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VALENTIN IVANOVICH RASSADIN Soyotica Edited by Béla Kempf 4 i SOYOTICA ¡ I studia uralo-altaica 48 Redigunt Marianne Bakró-Nagy Mária Ivanics András Róna-Tas VALENTIN IVANOVICH RASSADIN Soyotica Edited by Béla Kempf Szeged, 2010 © Valentin Ivanovich Rassadin © University of Szeged, Department of Altaic Studies All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by other means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the author or the publisher. Printed by: FVTeam Nyomda, Szeged ISBN: 978-963-306-027-8 ISSN: 0133-4239 Contents Editorial preface 5 The language of the Soyots of Buryatia 7 The Soyot phonology 10 Word classes 15 Nouns 15 Adjectives 20 Numerals :— 21 Adverbs 22 Verbs 24 Participles 24 Converbs 24 Aspect 26 Voice 27 Personal inflection 28 Mood 29 Pronouns 39 Auxiliary words 41 Postpositions 41 Conjunctions ....42 The category of modal words 43 Affective words 44 Onomatopoeic words 45 Syntax 45 Structure of the Soyot lexicon 45 A Soyot tale 53 Soyot - Buryat - Russian dictionary 61 Editorial preface In November 2009, the 70th birthday of Valentin Ivanovich Rassadin was celebrated in Elista in the framework of a conference entitled Problemy mongolovednyx i altaisticheskix issledovanij. This occasion gave an opportunity for long personal discussions with Professor Rassadin, focusing on his researches and valuable findings on the Soyot language. He informed me that in 2002 his material has been published in the form of a Soyot - Buryat - Russian dictionary. When I asked him if he had any spare copies of this dictionary, it turned out that it had been published in merely 50 copies, and he himself had only one copy. Later, in 2006, the dictionary had been published again, this time in 300 copies, but for financial reasons the Buryat part of the material had been omitted. Both editions became unattainable practically immediately after publication. Nevertheless, Professor Rassadin possessed the manuscript in digital form, and gave it to me, together with his permission for me to use it, and to present the material to Turkologists outside Russia. After I returned from the capital of the Kalmyks, I presented the material to the members of the Department of Altaic Studies in Szeged. Taking into account the very low number of existing copies, and the value of the material, we decided to publish it in a re-edited form in our series Studia uralo-altaica. In this connection I would like to thank Professor Maria Ivanics, Head of the Department of Altaic Studies, for her help in the publication process. My gratitudes go to Eva Kincses-Nagy and Bayarma Khabtagaeva for reviewing the material. I am especially indebted to Trofimova Svetlana Menkenovna, the wife of Valentin Ivanovich, with whom we were in everyday contact in the final months. To enhance the value of the material still further, I asked Professor Rassadin to add a short description of the Soyot people, and to survey the main grammatical features of the Soyot language. The grammatical sketch originally was written in Russian, the English translation is mine. In addition, the Soyot tale published in this volume serves as a specimen of the language. In order not to change the original material too much, I chose to leave the linguistic data in Cyrillic, according to its use for Soyot. During the editorial work, it turned out that inclusio of the Buryat material was indeed a good idea, and facilitates the writing of scientific papers on the Soyot - Buryat linguistic relationship. Béla Kempf The language of the Soyots of Buryatia The Soyot, one of the smallest ethnic minorities in Russia, live compactly in Oka county in Buryatia. Up to 1993, the Soyots were thought to number about 500 in all. Officially, they were not distinguished from the Buryat inhabitants of the territory. Their long striving to be acknowledged as an independent ethnic unit achieved success on 13th April, 1993, in an edict of the Highest Council of the Parliament of the Republic of Buryatia, which established the Soyot National Local Government on the territory of Oka county. At present, as a result of their increasing consciousness of their national identity, the Soyots number more than 2000, which means about 42% of the inhabitants of Oka county. As a corollary of the above-mentioned events, the Soyots applied to the Russian Parliament with the request that they should be acknowledged as an independent nation. This request was examined and received a positive answer. Accordingly, the Soyots became an independent nation, and at the same time an ethnic minority in Russia. Further, Order No. 540-1, dated 21st November 2001, approved the proposal of the Oka Regional Council to rename Oka county as the Oka-Soyot National Region (Okinskij sojotskij nacional'nyj rajon). Efforts to revitalize the traditional hunting- reindeer-breeding