with the Manchu alphabet.^[6]

Phonology

Daur phonology is peculiar in that some of its dialects have developed a set of labialized consonants (e.g. /sʷar/ 'flea' vs. /sar/ 'moon'),^[7] while it shares palatalized consonants^[8] 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.^[9] Word-final short vowels were lost^[10] and historically short vowels in non-initial syllables have lost phoneme status.^[11] Daur 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 ^[12]. 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

Daur vowels (Tsumagari 2003)

	Front		Central		Back
	Short	Long	Short	Long	Short	Long
Close	i	iː			u	uː
Close-Mid			ə	əː
Open-mid					ɔ	ɔː
Open			a	aː

Consonants

Grammar

Daur 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/.^[13] While the phoneme /t͡ʃ/ (< *t͡ʃʰ) has been retained, the second person singular pronoun has become /ʃiː/ nevertheless,^[14] resembling a more thorough sound change in Khorchin Mongolian. The second person plural is retained as /taː/.^[14] 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.^[15] In addition, several other cases have been innovated that are not shared by Mongolian, including a new allative, -maji.^[16]

Daur 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.^[17]

Table of personal pronouns ^[18]

Lexicon

Daur has 50% common Mongolic vocabulary, while it has borrowed 5^[19] to 10% of its words from Chinese, 10% of its words from Manchu and also some vocabulary from Evenki and Russian – leaving about 20% vocabulary that is specific to Daur only.^[20]

Numerals

All basic numerals are of Mongolic origin.

Notes

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[iin] Bold (2008): A study of the Tacheng dialect of the Dagur language. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.

External links

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

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