lifestyle, the national culture and the language are in progress. Research on the history of the Soyots is very scarce. The scientific literature contains quite different opinions concerning their origin. L. P. Pavlinskaya, an ethnographer from Sankt-Petersburg engaged in studying the modern Soyots, suggested that Sayan-Samoyedic tribes played an important role in their ethnogenesis. To this Samoyedic base a Turkic stratum was added, which Turkicized the language of the Samoyedic substratum. In other words, the Soyots are Sayan Samoyeds who underwent a Turkicization process, probably in the Old Turkic period, at some time in the 7th-8th centuries or even earlier. According to both Soyot and Buryat indigenous inhabitants of Oka county, the Soyots, comprising the Irkit, Khaasuut and Onkhot clans, moved to this area in relatively recent times, 400-450 years ago. They arrived here from Mongolia, from the vicinity of Lake Khovsgol, where they led a nomadic existence on the territory of the Darkhat sumuns Khankha and Uuri and in the surroundings of Mount Rinchenlkhumbe, deemed to be their sacral protector. After leaving the territory of Mongolia, the Soyots first settled in Tunka, and partially in Zakamna. As these sites were practically unsuitable for rein- breeding, some of the Soyots changed their lifestyle to cattle-breeding, and merged with the local Buryat mainstream environment. Those who adhered to their reindeer- breeding lifestyle moved to the territory of Oka, where until the 1930s they lived at Il'chir, situated between the upstreams of the Rivers Oka and Irkut. This place was 8 rich in reindeer moss and allowed them to breed their reindeer. Besides breeding domestic reindeer, they were engaged in hunting birds and other animals of the taiga, and fishing in the local rivers and lakes. Their basic housing was the cone- shaped pole-house, covered with birch bark in the summer, and with the skins of Manchurian deer or elk in the winter. Together with their reindeer, they made seasonal migrations in the mountainous taiga. In the winter they moved to river valleys and the feet of the mountains, while in the summer they climbed into the high mountains, where they could find reindeer moss, and where there was always some wind, and no taiga-midges which are very dangerous for reindeer. Accordingly, the reindeer-breeding and nomadic lifestyle was retained only by the Oka Soyot group. As there were very few Soyot women, the Buryat language reached the Soyots thanks to the mixed marriages between Soyot men and Buryat women. The mixed marriages are also explained by means of exogamy, according to which marriage inside the tribe was prohibited. It is very probable that, before moving to the Buryat territory, the Soyots were already bilingual, and knew Darkhat as well. This explains why their approach to the Buryats went so easily and rapidly. In the 1930s, a campaign was initiated in the Soviet Union to convince the nomadic people to settle down and to establish collective farms. The Soyots were dispersed in the villages of Sorok, Khurga and Bokson, in the county-centre of Orlik and on many other collective farms, where they began dealing with animal husbandry in the Buryat way, and started to breed cattle, yaks, khainaks (a hybrid of yak and cattle) and horses. Until the 1960s reindeer breeding survived too, but it was then terminated as an unprofitable economic form. In those years, the approach to the Buryats became very intensive. In Mongolia, on the Darkhat territory, to the west of Lake Khovsgol, there live Turkic-speaking reindeer breeders, who are called by the Mongols Catan or Uigar, sometimes Catan-uigar. Their self-designation is Tu ha, which is very close to the self-designation of the Tofalars, i.e. Tofa, cf. the name of Tuvans Tiva ~ Diva. For the Tuvans and Tofans, the Oka-Buryats use the ethnonym Uryankhad, and describe them as uigar xelten, 'those having the Uigur language'. This reveals that, in the memory of the Buryats, these Turkic-speaking people are linked to the Old-Uigurs. Both the Tsaatans and the reindeer-breeding Darkhats have the tribes Irkit, Khaasuut and Onkhot. It is highly probable that the Soyots of Oka originate from these Sayan- Turkic reindeer-breeding people. I visited the Soyots for the first time in the 1970s, and later in the 1990s. Soyot is a typical Turkic language, very close to Tofan in Russia and Tsaatan-uigur and Uigur - uryankhai in Mongolia. I have investigated Tofan since 1964, and the latter two since 1989, making the first records of these languages. From the very beginning of the records of the Tsaatan and Uigur-uryankhai, it was obvious how close they are to Tofan and Soyot, and how significantly they differ from Tuvan. Accordingly, I add these three to the Sayan-Turkic subgroup of Siberian Turkic languages, up to now comprising of Tuvan and Tofan.